I remember back when I found the Conet project CD boxset uploaded on the internet when I was into number stations.

It is a collection of number station recordings, released to try and get attention and focus people’s efforts to find and decode these signals.

A subtype of number stations are polytone stations, they broadcast tones that a computer can interpret into the message, so when you hear it, it is just what sounds like random tones played randomly at high speed.

The full recording also has a few more sections, there is often an identification string, like a peice of music to help agents tune in to the source, then there is a sync broadcast to have the computer figure out the timings, I have heard this as a rapid stacato tone signal.

Anyway, one of the most terrifying experiences I have had with media was when I was at a LAN party, I was playing OpenTTD with my friends in coop, while listening to the Conet project.

I get to a track that just starts with a slow droning rythm, I zone out from the sound and it is kinda nice with a slow, allmost meditative tempo in my headphones.

This goes on for minutes as I relax, then suddenly, the sound speeds up and a different stacato rythm starts.

And before I could react, my ears are filled with weird random beeps at a high speed.

I just ripped my headphones off my head as it sort of felt as if my brain was being reprogrammed, the long slow drone part felt as if it was made to soften my brain up, for the fast beeps to affect me.