Stuff You Should Know - Selects: What is a Numbers Station?

Episode Date: April 11, 2026

If you think secretly coded messages sent via short wave radio is Cold War relic, think again. In this classic episode, Chuck and Josh are here to dispel that myth, along with many others relating to numbers stations, including why they might still be operational.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Joy is essential and it's also elusive. But now, there's a new and exciting way to start your journey toward a more joyful existence, Joy 101. It's a new podcast hosted by me, Hoda Kotby. If you're craving inspiration to maximize your joy, tune into these candid, uplifting, and moving on-air chats. Open your free IHeart Radio app. Search Joy 101 and listen now.

Joy 101 with Hoda Kotopje is presented by CVS. Here's something that should not be as complicated as it is, getting a racist statue removed. And here's something that should be a whole lot easier than it is, getting a new one put up in its place. I'm Akila Hughes, and Rebel Spirit Season 2 is about both of those things. As I was watching these statues come down, I was thinking about what it meant that I grew up in a majority black city,

in which there were more homages to enslavers than there were to enslave people. Listen to Rebel Spirit Season 2 on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. June is Black Music Month, and on the Drink Chams podcast, we're speaking with the hottest names in the culture, like Sway Lee. Do you realize how legendary you are? I appreciate that. I'd be seeing it, but I'm like, man, I still got, like so much more to do. Like Prince, he dropped like 30 albums. We dropped like five right now.

That's the rate we got to be going. Yep, that's a good attitude. No matter the era, Drink Chams brings you the biggest name. and the most unfiltered conversations. Listen to Drink Chams from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, happy Saturday, everybody. Chuck here. I hope you're enjoying your weekend.

I hope you're enjoying your year, your month. I hope you're enjoying the very hour in which you are coming across this. It is the select episode for the week. And I'm picking this one because I honestly don't remember much about it, and I got to listen to it. So maybe I'll learn it all over again. It's about number stations, and it's called What is a Number Station? Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of IHeart Radio.

Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and this is, oh, Jerry, and this is stuff you should know. 7, 4, 2, 5, 8. Can you say it in German? You speak German. Don't even jive me. Two, three, boom, ach, seven. Now, can you do that in a little girl voice?

You're just toying with me. Come on, do it. No, you always make me play St. Polly Girl. I'm tired of it. St. Polly Girl. No, this is apparently even younger than the St. Pauley Girl. It's like a little girl. And it was a live little girl.

Who? In the Swedish Rhapsody number station. It was a young, a little girl. reading out numbers and letters in German. Which makes it even creepier. Yeah. It's supposedly very creepy. This is a very neat subject, so kudos to you for tossing this one out there.

Well, I've been waiting for it to publish. I'd seen it in the calendar coming up and coming up. I'm like, come on and publish. I think it published on Friday. This is brand new. It is Tuesday. Right out of the oven. Yes.

And we're talking about it just as they are completing their decline. So we are on top of this. Well, I think that, well, we'll get into it. I think that's what makes it even more interesting is that it's still happening. Mm-hmm. All right. Numbers, stations. Numbers stations.

Yeah, like you said. Numbers stations. Both words are pluralized. It's a little clumsy. And number stations are, we should just come out and say. Yeah. They're shortwave radio transmissions or transmitters making really weird, baffling is the best word for it, transmissions.

Yeah. And have been doing so apparently since at least World War I. Oh, really? Yeah. Supposedly the first mention of a numbers station came from a German

magazine in World War I. In World War II they were in full swing. Sure. But apparently they somehow popped up first around World War I, which makes them some of the earliest shortwave transmissions in the world. Because shortwave, wave radio didn't come around at least into commercial use until about 1920. World War I was a few years

before that, if you'll remember correct. Yeah, that's why I didn't even think that that was possible, but like you said, World War II is when they were in full swing. Yeah. They really peaked in the Cold War, and they've been dying out slowly ever since. But I think one of the neatest things is they are still, if you have a shortwave radio, you can tune into a frequency and hear, beep one, two, seven, five, eight. You know, it's usually like some sort of tone. We should mention to Jerry of the future.

