A Study In Scarlet

An attempt to make familiar landscapes seem a bit more extrinsic.




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By The Numbers

Saw The Book of Eli. Awesome movie. Now on to the good stuff.

Numbers Stations and you...

Two days ago I was surfing the information super highway when I stumbled across an article about certain famous unexplained signals. There was one example of a supposed broadcast picked up from an area of outer space which scientists believe to be almost completely barren. There were also examples of porn and other things being sent through pirate signals that interrupted normal television stations (I once witnessed this myself), but then the article started talking about something that completely creeped me out.

On an AM band there is a broadcast that can be picked up using shortwave radios. The signal itself appears to be Russian in origin, and evidence shows that it is probably emanating from a military base. The broad sounds like bull horn beeps and continues for 24 hours except for three seemingly random instances where a man came on and read a series of names followed by a series of numbers. Only three times in 20 years has this happened. As of yet no one knows what these figures mean, but here's the really creepy part: the signal is live. On some occasions people have recorded conversations going on in the background which means that the beeps are just a device put up against the microphone.

The article went on to talk about another signal which shortwave enthusiasts dubbed “The Backwards Music Station.” Here's a recording. Make sure your speakers aren't turned up too loud.



Now this may sound like random noise, maybe some kind of mistake, but to broadcast something like that requires not only equipment and electricity to run it, but a person operating that equipment with some kind of expense involved. In other words this signal has a purpose. Research of the signal has shown that there may be some kind of encoded frequency buried inside it, and that some one has gone to great effort to hide it. The station itself has been caught broadcasting randomly on different frequencies. This leaves us to ask what the hell is it, and who is it intended for? There is no way possible for this to be some kind of accident. Let alone one that could be repeated.

So what the heck is going on? For the majority of these two days I have been researching the subject, and found that these broadcasts are referred to as “Numbers Stations,” which have supposedly been around since WWI and were used to broadcast encoded messages to troops and spies.

The signals themselves generally consist of short pieces of music or chimes followed by prerecorded female voices (though sometimes male voices are used) that read names and numbers (the names are generally believed to belong to the phonetic alphabet of their country of origin. The voice usually repeats for a certain period of time before they close with the same music or chime as before and disappear from the air.



The odd thing is that these broadcasts do not contain any information of origin, they contain no information on intended target, and absolutely no information that could be used for practical applications such as weather fax information or shipping signals. To put it simply these broadcasts are intended for a single person or specific group, and only that person or group knows how to interpret that message. It is a total mystery.

Now think about this. A shortwave broadcast can be tracked (with great time and expense) to it's broadcast origin, but absolutely any one can be pick these up, and there is no possible way to trace who is listening to them. So who are they intended for?

It's commonly believed that these signals are used to by drug dealers to broadcast drop information, military operations, and spies. Here we have one of the oldest and most secure method of transferring information to a single party, and for all we know it could be an alien broadcast or some one sending directions to have an individual assassinated.



The spies theory is most common. Though sounding far fetched consider these facts:

1) It is literately illegal (almost world wide) to listen to these stations. This suggests that they are being transmitted by government sources which has happened before, and some of the more well known signals have been tracked back to military bases.

2) As of this day only the Polish government has admitted to sending numbers stations broadcasts, but would not reveal why. The United States and the UK governments neither confirm nor deny the existence of numbers stations.

3) In September of 2009 a Cuban spie was arrested in the United States while receiving orders from a numbers station.

4) As the Cold War ended the existence of numbers stations has actually increased!

There's a lot more information on numbers pads, and how these messages may be encrypted, and I will include links for further reading. It's fascinating, and not very many people know about these things so you can dazzle chicks at parties.

So could this be a fluke? Believe it or not numbers stations are very common. Some run twenty fours a day, and others can be found at regular times and dates. Still there are some that just pop up randomly and perhaps only once so if you happen to be monitoring shortwave you could end up hearing these things completely by accident. Point is that numbers stations are a fact of life for shortwave enthusiasts.



Could this mean that they are hoax. No, transmitting these signals requires equipment well beyond the average persons budget, and lets not forget that we know for a fact that some of these are broadcast from military installations.

If you find this interesting and perhaps fairly creepy like I do then you'll want to hear it all for yourself. You can pick up a few videos on You Tube, but there's a better way. I don't own a shortwave radio (at least not yet), Thanks to You Tube I found out that a man released a four CD/four hour record of recordings from numbers stations called The Conet Project.

Apparently this thing is a cult hit, and now costs over 200 bucks if you want to buy it on CD, but! The label its under is now giving it away for free. You can download the album at their sight along with the booklet or download it from your favorite torrent site (the company encourages people to share it so this it completely legal). If you want to torrent it I will be seeding the file from my computer every day at 10 pm till I wake up so chances are you'll be seeding off of me. I encourage you to download them. They have a certain inspiring musicality to them that I find fascinating.

Here's a short program about numbers stations


Wikipedia article on numbers stations

Information on One Time Pads

Link to The Conet Project Irdial website.

I recommend getting the files through a torrent for convienience.

A Brush With Productivity

For my loyal viewers. By the way I actually looked through my vacation photograph folder so there will be plenty more to come. If you like the sound of my voice the bottom two are just for you. One of these days I'll perfect loading videos to You Tube.







If you like me subscribe to my You Tube channel by clicking here. Literally just click the word "here."

When all is said and done

This will be the last of the unedited photos. The rest will come soon in the form of videos and posts. As always read the entry below.

