Spy Numbers

Like your average person at 4 AM you often find yourself surfing the dial. (Translation for the younger set: tuning in stations on the radio via turning a knob known as a “dial.” “Surfing the net” actually harkens back to an earlier era). Between the static your hear a voice. Counting.

That is a phenomenon known as “Spy Numbers”

NPR had a program on Spy Numbers that gives some good background for the readers of TFC (Tin Foil Caps):

Atencion: Seis Siete Tres Siete Cero:
The Shortwave Numbers Mystery

Eventually, if listeners dig around long enough, they'll tune across voices reciting endless strings of numbers. These broadcasts have been heard for at least 40 years. The signals are powerful, but they contain no information about location of the transmitter or the intended audience. Most listeners linger for a short time, then tune away, utterly baffled.

Starting in the mid-70's the "Numbers Stations" began to pique the curiosity of a small group of listeners. Numbers enthusiasts began using new receivers with digital readouts to better track these stations.

Spy Number enthusiasts even have their own website (but then, who doesn’t) named… wait for it…: Spy Numbers

"59372 98324 19043 78903 95320...". The mechanized female voice drones on and on... What have you stumbled on to? Instructions to spies? Messages exchanged between drug dealers? Deliberate attempts at deception and mis-information?

Chances are, all of the above! What you've tuned in to is called a "Spy Numbers Station". They've been on the air for several decades, and only recently have the mysteries started to unfold.

We here at TFC believe it is hackers in the future broadcasting serial numbers and decryption codes to fellow hackers – but that via some unknowable electrical interference these numbers are being broadcast in the middle of the night hidden in our time amongst that static.

How else can you explain the resent transmission of:

09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 (background)