Yeah. You're supposed to leave that beep in because it's part of the numbers station. Yeah, we beep Jerry to signal when we want something edited. But yeah, a number station, it's not always a beep, it'll just have some sort of,

sometimes it's a bit of a song. Yeah, like the Swedish Rhapsody or the Lincolnshire Poacher, a British English, UK-ish folk song. Yeah. I'm so scared of them whenever I say stuff like that. And the reason that the transmission starts off with a tone or a beep or a song is so you can, it alerts like, here comes the transmission, tune your station, hone in, make sure you get some good reception. Yeah.

Because the secret code is about to be revealed. And that's exactly what everyone is pretty much in consensus on, that what comes after this and what is broadcast over these numbers stations. are secret codes. Yeah. Again, like for the Swedish Rhapsody station, it is a little girl in speaking in German, reading numbers and letters, randomly random numbers and letters,

and then the transmission is over. And that happens like, or it used to happen. That's a defunct numbers station now. But it happened on a fairly regular schedule. There's other ones, the attention station. is a woman saying attention and then reading Spanish numbers and then repeating them over and over again and then going on to the next set. And everybody, no one can say for certain, but virtually everyone in the world from Cecil Adams at straight dope to the head of the UK's trade and industry agency say these are secret transmissions for spies, the whole basis of them.

was for espionage. Yeah, and the reason why everyone is speculating that that is absolutely the case, which it almost certainly is, like we said, is because no government to this day has come forward and admitted this or own this.

It is all still technically speculation because you cannot point to a factual statement. The closest we've ever come is they finally got someone from the United Kingdom, a spokesperson. That was the dude from the trade agency. Oh, really? Yeah.

The exact quote is, people should not be mystified by them. They're not, shall we say, for public consumption. Yeah. And that's the only thing on record that any government has ever spoke about what these transmissions are. Right. So the idea that they are government transitions are the reason we have to speculate is because the government's never claimed them.

Yeah. On the flip side, the reason everyone thinks that they are government-backed clandestine transmissions is because these are pirate radio frequencies, pirate radio transmitters. Yeah, my first thing was like, just find one of these and look it up and find out what the deal is. Yeah, you would think so. They're totally unlicensed. Nobody knows exactly where they are. They're illegal, technically. Yes, they're very illegal because they transmit over air traffic control frequency.

Well, that's a big one. And no one investigates them. There's no investigation into these number stations whatsoever. So the fact that the government won't say anything about them and the fact that the government isn't investigating these very blatantly out in the open, weird, baffling transmissions suggests that, yeah, everybody's right, that these are government-backed transmissions used to communicate anonymity. anonymously and in one direction, two spies embedded in foreign countries.

Yeah, I was about to call it a conversation, but it's really not. It's, I think on the BBC documentary I saw it, they called it a monologue. Right. You're just sending a one-way message. Exactly. All right. Right after this break, we're going to talk a little bit about shortwave radio technology. The secret key to sending these messages.

Pride is like love. You feel it in your message. Heart. I.R. Radio, Canada's number one streaming app for radio and podcasts, including IHart Pride Canada, your favorite hits and must have party bangers, plus personalized and curated playlists like back in the day pride. Come together, celebrate, love. Take pride with you anytime, anywhere. Just ask your smart speaker to play IHartPride Canada. Stream us on your phone or listen now at iHartRadio.ca. Hey, I'm Hoda Kotby, host of the podcast, Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby.

Together, we're going to have meaningful conversations with the world's most fascinating people. Like when actress Olivia Munn shared how she overcame fierce health challenges. I've gone through breast cancer and then helped my mother through breast cancer, and that was more difficult. There's a lot of people who understand postpartner depression. I was not prepared for postpartum anxiety. Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your Podcasts. Here at the Happiness Lab, we're serving up some hot takes for the summer.

Big ideas that just might reshape how you think about your well-being. Like, we've been thinking about the loneliness epidemic all wrong. You can be lonely in a marriage. You can be lonely at a party. I don't think loneliness is actually about solitude. Loneliness is about something much bigger. Or that we should get rid of small talk altogether. We talk about current events.

We talk about what you do for a living, but not do you love what you do for a living. Is this your dream job? Or that the mental health crisis isn't what we think it is, and that kids today are doing better than we assume. It was really disorienting for us as researchers to be so wrong about our hypothesis. We are so scared that we are going to underreact to a severe challenge that we tend to overreact. For more surprising ideas backed by psychological science, check out our new series, Happiness Hot Takes.

