July 3, 2026 • 58 mins
Numbers stations' are hard-core spy stuff, dating all the way back to the first World War. The gist: you can create a radio station that broadcasts encoded messages to assets. Anyone can tune in and hear the full audio -- yet only listeners with a specific, disposable guide can decipher the actual contents. For a long time, this was just another curiosity of conflicts past. Yet as Ben, Matt and Noel discover in tonight's episode, numbers stations remain not just active -- but expanding. Join the guys as they attempt to get to the bottom of the newest station on the block: V32, an off-books numbers station broadcasting in Farsi... and not based in Iran.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
A production of iHeart Radio.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noah.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
They call me Ben and you can too. We're joined
as always with our super producer Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan.
Most importantly, you are you. You are here. That makes
this the stuff they don't want you to know. Beep
beep beep, beep beep. That'll be funny later. I don't
know what morse code that.
Speaker 4 (00:51):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (00:51):
Maybe it's definitely the Nickelodeon theme song.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Was it the Nickelodeon theme song? Famous Guys?
Speaker 6 (01:00):
Yes, sir guys.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Have you ever messed around with ham radio?
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Uh?
Speaker 6 (01:05):
Where is this teff again?
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Oh gosh, I had to learn old.
Speaker 5 (01:13):
Maybe it's just ham. I always a little crystal. It's
just got like a piece of ham in there, or
a tiny sandwich.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Uh, it's I like.
Speaker 6 (01:21):
I like the concept of it. I like it as
plot points in uh.
Speaker 5 (01:25):
Sci fi movies from the eighties is always fun when
like the protagonists have a Ham radio and they intercept
like alien signals there they talk to their buddies.
Speaker 6 (01:33):
But I never have no.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
I had to learn a little bit back in the day,
but I've forgotten most of it, and probably all of
us tuning in now, those of our fellow conspiracy realists
who are most familiar with a lot of radio communication.
You're gonna be our trucker pals, right, You're gonna be
on a CBE radio. Guys, I'd love to hear from
our trucking conspiracy realist about the strangest stuff you've heard
(01:58):
on a CBE radio.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
That's gonna be nuts. The best HIM radios exist in
nineteen nineties conversion vans. I don't know if you guys
remember these old vans that they look almost like an RV,
but it's a van. And then if somebody is an
enthusiast and has one of those radios in it, one
of the coolest things you can do, because you can
(02:21):
just go up on a mountain or something just turn
that sucker on and just see what you get.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
And just vibe. You know. CEBE radio after a Ham
radio like after a certain time of night, is basically
coast to coast AM with absolutely no censorship. Just no
brazy stuff, no breaks, no breaks on the truck or
the van for that one. I mean, it's crazy. We're
all audio nerds here, I think, and we sort of
(02:47):
take radio itself for granted. It's so fascinating. It's invisible
communication across the planet into space. I'm on, like humanity.
I'm not gonna say humanity is perfect, but gosh darn,
when humans get a home run, they really knock it
out of the park. Radio is amazing.
Speaker 5 (03:07):
It's also neat, like the way I think that certain
frequencies that got kind of abandoned or ranges that were
given over to like broadcasting, high def radio and high
def TV, And I think there's like whole ranges of
the spectrum now that are like a little more available.
Speaker 6 (03:25):
Or something like.
Speaker 5 (03:26):
I'm curious about where that went, Like I think it
almost it seemed to remember, it opened up some opportunities
for some more like weird piratey uses of.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
The radio spectrum. I love a pirate radio. This brings us.
This is an update, really, folks, to something that we
have been pursuing and fascinated by for years. We're re
exploring the world of numbers stations because there is a
new kid on the block. What do you say We
(03:58):
take a break for a word from our sponsors and
get into it. Here are the facts, all right, said
it once before, but it bears repeating. Shout out to
Jack White. We covered number stations years ago, so maybe
just a brief recap of the concept. They're crazy complex
(04:23):
in ideation and application, but they're simultaneously disturbingly simple to
create and run, like they're short wave radio from World
War One.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Oh yeah, but be guys, I think we talked about
this a little while back when we were mentioning Cuba
and numbers stations in Soviet Ara, Cold War era, and
it was guys, I can't remember the details here, but
back in the mid twenty ten or around twenty ten, actually,
weren't there some folks arrested in the US who were
(04:58):
specifically listening to number stations? Wasn't that a big story?
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Yes, yes, it was, Matt, It was very It was.
It was similar to the kind of fictional portrayals of
sleeper agents that would see in prestige television series like
The Americans, and it.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Was actually happening. There was a lot coming up from
like Cuba and the people were in the US listening
to it, and it was for purposes of a third country.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and that's brilliant because you know, Okay,
so World War One, this when number stations start, This
when they blossom. At the height of the Cold War.
Decades later, radios are increasingly affordable and available to civilians,
and so you got a bunch of you know, you
got a bunch of guys in their vans on the
(05:47):
hill right out in the prairie. They're radio enthusiasts. They're
checking their headphones, and across the planet they start paying
more and more attention to these strange broadcasts, like odd specifics,
snatches of melody or a series of beeps like the
what the Nickelodeon thing? I guess I accidentally did? And
then messages just really like off putting, creepy pasta twilight zone,
(06:12):
messages like a lady is slowly counting in German, or
there's a child. I don't know why child reading creepy
letters aloud is so strange.
Speaker 5 (06:22):
I always think of the very delightfully used number station
sample from the also got the name Yankee Hotel Fox
Trot the Wollco record, where it's like Yankee Hotel, fox
Trot Yankee. I mean that's the perfect example, like these
looping kind of messages. Obviously Yankee Hotel fox Trot is military.
(06:44):
You know, terms for letters, right, NATO alphabet, There you go,
thank you?
Speaker 3 (06:48):
Is that a super common thing? I noticed the Cuban
number stations also had a female voice reading letters and numbers,
mostly numbers.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Yeah, product is it is guys, propaganda, propaganda, and these
kind of communications will trend toward historically will trend toward
a female sounding voice or some psychology that goes into it.
But I think there's also a lot of sexism.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
Well, I wonder if it's what's the intelligibility, Like you
can hear the numbers better for one reason or another,
it cuts through certain frequencies better. I just wonder if
tone actually has something into the strategy or it is
all psychological. I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Maybe maybe it's that in general, human beings tend to
like the better half of the species. Maybe that's it.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
Or it seems less threatening maybe for some reasons I.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Thought likely, like how script supervisors tend to be female
identifying in Hollywood. Maybe, I mean, that's a great question.
We'd love your thoughts on it, folks. We also know,
like if we put ourselves back in the minds, all right,
it's cold war. I can afford some pretty nice radio
equipment that was too expensive for my ancestors. I am
baffled because these broadcasts, with as we were saying, often
(08:11):
creepy voices, they don't identify where they're coming from.
Speaker 7 (08:16):
Nobody's like, it's still in ben coming to you live
from East Saint Louis, Missouri, and here are they hits
on infrastructure for this week.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
They're not identifying themselves. People discover more and more of
these anomalous broadcasts. They share them with other people in
the growing radio community, as well as with the authorities,
and they're like, hey, local police, Hey federal government, have
you heard this child who sounds like she's eight. She
just pops on the air, reads some numbers, sings part
(08:51):
of Mary had a little lamb and they got all
the they got shut down by the authorities. These amateur
or I would say so villion is a better word,
enthusiast and the radio users who found these stations, because
there was no official recognition of them, they started giving
them street names like Nancy Adam Susan, The Lincolnshire Poacher
(09:16):
and The Swedish Rhapsody or The Gong Station, which all
kind of sound like weird, weirdly specific sexual moves.
Speaker 5 (09:23):
Also, yeah, or like seventies music themed TV shows, The
Gong Station.
Speaker 6 (09:29):
What was the one before that?
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Ben? Oh? H, the Swedish Rhapsody and Swedish Rhapsody. Yeah,
the lincoln Shirt Poacher.
Speaker 6 (09:37):
That sounds like a serial killer.
Speaker 5 (09:40):
Because it's like, yeah, it's an old English he doesn't
just kill, he just poaches.
Speaker 6 (09:45):
He just coaches. He's hunting humans out of season.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
He's coaching humans on the King's land.
Speaker 5 (09:52):
That's also true, Ben, I like that the idea that
he's out there just poaching eggs and and he gets
it perfect too.
Speaker 6 (09:58):
He knows exactly how to do it right.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Yeah, he's down to the minute. He's got a timer.
Speaker 6 (10:03):
We get that vortex going is the thing?
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Yeah, a little bit of vinegar make a whirlpool, you
know the game. So The Lincolnshire Poacher was called that
because it would use a clip, like a very short
clip like two bars from a real English folk song,
as what we call an interval signal, as in a
think of it like a comma or a semi colon
(10:27):
in a sentence. Pause. Listen, you know again, we got
to think what it's like to be these guys, these people.
Excuse me, we're going deeper and deeper into a rabbit hole.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Oh yes, we are. I want to think about these
intervals because I've in my mind it's almost like the
signal for you, the recipient, whoever you may be, to
get out your pad and your paper, because here comes
a message. Right, I mean, and I understand like you
put that interval in there to separate whatever messages you're
(11:00):
but also if you know that sound, that specific thing,
like in this case, this song, right, you as the recipient,
go oh crap, Okay, it's time. Here comes. You gotta
get ready because it's not like you can replay the
message until you have to wait for it to play
all the way through again, right yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
And if you don't have the ability to record it,
which you probably shouldn't have just to be safe, then
you have your one chance. So it's like an emergency alert.
How you hear that weird sound right before? This is
a test or this is not a test. It's exactly that, Matt.
I would add to that by saying we cannot forget
(11:39):
that the time or the duration of silence can be
a message itself. Silence can also be a powerful message
when we're talking about encryption. So these folks who are
just like, hey, I love radios, I like hearing stuff.
As they get into this rabbit hole, they realize this
is not a bunch of other enthusiasts making cryptic radio
(12:04):
clips for funsies. They say, there's only one reason someone
would go to all this trouble. These numbers, stations, whatever
street names we give them, they're being used to send
coded messages across long distances. And this is like exactly,
we're just talking about the the encryption, right, the coding. Uh,
(12:26):
can we talk about one time pad and what that means?
Because I know we've mentioned it in our video series
and we've mentioned it on previous episodes of stuff they
don't want you to know. But now that we're on Netflix.
Speaker 6 (12:40):
Like an encryption key.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
Yeah, now that we're on Netflix, we gotta we gotta
share it with the people. Guys.
Speaker 6 (12:45):
Okay, so this is a one time pin? That what
you mean? A pad?
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (12:50):
Sorry, I don't have one on Me's.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
One of my old here. So you got something like this, right,
it's probably smaller than this, but something like this, and
you will you will have like you were saying, nol
an encryption key. This is the only way to decode
whatever is in that broadcast. So think of it.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
It's a piece of paper, like, we can't stress that enough.
It is a something that is disposable. It is not
a digital version.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Yeah. So you you use the bad right, you're listening
and you think, okay, I remember this song means turned
to page two or in this case, page forty three. Uh,
and then you'll say okay, and now I'm listening. I've
got my interval signal. I hear my three beeps beep,
beep beep. So that's line three. I hear the code
(13:43):
phrase Mary had a little lamb, and that tells me
my instructions. If you do, and then, like you were saying, Matt,
the natural thing is you get your instructions, you memorize it,
and you get rid.
