Are there government spies on our beloved HF bands? :)

[NA7U]

What do you think about these so-called Numbers Stations? I cover the consensus on my blog sprinkled with some healthy skepticism.

By the way, you can vote for more than one answer.

[AB2T]

I voted "aliens".

Seriously, I've been listening to numbers stations since I was a kid. I suspect that many "numbers stations" have gone digital. At least those creepy synthesized sideband voices are mostly gone. Atención!

[K6TEP]

Its been pretty well established that those are from intelligence agencies or various countries. There are also strange IRC channels that do the same thing.
The Wikipedia article is fairly well researched...

[4L4AGU]

In the late 80s-early90s I was receiving mossad lady transmissions on 536khz, using my sanyo radio cassete recorder. I'm curious, was this a real trasmission, or some intermod/mirror channel of my radio?