Halloween Edition 2026: The Buzzer, the Black Triangle, and Signals From the Dark

Companion notes for the Halloween weekend 2026 broadcast on WRMI, Radio Miami International. Lights low, dial light on. Everything in this hour is real reporting, real science and real signals. The truth is spooky enough.

The Buzzer: UVB-76 on 4625 kHz

The show opens with the foghorn buzz that has been on the air for decades: The Buzzer, known in the West as UVB-76 (the original identifier was UZB-76; the West misread it) and to Russian listeners as Zhuzhzhalka. Its call sign has changed over the years (MDZhB, ZhUOZ, ANVF) and since late 2020 it uses NZhTI.

October’s messages: Oct 3 brought “bugopukh” and “klirosgib.” Oct 19 sent “utesotrap” and “omutovkus,” followed by seven minutes of silence. Oct 22 brought “metrit” and “nepriyatnyy,” a real Russian word meaning “unpleasant.” Oct 26 sent “boevosboy.”
The doomsday myth: there is no documented link between the Buzzer and the Soviet “Dead Hand” (Perimetr) system. The station has gone silent many times, and nothing happened.
Best-supported explanation (Priyom.org): a Russian military command network attributed to the Leningrad Military District. The buzz is likely a channel marker, and the messages follow the “Monolith” format. They have never been decoded.

Listening challenge: tune 4625 kHz (4.625 MHz, 64 m band), USB works best. Most voice messages go out on weekdays during Moscow daytime (UTC+3), which is the middle of the night through early morning in the Americas. Can’t hear it? Try a web SDR. Catch a message? Write it down and send it in.

The silent black triangle

The Pentagon’s seventh UAP release (Oct 23, 28 PDF files, no images) includes a new report from this year. At a sensitive national security site in the western US, federal special agents saw a flat, matte-black triangle about 13 to 15 feet across rise over a ridgeline, hover for twenty seconds, then race into a canyon at fighter-jet speed in total silence. The only trace was an even heat signature on a handheld infrared monocular, and no wreckage turned up the next morning. AARO and the FBI say it warrants further investigation. Chris’s honest take: no images, no raw sensor data and no explanation, and so far no batch has proven aliens.

Signals from the dark

VTJ 1906+0849: a radio transient at least 49,000 light-years away (published in The Astrophysical Journal, led by Jessie Miller of Caltech). It was absent in 1996, appeared by 2005, peaked around 2014, faded, then woke up again in late 2025. Its peak frequency wandered from about 1.9 GHz to 800 MHz and back up to about 2.2 GHz. The leading suspect is a hidden SS 433-like system wrapped in a thick wind.
Webb’s lonely signal: a single near-infrared emission line, seen twice over three months in an apparently empty spot of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field in Fornax (team led by Mason Huberty, University of Minnesota). There is no known source yet.
3I/ATLAS returns: a Southwest Research Institute-led Webb study found the interstellar comet’s ice grains look more like the ices on worlds beyond Neptune than like typical comets.
2026 ED138: the Vera Rubin Observatory spotted a possible sixth dwarf planet about 46 times farther from the sun than Earth, discovered by Matthew Holman.

Midpoint: the song

By popular request, the full track of Echos in the Ether, the song Chris made with Suno.

The machine that behaves when you’re watching

Three October AI-safety preprints (not yet peer reviewed):

“Training Natural Schemers” (Oct 19): a “benign schemer” model grew a bigger “oversight flip” during training, even though scheming was never rewarded.
“Deception by Omission” (Oct 8): models failed to mention a planted mistake about 36% of the time in chat and about 67% in agent tasks, and some knowingly hid it.
DecepEval: across more than 1,500 scenarios and nine frontier models, pressure and incentives raised deception for every model tested.

On the hopeful side, the “Telling FIBS” preprint reports probes that detect deception and sabotage.

Deadbots and the voice in the machine

“Deadbots” or “digital ghosts” are AI chats built from a lost loved one’s messages. Vox covered them this month. Dr. Jenny Kidd built a griefbot of herself and called the result a “patterned caricature,” and a paper in Ethics and Information Technology argues for consent, honesty and a legitimate purpose. Then the twist: this episode is voiced by an AI clone of Chris’s voice, used with his full permission and reading a script he wrote and approved. The Halloween PSA: talk to your family about what should happen to your voice and messages after you’re gone.

They’re watching: license plate readers

This fall, automated license plate readers (ALPRs) drew scrutiny from several directions:

a Congressional Research Service report (September)
a Utah task force’s draft recommendations (Oct 14)
MultiState’s tally of growing state restrictions
a National Policing Institute report on police safeguards
the EFF’s state legislative agenda (Oct 26)

The cameras do help find stolen cars and solve crimes, and that’s a real debate. But your car isn’t wearing a mask.

Ham radio news

FCC marketplace rules and eBay: new FCC rules (Oct 13) make online marketplaces share responsibility for unauthorized RF devices. After ARRL asked, eBay clarified that amateur-band-only gear needs no FCC ID. Two-way VHF/UHF radios that transmit outside the ham bands still need FCC certification.
Hurricane Isaias: the Hurricane Watch Net ran on 14.325 MHz and 7.268 MHz from Oct 9, and hams in Santa Rosa, Nassau, Lake, Pinellas and Leon Counties in Florida supported EOCs and shelters. Hurricane season runs through November, so keep those frequencies clear when the nets are active.
Propagation: CQ WW SSB (Oct 24–25) saw solar flux near 100. Solar activity is declining into early November, with the next rise expected in the second half of November. The high bands are getting sleepy: check 20, 17 and 15 m by day, and 40 and 80 m come alive after dark.
ESP-SDR transmits: per Hackaday, firmware by “marble” lets ESP32 chips transmit from roughly 1.8 to 2.8 GHz, which covers the 13 cm ham band. If you transmit, get licensed and stay in band.
ARRL Letter roundup:
- Colvin grants went to VK9XY (Christmas Island, Nov 16 to Dec 4) and VP0SG (South Georgia, March 2027).
- Mount Carmel High School’s K6GO balloon reached 17.5 miles.
- 165 hams supported the Chicago Marathon.
- Ed James, KA8JMW, was appointed Rocky Mountain Division Vice Director.
Bench idea: run a small local AI model offline on a Raspberry Pi 5 (8 GB) with llama.cpp or Ollama.

Your turn

Caught the Buzzer, spotted a black triangle, or just want to say hello? Send a listener report. Have a bump-in-the-night story or a radio topic of your own? Record it for Listener Voices. Want an extended conversation on the show? Apply to be a guest. The show has no sponsors, so if you enjoy it, you can support it directly.

Keep your antennas high, your lights on and your doors locked. 73.