Speaker 6 (13:57):
Of this and then you eat it.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Yeah, seriously, this concept of burn after reading is super
important because if you do it this way, we're talking
about one way communication to embedded assets somewhere, no matter
who they are, where they are and it is untraceable, right, yes,
because there is no physical way to track the person
(14:21):
who receives a giant signal that's broadcast, right, just omni
omni broadcast. You never know where the person is that
received it. You just have to make sure there's no
trace left behind.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
And if you don't have your specific little nerd book,
your code book, your cookbook for spie, if you don't
have the specific one for that specific station, there's no
way you can break the code. Like even Alan Touring,
one of the best cryptographers in history, he would not
be able to break this. So these folks are at
(14:56):
a loss, right, and they're trying to They're trying anything
they can to figure out what's going on with these
ghost broadcasts. These ghost casts. All right, we'll keep it.
That's a good term, they said. Wait a second. A
lot of these broadcasts, their patterns can be tied to
(15:17):
real world events, often very dicey stuff like conflicts or big,
big deal diplomatic meetings. And this is where we know
that it's the experts confirmed and have known for years
exactly what you said, Matt, that intelligence agencies are communicating
with their agents and what we call denied areas a
(15:40):
territory where you can't give someone a phone call right,
and you can't say, hey, sleep agent in Alfaretta, now's
the time to get the waters station. Okay, talk to
you later by Well.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
In a world where we know every single phone call
at least the metadata is being tracked, if not the audio, right,
in a world where we know that's real. As a spy,
this type of communication is nah chef's kiss right.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
Yeah. Because short of physically hunting down the location of
the signal, which is much more easily done today than
in the past, world governments were at a loss. The
most important, powerful, dangerous outfits on the planet said, Okay, look,
the best we can do is make sure we have
(16:32):
some of these toys. We can monitor broadcasts. We'll try
to learn what we can. A couple of us, the
big dogs, we can evolve technology to jam some of
these signals. But is it worth the effort? You know,
it becomes a thing where it's like a curiosity, it's
like a novelty for most people, and it spacks of
(16:54):
the Cold War. So it became a team of quiet
intel guys and like hardcore civilian enthusiast, like an outfit
we love called prem They just listen in until quite recently,
earlier this year, there's a new development in town. We've
all heard of UB seventy six, But what about this
(17:16):
V thirty two and why is it in Farsi? Again?
Speaker 5 (17:22):
Oh, oh, guys, forgive me, I don't know about UB
seventy six.
Speaker 6 (17:26):
I don't quite remember. What is this again?
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Oh, let's play a clip. You want to clip?
Speaker 5 (17:31):
Yeah, I'm looking at it on YouTube and it's like
a spectrum analyzer anything.
Speaker 6 (17:34):
Let's say out here.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
And here we go. We'll do a radio voice. This
one goes out to all the assets, stay war, be safe?
Speaker 4 (17:44):
Does three of you?
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Yeah, and we'll stop it there? Absolute banger, right, So.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
Yeah, what's the context of that one?
Speaker 2 (18:11):
So this comes to us immediately after a fairly recent
conversation between Vladimir Putin and current US President Donald Trump.
What we heard there was staticy shortwave and the repetition
of four names. The message goes on, that's Nikolai, Zenya
takyana Ivan. So if you have your little pad, you
(18:36):
know what that means. You know which page to go to,
which line to go to, right, Also, you know which
encryption key to use it g it's so crazy. It's
it's old, but it's still happening now. And there are
plenty of other examples.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
Oh yeah, you can find so many of these online
this same prim source prim dot org p R y
O M. You can find all kinds of different number stations.
And if you go down those rabbit holes. One of
the stations I was most interested in was one that
was being broadcast from the island of Cuba into the
United States. And I think this is one of the
things that people often don't think about, guys, just how
(19:11):
powerful a radio broadcast signal can be and how far
that signal can travel. I know, if you travel around
the United States at all, listening to AMFM radio or something,
you know, if you go a certain distance, you lose signal.
You can't hear it anymore because where it's being from,
where it's being broadcast, that signal is too weak for
your receiver to like get it right. But with some
(19:33):
of these number stations, the signal is so powerful it
can travel all the way across the water from Cuba
into let's say, Florida or something like that, and someone
who's in Florida can hear it just fine. And it's
good to go. So here's just one more as an
example before we get into the primary one we're examining today.
Here's just a quick sample of one titled h M
(19:54):
zero one, which was first heard in twenty twelve in November.
Ohob Chako. There you go, just a little bit that
it's just some numbers, right, It doesn't seem that scary
when you're just hearing it like that and you don't
(20:15):
know what it is.
Speaker 5 (20:16):
I don't know, man, I find it all a little scary,
just the repetition of it. It almost has this quality
of an incantation in a way to me, to my ears,
like there's something spooky about it. And that's why I
think that Wilco sample is so neat, because on the
one hand, it's like the way it's deployed on the record,
(20:37):
it's sort of during this moment of like chaos that's
sort of in the middle of a song when it
goes into this kind of noise section, and it just
gives this kind of sense of like honease. And there's
something about the repetition of it and the sort of
monotone delivery that makes me feel like there's some something.
Speaker 6 (20:57):
Spooky going on.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
I understand they agree, and this is this brings us
to the heart of our episode tonight. All this Cold
War stuff did continue in the modern day, maybe the
larger public wasn't paid as much attention to it. This
brings us to our biggest question, what is the so
called V thirty two and why is it in Farsi.
(21:21):
We'll be back afterword from our sponsors. Here's where it
gets crazy.
Speaker 6 (21:47):
Daring.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Yeah, yeah, it's like the uh it reminds me of
to your point about incantation there. It reminds me of
the film Skeleton Key, which made great use of a
creepy recording, or also our old story about the Hungarian
suicide song. You know, there's something creepy, Like you're saying,
(22:13):
there's something creepy about that repetition and the uptick. What
you just heard there, folks, is a clip of V
thirty two. V thirty two is played in the Farsi language.
You are going to hear a male voice, which is,
as we said, an interesting anomaly already that recites seemingly
random numbers in the Persian language. In Farsi, we have
(22:38):
no discernible pattern of the cluster of numbers the order
of numbers, any purported mathematical relationship between them. We know
that it started on February twenty eighth, twenty twenty six,
about twelve hours after the US and Israel began bombing Iran.
(22:58):
After you hear the numbers, then you'll hear a voice
the same, the presumably the same male voice, say uh
to vajo, excuse our FARSI. We'll say it three times.
I had it in the notes, asked twice, but it's
it's thrice.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
Can we hear that, Ben, I'd love to hear what
that sounds.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Like for sure. Here is here's where he sayed it.
So we think you say this word three times over
the length of the of the broadcast. It sounds like
this numbers there we go, so million numbers. See ah,
(23:48):
So it's like again, it's like a tama or semi colon.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
I'm going to go on record that thing you were
talking about as an anomaly of as a male voice.
I think it is harder to understand in in the
frequencies coming over the radio with so much white noise.
Speaker 6 (24:04):
And low, things tends to be, you know, a little harder.
They get a little more garbled.
Speaker 5 (24:10):
High crisp kind of like literally, higher pitched things are
just easier to clock, you know, easier to interpret.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
Oh and this is a seven hundred seven nine one
zero k eight. That's that's the old frequency. Yeah, that's
the old frequency. It's on a different frequency now as
far as we can tell. Oh, if it changed, Yeah,
it's very easy to switch it. Yeah. Oh we should
tell you this folks. That that word that we were
spending some time on it is the Farsi word for attention.
(24:41):
So it's like random number, you know, five nine eight
eight seven zero three one attention and then the same thing.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
Geez, that's ominous.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
It's like Noel said, it's like an incantation.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
And it is been an assumption that the many of
the world's experts and we as well are making that
we're connecting this to the Iran conflict, right, We're we're
because of the timing, we have to think that it
is connected, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
Absolutely.
Speaker 6 (25:16):
Isn't that as confirmation bias though too? I mean, like
you don't we don't really know.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Right, but you don't.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
It's almost like if you don't make that connection and
believe that it's somehow connected, I would say the thinking
is you're gonna miss something if you don't at least
pretend like it's connected.
Speaker 5 (25:32):
And guys, isn't the whole deal with these number stations
and the history of them, and the thing that we've
discussed is that they're all kind of a mystery box.
Speaker 6 (25:39):
Or what's like a like there's not it's not like
it's one to one.
Speaker 5 (25:42):
Where like we know exactly what this transmission was connected
to and you know it's because it's all encrypted.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Right, so you can you could have any number of
purported motives. And really, even now in twenty twenty six,
with massive breakthroughs in surveillance technology, there's still a lot
of leaf reading, a lot of black box guessing. I mean,
we look, we don't know what V thirty two calls
itself or its operators call it. The name V thirty
(26:11):
two is from another group of civilian enthusiasts, a British
based group called Enigma two thousand. Enigma two thousand, they're
the ones who started calling this V thirty two on
March third, like a few days after it after it
emerged in the world. And like you were saying, no,
(26:32):
we have to look at the correlation and maybe there
is confirmation bias. Here the pattern and template of this station,
the way it broadcasts generally in the early morning and
generally in the early evening, so usually about twice a day,
a little less than twice a day. This feels exactly
(26:53):
like a number station straight out of the Cold War.
But things didn't go well on March fourth. They started
getting jammed.
Speaker 3 (27:04):
Mmm.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
They're as hard to hear, but now they.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
Impossible, you can, can you guys see this image? I
totally see somebody getting home from their day job. They
live alone, they're single. They just go down into their
basement where they've got a giant setup with different radios
and different like signal interpreters and things like that, and
they just turn all the stuff on. It's all analog
and old and they're just down there sweeping through signals.
(27:30):
This is what they do. And they just make notes
on what they're hearing on different signals, and then they
hear this right, and then they send they send a
signal out to other folks who are like also into
this kind of thing, say hey, did anybody is anybody
else picking this up? Getting this? And then they get
to hear it for a couple of days and all
of a sudden, what I guess you would just hear
(27:51):
like static noise that on that same frequency if it's
being jammed.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
Oh, it's yeah, it's it's worse, dude, because it's the
they're using what we call a bubble jammer. So it
makes not just static, not just to see a noise,
it makes a hoffiness, catterwall, the kind of stuff where
if you heard it, it's like when we log on
and one of our microphones is too high, you'll hear
(28:16):
it and you'll be like, oh.
Speaker 3 (28:18):
Oh yeah. So it's essentially you're instead of stopping the signal,
you're overwhelming that channel with more signal.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
Yes, yeah, and you're kind of attacking the people who are,
for one reason or another listening. And Dylan, thanks for
the beep on that s word. So we know bubble
jammers are a Cold War relic, right, because in the
heyday of the USSR, everybody in the Soviet sphere of
(28:49):
influence would be familiar with this technology. It's what the
authorities use to stop people living in the Soviet realm
from hearing uncensored or unapproved messages from the West, like
hearing US reports or British reports, and they also right
(29:10):
Voice of America, Radio Free Iran, et cetera. They they
were censoring these international news ops and also rock music.
So like Elvis Presley fell to the bubble jammer. This
is a wild time. It always reminds me, guys of
our ridiculous history episode about still Yagi.
