In another bizarre case of life imitating art, Russia's 'Doomsday Radio' has us thinking of ABC's Lost. One of the early mysteries of the sci-fi series was a looping message from Danielle Rousseau, which replaced the previous broadcast of a series of numbers in a man's voice.
The writers were seemingly inspired by real-life events, with numbers stations actually existing as shortwave radio stations that are typically addressed to intelligence officers that are operating in foreign countries.
Since the mid-1970s, Russia's Doomsday Radio (officially known as UVB-76) has been broadcasting a constant buzzing tone, 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year. The noise is occasionally interrupted by a voice transmission in Russian, but mostly, the monotonous buzzing operates on a frequency of 4625 kHz. For decades, no one has really understood its origin or meaning.
It's thought that UVB-76 is a leftover of the Dead Hand system, which is an automatic or semi-automatic nuclear weapons control system from the Cold War. This is why it's earned its Doomsday Radio nickname.
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Either way, UVB-76 is located around 18 miles from Moscow and is widely considered part of a secret military communications network.
RT reports (via the Economic Times) that the Doomsday Radio transmitted two new codewords on September 8.
A transcript reveals how the message includes a list of Russian names (Nikolai, Zhenya, Tatyana, Ivan, Olga, Elena, and Leonid), a series of numbers (38, 965, 78, 58, 88, 37), and phrases that include "soft sign," "five signs," and "reception." RT also says there were two coded words of ‘NZHTI’ and ‘HOTEL'.
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The message previously changed on May 19, conveniently timed for when President Donald Trump was speaking with President Vladimir Putin. Back then, the Doomsday Radio transmitted, "NZhTI 89905 BLEFOPUF 4097 5573," joined a few hours later by a second message that said, "NZhTI 01263 BOLTANKA 4430 9529." During June's Israel-Iran missile strikes, the words 'PANIROVKA', 'KLINOK', and 'BOBINA' were transmitted.
Even though we don't know what the latest message chain means, note that 'NZHTI' is one that's been used before.
Speaking to Popular Mechanics in 2024, Professor David Stupples, a teacher of electronic and radio engineering at the City University of London, speculated: "It is almost certainly the Russian government that is using it. If it is the Russian government, it wouldn't be for peaceful purposes."
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Stupples thinks the station is being kept active in case something like a nuclear war causes a national communication loss, although its powerful nature means it could also be used as an emergency channel, adding: "They may be just reserving the channel for air defense or some form of defense.”
The Doomsday Radio continues to baffle. Originally starting as a series of beeps when monitoring began in 1982, it then switched to buzzes in 1992 and earned a nickname of 'The Buzzer'.
It has broadcast continuously since, although there was a bizarre incident where it stopped for a single day in 2010. There have also been snippets of Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake,” sounds of people moving around a room, a location change, and even a May 2020 broadcast of some French people. Chances are that the general public will never learn the true meaning of the Doomsday Radio, and to be honest, that could be a good thing.