Still from the Wyoming Incident (2006). Image Source: Crushable.
Explore the faked and the unexplained in the mass media and you enter a realm which is one part crime and one part law enforcement, where disinformation mingles identity theft with social control, vigilantism and espionage.
Image Source: imgur.
"A computer-generated 10-year-old Filipina called
'Sweetie' was used to identify over 1,000 child sex predators around
the world. An Australian man has become the first person convicted from
the operation, the rights group behind it said." (2014) Image Source: Business Insider.
Fake identities and Internet stings give way to the unaccountable. There are things out there on the Web which are just 'out there,' with no explanation. Some are anonymous experiments in mass communications. Post something weird, see what happens. What kinds of urban legends form? How quickly? From reddit:
Some people post frightening material to trick the unsuspecting. Take the Wyoming incident in 2006 and 2007, in which pranksters posted cryptic videos with frightening messages (see below). These videos supposedly carried forward footage from an earlier television broadcast signal intrusion onto the new medium of the Interent. Speculation on the meanings and origins of the videos went viral, and a strange blog, Unknown Videos - Warning, joined in the fun before it turned out that the clips of earlier television hacking and the new videos online were faked. You can read the account of the incident on Crushable here. If you want to explore more bizarre faked online horror, visit the Website Creepy Pasta - the term refers to creepy stories which float around the Interwebs. Note: some viewers may find the videos below the jump to be disturbing.
The Wyoming Incident - Original Upload (2006). Video Source: Youtube.
Second video in the Wyoming Incident: Weird Video I Found (2007). Video Source: Youtube.
The extremely nasty video below, Experiment.vhs, samples the Wyoming Incident and adds other material from numbers stations. A Youtuber comments:
Numbers shortwave radio stations feature unusual buzz tones, synthesized voices and lists of codes. From reddit's Unresolved Mysteries:
UVB-76 is a number station from the cold war era. Number stations have unusual broadcasts such as a read list of numbers or gibberish morse code sequences. UVB is more commonly known as the buzzer as it broadcasts a short monotonous buzz tone 24 hours a day. Occasionally the buzzer ceases and a Russian voice transmission takes place. UVB is not an isolated incident however, since WW1 number stations have been used as a means of relaying information in a coded format. The use of numbers stations peaked during the cold war and it is believed by some that these stations served as a dead man's switch in the case of Nuclear war. This is a subject that I find very interesting due to the fact we know so little about the stations and their true purpose. If you are interested in reading further I recommend looking at the Lincolnshire Poacher) and Yosemite Sam) for more examples of numbers stations.
Experiment.vhs. Video Source: Youtube.
Numbers stations investigated by Truthloader. Video Source: Youtube.
Shortwave Radio Oddity Roundup (2013). Video Source: Youtube.
Lincolnshire Poacher Numbers Station. Video Source: Youtube.
BBC Radio 4 2005 Broadcast of Tracking The Lincolnshire Poacher. Video Source: Youtube.
Caption for the above video: "BBC Radio's Simon Fanshawe embarks on a detective journey into the clandestine world of radio cryptography and attempts to solve one of the most unusual broadcast mysteries of all time.
The phenomenon of so-called number stations, mysterious shortwave radio broadcasts that seem to exist only to transmit spoken-word numbers, snippets of weird songs and enigmatic codes, is a genuine mystery.
Exactly who is broadcasting these transmissions and why is unknown. One theory holds that the transmissions are part of espionage efforts by the intelligence agencies of different countries, another, that they are the work of organized drug smugglers, while still another claims that they are actually communications between extraterrestrial space aliens! (One commentator on an Internet message board ... referred to them as 'the aural equivalent of crop circles').
The espionage theory seems to be the most plausible. Akin Fernandez, creator of The Conet Project CD, states that, 'Shortwave numbers stations are a perfect method of anonymous, one way communication. Spies located anywhere in the world can be communicated to by their masters via small, locally available, and unmodified shortwave receivers. The encryption system used by numbers stations, known as a "one time pad" is unbreakable. Combine this with the fact that it is almost impossible to track down the message recipients once they are inserted into the enemy country, it becomes clear just how powerful the numbers station system is. While shortwave radio buffs have been aware of them for years, the number station phenomenon remains largely unheard of by the general public.'"
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