Speaker 5 (29:30):
Yes, the still Yagi being the what is it polish
like hipsters and they're weird. Bone Records Matt he loved this,
like literally, yeah, the the x ray x rays discarded
from hospitals, and they would like use a lathe to
cut bootleg vinyl recordings into these that could be played
(29:50):
a handful of times because the material was so thin
and crappy.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
They aren't most records. Bone Records indeed, give you.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
A bone to we'll keep it in. So okay, So
they got jammed right Cacoffin. It's terrible stuff. Your ears
are bleeding when you hear this bubble jammer. The transmissions
get stymied for a second, but not permanently because whomever
is transmitting this eventually just hits the knob, hits the dial,
(30:22):
hits the knob, and they switch to a different frequency.
This time it's seven eight four to two killer hurts.
Oh yeah, yeah, you could.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
Just change your broadcast frequency. And then I guess if
you've got somebody on the receiving end and they know
that your signal is coming, you just now spin your
dial until you get to the right one.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
I mean, I'm sure they have a contingency plan. That's
how it actually works. Like, if not this, then go
do go to this one. If not A, then B
and so on to Z. But I love picturing you guys.
The most effective way for them to get the new
signal out is to have like a crop uster airplane,
those little skyrider guys, and they've just got you know,
(31:04):
a flag or they put out the vapor and all
of a sudden, for a few hours it just says
seven eight four to two in the sky. That would
be cool. I've been getting really into, have you, guys. Matt.
You live a little north of Nola myself, So in
your neck of the woods, do you see a lot
of airplanes with signs.
Speaker 3 (31:26):
No beaches of the Florida Panhan.
Speaker 5 (31:30):
The same thing free beach city man. Yeah, I was
signed city planes dragging this sign. Also, have you ever
been to the beach where you see literally a billboard
on a on a ship.
Speaker 6 (31:40):
Yes, that's a lot of fun.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
Those trucks that are just a flat screen basically on
both sides in.
Speaker 6 (31:48):
The middle, Yeah, there's nothing in it.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
It's just very common in Atlanta, and we should look
into advertising with them, now that I think about it.
Why not? Maybe they like you drive the truck too.
Speaker 6 (32:01):
Out there causing recks.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
So I still I haven't looked into this. This is
gonna be the weekend for me. But as I'm pursuing
this pilot license stuff, I gotta figure out how those
planes land with the sign dragging behind them.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
Dude, Ben, look just as your friend, be careful getting
yourself in and around any small prop planes. I don't
know if you've seen frequency of small prop planes going down.
Speaker 6 (32:31):
Sorry you said frequency and I was thinking radio stuff. No, yeah, there,
it does seem like that's been in the news a.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
Lot, unless you are in full control of that plane
the entire time, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
The Cessena has ever been a fickle mistress?
Speaker 3 (32:44):
Yes, talk about people finding your Cessna while it's parked
somewhere and then.
Speaker 5 (32:50):
Smoking cigs in it.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
For joy ride, the dropping it off, but also doing
some routine maintenance Yeah, that's really thoughtful.
Speaker 6 (32:59):
Joy.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
This is radio warfare in the case of V thirty two,
Because we know that experts, people like I can Fernandez
I was written tons about this. We know that the boffins,
the smartest folks we know, at least in the civilian sphere,
have immediately clocked this as an adversarial situation, meaning one
(33:23):
party is making the signal and another party is jamming it,
and the question becomes who has that jelly jam technology?
The US could do it, right, That would maybe mean
that the signal was coming from Iran. But then it
could be that the US is transmitting it and Iran
(33:44):
is jamming it. We don't know.
Speaker 3 (33:47):
Oh, that's an interesting I simply because it's in Farsi.
Perhaps I stupidly imagine that it would be coming from Iran,
but it would make sense. We know how important the
role of translation has been, especially when we hear stories
about the war in Afghanistan right back in the early
(34:10):
two thousands, and just how important that role was. And
now if you imagine that it could be the US
transmitting signals into Farsi speaking forces, even perhaps to translators
that are then giving signals to the military. But that
it doesn't make as much sense to me.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
None of it really does. That's the sticky wicket. That's
our bag of badgers here, because we're asking who's responsible, right,
who's transmitting this, who's trying to jam it up? The
issue is that the jammers and the transmitters, who we're
assuming are two different groups, right, And that's itself an assumption.
(34:53):
They have committed themselves to secrecy, so we're not going
to have any official confirmation from any government until a
lot of time has passed, because if you reveal your
hand on either side of that table, you're endangering the
success of your operation. And that's why the civilians come in,
like prem or Zgopa which I am not pronouncing correctly, Pream.
(35:17):
These guys, they have a widespread network and they're super dedicated.
They are the people who, like you were saying, get
home from work, go immediately to the basement or the attic,
and get with all their toys and start scanning, scanning
the airwaves. They said that because of the spread of
(35:38):
their voluntary network, they were able to triangulate the origin
of V thirty two to quote, somewhere in an area
encompassing northern Italy, Switzerland, Western Germany, Eastern France, Belgium and
the Netherlands. Yeah, and then other these other like these
(35:59):
easokaba guys i zy weird o kba they say it
comes from Israel or the Red Sea area or maybe
yeah Germany?
Speaker 6 (36:09):
WHOA right?
Speaker 3 (36:11):
How sweet is that?
Speaker 2 (36:13):
That means? That means it's that means one thing for sure,
despite being Farsia language, it is not originating on Iran
and soil.
Speaker 3 (36:23):
Oh that's funky, could it. I haven't imagined that this
could be another form of disinformation or you know, purposeful
misinformation or hey, look over here, spend some time and
resources trying to figure this out while yeah, yeah, like.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
Weeding out the resources. Yeah, because then if it's if
we're a raw and we're not doing this and we're
getting in trouble with it, then we have to dedicate finite,
limited resources of our own right to trying to uh
disentangle this this ball of yarn.
Speaker 3 (37:03):
Well, but couldn't it also be like, let's say, from
Germany and meant to signal groups that maybe cells that
exist throughout a bunch of European countries that do speak Farsi.
I mean, that's a possibility in any country, right, a
group that speaks whatever that language is or uses that
(37:24):
language at least for their key, because it could be
a group that does not speak Farsi, but they have
a key in Farsi.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
Right, Because we're we're just saying the word attention, and
then we're reading numbers, and the words for numbers are
some of the easiest things to memorize in almost any language,
if not pronounce, if not pronounce. So this this gets
so weird. So let's take another pause for a word
from our sponsors. Be beep, beep, beep, and will be
(37:53):
it is Nickelodeon, and we'll be right. We've returned curiouser
and curious or so experts at first are doing the
logical thing, and they're saying, this is obviously Iranian intelligence.
The Middle East is beefed up again just because, like
(38:15):
you were saying earlier, just because the station does not
appear to be based in Iran doesn't mean they couldn't
still be running it, because the US does stuff like
this all the time. Radio free insert here, right, Voice
of America, Voice of YadA, YadA. This issue is the
(38:35):
bubble jammer, guys, because other suit and I say this
with such great respect and profound affection. Other very serious
radio nerds pointed out that the jammer and the techniques
of the jammer are quote exactly the same kind of
bubble jammer that is used against radio FARDA, Voice of America, Farsi,
(38:58):
Iran International TV Shortwave Relay, and BBC Farsi. These things,
these broadcasts have one aspect in common. The Iranian government
doesn't like them and they bubble jam them.
Speaker 3 (39:12):
Interesting.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
Right, So if it is coming from Iran, right, why
would someone take an established Iranian approach to stopping it.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
Hmmm. It's almost as though Iran doesn't want the signal air.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
Which makes you think, right, I mean this goes to
the theories. We love the theories folks plain part out
loud the United States, the popular theory. Uncle Sam activated
the station to, as we said earlier, to deploy it
as a way of sending coded messages to assets in
(39:48):
Iran or in Farsi speaking communities. That's totally possible. We've
talked about in the past. Uncle Sam's human or human
intelligence networks have been seriously devastated, especially in the past
the newest presidential administration because it compromises spying. We do
(40:10):
have Russian agents in high levels of government policy changes,
budget cuts, but we can't make the mistake. A beat
up giant is still a giant. Uncle Sam's spy game
is crazy. It's tough to find a word for how
sophisticated this operation is. So the US and some allies
(40:35):
living in Israel do probably have assets in various levels
of the Iranian government. I don't know. It's a question
for you guys. Do you think they're highly placed officials
or are they more like those deep cover Soviet spies
a la the show the Americans that they just live
a normal life and then they realize, you know, at
(40:57):
two o'clock UTC, I have to check in my secret radio.
Speaker 6 (41:01):
Ben I finally did it. I started using the Americans.
Speaker 2 (41:04):
I was going to ask you all air, what do
you think so far?
Speaker 6 (41:06):
It's great, Yeah, it's great.
Speaker 5 (41:08):
I'm a couple episodes in and boy, oh boy, that
that fellow is a is a.
Speaker 6 (41:13):
Young young lad. What was his name? Jonathan Reese Matthew rees.
Speaker 5 (41:18):
Anyway, he's great and I really dig the show, so
looking forward to digging further into it.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
Might not be one to watch with the kiddo as
the show. Yeah, just yeah, have you seen that show,
matt Yeah, yeah, it's.
Speaker 3 (41:34):
Just a little legs the intrigue and espionage and lying
and all that other stuff. I don't know. For a
little for a while there, it left a bad taste
in my mouth, but it is like again, Matthew Reese,
I think that is his name, and some of the
some of the characters, the actors on that show are
like super convincing. It's there are a lot of spy
(41:56):
shows nowadays, they're so ubiquitous, but I don't by a
lot of it. It's two double O seven sometimes to
to like, yeah when when it's gritty in the way
that Americans often is. I very much.
Speaker 6 (42:10):
Appreciate people are digging this show the Bureau. It's a
remake of a French.
Speaker 5 (42:15):
Show, but they also say that it's a little tinker
tailor soldier spy where it's kind of slow and icy
and not necessarily quite as you know, a high energy
and action packed to something like the Americans, So you
know whichever one you're into.
Speaker 2 (42:28):
I just remember being like to the point where I
got uncomfortable watching that with the girl I was dating
at the time, because they spent they have flashbacks where
they talked about training and the make it Real section.
Speaker 3 (42:44):
Yeah is oh gross, that's there's agreed wholeheartedly, Ben and
I know exactly what we're talking about. What you're feeling
in that moment.
Speaker 2 (42:54):
Stayed with both of us. I think, yep uh.
Speaker 3 (42:57):
But the the thing we learned in our spycraft exploration
a long time, I guess i'd been that long time.
We did multiple part series just on the craft of
it all, and one of the things we learned in
that exploration is the best spies you can possibly have
don't look like anybody that you wouldn't notice them in
a crowd. You wouldn't notice them in a crowd of
(43:18):
three people.
Speaker 6 (43:19):
They would be the.
Speaker 3 (43:20):
Person that your eyes just kind of glaze over. You
don't think about that person. Somebody in those three people
is going to be more interesting and stand out than
your asset.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
Which do you want to shlub? We all want to shlub. Yes,
it's like it's the best part, you know, But I
know exactly what we're saying, right, the blending end thing,
it's it's been mythologized and glamorized so often that we
do forget it is based on fact. It is happening now.
