A mysterious radio station that has broadcasted a monotone buzzing sound and the occasional odd voice for decades has left scientists baffled.
The shortwave radio station, found on frequency 4625 kHz, has been running for at least 50 years. It has been appropriately nicknamed ‘The Buzzer’.
But rumors as to its origins continue to swirl online today.
One alarming theory is that the sound is a signal which, if ceases, indicates a nuclear attack is imminent. Others say the buzzing sound is a foreign government’s attempts to communicate with visiting alien species.
However, the most common theory among experts is that the radio waves come out of Russia, which may be reserving the frequency for an impending emergency.
A radio station that has broadcasted a monotone buzzing sound for decades has left scientists baffled. The shortwave radio station, found on frequency 4625 kHz, has been running for at least 50 years, and is nicknamed ‘The Buzzer’
‘If it is the Russian government, it wouldn’t be for peaceful purposes,’ Professor David Stupples told Popular Mechanics in May.
‘They may be just reserving the channel for air defense or some form of defense,’ said the expert in electronic and radio engineering at the City University of London.
‘If they don’t actually use it, someone will poach it. They are keeping the channel available by broadcasting and saying, “this is ours,”‘ he continued.
The sound was first heard by radio enthusiasts in 1982, but has been broadcasted since at least 1973.
At the time, the station was known to broadcast only a series of beeps rather than the buzzing tone for which it is named.
Within the decade, the broadcasts got stranger and shifted to a series of buzzing noises around 25 times a minute, along with the occasional sound of a distant foghorn.
In the 1990s, following the fall of the Soviet Union, more additions to the broadcast could be heard – including infrequent male and female voices that would regularly list names, words, or numbers seemingly at random.
Pictured, a spectrogram of UVB-76 showing the suppressed lower sideband. In the 1990s, following the fall of the Soviet Union, more additions to the broadcast could be heard – including infrequent male and female voices
The most common theory is that the radio waves come out of Russia, which may be reserving the frequency for an emergency. Pictured, Russian President Vladimir Putin the BRICS summit in Kazan on Tuesday
The anonymous voices all boast the same Russian accent, and are accompanied by a series of tonal shifts researchers like Stupples say could contain secret information.
Freelance radio monitor Ary Boender, who is from Holland, told DailyMail.com some of the wild theories that have done the rounds in recent years.
‘Some say it is an old Soviet Dead Man’s Switch that triggers a nuclear attack on the west when it stops buzzing,’ she said of one prevailing theory from 2014.
‘Others say that it is a homing beacon for UFOs, or a mind control device with which the Russians can program your mind,’ she continued.
‘In the past it was said that it was a remote control station belonging to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant,’ she added.
Boender’s website, NumbersOddities.nl, keeps tabs on radio frequencies across the globe, along with other suspected instances of espionage, cryptography, and coded messages.
The voices were first heard on Christmas Eve 1997, with one message identifying the station as UVB-76, while rattling off names such as Anna, Nikolai, Ivan, Tatyana, and Roman.
‘Some say it is an old Soviet Dead Man’s Switch that triggers a nuclear attack on the west when it stops buzzing,’ one expert said, four years after urban explorers triangulated the source of the signal to the abandoned military base near Moscow (seen in part here)
The next indication of the broadcast’s origins came after the station picked up what appeared to be a snippet of a conversation between two people in Russian on November 3, 2001.
When translated, the exchange reads: ‘I am 143. Not receiving the generator. That stuff comes from hardware room.’
While seemingly harmless, it confirmed one of two sneaking suspicions many had had about the source of the buzzing – that they were not internal and pre-recorded but an amplified sound caught by an always live microphone set nearby.
Alternatively, another microphone in the area may have accidentally been left on, broadcasting the conversation for all to hear.
After this exchange occurred, the buzzing sounds resumed, reignited the air of mystery surrounding the radio station.
The continuous broadcast remained uninterrupted for another seven-and-a-half years, before the station suddenly went radio silent on June 5, 2010 for 24 hours.
But then the buzzes resumed as normal, after which internet users created a URL to broadcast the signal to more ears.
The student tracked down the broadcast to the abandoned base near Pskov, on the border with Estonia, in 2011. They previously told DailyMail.com how being there felt unsettling
A few months later, the buzzing ceased yet again.
This time the sounds of footsteps, shuffling, and something seemingly being knocked down in the background could be heard in its place.
Then, a few days later snippets of music began interrupting the buzzing.
The song that came under scrutiny was none other than ‘Dance of the Little Swans’ from Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s famed Swan Lake – adding more fuel to the fire behind theories that the sounds were coming out of Russia.
Then, on September 7, another aberration was recorded – this one seemingly more substantial than the rest.
It consisted of another voice message that appeared to announce the station’s new call sign – spelled out in the Russian phonetic alphabet ‘MDZhB.’
There was also a new set of names to indicate the change – Mikhail, Dimitri, Zhenya, and Boris – followed by another long series of numbers and letters.
Then, in November, the radio station – now operating as MDZhB – broadcast an apparent phone conversation, potentially by mistake.
During the call a male voice could be heard mentioning ‘the Brigade officer on duty’ and ‘ the communication code ‘Debut’ – before listing off the Russian words for ‘clothes’ and ‘volcano’, which can also be used as names.
The anonymous man also uttered the word ‘Sudak’, which could be referring to a town in Crimea by the same name, or an alternate name for Xander.