Listen to the Happiness Lab with me, Dr. Lorry Santos, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, the key to this whole thing is sending a short way. Like, you might think in this day and age, why not just send a telefax? Right. No, why not send an email or, you know, surely there are safer ways to send espionage,

this information, highly classified instructions to go kill the leader of a country, perhaps. Right. Like, if you want to activate Reggie Jackson to kill, Queen Elizabeth. Kill Norberg. Yeah. Yeah. That's, how would you do it in this day and age? You'd think an email would do it. No, and you want to know who proves definitively that that is not safe or secure? Who? Jimmy Fallon. Edward Snowden.

Yeah. There are, if you use a computer, you leave a trace. Yeah. It's virtually impossible to erase anything on a computer. Yeah. If you think you have, then you have. Plus, if you are, say, emailing somebody, you're transmitting what's supposed to be highly sensitive, even encrypted information over a network. That stuff can be captured. Like, go listen to her as your employer spying on you episode. Yeah. You can't do it.

Like, you can communicate like that, but you're leaving digital traces everywhere. The beauty of the shortwave radio transmission is that, again, it's anonymous and it's one-directional. but if you get caught with a shortwave radio, at least say back in the 60s or the 70s or something, it wasn't weird. It didn't prove that you were a spy. Yeah, just tune it in to my stories. Exactly.

I'm just listening to the BBC World Service. Shortwave energy, radio energy, it's all determined by the power of your transmitter. So if you've got a humongous transmitter, you can send, and it didn't need to be that big, but you can send a message, one-way message, to the other side of the world. And the reason it can travel across the planet is because it's bouncing off of, it literally is bouncing off the ionosphere of the Earth.

Right. Well, yeah, of the Earth. 50 to 375 miles up above our surface. It's in the upper atmosphere. And solar ionization creates an electrical charge, and that charge reflects that signal right back down to Earth. It's called skywave or skip. I like skywave. Skywave.

Yeah. And that's why you can, with a seemingly pretty simple piece of equipment, I can send a message to the South Pacific. Yeah. From my bedroom. Well, I don't know if I'd have one big enough for my. My bedroom's pretty big. I wanted to see how big these things were, actually. You know, like, if they say really big ones to send them further and further, like, how big do they get?

They get very huge. They can cover scores of acres. Oh, okay. A big shortwave antenna, which is why I can get very expensive. So that's bigger than my bedroom. You can also use ones that are the size of your bedroom. It depends not only, like you said, on the size of the transmitter, it depends on the atmospheric conditions, too.

Supposedly shortwave transmissions are received best at sunrise and sunset, and no one's 100% sure, but it has to do with the ionosphere. And because that's where the northern lights are happening, that's where solar rays hit the Earth's atmosphere. atmosphere and they the atoms lose their electrons i believe so they become ions forming the ionosphere and because this is constantly changing um you can't predict exactly how a shortwave radio wave will act but you can kind of guess well this time the sun's least active or most active whatever it has some impact on that sky what's it called the sky what sky wave the sky wave yeah

effect. So you can communicate with somebody in a foreign country, right? Yeah. And not only can it not be tracked, it's very difficult to trace who sent that, where that transmission's coming from. Yeah. It's impossible to trace who's receiving it. That's right. So you have no idea who in your country is getting this, which means that you're broadcasting to anybody and everybody who feels like listening to this. Yeah. Um, a secret code. But the fact that you're broadcasting, you're broadcasting to everybody, to anybody, fact is, if you use the right kind of secret code, no one can crack it. All right, that brings up an important point because you would think also you can hack into the most secure computer system on the planet if you're good enough as a hacker.

Right. So how in the world could sending a coded key like it's 195 and you're trying to get your decoder ring from the Red, was it the Red Rider? No, no. No, that's way off. No, what was it? It was a Red Riding. No, no, no, I'm talking about it in the Christmas story.

Yeah, it was the Little Orphanani Dakota right. Yeah. I didn't think it was... He didn't care about pirates and all that jazz. Pirates and smugglers and all that jazz. He listened to Little Orfanani. All right, I'll take your word for it. I remember now.