(43:50):
Human is still very much a real thing for some
countries more than others. So we like the US for this, right.
Maybe the US is doing this for some reason to
communicate with their assets, or their operators, or their whomever's
except that on March ninth, again, just a few days
after V thirty two came into being, ABC News over
(44:15):
on our side of the pond reported that the US
government had sent a what we used the was that
word earlier om they cast basically message to law enforcement,
raising concerns about intercepted encrypted communications. And the implication here
(44:35):
not to be too Dennis Reynolds about it, is that
Uncle Sam believed Iran was operating this station V thirty
two and that they were doing so to activate sleeper
agents abroad. That's what they seemed to be concerned about.
And we always have to, you know, we have to
be cautious with American news because you know, our government
(44:58):
purposely leaked stuff like this all the time. Dude.
Speaker 3 (45:01):
But you guys, remember we heard stories of how hard
Israel was pressing the United States to attack Iran. Right, yes,
so visits from Benjamin and Yahoo from other you know,
associates and government ministers attempting to sell this concept that
you have to attack Iran, something that has been attempted
(45:22):
to be sold to the United States for forty years longer.
And there needed to be that proof thing. There was
that whole proof thing that the US government was grappling
with before we invaded Afghanistan in Iraq. You remember the
yellow cake of it all. And you know, where's the proof?
(45:43):
What is the thing that would cause Congress in the
United States to be convinced we have to go to war.
I wonder if this kind of thing, this potential imminent threat,
could be weaponized against US lawmakers and an administration to
pressure them into going to war or at least, you know,
(46:04):
taking that first step of hot action.
Speaker 2 (46:06):
It's a great question, and it's totally within the bounds
of doctrine too, as crazy as it may sound. So
you're absolutely nailing it there. Because the other theory is,
of course, you've got us as one. But the next
theory is Israel. I mean, oh yeah, long time arch
nemesis in the region. Both Israel and Iran have deeply
(46:29):
controversial reputations in the Middle Eastern theater. Both of those
governments hate each other forever, and both ultimately want to
be the sole superpower in the region. They attack each
other through all manners of paths. You know, we know
about the drones, we know about the missiles, we know
(46:50):
about spy level stuff like what was that cyberware stuck stead.
Speaker 6 (46:55):
Right, Yeah, and they say mean things publicly and.
Speaker 2 (46:58):
They say in me they're so dude, see each other. Guys.
Speaker 3 (47:02):
Both countries arguably sponsor you know, the T word is
used terrorists, but they sponsor third parties that carry proxies,
that carry out actions against each other. And that is
both sides. We have seen this. So just if you forget,
like there's just a lot of stuff happening that nobody
(47:23):
sees the actual hand that rocks the cradle.
Speaker 2 (47:28):
That was hoping would do it great, But you.
Speaker 3 (47:32):
Don't see the actual you know, the government agency or
the government entity coming through and setting those actions in motion.
You see the effects afterwards.
Speaker 2 (47:42):
Right, And then maybe you hear cryptic performative statements like
it's no secret that the these governments have attempted and
successfully carried out assassination operations on each other. You know
what is right. We have an entire episode about this
Israel openly assassinating politicians, military leaders, civilian scientists, and it's
(48:08):
their greater good argument is that they have to do
this because Iran is so close. For decades, they've been
so close the building a nuclear weapon, and we don't
have any Samson. Uh yeah, tune in for that episode
(48:28):
if we could keep the show going, Oh, Mordecai, So
I would watch that show. I would watch a sitcom
spy thriller called No Dude, Stop It.
Speaker 6 (48:43):
I love it so much.
Speaker 2 (48:44):
It's his real name. So is it like Monk?
Speaker 1 (48:47):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (48:47):
I don't know. I don't know why the name just
gives giving monk.
Speaker 2 (48:51):
Yeah, Oh Mordecai. Still like these guys, h History is proven, right,
It makes sense from both country's perspective subjectively, because history
is proven that once you get a nuclear bomb, even
if you can't really deploy it successfully like North Korea,
even if it doesn't work that well like some other countries,
(49:13):
test other world powers are going to treat you extremely differently, right,
and they will give you some real sloppy butt kisses
if they can step. If that means they take the
bomb away from you, right, They'll they'll do a lot of.
Speaker 6 (49:33):
Sloppy butt kisses or something different.
Speaker 2 (49:35):
That's the secret thing.
Speaker 3 (49:37):
Yeah, another thing Satan makes you do sloppy butt kisses.
Speaker 6 (49:41):
I think it is.
Speaker 2 (49:41):
We're coming up with a lot of weird guys. So
the R word, yeah, that's a rim shot, a different thing.
It's the other thing. It's the real Swedish rhapsody. Uh
So I ran of course, like any other country. It
(50:04):
says their nuclear research is totally peaceful and if you
don't agree with them, then you're lying because you want
to justify further aggression against us. But like the US,
there's a lot of motivation for Israel to run V
thirty two because they are more than capable of doing
the transmitting and the jamming if they wanted to do so.
(50:25):
We still don't know. I mean guys, people are saying
maybe turkeys up in the mix, and someone says why,
and they're like, I don't know. They're in the neighborhood.
They don't like Iran. I don't trust her to goan
how much get a radio cost?
Speaker 3 (50:43):
It could be a third party alliance of some sort.
Yeh man, it's weird and it is weird too. There's
such a large conflict happening right now in Ukraine. Right,
and just that happening simultaneously in how large that war
is and the conflict is, and then how far spread
that has become when it comes to third party states, countries,
(51:05):
even you know, massive organizations stepping in and providing weapons
or providing defense and all these other things. There's just
so much at play. Ben, I gotta tell you, I'm
I am now more and more convinced that it's some
kind of false false It's not necessarily a false flag
(51:28):
because there's no flag involved here, right, necessarily the resources,
because it does feel like the kind of thing that
would would be so threatening to those groups and those
human beings that are aware of how threatening this could be.
Speaker 2 (51:44):
That's a great point. Yeah, that's a brilliant point, just
like the point that because something is in Farsi language
does not mean Farsi speakers are the intended audience. Right.
It also brings it reminds me of the idea of
an exile opposition group, right, people who left Iran and
(52:04):
became part of the diaspora. Right. And maybe now we
live in Germany or thereabouts, and because.
Speaker 3 (52:12):
From Cuba, and then we're hanging out in Texas just
for a little while in sixty three.
Speaker 2 (52:17):
Just checking in? What just checking in? You know, I mean,
it could be. It could be, especially due to the
internet blackouts as as Iran encountered more and more chaos.
It could be that these are an expact group of
Iranian nationals who are trying to maintain contact with their
(52:38):
compatriots who are still in the country. But if they're
doing that, the issue is that a lot of people
don't like talk about. The issue is that if you
are running an unsanctioned transmission operation of this kind, most
countries are going to be very good at catching you,
(53:00):
and they want to do that because they want to
keep their channels clean. Right, So if the if there
is an opposition group, and if they're doing it and
they're not part of an official government, that means wherever
they are based, some faction of that government has approved it,
like they have at least given them tacit nod and
(53:22):
a wink stuff. Right, they're not going to Maybe they
don't have big shiny monuments or metals on their lapels,
but someone's letting them do it. Interesting, curious, A're and
curious here this is such a weird one.
Speaker 3 (53:40):
Man, this is going to be thinking all night, just
like all these different possibilities we brought up. Gosh, I'm
still leaning towards the yellow cake man.
Speaker 2 (53:51):
I you know what, what's your guys opinion on cake?
Speaker 6 (53:55):
You can eat it too. Apparently you can have it
and eat it too.
Speaker 2 (53:58):
Yeah, just buy two gakes. I never understood that. But
the tangencies I here. You know, it's such a big question.
It's not going mystery. It probably won't be officially confirmed
so long as this current conflict continues. And the weird
(54:18):
thing is, if all of the sudden there was sustainable,
lasting peace in the Middle East and all the countries
and all the communities there were happy, the people who
jammed V thirty two and the people who created V
thirty two are still never going to talk about it
until like decades later, because it's so tough to get
(54:41):
something that reliably works in this environment, in this vocation,
that once you have something that works, you'll do everything
you can to keep it going, you know, like no
no offense, but like you're awesome. Vintage synthesizers.
Speaker 6 (54:57):
Oh geez, I only I have the one, but.
Speaker 2 (55:00):
Well that one, that's the one I'm talking about.
Speaker 6 (55:02):
Yeah, No, I didn't just have two of them, and
I had to what's the word.
Speaker 5 (55:06):
Cannibalize parts from one to make the other one a
whole usable synthesize.
Speaker 2 (55:12):
So because the yeah, you do whatever you can to
keep it going. So even if it's all you know,
kumbai a and trumpets and angel farts.
Speaker 6 (55:21):
Or pulling out someone's guts, whatever you gotta do.
Speaker 2 (55:23):
Or blood eagling, if that's what it takes you get
to these What I'm saying is, even if there's lasting peace,
the mystery of V. Thirty two is not going to
be solved because the people who made it, the people
who are successfully conducting this conspiracy, they want to keep
it in their back pocket just in case they have
(55:44):
to crack open the book again, you know. Oh by
the way, guys, as we're ending, I just want to
share this. Remember I can't remember what airport we were
stranded at, but I wrote down like fifty eight to
sixty nickname pitches for you guys, for you know them,
(56:05):
for you, Matt. This is the origin of Maddie two hands.
I found him. Look at all these posit folks.
Speaker 6 (56:13):
This is history right here, folks, This is history.
Speaker 2 (56:16):
Not all these are great. I don't know about three times, amen,
brother and young Poplock.
Speaker 6 (56:22):
Young Poplock is fine.
Speaker 2 (56:24):
You like that one? Yeah?
Speaker 6 (56:25):
Or you know what.
Speaker 5 (56:26):
I for some reason it's inspiring me to to add
and just go go places.
Speaker 6 (56:29):
Young Pavlov love it.
Speaker 2 (56:32):
I think I've been conditioned to love it.
Speaker 6 (56:34):
But I love you sure have. Thank you, Ben, Thank you,
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (56:38):
Sir, Ben, Aluminum tubes. Brown.
Speaker 2 (56:42):
There it is there, it is Okay, shout out to
the squickler. All right, we're not going and Matt tray you.
I like Matt trayou and of course you know all
the backman Brown. Yeah, that's it for us today. We
would love to hear your thoughts, folks. The origin of
E thirty two. It's intended audience, it's actual operators, it's
(57:03):
actual objectives. That is very much the stuff they don't
want you to know. Unless, Hey, if you started V
thirty two and you're comfortable kicking it with us, find
us on the lines, give us a call, send us
an email. We would love to chat with.
Speaker 6 (57:17):
You by all means.
Speaker 5 (57:18):
Do find us and let us know what you think
about all the things you can reach out to the
handle conspiracy stuff or conspiracy stuff show on your social
media platform of choice.
Speaker 3 (57:27):
If you want to give us a call, it's very simple.
Just call one eight three three S, T d W,
why t K.
Speaker 2 (57:38):
Tavag no tvajo okay, t vajo, Hey noel, get a
sound fu to wrap up our number.
Speaker 6 (57:45):
Station thanky, how tall foxtrot?
Speaker 2 (57:48):
And yeah, you'd like to send us an email. We
are the entities to read each piece of correspondence we received.
