I love these things too much. I've snuck them into movies twice. They also end up in music a lot.
For those curious, all of the Conet Project is available on Soundcloud:
And archive.org.
Sit there listening too long and you will freak out your spouse.
I used a bunch of them in our weird sci-fi audio show as interstitial content between broadcasts. We generated a bunch of new ones and mixed in the names of supporters and fans.
So, we (writing partner and I) wrote the script to a crazy, Hitchhiker's Guide style episodic comedy way back when. We actually went and produced a teaser/trailer and look-book for the show off our own back. Generated a bit of interest and made it up to the highest echelons of the BBC comedy department before we were told: 1) It was one of the best scripts the commissioning producer had seen - really cinematic in style and reach 2) The head of comedy probably wouldn't like it because it was far too cinematic in style and reach Then we had a great meeting with the Head Of Comedy who explained: 1) He really couldn't take the project on as the BBC wasn't producing sci-fi comedy at the moment 2) But did we want a writing job on this other sci-fi comedy the BBC was producing at the moment Thus we swallowed and digested our first show business Zen koan. So our project floated around for a while before I thought we could redraft it for radio which has a higher strike rate for nascent comedy projects. Which we did. We also went and produced a pilot episode because, you know, why not. We also included cross-media strands and social media accounts for the characters to show how a well-engineered transmedia project could work. Google key concepts in the show and mysterious ads would pop up leading you into other areas of the story. At one point we rigged Google to pitch the show to commissioning editors from the various big UK broadcasters and production companies when they searched their own names; we got a few meetings off the back of that. Eventually we ran out of steam as we went on to other projects. The husk of the show project lives here: http://www.earth101.net/ There you can read the background, listen to the (admittedly poorly mixed) radio pilot, watch a bit of supporting material. Maybe one day we'll rewrite, record a bunch more and release it. The numbers station aspect was related to a 24 hour stream we ran which would broadcast the pilot at fixed times around the clock. In between, it would send Conet audio interspersed with our own bits of weirdness. The stream is offline now.
When I was a kid, my uncle was into radios. Like really into radios like "Hey it's saturday and we have a bunch of scrap metal lets build a radio and antenna" He gave me a used shortwave, radio that I listened to religiously (heh) it was amazing to hear all of these weird preachers, and radio shows that made no sense. People giving political speeches, news, just fun to listen to. Well if there is one thing you should know about shortwave radio, it's that the waves have the ability to travel further at night due to the lower interference of other electromagnetic radiation. One night I was playing with my radio, and I heard one of these number stations. I don't remember which one (I looked it up on conet before, but couldn't find it, or im not remembering it correctly) but I just listened to it for hours and hours, it was like listening to a meditation. But then suddenly (and it could be interference) I swear two people were talking in what sounded like russian. I would say it was interference but it sounded like they were talking in the same room as either the woman (or record). It was crazy and to this day makes me think that I overheard some accidental spy stuff.