Do you? No, but I'll take your word for it. Dude, I'm telling you, it's Little Orfinani. I will eat my hat. I don't have a hat on right now, but I would eat it if I... I were wrong. At any rate, you're not Little Ralphie decoding the message from Little Orphanani, but it is actually the most secure way that you can send a secret message

is by creating a unique code that you know and have written down on a piece of paper, and your buddy knows who has it written down on a piece of paper. You only use it once, that's kind of the key here. Yeah. And then you destroy it afterward. That is still the most, it's unbreakable. So what it's called is a one-time pad. The old one-time, right.

Because you only use it once. And it is old. It's from the 19th century. Yeah, and it's still uncrackable. It is. And the reason why it's uncrackable is because you each have, like you said, you each have a copy of this code. Yeah. But it's randomly generated, right?

So let's say you have the sheet of paper and the other person has a sheet of paper. And the sheet of paper says it's just like strings of random numbers, like four or five numbers long. Yeah. And it's just totally random. and it just covers, you know, several sheets of paper. Well, you guys start at the same place, and when the person transmitting the message wants to encrypt it, they run their message.

So say you guys have agreed, like, zero is A, B is one, C is two, et cetera. Yeah. So you'd take that and you'd... That'd be really bad. I know, dude, it is mind-boggling. Like, this is about as simple as cryptology gets, and it makes me bleed from my ears.

Well, because all you have to do is agree on what's what. Right. You know, it could be anything. Right. So you're agreeing on what's what, but you also have this randomly generated code. Sure. Key, right? So let's say, I want to say, what up, Chuck?

That's W-H-A-T-U-P-C-H-U-C-K. So that's 11 letters, right? So if you have your key and you're encoding it, you would use these first, the first 11 numbers to encode what's already encoded. So the W is, say, it's the number 22. Okay. Right? And then so on.

So like there's a number assigned to each letter. Yeah. So you have that. And then you run it through this code, this randomly generated code. Yeah. So you add that. And then so you have 20. 20, what did I say, 22?

Yeah. And then say the first letter, or the first number of this code is seven. So you have 29. Yeah. So that's what the little German girl reads on the air. 29. Yeah. 52, 37, 18.

Yeah. It means nothing to anyone else in the entire world except for you and the person who has the other copy of this code. Since there's only two copies and you're only using it one. and you're going to eat it afterward. Yeah. And the key is that it's randomly generated numbers. Yeah. Then it'll, it's theoretically it will never be broken.

Yeah, but I mean, that's just one example. You could have five pre-code rules to confuse someone trying to crack this code. Right. And they don't, it's not like the simplest code is this letter represents this number. This number represents this letter. it gets more complex than that. You could both have agreed upon a book. You have to kill a mockingbird.

I've got to kill a mockingbird. 4, 8, 12, 90, 13. 4 means go to page 4. 13 means, no, you're really going to page 13, ignore the 4. Then look at the 12th line, then look at the 8th word on that page. Right. What a one-time pad would do is take that already agreed upon code and encrypt it even further.

Yeah, but the point is it doesn't have to represent letters. It can represent full words and a text that you've agreed upon. True. And it's basically like thumbing through this book, picking out all these various words to make a sentence. Right. The problem is that's its vulnerability as well. Like to get a copy of the randomly generated key that's used to encrypt this message, right? Yeah.

You have to have some sort of contact with somebody. Yeah. So that's one vulnerability of it. The thing is, is like, depending on how long this is, as many numbers as there are, is as many transmissions as you can transmit. Yes. Does that make any sense? No, say it clear.

So I said, what up, Chuck? Yeah. That's 11. That uses the first 11 numbers on this key. Right. But say there's 50,000 numbers on the key. Well, we have a lot more messages I can send to you that we're going through the pad. eventually though

we're going to use up this pad and we need to meet again so I can give you another randomly generated key at Kinko's that's the vulnerability of it well I'm not a fail safe but the thing it makes it even safer is a lot of times they would send

and presumably are still sending dummy messages so you don't even know if it's real to begin with and there are only so many person hours you can dedicate as a government to code crackers and they might be working on a code that's not even real.