Be well aware, yet unafraid. Sometimes the void writes back
five seven eight three, thank you. Nine Tonight I said
I'd write a poem, I wrote a hire commercial instead.
For those of you who know what it means, it's
(58:08):
go time conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 3 (58:29):
Stuff they don't want you to know. Is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
A production of iHeart Radio.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noah.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
They call me Ben and you can too. We're joined
as always with our super producer Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan.
Most importantly, you are you. You are here. That makes
this the stuff they don't want you to know. Beep
beep beep, beep beep. That'll be funny later. I don't
know what morse code that.
Speaker 4 (00:51):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (00:51):
Maybe it's definitely the Nickelodeon theme song.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Was it the Nickelodeon theme song? Famous Guys?
Speaker 6 (01:00):
Yes, sir guys.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Have you ever messed around with ham radio?
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Uh?
Speaker 6 (01:05):
Where is this teff again?
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Oh gosh, I had to learn old.
Speaker 5 (01:13):
Maybe it's just ham. I always a little crystal. It's
just got like a piece of ham in there, or
a tiny sandwich.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Uh, it's I like.
Speaker 6 (01:21):
I like the concept of it. I like it as
plot points in uh.
Speaker 5 (01:25):
Sci fi movies from the eighties is always fun when
like the protagonists have a Ham radio and they intercept
like alien signals there they talk to their buddies.
Speaker 6 (01:33):
But I never have no.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
I had to learn a little bit back in the day,
but I've forgotten most of it, and probably all of
us tuning in now, those of our fellow conspiracy realists
who are most familiar with a lot of radio communication.
You're gonna be our trucker pals, right, You're gonna be
on a CBE radio. Guys, I'd love to hear from
our trucking conspiracy realist about the strangest stuff you've heard
(01:58):
on a CBE radio.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
That's gonna be nuts. The best HIM radios exist in
nineteen nineties conversion vans. I don't know if you guys
remember these old vans that they look almost like an RV,
but it's a van. And then if somebody is an
enthusiast and has one of those radios in it, one
of the coolest things you can do, because you can
(02:21):
just go up on a mountain or something just turn
that sucker on and just see what you get.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
And just vibe. You know. CEBE radio after a Ham
radio like after a certain time of night, is basically
coast to coast AM with absolutely no censorship. Just no
brazy stuff, no breaks, no breaks on the truck or
the van for that one. I mean, it's crazy. We're
all audio nerds here, I think, and we sort of
(02:47):
take radio itself for granted. It's so fascinating. It's invisible
communication across the planet into space. I'm on, like humanity.
I'm not gonna say humanity is perfect, but gosh darn,
when humans get a home run, they really knock it
out of the park. Radio is amazing.
Speaker 5 (03:07):
It's also neat, like the way I think that certain
frequencies that got kind of abandoned or ranges that were
given over to like broadcasting, high def radio and high
def TV, And I think there's like whole ranges of
the spectrum now that are like a little more available.
Speaker 6 (03:25):
Or something like.
Speaker 5 (03:26):
I'm curious about where that went, Like I think it
almost it seemed to remember, it opened up some opportunities
for some more like weird piratey uses of.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
The radio spectrum. I love a pirate radio. This brings us.
This is an update, really, folks, to something that we
have been pursuing and fascinated by for years. We're re
exploring the world of numbers stations because there is a
new kid on the block. What do you say We
(03:58):
take a break for a word from our sponsors and
get into it. Here are the facts, all right, said
it once before, but it bears repeating. Shout out to
Jack White. We covered number stations years ago, so maybe
just a brief recap of the concept. They're crazy complex
(04:23):
in ideation and application, but they're simultaneously disturbingly simple to
create and run, like they're short wave radio from World
War One.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Oh yeah, but be guys, I think we talked about
this a little while back when we were mentioning Cuba
and numbers stations in Soviet Ara, Cold War era, and
it was guys, I can't remember the details here, but
back in the mid twenty ten or around twenty ten, actually,
weren't there some folks arrested in the US who were
(04:58):
specifically listening to number stations? Wasn't that a big story?
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Yes, yes, it was, Matt, It was very It was.
It was similar to the kind of fictional portrayals of
sleeper agents that would see in prestige television series like
The Americans, and it.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Was actually happening. There was a lot coming up from
like Cuba and the people were in the US listening
to it, and it was for purposes of a third country.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and that's brilliant because you know, Okay,
so World War One, this when number stations start, This
when they blossom. At the height of the Cold War.
Decades later, radios are increasingly affordable and available to civilians,
and so you got a bunch of you know, you
got a bunch of guys in their vans on the
(05:47):
hill right out in the prairie. They're radio enthusiasts. They're
checking their headphones, and across the planet they start paying
more and more attention to these strange broadcasts, like odd specifics,
snatches of melody or a series of beeps like the
what the Nickelodeon thing? I guess I accidentally did? And
then messages just really like off putting, creepy pasta twilight zone,
(06:12):
messages like a lady is slowly counting in German, or
there's a child. I don't know why child reading creepy
letters aloud is so strange.
Speaker 5 (06:22):
I always think of the very delightfully used number station
sample from the also got the name Yankee Hotel Fox
Trot the Wollco record, where it's like Yankee Hotel, fox
Trot Yankee. I mean that's the perfect example, like these
looping kind of messages. Obviously Yankee Hotel fox Trot is military.
(06:44):
You know, terms for letters, right, NATO alphabet, There you go,
thank you?
Speaker 3 (06:48):
Is that a super common thing? I noticed the Cuban
number stations also had a female voice reading letters and numbers,
mostly numbers.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Yeah, product is it is guys, propaganda, propaganda, and these
kind of communications will trend toward historically will trend toward
a female sounding voice or some psychology that goes into it.
But I think there's also a lot of sexism.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
Well, I wonder if it's what's the intelligibility, Like you
can hear the numbers better for one reason or another,
it cuts through certain frequencies better. I just wonder if
tone actually has something into the strategy or it is
all psychological. I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Maybe maybe it's that in general, human beings tend to
like the better half of the species. Maybe that's it.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
Or it seems less threatening maybe for some reasons I.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Thought likely, like how script supervisors tend to be female
identifying in Hollywood. Maybe, I mean, that's a great question.
We'd love your thoughts on it, folks. We also know,
like if we put ourselves back in the minds, all right,
it's cold war. I can afford some pretty nice radio
equipment that was too expensive for my ancestors. I am
baffled because these broadcasts, with as we were saying, often
(08:11):
creepy voices, they don't identify where they're coming from.
Speaker 7 (08:16):
Nobody's like, it's still in ben coming to you live
from East Saint Louis, Missouri, and here are they hits
on infrastructure for this week.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
They're not identifying themselves. People discover more and more of
these anomalous broadcasts. They share them with other people in
the growing radio community, as well as with the authorities,
and they're like, hey, local police, Hey federal government, have
you heard this child who sounds like she's eight. She
just pops on the air, reads some numbers, sings part
(08:51):
of Mary had a little lamb and they got all
the they got shut down by the authorities. These amateur
or I would say so villion is a better word,
enthusiast and the radio users who found these stations, because
there was no official recognition of them, they started giving
them street names like Nancy Adam Susan, The Lincolnshire Poacher
(09:16):
and The Swedish Rhapsody or The Gong Station, which all
kind of sound like weird, weirdly specific sexual moves.
Speaker 5 (09:23):
Also, yeah, or like seventies music themed TV shows, The
Gong Station.
Speaker 6 (09:29):
What was the one before that?
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Ben? Oh? H, the Swedish Rhapsody and Swedish Rhapsody. Yeah,
the lincoln Shirt Poacher.
Speaker 6 (09:37):
That sounds like a serial killer.
Speaker 5 (09:40):
Because it's like, yeah, it's an old English he doesn't
just kill, he just poaches.
Speaker 6 (09:45):
He just coaches. He's hunting humans out of season.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
He's coaching humans on the King's land.
Speaker 5 (09:52):
That's also true, Ben, I like that the idea that
he's out there just poaching eggs and and he gets
it perfect too.
Speaker 6 (09:58):
He knows exactly how to do it right.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Yeah, he's down to the minute. He's got a timer.
Speaker 6 (10:03):
We get that vortex going is the thing?
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Yeah, a little bit of vinegar make a whirlpool, you
know the game. So The Lincolnshire Poacher was called that
because it would use a clip, like a very short
clip like two bars from a real English folk song,
as what we call an interval signal, as in a
think of it like a comma or a semi colon
(10:27):
in a sentence. Pause. Listen, you know again, we got
to think what it's like to be these guys, these people.
Excuse me, we're going deeper and deeper into a rabbit hole.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Oh yes, we are. I want to think about these
intervals because I've in my mind it's almost like the
signal for you, the recipient, whoever you may be, to
get out your pad and your paper, because here comes
a message. Right, I mean, and I understand like you
put that interval in there to separate whatever messages you're
(11:00):
but also if you know that sound, that specific thing,
like in this case, this song, right, you as the recipient,
go oh crap, Okay, it's time. Here comes. You gotta
get ready because it's not like you can replay the
message until you have to wait for it to play
all the way through again, right yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
And if you don't have the ability to record it,
which you probably shouldn't have just to be safe, then
you have your one chance. So it's like an emergency alert.
How you hear that weird sound right before? This is
a test or this is not a test. It's exactly that, Matt.
I would add to that by saying we cannot forget
(11:39):
that the time or the duration of silence can be
a message itself. Silence can also be a powerful message
when we're talking about encryption. So these folks who are
just like, hey, I love radios, I like hearing stuff.
As they get into this rabbit hole, they realize this
is not a bunch of other enthusiasts making cryptic radio
(12:04):
clips for funsies. They say, there's only one reason someone
would go to all this trouble. These numbers, stations, whatever
street names we give them, they're being used to send
coded messages across long distances. And this is like exactly,
we're just talking about the the encryption, right, the coding. Uh,
(12:26):
can we talk about one time pad and what that means?
Because I know we've mentioned it in our video series
and we've mentioned it on previous episodes of stuff they
don't want you to know. But now that we're on Netflix.
Speaker 6 (12:40):
Like an encryption key.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
Yeah, now that we're on Netflix, we gotta we gotta
share it with the people. Guys.
Speaker 6 (12:45):
Okay, so this is a one time pin? That what
you mean? A pad?
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (12:50):
Sorry, I don't have one on Me's.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
One of my old here. So you got something like this, right,
it's probably smaller than this, but something like this, and
you will you will have like you were saying, nol
an encryption key. This is the only way to decode
whatever is in that broadcast. So think of it.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
It's a piece of paper, like, we can't stress that enough.
It is a something that is disposable. It is not
a digital version.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Yeah. So you you use the bad right, you're listening
and you think, okay, I remember this song means turned
to page two or in this case, page forty three. Uh,
and then you'll say okay, and now I'm listening. I've
got my interval signal. I hear my three beeps beep,
beep beep. So that's line three. I hear the code
(13:43):
phrase Mary had a little lamb, and that tells me
my instructions. If you do, and then, like you were saying, Matt,
the natural thing is you get your instructions, you memorize it,
and you get rid.
