My Story

[ilovetofix]

When I was little, I was never able to scare myself easily. Horror movies did not affect me. Ghost stories meant little to me. I managed to successfully do a Bloody Mary at the age of eleven, without running out of our bathroom in fear. Over time, I actually began to become bothered by my lack of fear. It wasn't normal, and there seemed to be so much excitement I was missing out on.

This self-interest in fear led me onto the academic path of psychology. Over time, I became one of the most well-known experts on phobia in the United States.

I suppose this is why I wasn't surprised when I was called into San Francisco to help with all the suicides. A large number of people who had been involved in a group called "Conquering Phobia and Self-Doubt Through Hypnosis" or some such nonsense were turning up dead left and right. All of the deaths seemed to be suicides. I was called in to evaulate the group's sessions and see if the "therapy" was having some sort of negative effect on its patients. I found two suspicious things.

The therapy's budget was sponsored by some sort of quasi-anonymous religious group. Many of the members of the therapy group proclaimed to have a fear of number stations. Number stations are easily explainable. Audio consisting of coded messages being sent from anonymous sources to people then decode them. It was, and still is to some extent, a popular means of communication for spies and criminals. The UK has even confirmed the existence of English-run Number Stations. The group's main speaker had given many of them instructions telling them to listen to one specific number station. It was a means of confronting their fears in the hopes of overcoming it.

Now don't get me wrong, number stations aren't the most obscure piece of conspiracy theory-fodder around, but they're not exactly on the level of Area 51 or Bigfoot either. The fact that so many people in the group (79%, I believe) had an intense phobia of the stations was very, very strange. Research had shown that less than 23% of the American public even knew of number stations at the time, yet they all seemed too familiar with them. I decided to listen to the station the others had been instructed to.

It was not at all like any other number station I have ever heard. One thing that stood out was that there would be long periods of dialogue. The conversations were very vague, and it almost seemed like I had dropped in on the middle of someone's personal phone call. The dialogue would then give way to five minutes of old, orchestral music. After the music, someone would count to nine over and over again.

"Number 1, Number 2, Number 3, Number 4, Number 5, Number 6, Number 7, Number 8, Number 9, Number 1, Number 2..." It would do this for some time.

Then we would go to a different line of dialogue which would be followed by a different piece of orchestral music. Only the numbers stayed the same.

The weirdest part was that the station seemed to play 24/7, and it never repeated any dialogue or music.

It took far too long for anyone to bother telling me that this radio station had been found playing at every suicide's scene.

The story will continue later.

[Killian]

Wow, very cool.
Number stations DO freak me out, and I never understood why. It's pretty well-known that it's just transmissions from spies working in the field, but there is something very ominous about them. Even to this day, I can't listen to them alone at night. Maybe it's the crackling of robotic half-voices coming through unexpectedly at night, or the cryptic nature of the messages, or the strange pieces of music...much like the music in certain strange videos.
Whatever it is, I find number stations very...disconcerting.

[furikku]

Love, is this YOUR story, or is that just the title?

I don't suppose the station is still available, by the by?

[rage27]

This gives all new meaning to the Number 9 thread...

edit: for those interested, a short explanation (not much more than what Love's already said) along with a LOT of sound samples of such number stations can be found here:

www.archive.org/details/ird059

[lume]

I guess this kind of answers my previous question about if you are human or not. You seemed to, at one point, have been a human.

[jimko]

rage27 said:

This gives all new meaning to the Number 9 thread...

edit: for those interested, a short explanation (not much more than what Love's already said) along with a LOT of sound samples of such number stations can be found here:

www.archive.org/details/ird059

Wow, that's kind of eerie...

[acro]

furikku said:

Love, is this YOUR story, or is that just the title?

I don't suppose the station is still available, by the by?

I'd like to know if this station is still broadcasting as well, or if anybody knows the frequency.

[ilovetofix]

acro said:

furikku said:

Love, is this YOUR story, or is that just the title?

I don't suppose the station is still available, by the by?

I'd like to know if this station is still broadcasting as well, or if anybody knows the frequency.

It has been replaced with something more effective.

[furikku]

What is the frequency?

EDIT: Or do you mean the station is no longer in use and another media entirely is in its place?

[shutaro]

I'm somewhat of a numbers station enthusiast, and have done much research on the topic. This reminds me of the reports of numbers stations on loop lines that were discovered by phreakers during the late 70s and early 80s (continuous counting that was periodically interrupted by someone shouting "Wake up out there!" before playing sped up voice recordings in foreign languages). There were some instances where, rumor has it, people would pick up their phone and hear counting on the other end instead of dial tone (unfortunately, I'm at work and do not have ready access to my notes and sources). The particular source that I found this information in connected it with UFOs and other paranormal activity. I will post more info when I have it.

-Shutaro

P.S. If you want creepy numbers recordings, may I reccomend "The Sweedish Rhapsody" or the 5-Dashes series. Rhapsody sounds creepy and vaguely child-like, and the more recent 5-Dashes recordings sound like a drugged version of one of those mechanical answering machine voices. Good stuff (I listen to these while working, for background noise).

P.P.S. If you ever want to creep out your neighbors, put on The Conet Project and leave the windows open. =)

[ilovetofix]

furikku said:

What is the frequency?

As I said, the radio station has been replaced with something more effective. It is no longer a radio station at all.

[quazz4life]

So, the radio station has been replaced with something more effective.
Meaning the videos, in my opinion.

