Inside the Creepy Cold War Radio Broadcast Sending Secret Codes into Iran

It begins with a scratchy burst of static, followed by a man’s voice cutting through the air. “Tavajoh! Tavajoh! Tavajoh!” he commands in Persian. Attention. Then, slowly and rhythmically, he recites a string of seemingly random numbers. The broadcast repeats at regular time intervals.

This eerie broadcast started on February 28, just hours after the United States and Israel launched military strikes on Iran. As the Iranian government plunged the country into a massive internet blackout, this cryptic radio signal flickered to life.

Intelligence officers recognize this system as a “numbers station,” a relic of Cold War espionage that relies on shortwave radio and paper codebooks. In an era of encrypted messaging apps and satellite internet, it seems that spies are turning back to a century-old analog technology to coordinate in the shadows.

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