I’ve Been Thunderstruck

"Want me to get mad at you?"

That was the question a woman asked her approximately 3 year old daughter in Fatburger today during lunch. Her daughter was doing the normal things a 3 year old do at a fast food establishment…climbing on the seats, sliding under the table, generally being a young girl with little impulse control as most 3 year olds are. Nothing that any reasonable parent would think bad.

It left me wondering what kind of answer she expected from her daughter.

"Yes, mom, could you please get really made at me? Perhaps give me a nice spanking here in the restaurant?"

"No…please don’t beat me like you usually do!"

"Yes…I like the shade of red on your face when you get furious at me!"

"No…I understand you’re angry at me, and I promise to stop what I’m doing immediately."

Her mom probably expected the latter, while the reality of the situation is that it’s probably a mix of the first three. But, anyway you cut it, the question is as dumb as this post is. No real point to it, other than to illustrate another odd human interaction.

Recently I came across an article at wikipedia about Numbers Stations. I don’t recall how I got there…whether it was a link from somewhere else, of if I stumbled there, but there I was, reading about “shortwave radio stations of uncertain origin.” Apparently they broadcast voices reading strings of numbers, words, letters, tunes or morse code.

This totally reminds me of “Lost.”

I continue reading.

The voices that can be heard on these stations are often mechanically generated. They are in a wide variety of languages, and the voices are usually women’s, though sometimes men’s or children’s voices are used.

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, Cuban numbers station espionage has been publicly prosecuted in a United States federal court.^[1]

Numbers stations appear and disappear over time (although some follow regular schedules), and their overall activity has increased slightly since the early 1990s. This increase suggests that as spy-related phenomena, they were not unique to the Cold War.

This is one of the most spooky things I have heard of in a long time. I had to have a listen. So I scrolled down to the end of the article, found an external link, and ultimately found a recording for “The Lincolnshire Poacher.”

Weird stuff, huh?!

Back to the article, I learned some more:

According to the notes of The Conet Project,^[2] numbers stations have been reported since World War I. If accurate, this would make numbers stations among the earliest radio broadcasts.

It has long been speculated, and was argued in court in one case, that these stations operate as a simple and foolproof method for government agencies to communicate with spies working under cover (sometimes literally^[3]). 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 coincident with extraordinary political events, such as the August Coup.^{[citation needed]}

Others speculate that some of these stations may be related to illegal drug smuggling operations.^[4] 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. However, numbers stations have transmitted with impunity for decades, so they are generally presumed to be operated or sponsored only by governments. Also, numbers station transmissions in the international shortwave bands typically require high levels of electric power that is unavailable to ranches, farms, or plantations in isolated drug-growing regions.

Although no broadcaster or government has acknowledged transmitting the numbers, a 1998 article in The Daily Telegraph quoted a spokesperson for the Department of Trade and Industry (the government department that, at that time, regulated radio broadcasting in the United Kingdom) as saying, “These [numbers stations] are what you suppose they are. People shouldn’t be mystified by them. They are not for, shall we say, public consumption.”^[7] Listening to numbers stations in the UK is illegal under Section 48 of the Wireless Telegraphy Act 2006 , so it is unlikely you could get official permission to listen to them; however, it is unlikely that the legislation would be used to prosecute those who listen to the stations privately. Indeed, one could argue that a listener could not be prosecuted for listening to stations that officially do not exist and in any case, operate illegally on frequencies not allocated to them by the ITU.

I don’t know about you, but this stuff strikes me as very, very odd. Couple this with my earlier post about mirrors on the moon, and, I tell you, I’ve come to realize just how much about the world we live in I don’t know. There are some many strange things going on out there that we have absolutely no idea about. Do you know something? Post a comment and I’ll check it out!

I was doing some research today to come up with a new post, and came across this article that has a long list of strange facts about the moon. Here is a sample:

1. Water Vapor: On March 7, 1971, lunar instruments placed by the astronauts recorded a vapor cloud of water passing across the surface of the moon. The cloud lasted 14 hours and covered an area of about 100 square miles.
2. Magnetic Rocks: Moon rocks were magnetized. This is odd because there is no magnetic field on the moon itself. This could not have originated from a “close call” with Earth—such an encounter would have ripped the moon apart.
3. No Volcanoes: Some of the moon’s craters originated internally, yet there is no indication that the moon was ever hot enough to produce volcanic eruptions.
4. Moon’s Age: The moon is far older than previously expected. Maybe even older than the Earth or the Sun. The oldest age for the Earth is estimated to be 4.6 billion years old; moon rocks were dated at 5.3 billion years old, and the dust upon which they were resting was at least another billion years older.

There are quite a few more interesting facts about that lunar landscape we see almost every night. Give the article a read and you might find something interesting to share at your next party!

If you have a few extra moments, check out the root web site where these facts came from…Informant News. I’m sure the articles here will lead to quite a few more blog posts!

Following up on my post from the other day, where I talked about mirrors left on the moon for earth-based experiments, it seems that’s not the only thing that has been left on the moon through the years of our interaction with it. For example, if you landed in the Sea of Tranquility right now, you’d find:

1. Apollo 11 Lunar Module Descent Stage
2. Neil Armstrong’s Apollo Space Boots, Model A7L
3. Empty Food Bags
4. Tongs
5. Bulk Sample Scoop
6. Camera (Hasselblad El Data)
7. Medals Commemorating Two Dead Cosmonauts
8. Film Magazines
9. Food Assembly, LM (4 man days)
10. Urine collection assembly, large
11. Bag, Emisis
12. Footprint

This is just a small list of the items that are currently on the moon, awaiting pickup by a 21st century garbage truck! I can understand the reason those items needed to be left behind, lest the space capsule weigh too much to escape the moon’s gravity, but it sure seems a shame that we leave junk on the place outside of the earth we visit!

A more complete list of junk on the moon can be at the Lunar Legacy Project.

The post reads "[HOAX] ‘ET’ False Flag Operation to Begin in August [HOAX]," and I’ve got to admit, it’s both engaging and interesting. It’s engaging because of how the post starts…an admission by the original poster (OP) on how the post as a whole was a hoax…contrived as a study on how Internet hoaxes get started. He’s not apologetic in any way, as he believes he gave plenty of clues (which some people caught onto) which would lead an average reader to the conclusion the post was a hoax. If you start from this point in the forum, and read through many of the pages, you can’t help but be amazed by how many people got that it was a hoax, but, on the other hand, how many people bought into the whole thing. I read quite a few pages of the material, and was really quite mesmerized to read replies from people who believed the post in whole, people who weren’t sure what to believe (but wanted to believe), and others who really wanted to believe, but needed proof.

The string overall is interesting because it shows, to me at least, that conspiracy theories are alive and well in the world, and that people truly believe (or want to believe) that aliens from other planets have visited, and continue to visit, Earth. I could have easily followed dozens of related but tangent posts about supposed proof on what the OP had written. Simply amazing stuff.

For a look into the mind of what I believe to be a large segment of the population of the world, click on over to AboveTopSecret.com. There you’ll find theories on aliens, governments, and just about anything else you can think of. Taken with a realistic amount of skepticism, it’s quite interesting reading.