This Threatening Secret Numbers Station Was Decoded

2 4 16 18 3 4 5 8 2 2 [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] 14 every now and then my research sends me down a rabbit hole granted this isn't a rabbit hole but I had to show you this Drone footage I took a few months back and this was the only way could think of one thing I hate is the pun I think pun should be short for punch him in the face but today you and I are going to go down this metaphorical Rabbit Hole as I tell you the Forgotten story of Commander bunny wbny radio and the strange and somewhat Sinister number stations it won Sense on the shortwave bands one of the better known shortwave pirate stations of decades gone by was wbny run by Commander bunny he claimed to be the leader of the rodent Revolution and his programming consisted of Music skits and the promotion of rodents are superior to monkeys his euphemistic term for humans Commander bunny has gone the extra mile to do this for you monkey boys from the wbny relay service fored not much is known about who or what was behind the original wbny but the broadcasts of strings of numbers back in 2002 led to widespread theories and decp destion efforts over Easter of 1965 the rodents had been talking about organizing and overthrowing the monkeys for many years right let me just warn you that this video is somewhat confusing and in some ways nonsensical to start with but I have to tell you this short backstory before we get to the number stations firstly the rodents are well rodents rabbits being the top of the hierarchy apparently and monkey was the group's term for human beings anyway the rodents had a brand new Johnson Viking with crystals for 7415 to 6025 khz and a couple of other frequencies their first quote Call to Arms was broadcast that Easter and according to official propaganda 17 monkeys apparently heard it but the entire rodent Nation heard it too and started to mobilize what they didn't realize at the start was that this was Pirate Radio they were trying to communicate with the rodent Revolution troops in the field worldwide and with phone charges being what they were at that time they were trying to find a way to get messages out to a lot of rabbits in a short time radio was the most reliable and readily available Choice the revolution didn't want to be on ham frequencies as quote ham monkeys would get their shorts in a bunch and they already knew they were Elmer so wanted to avoid the quote food Factor so they actually started on 6240 khz and stayed there for many years we'll come to what all of this means and what the Revolution was was in a short while then in the late 1970s they ran into some interference issues and started trying other frequencies that was when they received letters sent from the people's Committee in solidarity with rodent Freedom Fighters which was their term for fans I told you this was weird they were surprised to find out that people were interested in listening and wanted something called qsls they did some research and found out that the so-called ham monkeys used these cards to confirm reception of their stations with other hands soon the printing presses were rolling and some basic wbny qsl cards were made and sent out it really wasn't until the 1990s that wbny radio bunny pirate shortwave started programming the station began shortwave operations in March 1990 as a popular seasonal Easter station amongst North American Pirates the high-pitched Commander bunny encouraged rodents to quote revolt against their human oppressors his slogan was The Voice of the rodent Revolution up until the 1990s they had sent 99% of Transmissions once a year at Easter and these attracted a lot of attention from listeners it was during the 1990s that there was regular requests for more shows so commander bunny put more shows together and again got requests for qsls from all over the world by the thousands so it was decided to do shows several times a year and they were broadcast on a number of different frequencies so just to clear up some terminology the rodent Revolution appears to be an inside joke within the pirate community that was propagated by Commander bunny it was basically the plot to have rodents take over the world the rodent Revolution reinforcement team appears to be some form of internal propaganda in the guise of a splinter group that supports the revolution as for the people's Committee in solidarity with the rodent Freedom Fighters I don't even know at this point I told you it was a rabbit hole I promise you the number stations bit is coming though there's decryption keys and everything and some of them are pretty Sinister wbm mainly broadcast using frequency modulation single sideband and slow scan television modes on shortwave they also used R mors code arq 690 fecs and am from time to time to this is an sstv image sent by wbny directed at George Zeller at the monitoring times to F the rodent Revolution wbny sold t-shirts and bumper stickers on eBay show your support for the rodent Revolution and Commander bunny by purchasing a commander bunny for President t-shirt and bumper sticker just go to eBay and type in Commander bunny in the search engine be a smart monkey vote Commander bunny 2008 and wear your T-shirt with pride I'm Commander Bunny and I paid for this political