Submitted without comment: Number Stations

[kingandy]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_stations

Comments

[ed-fortune.livejournal.com]

The background decoration of the Mark Thomas Produce was data from a number station, if I recall.

It's not illegal to do that, as it officially doesn't exisit. (tee hee)

[redhillian.livejournal.com]

It's also not illegal to do that, in the same way it's not illegal to paint a picture of a kitten and have it as your background.

'The Powers That Be' seem to care very little about number stations. They've become such a non-item, that Sub Brit's cold war study list has dropped them as a subject of discussion as they're jut not interesting anymore.

Interestingly, the wiki didn't have any mention of the theory that they're a distraction of some sort.

[amber-missy.livejournal.com]

I wonder if it was one of those we used to pick up on our walkie-talkies we used to play with as kids - we used to sit and listen to this weird voice, talking in a strange code, for hours!

[ash1977law.livejournal.com]

So cool!

[si-lloyd.livejournal.com]

There is a track on a recent Craig Armstrong album, entitled 'Waltz' that sounds like a 'numbers' station. Over the lacrymose music a female german mechanical-sounding voice repeats letters and grammatical signs and phrases. There are subtle changes in her tone as the music rises and falls, sometimes sounding desperate. At one peak of musical intensity she stumbles, then breaks out of her pattern and sings/cries 'I Miss You!' before returning back to her familiar pattern as the music dies down again. I found myself crying as I listened to it. When I analysed my emotional response I realised that she sounded trapped into her mechanical role by grief from a lost relationship. Then I cried again.

[annabellelaw.livejournal.com]

Wow - that sounds kind of intense!

[sarahlascelles.livejournal.com]

I'd never heard of these before, and reading the entry sent a shiver down my spine!

[si-lloyd.livejournal.com]

It is. I haven't been pretentious or sensitive enough to cry at music since I was 19, and then suddenly that comes along. Shocker.