Girls are stupid/On the road again

So I"m on Last FM sifting through some ones radio channel trying to find a Jenny Lewis song when I decide that since I'm trying to expand my musical horizons a bit I would take a peek at what other songs were playing. It was mostly somber chick folk with a thousand and one songs about bad relationships, but I did sort of manage to find some things I liked. I'll post the video on the bottom.

Final word: chick womans is genetically incapable of writing decent lyrics. Sure there's the exception here and there, and it's always in the form of a single song, not a whole album. Bottom line I rock hard!

Friday

We woke up late on our last full day in Georgia. I got up before Sean did as was evident from the lack of space noises and celebrity impressions coming from the vanity mirror. Today we we're going back to Little Five Points to check out what was closed. Sean hadn't seen it yet, and I just wanted to get back to my new home. My heart still lingers there.

It has occurred to me that in all this time I've failed to talk about the hotel room itself. The fact is that we were blown away the second we stepped in the place. It was huge. Almost twice the size of the hotel I lived in for three weeks. It had the usual kitchen area with a desk, two beds, a couch, and a 48 inch plasma screen TV with all the good hook ups.

We began the day by going to a very large all you can eat Sushi and Chinese food buffet. I ate maybe a half dozen or more things I have never seen before in colors I would never have though to digest. Stuffed beyond reason we left the place, and Paul began loudly planning our next meal.

The room was generally 171 dollars a night, but Sean got an off season deal and only paid 66 bucks a night. It was nice and for the first couple of night it seemed like there was no one around us, but the closer to New Years it got the more packed it got. At one point we were listening to Fart Submarine and the people next door knocked on us. Which was weird consider the second we turned it down they seemed to start chasing each other around the room while making what sounded like Swedish owl noises.

Eventually the three of us ended up in Little Five Points. A couple of places Paul wanted to take us were closed still, but Criminal Records was open which was something like a cross between a high end comic book store, concert hall, and record shop. It was pretty far out, and a cute Asian chick offered me and Sean beans and rice after she caught me twice checking her butt out. I declined as I was stuffed, and toyed with the idea of flirting with her but we would be Oscar Mike (military for "On the move") as of tomorrow So what would have been the point?

Getting off topic for a second why is that I want this so badly?

After leaving we walked around Five Points for a bit, showing Sean the spots we had visited when we were last here, and I took a lot of pictures of graffiti. I'll post those in another video sometime soon. My hart sank we left, and together we drove off some golf mega store. We were going to have dinner with Paul's mom and Cheryl. We killed sometime putting and hitting balls in their in door gold arena, and then flitted off to dinner.

On the way I gave a very very foul tirade about what I was going to do with the bowl of Lo Mien I was going to order, and we stopped off for some free donuts. Ironically on our last night in Georgia we visited the very Chinese restaurant were Uncle Creg ripped us off. The dinner was pleasant and as we said good bye to Paul's mom Sean walked into a stop sign.

That night we watched more Battlestar, drank more booze, and snacked on a dozen donuts as well as all the other mounds of junk food we had laying around. It was our last day of true freedom, our last night together, and our last chance to let it all hang out. So naturally Sean went to bed early. Paul and I spent the rest of the night talking about the future and watching Japanese No Holds Barred fighting.

The next day we woke up before noon, and finished packing our things and checked out. The wind was biting, and it stung your face every time the wind picked up. It felt appropriate that we would be leaving on the coldest day. We said good bye to our hotel, our freedom, and my future home, setting out for what would turn out to be a 12 hour drive.

After a couple of hours we decided to skip the second visit to Sean's grandpas house and just go go go. Just before we hit the Georgia/Florida border (at least its where I think it was since there were zero signs informing you that you had crossed state lines), and pulled behind an RV with snow caked on the top. Some of it flew out and hit Sean's windshield. I guess I did get to see snow after all. And for the next 10 hours or so Sean whistled, emoted, and otherwise did his best impression of some one who wanted to be killed.

We arrived home around 11 pm and that is the whole story. Well it's most of the story. There are other details for more private conversations, but that's the long and short of it. I miss Atlanta. Did I mention that hot chicks buy albums on vinyl there?

I could not find a video for any of the songs I liked so screw all of you. For all the atheists and free thinkers: Here's a bunch of over weight 40 year old men playing heavy metal.

In the meantime

I'll post the last bit about the vacation later. Right now I don't feel like applying that much effort, but I will let you all a little story. Had another depressing day that was followed by an epiphany, but that's not the thing. Lately I've been purchasing some cassettes of classical and jazz music. Now that CDs are going the way of the buffalo cassettes suddenly have gained this sort of by gone era chique much like vinyl. Not to mention they're dirt cheap in most places.

So to try and cheer myself up I went around to some Thrift Stores. I ended up buying Leonard Bernstein conducting Beethoven's 9th in Berlin. David Grisman's Acousticity, an abridged Iliad, John Ritter plays Scott Joplin, a selection Mendelssohn's Scottish and Italian symphonies, and some straight from Japan cassette of traditional Japanese music done with a selection of various instruments. All for a buck fifty.

Of course I just said all that to brag. The real story is that I'm coming out of the gay thrift store when a semi passes by, and on the trailer some one spray painted in large blue letters "Dick Fart." Thank you and goodnight.

In the meantime

More F-ing Pictures

And once oh once again the post is below the photos so read that first. If you're saying to yourself "These look like ordinary vacation photos" then you're right. The best bits that require time and editing will come when I'm done with these updates. I took many many more pictures that are being displayed here. Also watch the British sit com "The Book Group" on Hulu. Good show.