Speaker 6 (13:57):
Of this and then you eat it.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Yeah, seriously, this concept of burn after reading is super
important because if you do it this way, we're talking
about one way communication to embedded assets somewhere, no matter
who they are, where they are and it is untraceable, right, yes,
because there is no physical way to track the person
(14:21):
who receives a giant signal that's broadcast, right, just omni
omni broadcast. You never know where the person is that
received it. You just have to make sure there's no
trace left behind.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
And if you don't have your specific little nerd book,
your code book, your cookbook for spie, if you don't
have the specific one for that specific station, there's no
way you can break the code. Like even Alan Touring,
one of the best cryptographers in history, he would not
be able to break this. So these folks are at
(14:56):
a loss, right, and they're trying to They're trying anything
they can to figure out what's going on with these
ghost broadcasts. These ghost casts. All right, we'll keep it.
That's a good term, they said. Wait a second. A
lot of these broadcasts, their patterns can be tied to
(15:17):
real world events, often very dicey stuff like conflicts or big,
big deal diplomatic meetings. And this is where we know
that it's the experts confirmed and have known for years
exactly what you said, Matt, that intelligence agencies are communicating
with their agents and what we call denied areas a
(15:40):
territory where you can't give someone a phone call right,
and you can't say, hey, sleep agent in Alfaretta, now's
the time to get the waters station. Okay, talk to
you later by Well.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
In a world where we know every single phone call
at least the metadata is being tracked, if not the audio, right,
in a world where we know that's real. As a spy,
this type of communication is nah chef's kiss right.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
Yeah. Because short of physically hunting down the location of
the signal, which is much more easily done today than
in the past, world governments were at a loss. The
most important, powerful, dangerous outfits on the planet said, Okay, look,
the best we can do is make sure we have
(16:32):
some of these toys. We can monitor broadcasts. We'll try
to learn what we can. A couple of us, the
big dogs, we can evolve technology to jam some of
these signals. But is it worth the effort? You know,
it becomes a thing where it's like a curiosity, it's
like a novelty for most people, and it spacks of
(16:54):
the Cold War. So it became a team of quiet
intel guys and like hardcore civilian enthusiast, like an outfit
we love called prem They just listen in until quite recently,
earlier this year, there's a new development in town. We've
all heard of UB seventy six, But what about this
(17:16):
V thirty two and why is it in Farsi? Again?
Speaker 5 (17:22):
Oh, oh, guys, forgive me, I don't know about UB
seventy six.
Speaker 6 (17:26):
I don't quite remember. What is this again?
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Oh, let's play a clip. You want to clip?
Speaker 5 (17:31):
Yeah, I'm looking at it on YouTube and it's like
a spectrum analyzer anything.
Speaker 6 (17:34):
Let's say out here.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
And here we go. We'll do a radio voice. This
one goes out to all the assets, stay war, be safe?
Speaker 4 (17:44):
Does three of you?
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Yeah, and we'll stop it there? Absolute banger, right, So.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
Yeah, what's the context of that one?
Speaker 2 (18:11):
So this comes to us immediately after a fairly recent
conversation between Vladimir Putin and current US President Donald Trump.
What we heard there was staticy shortwave and the repetition
of four names. The message goes on, that's Nikolai, Zenya
takyana Ivan. So if you have your little pad, you
(18:36):
know what that means. You know which page to go to,
which line to go to, right, Also, you know which
encryption key to use it g it's so crazy. It's
it's old, but it's still happening now. And there are
plenty of other examples.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
Oh yeah, you can find so many of these online
this same prim source prim dot org p R y
O M. You can find all kinds of different number stations.
And if you go down those rabbit holes. One of
the stations I was most interested in was one that
was being broadcast from the island of Cuba into the
United States. And I think this is one of the
things that people often don't think about, guys, just how
(19:11):
powerful a radio broadcast signal can be and how far
that signal can travel. I know, if you travel around
the United States at all, listening to AMFM radio or something,
you know, if you go a certain distance, you lose signal.
You can't hear it anymore because where it's being from,
where it's being broadcast, that signal is too weak for
your receiver to like get it right. But with some
(19:33):
of these number stations, the signal is so powerful it
can travel all the way across the water from Cuba
into let's say, Florida or something like that, and someone
who's in Florida can hear it just fine. And it's
good to go. So here's just one more as an
example before we get into the primary one we're examining today.
Here's just a quick sample of one titled h M
(19:54):
zero one, which was first heard in twenty twelve in November.
Ohob Chako. There you go, just a little bit that
it's just some numbers, right, It doesn't seem that scary
when you're just hearing it like that and you don't
(20:15):
know what it is.
Speaker 5 (20:16):
I don't know, man, I find it all a little scary,
just the repetition of it. It almost has this quality
of an incantation in a way to me, to my ears,
like there's something spooky about it. And that's why I
think that Wilco sample is so neat, because on the
one hand, it's like the way it's deployed on the record,
(20:37):
it's sort of during this moment of like chaos that's
sort of in the middle of a song when it
goes into this kind of noise section, and it just
gives this kind of sense of like honease. And there's
something about the repetition of it and the sort of
monotone delivery that makes me feel like there's some something.
Speaker 6 (20:57):
Spooky going on.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
I understand they agree, and this is this brings us
to the heart of our episode tonight. All this Cold
War stuff did continue in the modern day, maybe the
larger public wasn't paid as much attention to it. This
brings us to our biggest question, what is the so
called V thirty two and why is it in Farsi.
(21:21):
We'll be back afterword from our sponsors. Here's where it
gets crazy.
Speaker 6 (21:47):
Daring.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Yeah, yeah, it's like the uh it reminds me of
to your point about incantation there. It reminds me of
the film Skeleton Key, which made great use of a
creepy recording, or also our old story about the Hungarian
suicide song. You know, there's something creepy, Like you're saying,
(22:13):
there's something creepy about that repetition and the uptick. What
you just heard there, folks, is a clip of V
thirty two. V thirty two is played in the Farsi language.
You are going to hear a male voice, which is,
as we said, an interesting anomaly already that recites seemingly
random numbers in the Persian language. In Farsi, we have
(22:38):
no discernible pattern of the cluster of numbers the order
of numbers, any purported mathematical relationship between them. We know
that it started on February twenty eighth, twenty twenty six,
about twelve hours after the US and Israel began bombing Iran.
(22:58):
After you hear the numbers, then you'll hear a voice
the same, the presumably the same male voice, say uh
to vajo, excuse our FARSI. We'll say it three times.
I had it in the notes, asked twice, but it's
it's thrice.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
Can we hear that, Ben, I'd love to hear what
that sounds.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Like for sure. Here is here's where he sayed it.
So we think you say this word three times over
the length of the of the broadcast. It sounds like
this numbers there we go, so million numbers. See ah,
(23:48):
So it's like again, it's like a tama or semi colon.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
I'm going to go on record that thing you were
talking about as an anomaly of as a male voice.
I think it is harder to understand in in the
frequencies coming over the radio with so much white noise.
Speaker 6 (24:04):
And low, things tends to be, you know, a little harder.
They get a little more garbled.
Speaker 5 (24:10):
High crisp kind of like literally, higher pitched things are
just easier to clock, you know, easier to interpret.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
Oh and this is a seven hundred seven nine one
zero k eight. That's that's the old frequency. Yeah, that's
the old frequency. It's on a different frequency now as
far as we can tell. Oh, if it changed, Yeah,
it's very easy to switch it. Yeah. Oh we should
tell you this folks. That that word that we were
spending some time on it is the Farsi word for attention.
(24:41):
So it's like random number, you know, five nine eight
eight seven zero three one attention and then the same thing.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
Geez, that's ominous.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
It's like Noel said, it's like an incantation.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
And it is been an assumption that the many of
the world's experts and we as well are making that
we're connecting this to the Iran conflict, right, We're we're
because of the timing, we have to think that it
is connected, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
Absolutely.
Speaker 6 (25:16):
Isn't that as confirmation bias though too? I mean, like
you don't we don't really know.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Right, but you don't.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
It's almost like if you don't make that connection and
believe that it's somehow connected, I would say the thinking
is you're gonna miss something if you don't at least
pretend like it's connected.
Speaker 5 (25:32):
And guys, isn't the whole deal with these number stations
and the history of them, and the thing that we've
discussed is that they're all kind of a mystery box.
Speaker 6 (25:39):
Or what's like a like there's not it's not like
it's one to one.
Speaker 5 (25:42):
Where like we know exactly what this transmission was connected
to and you know it's because it's all encrypted.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Right, so you can you could have any number of
purported motives. And really, even now in twenty twenty six,
with massive breakthroughs in surveillance technology, there's still a lot
of leaf reading, a lot of black box guessing. I mean,
we look, we don't know what V thirty two calls
itself or its operators call it. The name V thirty
(26:11):
two is from another group of civilian enthusiasts, a British
based group called Enigma two thousand. Enigma two thousand, they're
the ones who started calling this V thirty two on
March third, like a few days after it after it
emerged in the world. And like you were saying, no,
(26:32):
we have to look at the correlation and maybe there
is confirmation bias. Here the pattern and template of this station,
the way it broadcasts generally in the early morning and
generally in the early evening, so usually about twice a day,
a little less than twice a day. This feels exactly
(26:53):
like a number station straight out of the Cold War.
But things didn't go well on March fourth. They started
getting jammed.
Speaker 3 (27:04):
Mmm.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
They're as hard to hear, but now they.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
Impossible, you can, can you guys see this image? I
totally see somebody getting home from their day job. They
live alone, they're single. They just go down into their
basement where they've got a giant setup with different radios
and different like signal interpreters and things like that, and
they just turn all the stuff on. It's all analog
and old and they're just down there sweeping through signals.
(27:30):
This is what they do. And they just make notes
on what they're hearing on different signals, and then they
hear this right, and then they send they send a
signal out to other folks who are like also into
this kind of thing, say hey, did anybody is anybody
else picking this up? Getting this? And then they get
to hear it for a couple of days and all
of a sudden, what I guess you would just hear
(27:51):
like static noise that on that same frequency if it's
being jammed.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
Oh, it's yeah, it's it's worse, dude, because it's the
they're using what we call a bubble jammer. So it
makes not just static, not just to see a noise,
it makes a hoffiness, catterwall, the kind of stuff where
if you heard it, it's like when we log on
and one of our microphones is too high, you'll hear
(28:16):
it and you'll be like, oh.
Speaker 3 (28:18):
Oh yeah. So it's essentially you're instead of stopping the signal,
you're overwhelming that channel with more signal.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
Yes, yeah, and you're kind of attacking the people who are,
for one reason or another listening. And Dylan, thanks for
the beep on that s word. So we know bubble
jammers are a Cold War relic, right, because in the
heyday of the USSR, everybody in the Soviet sphere of
(28:49):
influence would be familiar with this technology. It's what the
authorities use to stop people living in the Soviet realm
from hearing uncensored or unapproved messages from the West, like
hearing US reports or British reports, and they also right
(29:10):
Voice of America, Radio Free Iran, et cetera. They they
were censoring these international news ops and also rock music.
So like Elvis Presley fell to the bubble jammer. This
is a wild time. It always reminds me, guys of
our ridiculous history episode about still Yagi.