Right. So you don't even know which transmissions are legit. And that is a proposal by a group called Enigma. And we'll talk about Enigma right after this message because they're pretty awesome. Pride is like love. You feel it in your heart. IR. Radio. Canada's number one streaming app for radio and podcasts, including IHart Pride Canada, your favorite hits and must-have party bangers.

Plus personalized and curated playlists, like back in the day pride. Come together, celebrate love. Take pride with you anytime, anywhere. Just ask your smart speaker to play IHart Pride Canada. Stream us on your phone. Listen now at iHeartRadio.ca. Hey, I'm Hoda Kotby, host of the podcast Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby. Together, we're going to have meaningful conversations with the world's most fascinating people.

Like when actress Olivia Munn shared how she overcame. fierce health challenges. I've gone through breast cancer and then helped my mother through breast cancer and that was more difficult. There's a lot of people who understand postpartner depression. I was not prepared for postpartum anxiety. Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Here at the Happiness Lab, we're serving up some hot takes for the summer. Big ideas that just might reshape how you think about your well-being. Like, we've been thinking about the loneliness epidemic all wrong. You can You can be lonely in a marriage. You can be lonely at a party. I don't think loneliness is actually

about solitude. Loneliness is about something much bigger. Or that we should get rid of small talk altogether. We talk about current events. We talk about what you do for a living, but not do you love what you do for a living. Is this your dream job? Or that the mental health crisis isn't what we think it is, and that kids today are doing better than we assume. It was really disorienting for us as researchers to be so wrong about our hypothesis. We are so scared that we are going to underreact to a severe challenge that we tend to overreact. For more surprising ideas backed by psychological science, check out our new series, Happiness Hot Takes.

Listen to the Happiness Lab with me, Dr. Laurie Santos, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So, Chuck, we were talking about Enigma. I mentioned Enigma. And Enigma is this group of basically amateur radio people. Shortwave radio enthusiasts They really get into this Yes

It's a thing And they started This is pre-pre-Internet days I think it was in the 80s The late 80s early 90s That Enigma first came around And kind of coalesced And Enigma stands for European

Numbers Information Gathering And monitoring association And basically it was just a group of these people Who had all Just happen to spell Enigma Yeah right Who had all I think they reverse engineer that one

They always do But they had all kind of started to talk or find each other and say, have you heard this weird transmission? And they're like, yes, I've heard that one. And you should check out this frequency on Tuesday nights at 8 p.m. because it transmits this. And they suddenly realize there's this whole community of people out there. So they set up a newsletter. They started a naming convention. And they started collecting and assigning names to these different things.

So, like, E designated an English-speaking trans-numbers station. Right. S was Slavic. V is various, which encapsulates everything from, like, French to Spanish. Right. And Enigma really took this thing and put it into understandable terms. And they are basically eavesdropping, or they were, eavesdropping on the spy community. Are they not doing that anymore?

So Enigma disbanded, I think, in 2000, and then almost immediately another group came and said, well, we're Enigma 2000, we're going to carry this on. And that's pretty fortunate because they were around to put all this on the internet. Before it was like you had to subscribe to newsletters and have a shortwave radio. Now it's like you can just go on the internet and listen to all sorts of archives of these defunct number stations as well. Yeah. I mean, they're creepy sounding. Like, it's kind of cool. I've got one for you.

We've talked about it before. Do you remember the Yosemite Sam transmission? Yeah, I'm convinced that that's just a person having fun. Well, let's play it. I like that one. I think it's full of info. It's cool. It's coming from somewhere out in Albuquerque in the desert in New Mexico.

And it's been going since, what, like 2004? Yeah. And what makes this one interesting is that it's not a code. it is just Yosemite Sam saying that thing well then it's followed by that data burst yeah which they think is some sort of compressed information

yeah see I don't believe it I think this is a shortwave enthusiasts having a good time well he's been doing it like it's pretty sophisticated it does it like over and over again I think for 40 seconds and switches to the next frequency and it just goes through the band yeah then he's got a computer doing it for him

maybe if it is just some dude but either way I like the use of Yosemite Sam. No, it's cool. But it's pretty, it's exemplar of, of a numbers station, of a numbers transmission. There's something that indicates

that this is about to happen, and then there's the happening, the transmission of the secret code. Yep. Whether it's digital in nature or whether it's spoken. And then there, it, it is ended by, you know,