announcement the station used many different types of transmitters over the years and one of its last setups was an Icom ICM 700 and an IC IC 735 both with modified power supplies and mod Transformers as the main shortwave transmitters there was a cut to frequency dipole up 50 ft in the air as well as a button up vertical that did very well in addition to forting Revolution Commander bunny was supposedly engaged in running for president in the 2008 elections monke I'm Commander Bunny and I'm running for president you've had over 250 years of AP human monkey running your country and you have little to show for it isn't it time to let the rabbits run America show your support for the rodent revolution in Commander bunny by purchasing a commander bunny for President t-shirt and back in 2006 the Democrats Republicans and Libertarians apparently all contacted Commander bunny to run for president of the United States they all claimed that they had no monkeys of any intelligence or quality to run for their parties this is the commander bunny for president campaign got underway shortly thereafter he announced that Pirate Radio operator cracker had been chosen as his vice presidential running mate kco was a shortwave pirate operator who was active from 2005 until he quit in 2008 due to the animosity in the community he was responsible for many different pre-recorded shows and could be heard doing profanity lace Transmissions as well after the campaign began frequent announcement ments of Commander bunny for president t-shirts and bumper stickers were heard on wbm as well as other stations according to Commander bunny if the debal corporation Crooks hadn't rigged the results of 2008 he'd have been made president of course this was a tongue in cheek campaign but it had the advantage of free radio publicity for the station the transmission location for wbm was never clear they qsl via the Washington DC mail drop in the'80s and 90s and Commander bunny gave an address on w dot Avenue in Lakewood Ohio on the air in 2006 one other theory was that Commander bunny was from Belfast New York wbm used the drop address of PO Box one Belfast n 14711 in 2002 Commander bunny began passing messages to agents in the field the major difference between wbny and the number stations we're used to is that this station sent messages that were actually decoded this is the explanation behind the numbers from Commander Bunny's own mouth our secret numbers Transmissions are for the millions of rodents to stay in communication with each other and for us to issue orders from Commander bunny to the Troops we're currently Goring away at the fiber optic lines the cable companies have been installing all over the country you'll pay attention to the revolution when you can't get your HBO any attempt to decode this secret transmission will only lead to more confusion on your part as witnessed by the poster who claimed he decoded it while many of our Transmissions are in fact about Al phom they're not about him holding anything phom is one of our AP human operatives who by way of Mind Control does our bidding often for Giggles we'll send him a message late at night to go out and check his tire pressure let me just jump in here in the early 2000s proper tire pressure became an increasingly important part of Pirate Radio new listeners might at first not understand the seeming obsession with tire pressure high pressure alerts were frequently broadcast by a number of different stations such as wtpr as a public service to the listening Community don't ask Commander bunny continued while most of us don't have difficulty with this rather mundane task some individuals such as Al fanom often need a more forceful reminder about proper tire inflation we broadcast at least once a year through wbny radio to update tape humans on how much time they have left before the rodents rule the Earth for more information you'll need to insert a very large carrot into the floppy Drive of your computer now let's look at some detail about these number stations and I'll also play some recordings Transmissions opened and closed with the song White rabit by Jefferson Airplane the song Here Comes Peter Cotton Tail was also heard the first message was sent on August the 7th 2002 at 6 minutes past midnight UTC here's the content of the first transmission 85 numbers the messages consisted of numbers which corresponded to letters of the alphabet such as 1al a 2al b and so on Derek gliden came up with the decrypt solution this produced this string of text using frequency analysis guesses could be made to the most commonly used letters and further guesses could we doubt the remaining ones it decoded to the [Applause] following prare to copy the secret message of the RO from bunny at the headquarters of the r Revolution the numbers will be repeated three times and we will send this transmission there message embedded in this transmission that will the minds of the eight hum who are e dropping on our SEC message 12 2 7 12 18 1 8 4 18 12 6 [Music] 14 this was a cipher table Derek came up with Gano was thought to be ganja in reference to Captain ganja a pirate well known for the plants advocacy Al phom is or was it's been reported that he died in 2011 a Pirate Radio listener who lived in a trailer he was frequently singled out for