When I was a kid in the 90s we had two old walky-talkies, the kind that predated the digital FRS systems you can buy today. They were the size of a brick, took

When I was a kid in the 90s we had two old walky-talkies, the kind that predated the digital FRS systems you can buy today. They were the size of a brick, took 9x AA batteries and the antenna was a solid 3 feet long when fully extended. We used to use them to play cops and robbers, but late at night in the summer, if you fiddled with the squelch settings and the antenna length (and I assume when the ionosphere was cooperating) I could pick up what in hindsight must have been some kind of numbers station. It was a male voice repeating a bunch of nonsensical phrases, most of which have faded from memory except for something about having Buffalo Soldiers and then the recording would end with the phrase "I just got downnnnn" where the word "down" was drawn out in some kind of strange electronic vocal fry, like a tape recorder running out of batteries. After that it would loop back to the beginning. This was in southwestern Ontario in the summer of 1996, maybe 97, and it thoroughly creeped me out. I've always wanted to figure out what it was. Alien signals indeed.