Speaker 5 (29:30):
Yes, the still Yagi being the what is it polish
like hipsters and they're weird. Bone Records Matt he loved this,
like literally, yeah, the the x ray x rays discarded
from hospitals, and they would like use a lathe to
cut bootleg vinyl recordings into these that could be played
(29:50):
a handful of times because the material was so thin
and crappy.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
They aren't most records. Bone Records indeed, give you.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
A bone to we'll keep it in. So okay, So
they got jammed right Cacoffin. It's terrible stuff. Your ears
are bleeding when you hear this bubble jammer. The transmissions
get stymied for a second, but not permanently because whomever
is transmitting this eventually just hits the knob, hits the dial,
(30:22):
hits the knob, and they switch to a different frequency.
This time it's seven eight four to two killer hurts.
Oh yeah, yeah, you could.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
Just change your broadcast frequency. And then I guess if
you've got somebody on the receiving end and they know
that your signal is coming, you just now spin your
dial until you get to the right one.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
I mean, I'm sure they have a contingency plan. That's
how it actually works. Like, if not this, then go
do go to this one. If not A, then B
and so on to Z. But I love picturing you guys.
The most effective way for them to get the new
signal out is to have like a crop uster airplane,
those little skyrider guys, and they've just got you know,
(31:04):
a flag or they put out the vapor and all
of a sudden, for a few hours it just says
seven eight four to two in the sky. That would
be cool. I've been getting really into, have you, guys. Matt.
You live a little north of Nola myself, So in
your neck of the woods, do you see a lot
of airplanes with signs.
Speaker 3 (31:26):
No beaches of the Florida Panhan.
Speaker 5 (31:30):
The same thing free beach city man. Yeah, I was
signed city planes dragging this sign. Also, have you ever
been to the beach where you see literally a billboard
on a on a ship.
Speaker 6 (31:40):
Yes, that's a lot of fun.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
Those trucks that are just a flat screen basically on
both sides in.
Speaker 6 (31:48):
The middle, Yeah, there's nothing in it.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
It's just very common in Atlanta, and we should look
into advertising with them, now that I think about it.
Why not? Maybe they like you drive the truck too.
Speaker 6 (32:01):
Out there causing recks.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
So I still I haven't looked into this. This is
gonna be the weekend for me. But as I'm pursuing
this pilot license stuff, I gotta figure out how those
planes land with the sign dragging behind them.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
Dude, Ben, look just as your friend, be careful getting
yourself in and around any small prop planes. I don't
know if you've seen frequency of small prop planes going down.
Speaker 6 (32:31):
Sorry you said frequency and I was thinking radio stuff. No, yeah, there,
it does seem like that's been in the news a.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
Lot, unless you are in full control of that plane
the entire time, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
The Cessena has ever been a fickle mistress?
Speaker 3 (32:44):
Yes, talk about people finding your Cessna while it's parked
somewhere and then.
Speaker 5 (32:50):
Smoking cigs in it.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
For joy ride, the dropping it off, but also doing
some routine maintenance Yeah, that's really thoughtful.
Speaker 6 (32:59):
Joy.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
This is radio warfare in the case of V thirty two,
Because we know that experts, people like I can Fernandez
I was written tons about this. We know that the boffins,
the smartest folks we know, at least in the civilian sphere,
have immediately clocked this as an adversarial situation, meaning one
(33:23):
party is making the signal and another party is jamming it,
and the question becomes who has that jelly jam technology?
The US could do it, right, That would maybe mean
that the signal was coming from Iran. But then it
could be that the US is transmitting it and Iran
(33:44):
is jamming it. We don't know.
Speaker 3 (33:47):
Oh, that's an interesting I simply because it's in Farsi.
Perhaps I stupidly imagine that it would be coming from Iran,
but it would make sense. We know how important the
role of translation has been, especially when we hear stories
about the war in Afghanistan right back in the early
(34:10):
two thousands, and just how important that role was. And
now if you imagine that it could be the US
transmitting signals into Farsi speaking forces, even perhaps to translators
that are then giving signals to the military. But that
it doesn't make as much sense to me.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
None of it really does. That's the sticky wicket. That's
our bag of badgers here, because we're asking who's responsible, right,
who's transmitting this, who's trying to jam it up? The
issue is that the jammers and the transmitters, who we're
assuming are two different groups, right, And that's itself an assumption.
(34:53):
They have committed themselves to secrecy, so we're not going
to have any official confirmation from any government until a
lot of time has passed, because if you reveal your
hand on either side of that table, you're endangering the
success of your operation. And that's why the civilians come in,
like prem or Zgopa which I am not pronouncing correctly, Pream.
(35:17):
These guys, they have a widespread network and they're super dedicated.
They are the people who, like you were saying, get
home from work, go immediately to the basement or the attic,
and get with all their toys and start scanning, scanning
the airwaves. They said that because of the spread of
(35:38):
their voluntary network, they were able to triangulate the origin
of V thirty two to quote, somewhere in an area
encompassing northern Italy, Switzerland, Western Germany, Eastern France, Belgium and
the Netherlands. Yeah, and then other these other like these
(35:59):
easokaba guys i zy weird o kba they say it
comes from Israel or the Red Sea area or maybe
yeah Germany?
Speaker 6 (36:09):
WHOA right?
Speaker 3 (36:11):
How sweet is that?
Speaker 2 (36:13):
That means? That means it's that means one thing for sure,
despite being Farsia language, it is not originating on Iran
and soil.
Speaker 3 (36:23):
Oh that's funky, could it. I haven't imagined that this
could be another form of disinformation or you know, purposeful
misinformation or hey, look over here, spend some time and
resources trying to figure this out while yeah, yeah, like.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
Weeding out the resources. Yeah, because then if it's if
we're a raw and we're not doing this and we're
getting in trouble with it, then we have to dedicate finite,
limited resources of our own right to trying to uh
disentangle this this ball of yarn.
Speaker 3 (37:03):
Well, but couldn't it also be like, let's say, from
Germany and meant to signal groups that maybe cells that
exist throughout a bunch of European countries that do speak Farsi.
I mean, that's a possibility in any country, right, a
group that speaks whatever that language is or uses that
(37:24):
language at least for their key, because it could be
a group that does not speak Farsi, but they have
a key in Farsi.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
Right, Because we're we're just saying the word attention, and
then we're reading numbers, and the words for numbers are
some of the easiest things to memorize in almost any language,
if not pronounce, if not pronounce. So this this gets
so weird. So let's take another pause for a word
from our sponsors. Be beep, beep, beep, and will be
(37:53):
it is Nickelodeon, and we'll be right. We've returned curiouser
and curious or so experts at first are doing the
logical thing, and they're saying, this is obviously Iranian intelligence.
The Middle East is beefed up again just because, like
(38:15):
you were saying earlier, just because the station does not
appear to be based in Iran doesn't mean they couldn't
still be running it, because the US does stuff like
this all the time. Radio free insert here, right, Voice
of America, Voice of YadA, YadA. This issue is the
(38:35):
bubble jammer, guys, because other suit and I say this
with such great respect and profound affection. Other very serious
radio nerds pointed out that the jammer and the techniques
of the jammer are quote exactly the same kind of
bubble jammer that is used against radio FARDA, Voice of America, Farsi,
(38:58):
Iran International TV Shortwave Relay, and BBC Farsi. These things,
these broadcasts have one aspect in common. The Iranian government
doesn't like them and they bubble jam them.
Speaker 3 (39:12):
Interesting.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
Right, So if it is coming from Iran, right, why
would someone take an established Iranian approach to stopping it.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
Hmmm. It's almost as though Iran doesn't want the signal air.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
Which makes you think, right, I mean this goes to
the theories. We love the theories folks plain part out
loud the United States, the popular theory. Uncle Sam activated
the station to, as we said earlier, to deploy it
as a way of sending coded messages to assets in
(39:48):
Iran or in Farsi speaking communities. That's totally possible. We've
talked about in the past. Uncle Sam's human or human
intelligence networks have been seriously devastated, especially in the past
the newest presidential administration because it compromises spying. We do
(40:10):
have Russian agents in high levels of government policy changes,
budget cuts, but we can't make the mistake. A beat
up giant is still a giant. Uncle Sam's spy game
is crazy. It's tough to find a word for how
sophisticated this operation is. So the US and some allies
(40:35):
living in Israel do probably have assets in various levels
of the Iranian government. I don't know. It's a question
for you guys. Do you think they're highly placed officials
or are they more like those deep cover Soviet spies
a la the show the Americans that they just live
a normal life and then they realize, you know, at
(40:57):
two o'clock UTC, I have to check in my secret radio.
Speaker 6 (41:01):
Ben I finally did it. I started using the Americans.
Speaker 2 (41:04):
I was going to ask you all air, what do
you think so far?
Speaker 6 (41:06):
It's great, Yeah, it's great.
Speaker 5 (41:08):
I'm a couple episodes in and boy, oh boy, that
that fellow is a is a.
Speaker 6 (41:13):
Young young lad. What was his name? Jonathan Reese Matthew rees.
Speaker 5 (41:18):
Anyway, he's great and I really dig the show, so
looking forward to digging further into it.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
Might not be one to watch with the kiddo as
the show. Yeah, just yeah, have you seen that show,
matt Yeah, yeah, it's.
Speaker 3 (41:34):
Just a little legs the intrigue and espionage and lying
and all that other stuff. I don't know. For a
little for a while there, it left a bad taste
in my mouth, but it is like again, Matthew Reese,
I think that is his name, and some of the
some of the characters, the actors on that show are
like super convincing. It's there are a lot of spy
(41:56):
shows nowadays, they're so ubiquitous, but I don't by a
lot of it. It's two double O seven sometimes to
to like, yeah when when it's gritty in the way
that Americans often is. I very much.
Speaker 6 (42:10):
Appreciate people are digging this show the Bureau. It's a
remake of a French.
Speaker 5 (42:15):
Show, but they also say that it's a little tinker
tailor soldier spy where it's kind of slow and icy
and not necessarily quite as you know, a high energy
and action packed to something like the Americans, So you
know whichever one you're into.
Speaker 2 (42:28):
I just remember being like to the point where I
got uncomfortable watching that with the girl I was dating
at the time, because they spent they have flashbacks where
they talked about training and the make it Real section.
Speaker 3 (42:44):
Yeah is oh gross, that's there's agreed wholeheartedly, Ben and
I know exactly what we're talking about. What you're feeling
in that moment.
Speaker 2 (42:54):
Stayed with both of us. I think, yep uh.
Speaker 3 (42:57):
But the the thing we learned in our spycraft exploration
a long time, I guess i'd been that long time.
We did multiple part series just on the craft of
it all, and one of the things we learned in
that exploration is the best spies you can possibly have
don't look like anybody that you wouldn't notice them in
a crowd. You wouldn't notice them in a crowd of
(43:18):
three people.
Speaker 6 (43:19):
They would be the.
Speaker 3 (43:20):
Person that your eyes just kind of glaze over. You
don't think about that person. Somebody in those three people
is going to be more interesting and stand out than
your asset.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
Which do you want to shlub? We all want to shlub. Yes,
it's like it's the best part, you know, But I
know exactly what we're saying, right, the blending end thing,
it's it's been mythologized and glamorized so often that we
do forget it is based on fact. It is happening now.
(43:50):
Human is still very much a real thing for some
countries more than others. So we like the US for this, right.
