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....Numbers stations are shortwave radio stations of uncertain origin. They generally broadcast people reading streams of numbers, words, or letters (sometimes using a phonetic alphabet).
The voices that can be heard on these stations are often mysterious: mechanically generated; spoken in a wide variety of languages; usually female, but sometimes male or those of children.
Evidence supports popular assumptions that the broadcasts are channels of communication used to send messages to spies. This has not been publicly acknowledged by any government that may operate a numbers station, but in one case, numbers station espionage has been publicly prosecuted by a foreign court.
It has long been speculated (and was charged in one case) that these stations operate as a simple and foolproof method for government agencies to communicate with spies "in the field". According to this theory, the messages are encrypted with a one-time pad, to avoid any risk of decryption by the enemy. As evidence, numbers stations have changed details of their broadcasts or produced "special", nonscheduled broadcasts in response to extraordinary political events, such as the Russian constitutional crisis of 1993.
Others speculate that some of these stations may be related to illegal drug smuggling operations. Unlike government stations, smugglers' stations would need to be lower powered and irregularly operated, to avoid location by triangulated direction-finding, followed by government raids. Since numbers stations typically require a large supply of electricity, and for decades they have collectively transmitted with impunity, they are presumed to be operated or sponsored by governments.
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