[furikku]

Ah. What a disappointment; I'd been hoping I could make use of my shortwave radio again.

Thanks! Looking forward to the next part.

PS: In addition to Shutaro's suggestions, I recommend Papa November, the Tyrolean Music Station, and Lincolnshire Poacher. I think Swedish Rhapsody wins at the creepy, though.

[reverse]

This is getting really interesting.

The backwards music station is another really creepy one.

[Killian]

Shutaro, I remember reading about people picking up their phones and hearing a man say "Wake Up Down There!" in John Keel's book "The Mothman Prophecies". Quite a spooky little book, actually.

I always wanted to have The Conet Project blaring from my car stereo while I am driving around town. ;D

[shutaro]

killian said:

Shutaro, I remember reading about people picking up their phones and hearing a man say "Wake Up Down There!" in John Keel's book "The Mothman Prophecies". Quite a spooky little book, actually.

I always wanted to have The Conet Project blaring from my car stereo while I am driving around town. ;D

Yeah, the article I have mentions The Mothman Prophecies. It's from an old UFO/Conspiracy publication I found online. I can provide it, but not until I get back from work. ^.^;;

[ilovetofix]

A part of me believed that the radio stations were somehow setting these people off, but a more scientific part of me pointed out how paranormal and ridiculous the whole idea seemed. Normal hypnosis does not drive people to do anything they would normally not be willing to do. Hypnosis is to help people overcome self-control problems, remember blocked memories (even that's iffy), or get over self-confidence issues. You can't hypnotize someone into killing someone else, and it would take a very vulnerable person to be hypnotized into killing themselves.

Tracking down the religious group behind the therapy wasn't too difficult, though they were reluctant to speak with me at first. When I explained certain details my occupation, they finally opened up to me a bit. They made some vague comments about the number station and hypnosis, but nothing incriminating. They gave me a pamphlet and some contact information before I left.

Soon the suicides stopped. The police in San Francisco had bigger things to worry about at that time, and the case was closed and forgotten. Still, I couldn't get how the whole experience had baffled me. How exciting it all had seemed for awhile. I wanted more.

I joined the cult eventually. I was very skeptical in many of their beliefs at first, but over time, I had seen enough strange things for the skepticism to be worn down to a nub. I remembered thinking of a theory I had heard when I first was introduced to psychology. The theory was that, by simply believing enough in something, you can make it exist in a way. This was the attitude I took with the religious workings of the cult. I made it to the highest-rank and told of the Secret. I was told that we were the Children Yet to be Born.

When my old life died, I became a child. My observations were keen, and I was unstoppable. After ten years I was allowed to move to the Isle of Fear, where I worked as a Shaded Priest. Only one person outranked me there: the one who was before me here. When he failed in the mission he had been given by Father Paranoia, I was assigned it next.

That is where I come in to the story.

[furikku]

So you guys ARE children, after all...

Whatever happened to Like, anyway?

[lume]

I think when he says child, he means that he saw the world with new eyes, like how a child first views the world.

[ravingmad]

What's not entirely clear about the numbers stations are why they are so creepy. I mean, I could very easily make a non-creepy numbers station. Start it off with something like a television announcer's voice saying calmly and happily, "This is an annoucement" and then a friendly voice reciting numbers with a normal cadence "five seven three two six, six seven nine nine eight" like they were zip codes or something.

But then you listen to something like, say, The Swedish Rhapsody and it's clear that thought went into not only using that as a message mechanism, but actually into making it strange. Why the bizarre music box jingle? Why the little girl's voice? Some people theorize that it is specifically engineered to be scary in order to stop people from looking deeper.

Now, the station that ilovetofix mentions would be even worse because there is no code involved, so the underlying purpose is subverted and something else is going on.

ilovetofix, is this cult the same one that was involved with Donald Wilson when he was a child?

[ilovetofix]

ravingmad said:

ilovetofix, is this cult the same one that was involved with Donald Wilson when he was a child?

Perhaps.

[cog05]

I don't think this story is going to be very encouraging for those volunteering to put themselves in a trance tonight.

[rage27]

Hardly a coincidence, it seems, that there will be a total of nine videos. I'd say those would be an effective replacement.

[peepingtom]

ilovetofix, are you trying to tell us that death may potentially await those who continue with this?

[ilovetofix]

salamander said:

ilovetofix, are you trying to tell us that death may potentially await those who continue with this?

Not at all. Those were old cues that had a separate purpose.

[arerosesred]

Salamander---

I am convinced that love does not mean that. In the summoning thread he stated

"I do not want to lose any of you, either physically or mentally. I would be in perhaps more trouble than my predecessor, who allowed a child to feed. "

Roses

[cog05]

Are you looking for someone with a skeptical/scientific worldview to take part in this summoning? Was that the purpose behind the recent poll, Love?

[ilovetofix]

cog05 said:

Are you looking for someone with a skeptical/scientific worldview to take part in this summoning? Was that the purpose behind the recent poll, Love?

In a way, yes. I have determined that most people here are scientific thinkers, however.

[mrskinny]

rage27 said:

Hardly a coincidence, it seems, that there will be a total of nine videos. I'd say those would be an effective replacement.

My thoughts exactly. The videos are clearly the replacement for the station.

Given, however, that the videos have always been around in some from, I wonder what the station replaced...

ilovetofix, would you care to comment on my first statement?

[lume]

I wonder if the videos are meant to replace that book. But what could the book be? The necronomicon?