Yosemite Sam again or something like that. Yeah. It's saying, here's the beginning, here's the information. information, here's the end. Now go kill Norberg. Right. One of the other cool things about this is, and, you know, when we were talking about surely there's better ways and the government could theoretically shut down the internet. They could

zap satellite transmissions. They could shut everything down. This is almost unstoppable. You can't shut down shortwave radio. I mean, I guess you cut power maybe. Yeah. Well, no, supposedly, no, I mean, yeah. And then I guess if people have batteries, though, in their shortwave radio. Yeah, good point. The one way to combat it is called jamming, frequency jamming. And basically, it's just broadcasting on the same frequency that these other transmitters, the number stations are transmitting on.

And so if you're broadcasting within your country, you're probably going to reach those shortwave radios better than somebody on the other side of the planet's transmission will. Yeah. And so apparently Russia spent billions, or the Soviets spent billions of dollars during the Cold War, jamming frequencies from all sorts of different transmissions. And they'd play things like the sound of seagulls or random beeps or whatever. And it was just to prevent people from transmitting into Russia. But even with all of that money and technology, mustard or marshaled against it,

they still weren't entirely successful, like shortwave radio transmissions. get through. It's just too big to fight. Yeah, you can't jam the entire frequency of all shortwave, like every single frequency. If you have ever heard the Wilco, remember Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, that album? Yeah. That was on the album at some point. I can't remember which song at Yankee Hotel Foxtrot in a woman's voice, and that is a famous code. Was that from the Conant Project?

no I don't think so but we should talk about that for sure that was a project and it was also I guess in the the Wild West days where you're talking about pre-internet if people wanted to hear this stuff some people got together and put together a greatest tits sort of on CD with a lot of accompanying material about what you're listening to and

none of them obviously you can't break these codes that's the thing I find interesting is people sit around and listen this stuff but with no aim of cracking the code. I think some people do attempt to crack the code. It's impossible. Well, it's not impossible, and we should say with the reason why it's not impossible,

is because if you're using a computer-generated random number, a computer's not capable of generating a truly random number, because computers run on algorithms, and the algorithms are designed to follow patterns, so they're just incapable of it. So you could, especially today, a hacker could conceivably crack one of these

especially old transmissions but you still don't know what those numbers stand for even if you find a pattern of numbers right there's still an agreed upon thing that you would have to figure out but it would it makes it possible if you could crack that one

time pad key then you have a real chance at deciphering the message itself well yeah if you know what they stand for but I still maintain if only you and I know what those numbers represent. Right. To kill a mockingbird pages. Yeah, exactly. Well, you were saying the Connet project thing. Yeah. So it's a four-CD compilation. And apparently I read an article from the time when it came out, which is the 90s. It was like perfect

timing because there was Y2K going on. Yeah. There was Millennium Anx. There was the X files. And this thing came out in 1997 and salon wrote an article on it and this guy who wrote it was like a music concrete aficionada oh man so people appreciated it not just for the fact that it's like recordings of real live um spy transmissions yeah but some people like the kind of avant-garde sure noise that it had going on too i'm sure uh the flaming lips are currently planning an album composed of nothing but messages right from number stations number eight

there's a movie that exists that I had never heard of called the number station I hadn't heard of it either yeah I don't think it was released it's from 2013 and like I know most movies that are released it probably went straight to video or something

I watched the trailer day it's John Cusack and Melin Ackerman and you know they work at a number station and he's to protect the number station, but something bad happens and they're compromised. Right.

And is who he says he is, and who she says she is. Right. Who knows? You'll have to rent that turkey to find out. Did it look bad? Yeah, sure. It looked pretty bad.

Sorry, John Cusack. Yeah. Sorry, John Cusack. So I think one of the most interesting things about number stations, is that like you said, they peaked during the Cold War right when the Berlin Wall fell and then in the few years after that, the number of transmissions supposedly just dropped off dramatically.

Although I did see in at least one place that supposedly they increased, but I didn't see that supported anywhere else. But the idea that they're still around at all in 2014, that there are still number stations transmitting gibberish really says a lot. So it says a couple of things. And you've already mentioned one.