A woman was then heard replying: ‘Officer of the duty station “Debut”, ensign Uspenskaya. Received a test call from Nadezhda… understood.’
During the call, the buzzing sound could be heard faintly in the background, further suggesting the sound – which can be still heard today is generated externally.
The uncharacteristic activity for those few months ended there, while raising new questions as to the reason for the broadcast.
The next notable deviation would not come until four years later, when the words ‘T-E-R-R-A-K-O-T-A. Mikhail Dimitri Zhenya Boris Mikhail Dmitri Zhenya Boris 81 26 T-E-R-R-A-K-O-T-A’ were read aloud – again interrupting the buzz.
The following year, the station broadcast a signal that temporarily replaced the buzz – which was thought to come from a telecommunications system known as a Radioteletype (RTTY). The reason for this remains unclear.
‘We found tons of rubbish documents,’ Evseev added. ‘One that we found was interestingly enough about ceasing operations of the base’
In 2020, 13 more new coded messages were aired in a single day, and three more just weeks later.
That May, broadcasts from unknown French speaking persons who appeared to be fisherman were heard conversing, but much of what they said was undecipherable.
The most recent interruptions to the buzzing sound occurred on May 4 this year.
At the time, an unknown Russian-speaking pirate appeared to infiltrate the frequency, before seemingly trying to contact the station during a lull in the buzzing.
The hacker proceeded to pose a series of questions to the station, which, translated from Russian, read Can I tell a joke? One buzz for “yes”, two for “no”.
Those behind the station proceeded to let out two clear buzzes – leading the pirate to ask ‘What for?’ before asking if he could ‘turn on the music’.
Another two buzzes ensued, leading the trespasser to ask ‘Why?’ before inquiring whether ‘it was OK’ that the station operators were answering his questions.
The Russian government has yet to acknowledge the broadcast, despite all signs pointing to it being the source
The usual constant buzzing then followed, leading the pirate to simply proclaim, ‘Well, damn!’
A day earlier, another pirate – possibly the same party – had attempted to interfere with the Buzzer’s broadcast, after which the were met with immediate retaliation from an on duty operator who began preventative measures to stop the incursion.
In the months since, the frequency has returned to its regularly scheduled programming – broadcasting a buzzing sound continuously for anyone to hear.
The purpose of the station, as of writing, remains unknown – though most believe it is a government radio station that continuously emanates sound at a specific frequency in order to ensure it is never used by anyone else.
Such a strategy, as Stupples and others have indicated, would be in place in case an actual need for the frequency ever arises, such as in an emergency.
The Kremlin, however, has not owned up to its ownership of the station.
Former Minister of Communications and Informatics of the Republic of Lithuania Rimantas Pleikys recently theorized that the voice messages are a means to check whether the operators manning the station are alert.
The randomness of the messages, meanwhile, casts doubt on them coming from intelligence agencies like the Federal Security Service and its predecessor The Committee for State Security (KGB), which are known to operate on fixed schedules.
Seen here, one of the towers that had broadcasted the signal from 19 miles outside of Moscow before being moved in 2010 – right in the midst of the four-month stretch of unusual activity
The unchanging frequency and low transmitter power of the broadcast make the prospect of espionage even more unlikely, as such characteristics are less than ideal for long-range communications.
That said, over the years, some headway has been made in solving the mystery, with onlookers tracking the source of the broadcast to near Povarovo, Russia, about halfway between Zelenograd and Solnechnogorsk – 6.2 miles northwest of Moscow.
However, its station’s transmitter was moved in September 2010 – right in the midst of the four-month stretch of unusual activity seen from August to November.
The station then popped up near the city of Saint Petersburg and the village of Kerro Massiv – possibly the result of widespread reorganization of the Russian military seen that year.
As of writing, The Buzzer now appears to be broadcast solely from the 69th Communication Hub in Moscow, possibly due to more reorganization efforts for the particular area, in the Moscow Military District.
Russian student Egor Esveev, 20, who originally comes from Moscow but now studies in Ottawa, said in 2014 that he managed to track down the origin of the signal coming across an abandoned military base near Pskov, on the border with Estonia.
He proceeded to photograph and explore the abandoned building.
‘Like any abandoned building or area it was very creepy,’ he said at the time. ‘Strange people and very strange scenery.’
That year, the source point of broadcast moved. The station popped up near the city of Saint Petersburg and the village of Kerro Massiv – possibly the result of widespread reorganization of the Russian military seen that year
He said he encountered ‘a mid-40s woman’ there who was pushing ‘a stroller.’
‘At first I thought that she is a resident of the town out for a walk but as she walked past I saw that her stroller was empty,’ he said.
‘Who goes to an abandoned military base with an empty stroller for a walk?’
Most of the buildings, some half underground, were destroyed or abandoned according Mr Evseev, while cables in some areas had been visibly torn from the ground.
‘We found tons of rubbish documents,’ he added. ‘One that we found was interestingly enough about ceasing operations of the base.’
Esveev said he thinks the station may be used for some form of internal communication that, ‘while secret, isn’t sensitive enough for them to care about masking or keeping it secret.’
But no matter how hard people try to investigate the mystery of the 4625kHz signal, any definitive conclusions will likely stay just out of reach.
‘I think to find the whole truth – and nothing but the truth – I think it would have to come from the Russian Federation themselves,’ said Professor Stupples.
***
Read more at DailyMail.co.uk