Maybe the US is doing this for some reason to
communicate with their assets, or their operators, or their whomever's
except that on March ninth, again, just a few days
after V thirty two came into being, ABC News over
(44:15):
on our side of the pond reported that the US
government had sent a what we used the was that
word earlier om they cast basically message to law enforcement,
raising concerns about intercepted encrypted communications. And the implication here
(44:35):
not to be too Dennis Reynolds about it, is that
Uncle Sam believed Iran was operating this station V thirty
two and that they were doing so to activate sleeper
agents abroad. That's what they seemed to be concerned about.
And we always have to, you know, we have to
be cautious with American news because you know, our government
(44:58):
purposely leaked stuff like this all the time. Dude.
Speaker 3 (45:01):
But you guys, remember we heard stories of how hard
Israel was pressing the United States to attack Iran. Right, yes,
so visits from Benjamin and Yahoo from other you know,
associates and government ministers attempting to sell this concept that
you have to attack Iran, something that has been attempted
(45:22):
to be sold to the United States for forty years longer.
And there needed to be that proof thing. There was
that whole proof thing that the US government was grappling
with before we invaded Afghanistan in Iraq. You remember the
yellow cake of it all. And you know, where's the proof?
(45:43):
What is the thing that would cause Congress in the
United States to be convinced we have to go to war.
I wonder if this kind of thing, this potential imminent threat,
could be weaponized against US lawmakers and an administration to
pressure them into going to war or at least, you know,
(46:04):
taking that first step of hot action.
Speaker 2 (46:06):
It's a great question, and it's totally within the bounds
of doctrine too, as crazy as it may sound. So
you're absolutely nailing it there. Because the other theory is,
of course, you've got us as one. But the next
theory is Israel. I mean, oh yeah, long time arch
nemesis in the region. Both Israel and Iran have deeply
(46:29):
controversial reputations in the Middle Eastern theater. Both of those
governments hate each other forever, and both ultimately want to
be the sole superpower in the region. They attack each
other through all manners of paths. You know, we know
about the drones, we know about the missiles, we know
(46:50):
about spy level stuff like what was that cyberware stuck stead.
Speaker 6 (46:55):
Right, Yeah, and they say mean things publicly and.
Speaker 2 (46:58):
They say in me they're so dude, see each other. Guys.
Speaker 3 (47:02):
Both countries arguably sponsor you know, the T word is
used terrorists, but they sponsor third parties that carry proxies,
that carry out actions against each other. And that is
both sides. We have seen this. So just if you forget,
like there's just a lot of stuff happening that nobody
(47:23):
sees the actual hand that rocks the cradle.
Speaker 2 (47:28):
That was hoping would do it great, But you.
Speaker 3 (47:32):
Don't see the actual you know, the government agency or
the government entity coming through and setting those actions in motion.
You see the effects afterwards.
Speaker 2 (47:42):
Right, And then maybe you hear cryptic performative statements like
it's no secret that the these governments have attempted and
successfully carried out assassination operations on each other. You know
what is right. We have an entire episode about this
Israel openly assassinating politicians, military leaders, civilian scientists, and it's
(48:08):
their greater good argument is that they have to do
this because Iran is so close. For decades, they've been
so close the building a nuclear weapon, and we don't
have any Samson. Uh yeah, tune in for that episode
(48:28):
if we could keep the show going, Oh, Mordecai, So
I would watch that show. I would watch a sitcom
spy thriller called No Dude, Stop It.
Speaker 6 (48:43):
I love it so much.
Speaker 2 (48:44):
It's his real name. So is it like Monk?
Speaker 1 (48:47):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (48:47):
I don't know. I don't know why the name just
gives giving monk.
Speaker 2 (48:51):
Yeah, Oh Mordecai. Still like these guys, h History is proven, right,
It makes sense from both country's perspective subjectively, because history
is proven that once you get a nuclear bomb, even
if you can't really deploy it successfully like North Korea,
even if it doesn't work that well like some other countries,
(49:13):
test other world powers are going to treat you extremely differently, right,
and they will give you some real sloppy butt kisses
if they can step. If that means they take the
bomb away from you, right, They'll they'll do a lot of.
Speaker 6 (49:33):
Sloppy butt kisses or something different.
Speaker 2 (49:35):
That's the secret thing.
Speaker 3 (49:37):
Yeah, another thing Satan makes you do sloppy butt kisses.
Speaker 6 (49:41):
I think it is.
Speaker 2 (49:41):
We're coming up with a lot of weird guys. So
the R word, yeah, that's a rim shot, a different thing.
It's the other thing. It's the real Swedish rhapsody. Uh
So I ran of course, like any other country. It
(50:04):
says their nuclear research is totally peaceful and if you
don't agree with them, then you're lying because you want
to justify further aggression against us. But like the US,
there's a lot of motivation for Israel to run V
thirty two because they are more than capable of doing
the transmitting and the jamming if they wanted to do so.
(50:25):
We still don't know. I mean guys, people are saying
maybe turkeys up in the mix, and someone says why,
and they're like, I don't know. They're in the neighborhood.
They don't like Iran. I don't trust her to goan
how much get a radio cost?
Speaker 3 (50:43):
It could be a third party alliance of some sort.
Yeh man, it's weird and it is weird too. There's
such a large conflict happening right now in Ukraine. Right,
and just that happening simultaneously in how large that war
is and the conflict is, and then how far spread
that has become when it comes to third party states, countries,
(51:05):
even you know, massive organizations stepping in and providing weapons
or providing defense and all these other things. There's just
so much at play. Ben, I gotta tell you, I'm
I am now more and more convinced that it's some
kind of false false It's not necessarily a false flag
(51:28):
because there's no flag involved here, right, necessarily the resources,
because it does feel like the kind of thing that
would would be so threatening to those groups and those
human beings that are aware of how threatening this could be.
Speaker 2 (51:44):
That's a great point. Yeah, that's a brilliant point, just
like the point that because something is in Farsi language
does not mean Farsi speakers are the intended audience. Right.
It also brings it reminds me of the idea of
an exile opposition group, right, people who left Iran and
(52:04):
became part of the diaspora. Right. And maybe now we
live in Germany or thereabouts, and because.
Speaker 3 (52:12):
From Cuba, and then we're hanging out in Texas just
for a little while in sixty three.
Speaker 2 (52:17):
Just checking in? What just checking in? You know, I mean,
it could be. It could be, especially due to the
internet blackouts as as Iran encountered more and more chaos.
It could be that these are an expact group of
Iranian nationals who are trying to maintain contact with their
(52:38):
compatriots who are still in the country. But if they're
doing that, the issue is that a lot of people
don't like talk about. The issue is that if you
are running an unsanctioned transmission operation of this kind, most
countries are going to be very good at catching you,
(53:00):
and they want to do that because they want to
keep their channels clean. Right, So if the if there
is an opposition group, and if they're doing it and
they're not part of an official government, that means wherever
they are based, some faction of that government has approved it,
like they have at least given them tacit nod and
(53:22):
a wink stuff. Right, they're not going to Maybe they
don't have big shiny monuments or metals on their lapels,
but someone's letting them do it. Interesting, curious, A're and
curious here this is such a weird one.
Speaker 3 (53:40):
Man, this is going to be thinking all night, just
like all these different possibilities we brought up. Gosh, I'm
still leaning towards the yellow cake man.
Speaker 2 (53:51):
I you know what, what's your guys opinion on cake?
Speaker 6 (53:55):
You can eat it too. Apparently you can have it
and eat it too.
Speaker 2 (53:58):
Yeah, just buy two gakes. I never understood that. But
the tangencies I here. You know, it's such a big question.
It's not going mystery. It probably won't be officially confirmed
so long as this current conflict continues. And the weird
(54:18):
thing is, if all of the sudden there was sustainable,
lasting peace in the Middle East and all the countries
and all the communities there were happy, the people who
jammed V thirty two and the people who created V
thirty two are still never going to talk about it
until like decades later, because it's so tough to get
(54:41):
something that reliably works in this environment, in this vocation,
that once you have something that works, you'll do everything
you can to keep it going, you know, like no
no offense, but like you're awesome. Vintage synthesizers.
Speaker 6 (54:57):
Oh geez, I only I have the one, but.
Speaker 2 (55:00):
Well that one, that's the one I'm talking about.
Speaker 6 (55:02):
Yeah, No, I didn't just have two of them, and
I had to what's the word.
Speaker 5 (55:06):
Cannibalize parts from one to make the other one a
whole usable synthesize.
Speaker 2 (55:12):
So because the yeah, you do whatever you can to
keep it going. So even if it's all you know,
kumbai a and trumpets and angel farts.
Speaker 6 (55:21):
Or pulling out someone's guts, whatever you gotta do.
Speaker 2 (55:23):
Or blood eagling, if that's what it takes you get
to these What I'm saying is, even if there's lasting peace,
the mystery of V. Thirty two is not going to
be solved because the people who made it, the people
who are successfully conducting this conspiracy, they want to keep
it in their back pocket just in case they have
(55:44):
to crack open the book again, you know. Oh by
the way, guys, as we're ending, I just want to
share this. Remember I can't remember what airport we were
stranded at, but I wrote down like fifty eight to
sixty nickname pitches for you guys, for you know them,
(56:05):
for you, Matt. This is the origin of Maddie two hands.
I found him. Look at all these posit folks.
Speaker 6 (56:13):
This is history right here, folks, This is history.
Speaker 2 (56:16):
Not all these are great. I don't know about three times, amen,
brother and young Poplock.
Speaker 6 (56:22):
Young Poplock is fine.
Speaker 2 (56:24):
You like that one? Yeah?
Speaker 6 (56:25):
Or you know what.
Speaker 5 (56:26):
I for some reason it's inspiring me to to add
and just go go places.
Speaker 6 (56:29):
Young Pavlov love it.
Speaker 2 (56:32):
I think I've been conditioned to love it.
Speaker 6 (56:34):
But I love you sure have. Thank you, Ben, Thank you,
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (56:38):
Sir, Ben, Aluminum tubes. Brown.
Speaker 2 (56:42):
There it is there, it is Okay, shout out to
the squickler. All right, we're not going and Matt tray you.
I like Matt trayou and of course you know all
the backman Brown. Yeah, that's it for us today. We
would love to hear your thoughts, folks. The origin of
E thirty two. It's intended audience, it's actual operators, it's
(57:03):
actual objectives. That is very much the stuff they don't
want you to know. Unless, Hey, if you started V
thirty two and you're comfortable kicking it with us, find
us on the lines, give us a call, send us
an email. We would love to chat with.
Speaker 6 (57:17):
You by all means.
Speaker 5 (57:18):
Do find us and let us know what you think
about all the things you can reach out to the
handle conspiracy stuff or conspiracy stuff show on your social
media platform of choice.
Speaker 3 (57:27):
If you want to give us a call, it's very simple.
Just call one eight three three S, T d W,
why t K.
Speaker 2 (57:38):
Tavag no tvajo okay, t vajo, Hey noel, get a
sound fu to wrap up our number.
Speaker 6 (57:45):
Station thanky, how tall foxtrot?
Speaker 2 (57:48):
And yeah, you'd like to send us an email. We
are the entities to read each piece of correspondence we received.
Be well aware, yet unafraid. Sometimes the void writes back
five seven eight three, thank you. Nine Tonight I said
I'd write a poem, I wrote a hire commercial instead.
For those of you who know what it means, it's
(58:08):
go time conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 3 (58:29):
Stuff they don't want you to know. Is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know News
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Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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