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A secret message in a Colombian song gave hostages hope

161 points by elijahparker 4y ago

_6hmp 4y ago
Very interesting. The chorus has the lyrics: "a message from my heart" and then "listen to this message" before going into the section with the morse code message.
forinti 4y ago
It's a bit weird. I would definitely think there's something wrong with the song, even if I couldn't decifer it.
samwillis 4y ago
I struggle to believe that if a hostage with military training can notice and decipher the hidden morse code, that a hostage taker with paramilitary training wouldn't also spot it. But then it's probably not too much of a problem if they did, except for maybe shutting of the radios. The section of the song with the morse code almost sounds like there is interference. Maybe when played on the radio in the jungle it would be less obviously "odd" than when in a high def digital format.
- Waterluvian 4y ago
  There’s also the case of that one guy blinking “torture” in Morse code. I think we may oftentimes underestimate the chasm of difference between proper training and the lack thereof. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine brought that into focus for me, and probably a lot of people, that you can dress the part, talk the part, and still be complete garbage. It might be very easy to miss the signals when you’re focused on all the things that real warfighters have committed to muscle memory.
  - 3pac 4y ago
    The crew of the USS Pueblo giving the Hawaiian good luck sign. It's an all-American moment.
  - walrus01 4y ago
    There's also the method of using slang/phrasing that's obvious to your own side but the captors might be oblivious to, as in the North Korean captive example: "Bucher was psychologically tortured such as being put through a mock firing squad in an effort to make him confess. Eventually, the Koreans threatened to execute his men in front of him, and Bucher relented and agreed to 'confess to his and the crew's transgression.' Bucher wrote the confession since a 'confession' by definition needed to be written by the confessor himself. They verified the meaning of what he wrote, but failed to catch the pun when he said "We paean the North Korean state. We paean their great leader Kim Il Sung" ("We paean" sounds almost identical to "we pee on").[4]"
- kika 4y ago
  That "paramilitary training" mostly included training which end of the gun the bullet flies out and that's about it I believe. I've seen quite a few documentaries with/about FARC and the way they hold guns did not instill a lot of confidence in their training.
  - peeonkim 4y ago
    Even the US forces have sensible limits on when and where you are provided interrogation resistance training, counter-intelligence, etc. Your third-world paramilitary is lucky to know how to use their iron sights in those days.
- furyofantares 4y ago
  I think you might find hostages much more motivated than their captors to spend time decoding a weird part of a song (out of nothing else to do or a desire to not think about their situation, rather than an expectation of a message meant for them).
- icehawk 4y ago
  Listening to it it's a bit easier to hear when the volume level of the sound is turned down to the point its a bit too quiet, I'm not actaully sure its intentional-- but if it is thats sort of a masterstroke.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- jasonhansel 4y ago
  Given the inherent difficulties in providing specialized training to a thinly-spread and relatively disorganized guerrilla group, I'm guessing that they wouldn't have had the organizational capacity to conduct Morse code lessons.
memalign 4y ago
The message: “19 people rescued. You're next. Don't lose hope.” More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Days_(Natalia_Gutierrez_y_Angelo_song) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Days_(Natalia_Gutierrez...
- aardvarkr 4y ago
  If you know what to listen for it’s pretty easy to figure it out. Here’s the song on YouTube and the morse code part starts around 2:30. Super cool. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fVUWjoTxOU8 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fVUWjoTxOU8
  - 7402 4y ago
    It's not easy for me to figure out. I'd guess it's at around 25 wpm. (Anybody know?) At that speed with an absolutely clear signal and when I'm totally relaxed I can copy maybe 50% of what I hear. I can barely get a letter or two from that song - there's a lot going on on top of the Morse code. When code was required for US ham radio licenses, it took passing a 20 wpm test to get the top license (Amateur Extra). Commercial Radiotelegraph Licenses used to require 20 wpm for a second class license and 25 wpm for a first class license. Unless someone was in the equivalent of the Signal Corps, I'd be surprised if they could copy the message.
    - thaumasiotes 4y ago
      I assume this got played more than one time. The message is included three times per play of the song. And the hint of a message was surely enough to motivate hostages who noticed it to focus on decoding it over time. It wasn't necessary for everyone to be able to decode it themselves: > one rescued hostage spoke of hearing the Morse code message in his psychological evaluation and had passed on its meaning to his fellow captives.
    - wglb 4y ago
      Brief review it seems to be about 20 wpm. It is tricky, as it seems to go from channel to channel. Among hams, this was not all that strenuous to decode, particularly if the song is repeated. Many hams, particularly in Europe, work contests at speeds at or over 40 wpm. I'm one of the ones that got the Extra class license at 20 wpm. My peak speed was about 40 wpm. One of the teachers not far from where I grew up, W7QYA, Flo, was usually found at 60 wpm. There is a weekly operating activity called CWT from CWops where the speeds are often on the order of 40 wpm. It sounds like their basic training covered Morse Code. I know that pilots used to be required to know the code. Some time ago, the requirement for Merchant Marine operators to know code was dropped. Nowadays, it is pretty much ham radio operators that have facility in morse code operation.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
