A Mysterious Numbers Station Is Broadcasting Through the Iran War

“Tavajoh! Tavajoh! Tavajoh!” a man’s dependable announces, earlier going connected to narrate a drawstring of numbers successful nary evident order, dilatory and rhythmically. After astir 2 hours, the calls of “Attention!” successful Persian stop, lone to resume again hours later.

The broadcast has been playing doubly a time connected a shortwave frequence since the commencement of the US-Israel onslaught connected Iran connected February 28.

According to Priyom, an enactment which tracks and analyses planetary subject and quality usage of shortwave radio, utilizing established radio-location techniques, the broadcast was archetypal heard arsenic the US bombing of Iran began. It has since played connected the 7910 kHz shortwave frequence similar clockwork—at 02.00 UTC and again astatine 18.00 UTC.

Over the weekend, Priyom said it had identified the apt root of the broadcast. Using multilateration and triangulation techniques, the radical traced the awesome to a shortwave transmission installation wrong a US subject basal successful Böblingen, southwest of Stuttgart, Germany.

The tract lies wrong a restricted grooming country betwixt Panzer Kaserne and Patch Barracks, with method operations perchance linked to the US army’s 52nd Strategic Signal Battalion, headquartered nearby.

That recognition narrows the field, but it does not uncover who is down the transmissions oregon who they are meant for.

The two-hour-long transmission is divided into 5 to six segments, each lasting up to 20 minutes. Each opens with “Tavajoh!” earlier shifting into a drawstring of numbers successful Persian, sometimes punctuated with an English connection oregon two. Five days into the broadcast, vigor jammers were heard attempting to artifact the frequency. The pursuing day, the transmission shifted to a antithetic frequency—7842 kHz.

Radio connection experts judge the broadcast is apt portion of a Cold War–era strategy known arsenic fig stations.

The Return of the Numbers

Number stations are shortwave vigor broadcasts that play strings of numbers oregon codes that dependable random—like the 1 present heard successful Iran. “It is an encrypted vigor connection utilized by overseas quality services, often arsenic portion of a analyzable cognition by quality agencies and militaries,” says Maris Goldmanis, a Latvian historiographer and avid numbers stations researcher.

Number stations are astir commonly associated with espionage. “For quality agencies, it is important to pass with their spies to stitchery intelligence,” says John Sipher, a erstwhile US quality serviceman who served 28 years successful the CIA’s National Clandestine Service. “This is not ever imaginable successful idiosyncratic owed to governmental constraints oregon conflict. This is wherever fig stations travel in.”

While the usage of fig stations tin beryllium traced backmost to the First World War, they gained prominence during the US-Soviet Cold War. As espionage grew much sophisticated, governments utilized automated dependable transmissions of coded numbers to pass with agents, Goldmanis says. Citing declassified KGB and CIA documents, helium adds that fig stations were wide utilized during this period, often arsenic Morse codification transmissions and, successful galore cases, arsenic two-way communications, with agents reporting backmost utilizing their ain shortwave transmitters.

“Nowadays, you person assorted outer and encrypted communications technologies,” Sipher says. “But during the Cold War and adjacent earlier that, governments had to find ways to bash this without being noticed, and broadcasting coded messages was 1 mode to pass with your assets discreetly.”

The evident randomness of the numbers means they tin beryllium understood lone with a codebook, Sipher adds. “Nobody tin marque heads oregon tails of it oregon recognize what it says unless you person the codebook that tin springiness you hints to decrypt the code,” helium says, noting that specified systems indispensable beryllium acceptable up and coordinated successful advance.

A Signal Without a Sender

While the apt root of the awesome whitethorn present beryllium clearer, its intent and intended recipient stay unknown.

Because the broadcasts are encrypted and designed to beryllium covert, those details whitethorn stay unclear for years, Goldmanis says. The structured quality of the transmission—its fixed docket and accordant usage of frequencies—further suggests it is portion of a planned operation.