It's possible they are just transmitting gibberish to throw off anybody listening. Yeah, this one. To basically just kind of sap their resources. Right, like keep them Ruski's busy listening to our gibberish. Sure. Another one is that they're keeping them going in case they need to use them again. I think that's totally the reason. In which case, that's pretty smart because that's just you're not showing your hand,

like where all of a sudden an inactive radio state. suddenly starts up again, indicates activity. If it's been doing the same thing for 10 years, and on year 7 it actually transmitted a real secret message, but it seemed just like everything else in those 10 years, you're doing some pretty good spy craft there. Or just to keep that, like you may not be actively using it, but just to keep that method relevant.

Right. Like, you know, if you quit doing something, it's going to die off, no one's going to know how to do it anymore. Sure, yeah. So, you know, just keep those people working, and, you know, they may not even know if they're transmitting real messages or not.

I would guess if you're just saying, oh, yeah, yeah, if you just hand them a sheet of paper and it's just, yeah. In fact, that may be a pretty safe way to do things. Sure. It's like the person with the nuclear key. Yeah. Is this a test?

Who knows? This is war games? We'll find out in 30 minutes. There are also other theories. that they are, and I think some of this does go on, maybe drug runners using stuff like this, because some of them are less than professional. Apparently the ones from Cuba, or Cuba, sorry, Jerry,

are a little comical. Well, they were renowned for just having really bad slip-ups, especially during the Cold War. Like you'd hear people talking and laughing in the background or an accidental transmission of a radio station. Right, of Radio Havana, right? Yeah, so they were kind of known for not being too skilled at it. But I imagine the drug runners are the same.

Yeah, it's virtually the same thing. And I mean, there's absolutely no reason why drug runners couldn't have also, couldn't also use this alongside the espionage community, too. Yeah, there's might be A is one, B is two. And they get the message says, huh, shipment of kilos coming in Miami Beach tomorrow night. Right. Let's go get them. Kill one. I'm one.

but I do think there may be a little bit of that. I think it's a mixed bag of why they're still being broadcast. I think there are enthusiasts that are probably just doing their own thing for fun. Yeah. That'd be fun, man. If I was in Guam and I could send you a private message, be a shortwave. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I thought you meant people who were just doing it just to mess with like the Enigma community or something like that.

I think that probably happens too. I bet you're all kinds of things. Yeah, I'm sure you're right. There's one guy out there, trust me. There have been some actual spies who have been busted in this century, long after the Cold War, who had shortwave radios and one-time pads in their apartments or houses. Apparently, in 2011, in Germany, a couple who'd lived there since 1988 and were spying for the Russians, were caught in the act of receiving a numbers transmission in their home when they were apprehended and busted for spying.

I can see that scene. He's got like one headphone up and he's holding it with his hand and he's writing something down in pencil and his wife's trying to eat it really quick. Spit it out. Spit it out. And in 2001, Anna Montez worked for the U.S. civil defense intelligence agency and she was convicted of spying for Cuba. And when they searched her home, they found a shortwave radio and a code sheet. And so, yeah, I mean, it's still going on, man. I think it's pretty neat.

Yeah, I do too. Like it's old school, but almost foolproof. Yeah, the big vulnerability is getting the randomly generated key to the spy. Yeah, and they also point out in the article, who wrote this one, by the way? Nathan Chandler. Nathan points out that these days you're likely your one-timer might be sent to you maybe digitally somehow

but it's not, it doesn't like tip anyone off necessarily. Yeah, I'm not quite sure how. Yeah, I would think if you're being watched then an email with a lot of random numbers might tip someone. Right. Well, it used to be, they'd print them on that kind of paper that like dissolve quickly or burned in left no ash or whatever. Right. They were on such tiny piece of paper.

had to use a really good magnifying lens to read it. Yeah. And you could hide them in like a walnut shell or something like that. Oh, wow. Who knows what they're doing now? Yeah. But they are doing something. Yeah.

I'd like to, I thought about getting a short way. I was a little bit inspired, but then I thought, oh, man, I've got so many other things to do. I don't know if I could fall into their rabbit hole. So that's numbers stations. If that piqued your interest, just type in number stations into your favorite search engine. it will lead you down the rabbit hole of shortwave radio. Did you say rabbit hole, is it where I got that from? I said rabbit hole, but I didn't invent it.

