Imagine for a moment that you are a radio enthusiast, alone at night, idly working your way through the radio spectrum, when you come across a transmission on an unused shortwave channel where there would normally be nothing but static.
The broadcast is a tune or a hum, or sometimes a Yosemite Sam cartoon character saying “Varmint, I’m a-gonna bbb-bloooow ya ta’smithereenies” (yes, really) followed by a series of numbers read by a human or a synthesized voice on a static bed for extra vibes “I may never sleep again” type.
If you’d like to experience the broadcast live, it’s possible using ham radios close enough to the source or a YouTube live stream like the one below.
It is generally believed (and sometimes confirmed) to be a way for states to send coded instructions to agents in the field. Sometimes broadcasting on schedule, sometimes seemingly at random, they have terrified people all over the world without limiting themselves to one language.
A particularly alarming theory about the station with one number – “MDZhB”, also known as “UVB-76” and “Buzzer” – is that it is being used as a “dead hand” signal. The station broadcasts a steady monotone, punctuated every few seconds by a foghorn-like sound and occasionally a Russian voice making messages like “Ya UVB-76, Ya UVB-76. 180 08 BROMAL 74 27 99 14. Boris, Roman, Olga, Mikhail, Anna, Larisa 7 4 2 7 9 9 1 4″.
The “dead hand” theory suggests that you really have to worry when the signal stops. If it’s correct, the monotone is there as a sort of “all is well” alarm, à la The Simpsons. If the signal were to cease for a period of time due to a nuclear attack – according to this unproven theory – an automatic nuclear response would be triggered.
But the station did to stop broadcasting for one day in 2010 before resuming normal broadcasting the day after. It stopped a few more times that year, with people reporting hearing people moving around the room in the background of the broadcast. During this time the station played a classic banger Swan Lake, and the number station seems to have moved.
You’ll notice that no dead hand systems have launched a nuclear strike during this time. Instead, it continues to broadcast intermittently, suggesting that this is not the station’s purpose (or that they were switching to a more reliable broadcast system, for the die-hard fans of the “all must be killed” hypothesis).
One plausible idea is that the Russian government is simply hoarding the frequency for emergency use.
“If they don’t actually use it, someone will steal it,” David Stupples, an expert on surveillance and space exploration, told Popular Mechanics. “The band is so crowded that people will look for a small opportunity for their own channel… They keep the channel available by broadcasting and saying, ‘This is ours.’
Other stations have been confirmed to be used to broadcast messages to spies in the field, with one in Cuba being a notable example. The advantage of sending messages this way is that while you can tell where the signal is coming from, it is almost impossible to know who it is intended for and who is receiving it. The downside, as Kuba would discover, is that once someone—say, the FBI—gets a hold of the cipher, they can continue to unravel your messages from there.
Some reports, as would appear in the FBI court case reported by the Miami New Times, said they “prefer and continue to strengthen their friendship with Joe and Dennis” and “Under no circumstances should [agents] Neither German nor Castor are flying with BTTR or another organization on the 24th, 25th, 26th and 27th.” Classic spy stuff, as well as “Happy International Women’s Day to all comrades” which are just basic mannerisms.