particular ridicule by pirates for example in September 2007 Commander bunny called for the establishment of a phantom free zone although no details of this plan were ever publicly revealed it was assumed that the Zone would be an area cleansed of influence of alanson radio alanson broadcast on 6953 a.m. in the early part of the 2000s only a few shows were ever produced and the qsls for these became instant Classics I'll frequently posted to FRN or free radio network which I'll cover in a few minutes soon after the first another broadcast occurred in which two messages were sent 11 [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] 7 11 1 14 [Applause] 11 Scott Robson provided this first attempt at transcription with possible errors this time they didn't appear to use the same key as the first transmission so this message was never decoded a fourth message was copied by Pat Murphy on the 1st of September 2002 at around 2235 UTC on 6950 a.m. the transmission opened with Peter Cotton Tail by Jean ortry and the operator said he was Melvin Mouse commander of the F FRN destruction forces of the rodent Revolution that they had destroyed the FR FRN and here was today's secret message he repeated the message three times and then signed off these are the numbers heard he paused to read special instructions twice and then read these numbers again the rodent Revolution took credit for shutting down the FR FRN said to listen for further instructions played Peter Cottontail by Gene autrey again and signed off the first part of the message was translated to the following the second part was decoded as this so who was Woody well Woody par is an amateur radio operator who was allegedly jamming repeaters in Georgia the coordinates given appeared to be the location of Woody par but they were fake this made listeners wonder if wbni was related to the unidentified M pirate who in the past had been heard repeating the message Woody par we know who you are as far as I know Woody is still alive and the jamming allegation is unsubstantiated I'll touch on FRN for a second here as it's relevant to my mentioning of Pat Murphy hearing the previous wbni message we just looked at the free radio network or FRN was a now defunct website once popular with Pirate Radio dxers and broadcasters prior to 2007 site popularity began to decline notably around 2007 when the administrator of the site Pat Murphy began refusing new site user registrations except in special cases where he could be certain of their personal identity in early 2011 it was revealed that many of the user accounts on the FR FRN were actually a sock puppet of Commander bunny these accounts included beans Thumper and Mosby once this became widely known in the free radio Community Commander bunny was forced to stop using these accounts another transmission was copied on May the 19th 2003 at 2328 UTC on 6950 a.m. this is the context of the message but it appears that the end was cut off another transmission was copied on May the 2nd 2004 at 1330 UTC on 69 khz a.m. this is the number string and the message was decoded as this wbm was known to be affiliated with or act as a relay for many of the Pirate Radio Stations over the years such as all average music radio cell phone radio that played lots of real mobile phone calls chkn or chicken radio the foulest shortwave station okay that's a brilliant pun there was Mrs Commander bunny radio a suspected parody of wbny my new Underpants a station about Underpants Radio free speech and the voice of fod a station that dates back to the late 1980s which may have been linked to kfod a potential adversary to wbny Y that promoted the Human Revolution then there was wmdr World monkey domination radio also known as world domination radio a clear link to wbm wmr we monkeys radio designed to promote the rodent Revolution to monkeys like you and I there was wpdr we President Day radio that played presidential speeches WF an ally of wbny that went after Al anom w y a tribute to link Ray and wtpr or tire pressure radio a tire pressure warning system and note the Belfast New York address here there were some more obscure stations linked to wbny 2 today it appears that wbny is now just a fun memory I contacted numerous emails that had managed to uncover but all of them bounced there is a wbny Facebook page but this has seen no activity since February 2012 and doesn't reveal much in the way of information there were a couple of known websites which are now defunct and which were never archived on the way back machine one page was archived but it revealed very little in the way of information and unfortunately all of the recordings qsls and merchandise photos were never collected so they'll likely never see the light of day again if you have any more recordings and there were many made then I'd love to hear them and Commander bunny if you're watching then drop me an email it's the w y Commander bunny Halloween f for monkey boys all over the world if you'd like a qsl to confirm this special Halloween broadcast from wbny send it to Tails reception report and three first class stamps to wbny F box one Belfast New York 14711 do it now dumbass before you get too scared it's the oh yes I'm going to scare that out of you monkey boys Halloween from W there's no stopping it okay gang we're all out for