symbolic 41: the numbers stations
The most widely available history lesson of the Numbers Stations is the Conet Project, a four CD package released by Irdial Discs. The project contains a good overview of what the stations are in their extensive liner notes as well as the actual recordings of the transmissions which make up the four CD collection. The Stations are shortwave transmitters -- and some have actually been found -- that, on occasion, spark to life and spit out streams of numbers. And, as you can hear on the CDs, the numbers have presence: someone, somewhere, is reading these sequences of digits. To whom? And why? Well, that's the question no government will answer.
The Stations operate without any apparent licenses or support structure. They can be there one day, bleeding regularly into the airwaves, and then gone the next, silent for years before starting up again. The British Government, when finally cornered about the existence of one of the stations emanating from the island, relented and said that yes, they knew about it, but the rest pertained to national security.
The transmissions are most likely some type of one-time pad encryption. One-time pads, if used correctly, are still the most low-tech and unbreakable cipher code system there is. Most cipher systems over the years have been broken because of human error or because the opposition has gotten their hands on a copy of the codebook or key word which enables them to get a handle on the permutation of the cipher. But one-time pads, by their definition, are used once and discarded. And, if you don't have the same combination of letters and numbers, you will never know what the translated text truly is.
The only person who will know is the listener who has their own copy of the one-time pad and who can reverse the substitution. So who's listening? That's the beauty of the shortwave transmission. It could be anyone with a radio tuned to the proper frequency.
They've been running since World War II. People have been talking behind all of our backs for over fifty years. Wonder what they are saying? Georges Maratres and the Lunar Society wondered. Most of them are dead now and Georges has been in a tiny room for several decades, putting his brain back together. And the stations are still talking.
76798 66932 73833 28472 69327 66587
76798 66932 85786 86982 32877 37676
end
writing
This is a reasonably comprehensive list of my published work, both virtual and physical.
THE MISFIT LIBRARY
I am Nine of Thirteen, one of the members of the Misfit Library, a writing collective which puts out a quarterly journal of our respective work. We are scattered across the globe and determined to change the face of the planet one story at a time. The link above will take you to Misfit Central where you can acquire copies of the journal as well as read exclusive online material.
SYMBOLIC
I wrote a column for OPi8.com's Transmit blogs: journals of the new dark underground. SYMBOLIC tracked the novel I was working on, referencing the process and the research materials which mad up the backbone of the work. In addition, SYMBOLIC busied itself with ruminations and considerations on the nature of language and communication. And a wee bit of mythology. The first 100 entries of SYMBOLIC can be found here on this site as well as at OPi8.com.
LITERARY REPRESENTATION
I am represented by Scribe Agency as my literary agents. Please contact these gentleman if you have any queries about my work.