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You're listening to episode 67 of Jimmy Aiken's mysterious world,

where we look at mysteries from the twin perspectives of faith and reason.

And this episode we're talking about numbers stations.

I'm Dom Betanelli and joining me today is Jimmy Aiken. Hi Jimmy.

Howdy, Dom. So folks, after the first World War broke out in 1914,

a mysterious new kind of radio station began to appear.

Radio itself had only been around for a few years and it was a new and strange medium

and the stations that had began appearing in World War I were particularly strange.

They transmitted only numbers. These number stations have been with us ever since

providing endless mystery for the hobbyists who listened to them.

And that's what we'll be talking about on this episode of Jimmy Aiken's mysterious world.

So first, Jimmy, this is a patrons episode, right?

Yes. As usual, every month we give our patrons a choice of what they like to hear about and this

month they wanted to hear about numbers stations. So that's what we'll be talking about.

Okay. So what led up to the first numbers stations?

Since ancient times, people had been aware of two apparently different forces, electricity

and magnetism. But in 1873, the Scottish scientist James Clerk Maxwell proposed that electricity

and magnetism are really manifestations of the same force, which we now call electro magnetism.

He developed a set of equations that implied the existence of mysterious electromagnetic waves

...