A New Spy Radio Signal Has Appeared. It's Broadcasting in Farsi.
A new shortwave numbers station appeared the day the bombs fell. Nobody knows who's running it.
A mysterious shortwave radio station began broadcasting strings of numbers in Farsi on the day Israel and the United States first struck Iran. It hasn't stopped since.
Numbers stations, as they’re known, have been used by intelligence services since World War I to communicate with agents in the field, but have become increasingly rare in the digital age. With the Internet shut down by authorities in Iran, this Cold War relic has found new life. According to one group of aficionados that tracks these age-old spy tools, it’s the first new numbers station in years.
A male voice in Farsi says, “Tavajoh! Tavajoh!” (Attention! Attention!) then reads groups of Persian numbers (like chahâr=4, shesh=6, hasht=8).
Listen here:
