Mythos, Episode 2. UVB-76
Welcome to Mythos.
Nothing weird is out of bounds in this blog turned story series, read by me, Gary S. Pritchett. Each episode begins innocently enough, with a brief introduction, then quickly spirals into mayhem with a reading from one of my own books…or takes the listener on a journey, dragging legendary characters and creatures through time and space into fictitious versions of historical events. The line between mythology and accepted reality is sometimes blurred by a War Of The Worlds type recording, leaving you to decide where the myth ends and your imagination begins. Humor and sarcasm are usually involved in equal doses, and it’s best to just listen while you drive…nothing you’ll hear is really happening. Or is it?
Subscribe through your chosen listening device, and please leave a review on iTunes and Spreaker so that many more can be blindsided into listening too. Check out the other shows on The Fringe Radio Network, that’s Fringe Radio Network, fringeradionetwork.com, and my books are available through Amazon.com. Just type Gary S. Pritchett into the search bar for The Fallen Files, Dream Weaver, and my short story, The Fisher King Assassins. Links are available in the show notes, and an interactive comment feed is there too. I’ll respond to each and every message, and soon I’ll give a shoutout to each person leaving an iTunes review.
Something else you should all know, I’m really bad at pronouncing names, maybe the worst ever. Just felt you should know. Anyway, now…onto the show.
How many TV shows end with worldwide fan viewing parties? I was happily invited to one several years ago for the Lost series final episode. Fans of that show will remember that one of its first mysteries revolved around a radio signal. Stranded passengers eventually tracked the signal to an earlier castaway, Danielle Rousseau, who recorded a distress message loop that had been broadcast from an isolated abandoned tower for at least 16 years.
TV fiction meets Russian reality in a swampy area near St. Petersburg where an empty radio station has been broadcasting mysterious tones, and some occasional numbers and words, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for more than 40 years. Could the show’s writers have known about this station, and turned it into the real headquarters of the DHARMA Initiative?
The mystery of the real life radio station is not so much its location, but its purpose. It’s known as “MDZhB” (originally UVB-76, which some listeners still call it) and its signal, broadcast at 4625 kHz. The hissing broadcast can be picked up by anyone with a shortwave radio tuned to that frequency.
Radio towers and abandoned buildings are visible from behind an iron fence in St. Petersburg, and the radio station has most likely been transmitting from there since 1973 when the signal began broadcasting. A buzzing noise, and odd Russian words, are broadcast every few days. The station. has a fan base that listens to it religiously, referring to it as the Buzzer, and fans maintain recordings of odd broadcasts.
The most famous transmission came on January 24, 2013, when listeners heard this most ominous output:
“Command 135 initiated”
That command might have been a notification that a second location, near Moscow, is now active. Or was it telling spies through the world that this site is now the reporting entity for a “Dead Hand Switch” – an autonomous system set to launch nuclear missiles in the event that no humans are left to push any buttons – and previous broadcasts and instructions from other locations are now null and void?
Another theory is that it’s used by the Russians as part of their missile tracking system. Then there’s the idea that it’s a way for Russian spies to send each other secret coded messages masked within the squelch.
The “Command 135 initiated” message in 2013 has left s...
