In the hours before NATO and Polish aircraft intercepted and shot down Russian drones that had strayed into Poland’s airspace, a chilling and long-running mystery stirred once again. A station known as
UVB-76, often nicknamed the “doomsday radio,” came alive with a cryptic voice message. It was the first time in months that the shortwave channel had broken its usual monotone buzzing, as per The Economic Times.
The timing of the transmission, just ahead of a rare NATO-Russia clash in European skies, immediately drew fresh speculation about whether there was a link, or whether it was another of the station’s unexplained bursts of activity.
What Is UVB-76 And Why Is It So Mysterious?
The station, broadcasting on the 4625 kHz frequency, has been on air since the late 1970s. It is most commonly referred to as “The Buzzer” because of the continuous tone it emits, a harsh mechanical buzz that pulses between 21 and 34 times every minute, each lasting about a second. Between those pulses is a pause of roughly the same length. For decades, the sound looped endlessly, unnoticed except by shortwave hobbyists.
Interest exploded in 2010, when Estonian technology entrepreneur Andrus Aaslaid set up an online stream that carried the station’s output around the world. Thousands of people tuned in, many of them fascinated by the monotone hum that rarely seemed to change. That fascination turned to obsession when, every so often, the steady buzzing was broken by fragments of human voices speaking in Russian.
Over the years, those interruptions have included names, numbers, and entire strings of strange words that have never been explained.
Despite being tracked and logged for decades, the station’s exact purpose has never been officially confirmed. Newsweek notes that it is widely believed to be operated by the Russian military from a site somewhere in the country’s western regions, but no agency or ministry has ever acknowledged running it.
The September Broadcast
On 8 September 2025, the monotone stopped, and a male voice came through. According to Newsweek, the broadcast began with four names — Nicolai, Zhenya, Tatyana and Ivan. Their initials spelled out NZhTI, a call sign UVB-76 has used before. The voice then delivered a string of numbers: 38, 965, 78, 58, 88, 37.
Russia’s UVB-76 ‘Doomsday Radio’ makes SECOND cryptic broadcast today
Codewords ‘NZHTI’ and ‘HOTEL’ spelled out for unknown listeners
Who knows what orders just went out… pic.twitter.com/PqTOsdku2y
— RT (@RT_com) September 8, 2025
The message continued with more names: Olga, Tatiana, Elena, and Leonid. Their initials formed the word OTEL, the Russian word for “hotel.” Finally, the speaker said, “soft sign, 78, 58, 88, 37.” The “soft sign” refers to a letter of the Russian alphabet that has no sound of its own but alters the pronunciation of the consonant before it.
A recording of the clip quickly spread online. Social media users rushed to guess its meaning. Some claimed the numbers looked like coordinates, pointing to “unknown listeners far from the motherland.” Others suggested it was meant as a signal to Russia’s nuclear submarine fleet.
The timing added to the tension: it came just before NATO’s confrontation with Russian drones in Poland, making it one of the most closely watched transmissions in years.
Other Recent Transmissions This Year
The September broadcast was not the only one in 2025. Mirror US, citing logs from a Telegram channel that monitors the station, list several earlier examples.
On 15 April, UVB-76 sent out four words: Neptune, Thymus, Foxcloak and Nootabu. A month later, on 19 May, just ahead of a phone call between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, the station broadcast two longer strings of code. The first was “NZhTI 89905 BLEFOPUF 4097 5573,” and the second was “NZhTI 01263 BOLTANKA 4430 9529.”
The 8 September broadcast, with its names and numbers, now joins this year’s sequence of cryptic transmissions, ensuring the Buzzer continues to attract attention and speculation.
A History Of Bizarre Sounds And Unsettling Moments
While the buzz is its trademark, the station has occasionally broadcast far stranger noises. Newsweek reported that in the past, listeners have reported hearing snatches of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, shuffling footsteps, and even what sounded like a woman screaming.
Its level of activity has also changed over the years. Before 1992, messages were rare, sometimes occurring only once every few years. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, however, broadcasts became more regular. By the 2000s, they were being heard weekly, sometimes even daily.
In June 2010, the Buzzer fell silent for a full 24 hours, a gap that sparked rumours of everything from technical breakdown to nuclear alert. When it returned, the buzzing resumed as though nothing had happened. Later that year, in September, the signal was interrupted again when transmitters were relocated from near Povarovo to the St Petersburg area. Mirror US points out that this event showed that the more dramatic theories were unlikely, since nothing catastrophic happened when the signal stopped.
More recently, on 11 December 2024, Newsweek reports that the Buzzer broadcast 24 separate messages in a single day, its most verbose session on record. The 30 words it sent that day included some that made no sense at all, only adding to the mystery.
Why It Is Nicknamed The ‘Doomsday Station’
The unsettling nickname comes from a theory that UVB-76 is part of the Soviet-era Dead Hand, or Perimeter system. Dead Hand was designed as a nuclear fail-safe: if a devastating attack wiped out Russia’s command structure, the system could automatically trigger a retaliatory strike. The theory holds that the Buzzer’s constant sound acts as part of that mechanism, with its sudden cessation being the trigger.
Other theories are far more colourful. LADbible cite the accounts of Ary Boender, a Dutch radio enthusiast who runs the Numbers and Oddities website. He has catalogued the wild guesses made over the years: that the station is a UFO navigation beacon, a mind-control device used to influence behaviour, or even a remote-control system once connected to the Chernobyl nuclear plant.
While these ideas circulate widely, Boender has dismissed them as fanciful. He has stressed that when the station briefly ceased transmission in 2010, the world did not end.
What Experts Believe
Amid all the speculation, experts are more sober. David Stupples, a professor of electronic and radio engineering at City, University of London, has said that the station is “almost certainly” operated by the Russian government, as per Popular Mechanics. He emphasised that “if it is the Russian government, it wouldn’t be for peaceful purposes.”
Stupples has also suggested another reason for the constant buzzing. Even if the station is not transmitting actual commands at any given time, maintaining the signal means keeping the frequency occupied. In his words, it is a way of saying, “This is ours.”
Why It Still Matters Today
The most important reason UVB-76 has grabbed attention again is its timing. The September broadcast came just before NATO and Polish jets intercepted Russian drones in Polish airspace.
As per Newsweek, this is not the first time UVB-76 has been unusually active ahead of major military events. In the days leading up to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, the station issued several codes. Since then, its bursts of activity have coincided with various points of high tension in the war.