No, I know, but it just popped up in my head. Yeah. And it wasn't my own invention. And I think if you have a shortwave radio, you probably tune into these anyway because you're just into that lifestyle. But I think there's a website called Spy Numbers, where you can actually find the frequencies and just go right there and you don't have to search for them.

Right. And if you want to read this article, you can type the words numbers stations. in the search bar at How StuffWorks.com. And since I said search part, it's time for listener mail. I'm going to call this a bit on sushi from someone in Japan. Hey guys and Jerry. He spelled Jerry right as well. Man, it's Jerry's day.

I enjoyed the sushi episode quite a bit and have something to add. As a result of modern food production following World War II in Japan and, of course, the U.S. and elsewhere, the quality and traditional methods of making shoyu, miso, and other Japanese food items. sadly plummeted. For example, miso can be fermented and aged a matter of weeks with the use of temperature-controlled tanks where traditional dark miso would age up to two years. Same goes with other fermented products like show you. Miran no longer a sweet rice cooking wine is practically sugar water. Speaking of sugar, modern Japanese food wouldn't exist without it. Umiboshi, the sour, salty, pickled plum is lousy with artificial color sugar and refined salt.

Good. As much as I loved Japanese food and culture, it's quite heartbreaking to see these centuries of traditional food processing supplanted by the Japanese version of a Twinkie, chemically made in process. As an alternative, there are good quality Japanese products to be had, particularly those imported from Eden Foods, which is high quality, organic, and widely distributed. Is this the president of Eden Foods? I don't know. Are they based in Alameda, California?

Sounds like it. That is from Lear in Alameda, California. California. I meant to mention to you, I had the worst sushi I've had my life the other day. Oh, no. Where? I'm not going to say it, but I'm not going back. I'll tell you off air. Yeah, please do. I don't think you wouldn't go there anyway, but it was the rice, was gummy and really gummy. To the point where I ate it, just because I was starving and I ate it really fast, and I was like, oh, this kind of gummy.

And then afterward, I was like, man, that was terrible. Yeah. Did you say that? to yourself and like he smiled and your whole mouth was coated in rice. It was gross man. I was ticked off afterward after I paid the bill and complained the whole way home to Emily. I was like I really should have said something because that was

like they should have known they shouldn't have served that rice. Well, why didn't you say something? Because like I said I just shut it in my face hole and left and complained afterward which is that's how I do things usually. I don't like to make a scene. I just like to

play the martyr afterward. I've talked about that gummy sushi for two days. Yeah. Oh, it was that bad, huh? Yeah, the fish and stuff was good, but that rice was just very subpar. They should have known better. Okay. Well, tell me where it is afterward.

I will. Okay. If you want to, I guess, inadvertently or quietly, clandestinely promote your business like Lear did with his eaten foods. Subversively? Yeah. Yeah. You can send us an email to, Stuff Podcast at iHeartRadio.com.

Stuff you should know is a production of IHeartRadio. For more podcasts My Heart Radio, visit the Iheart Radio app. Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Joy is essential and it's also elusive. But now, there's a new and exciting way to start your journey toward a more joyful existence. Joy 101. It's a new podcast hosted by me, Hoda Kotby. If you're craving inspiration to maximize your joy,

tune into these candid, uplifting, and moving on-air chats. Open your free IHeart Radio app. Search Joy 101 and listen now. Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby is presented by CVS. Here's something that should not be as complicated as it is, getting a racist statue removed. And here's something that should be a whole lot easier than it is, getting a new one put up in its place.

I'm Akila Hughes, And Rebel Spirit Season 2 is about both of those things. As I was watching these statues come down, I was thinking about what it meant that I grew up in a majority of Black City, in which there were more homages to enslavers than there were to enslave people. Listen to Rebel Spirit Season 2 on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. June is Black Music Month, and on the Drink Chams podcast, we're speaking with the hottest names in the culture, like Sway Lee. Do you realize how legendary you are? I appreciate that.

I'd be seeing it, but I'm like, man, I still. like so much more to do. Like Prince, he dropped like 30 albums. We dropped like five right now. That's the rate we got to be going. Yep, that's a good attitude. No matter the era, Drink Chams brings you the biggest names

and the most unfiltered conversations. Listen to Drink Chams from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.