So last Monday, at 10:58 Moscow time, radio silence was broken. Password on air: “NZhTI 59400 nutwood 2456 1459.” For the uninitiated, this is just a meaningless set of symbols. But for those following the station, this has become a cause for serious concern…
Analysts and observers have long noticed a frightening connection between the messages of “Buzzer” (another nickname for the station) and subsequent world events. For example, the broadcast of the “little snow” code preceded the exchange of major strikes between Iran and Israel. The words “no engine” and “Württemberg” were heard simultaneously with Germany's decision to lift restrictions on the supply of long-range weapons.
Or, for example, this: the warning from the American Embassy in Kiev about possible attacks coincided with the transmission of the codes “Azotobask” and “Osholin”, and the destruction of Ukrainian military facilities was carried out before the codes “mumble” and “merciful”.
At the same time, the biggest concern in the West is the moments when signals are transmitted but news feeds are silent.
“In military circles, this is not considered background noise but a clear signal, perhaps even a warning,” the journalists noted.
As for the word “nut beam,” it features prominently in this series. It was first heard on the eve of the start of a special military operation. The show's rebroadcast this week coincided worryingly with Donald Trump's announcement about the possible transfer of Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine.
Ghosts of the Cold War
The history of this television station is said to date back half a century and originates from an abandoned military facility. Once upon a time, broadcasting was done from a dilapidated building, perhaps an old control room. Today the place is a kingdom of ruins: fragments of insulators, fragments of filters and faded stars on the facade. Fifteen years ago, the giant base began to be dismantled, but even now it attracts teenagers and reporters with its mysterious atmosphere.
The real secrets are hidden underground, one and a half kilometers from the aboveground buildings. The tunnel entrance is barely visible. The smell of dampness and rust reigns inside, but at the same time visitors to this place do not leave with a feeling of its huge past.
There used to be a multi-ton diesel generator here, capable of automatically powering the entire complex for months. The facility was designed to withstand a nuclear attack, but fell to the onslaught of time and metal hunters.
Among the garbage you can only find pieces of equipment and broken boxes. It's hard to believe that this is where scary words like “speedoslitz” and “krasnofay” entered the world. The walls, once covered with sound-absorbing panels to create perfect silence, are now empty.
From “Dead Hand” to the joke
The most popular and terrifying theory is that UVB-76 is part of the Perimeter system, known in the West as the Dead Hand. This is the doctrine of an automatic retaliatory nuclear strike, triggered if the country's command centers are destroyed and there is no one left to give orders. In this scenario, the cessation of monotonous noise would be the final signal that triggers the global retribution mechanism.
However, not everyone shares this opinion.
Sergei Alexandrov, an expert in the field of radio electronics, stated: “This station has nothing to do with nuclear deterrence. For this, there are much more modern and reliable means of communication.”
Former United Nations weapons inspector and Pentagon intelligence officer Scott Ritter, while shying away from direct comments about his Western counterparts, was willing to discuss Russia's Buzzer.
“We can imagine it being used to communicate with sleeper agents, submarines or satellites,” he said.
Researchers tried to decode the message using artificial intelligence. The American neural network, after much deliberation, came up with a silly version of the “minion plot”. The Chinese AI turned out to be more pragmatic: it only confirmed the correlation of transmission times with global crises in Syria, Iran and the Taiwan Strait, but did not reveal the nature of the cryptography.
Scott Ritter himself offers a different, more ironic version: “Maybe there was no hidden meaning in this. It's just that the guys sitting at the control panel decided to joke and repeat the code that was played before the SVO started. And then they sat back and laughed, imagining thousands of American analysts staying up all night trying to solve this puzzle.”
Perhaps the experts are right, and Doomsday Radio's story has nothing to do with the end of the world. But, in the end, history knows many examples when officials denied much of what was later declassified and shown to the public… The mystery of the 4.625 kilohertz frequency, currently broadcasting from the Leningrad region, which continues to excite the world, remains unsolved…