boterock 4y ago
I always thought of this as a gimmick from the government. Why would they risk an operation just to send hopes to the hostages. I always felt this was more to get good will from people than for the hostages themselves. And as always, only part of the story is told. Who were the guerrilla? who where the hostages? not defending them, but in the countryside is common that the guerilla defends the farmers, and the hostages are corrupt politicans.
- agomez314 4y ago
  I would suggest you look up a bit on the history of the conflict, which is long and very bloody. Most of the time its regular citizens and army personnel that are kidnapped (it's a business in human trafficking) - i knew some of them and the experiences are horrific.
  - masaav 4y ago
    As a Colombian the entire country has been terrorized by FARC for decades now. They will kill even civilians.
- School-Cotton 4y ago
  Have you shared this opinion with any Colombian people? I’m not Colombian, so I can’t be certain, but my impression is that 99% of them hate the FARC.
  - malermeister 4y ago
    Having been to Colombia recently, this sounds quite possible. There's no angels in this conflict and support is definitely divided.
  - masaav 4y ago
    Yep that impression is correct. Speaking from experience.
  - boterock 4y ago
    That is exactly the point. That is the impression, impression made by media mostly.
agomez314 4y ago
Colombia's had some of the most creative spec ops tactics anywhere. They rescued 15 hostages by posing as NGOS with no bullets shot [1]. Many other examples exist. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Jaque https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Jaque)
- whymauri 4y ago
  They were high profile, high value hostages too, including a presidential candidate. In 2003, a failed operation to liberate a kidnapped governor led to the governor being executed, further raising the stakes.
- rdl 4y ago
  Downside with doing stuff like that is putting all NGO personnel at risk going forward.
  - paxys 4y ago
    Yup. Kinda like how the US used a doctor to stake out Bin Laden's compound under the guise of a vaccination campaign. It triggered massive public distrust in NGOs and was a massive setback for the Polio eradication efforts in Pakistan.
    - whimsicalism 4y ago
      Yeah, although they did try to pretend that they found out about it from some other manner.
    - patrec 4y ago
      It's worse than that; was a massive setback for the *world-wide* eradication of Polio which appeared to be close to accomplished, since Pakistan and Afghanistan were (and remain) the last countries with endemic Polio. It also feeds into general vaccine skepticism that will complicate getting other diseases under control. Still, I guess not ridding the world of polio was a small price to pay for Obama's re-election (https://www.wired.com/2012/08/bin-laden-book/ https://www.wired.com/2012/08/bin-laden-book/) at least when compared to what it took to get Bush re-elected.
saghm 4y ago
Dream Theater hid a (decidedly less wholesome) message in Morse code in one of their songs, and it took fans a while to find it even after the band revealed that something was hidden in the song (third bullet point from the bottom here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Train_of_Thought_(Dream_Theater_album)#Songs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Train_of_Thought_(Dream_Theate...). I imagine that hiding these sorts of messages in songs would be fairly easy, but making them possible to decipher for a passive listener without being too obvious seems a lot tougher.
- Doctor_Fegg 4y ago
  Mike Oldfield’s Amarok has “FUCK OFF RB” in Morse code - RB being his label boss at the time, Richard Branson. It’s pretty prominent and blatant.
vhold 4y ago
I wonder if they took any inspiration from Martin Galway's not-so-secret morse code hidden message in the C64 Rambo intro song, which is a game about rescuing prisoners of war, that was released in 1985. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfXpQUVc8dc&ab_channel=Zeusdaz-TheUnemulatedRetroGameChannel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfXpQUVc8dc&ab_channel=Zeusd... https://tcrf.net/Rambo:_First_Blood_Part_II_(Commodore_64) https://tcrf.net/Rambo:_First_Blood_Part_II_(Commodore_64)
chasing 4y ago
Amazing. Also it just sounds really... cool. Almost a little unsettlingly like a real-world version of some strange encoding in a Boards of Canada track or something. Wild.
neilv 4y ago
> The code was inserted in three different places within the song and the team decided to transmit one simple message: "19 people rescued. You're next. Don't lose hope." After eight months, the song was ready for its first broadcast Was there also rescuing going on during the development of the song?
bigbacaloa 4y ago
Sounds like an excellent propaganda op of totally dubious value with respect to the actual hostages.
pschuegr 4y ago
I'd rather be a prisoner than listen to that. Was my first thought. Second thought for anybody that found this interesting: https://crooked.com/podcast-series/wind-of-change/ https://crooked.com/podcast-series/wind-of-change/ explores the idea that the CIA was responsible for the writing of the Scorpions hit Wind of Change.

161 points by elijahparker 4y ago

Very interesting. The chorus has the lyrics: "a message from my heart" and then "listen to this message" before going into the section with the morse code message.

forinti 4y ago

It's a bit weird. I would definitely think there's something wrong with the song, even if I couldn't decifer it.

samwillis 4y ago

I struggle to believe that if a hostage with military training can notice and decipher the hidden morse code, that a hostage taker with paramilitary training wouldn't also spot it. But then it's probably not too much of a problem if they did, except for maybe shutting of the radios. The section of the song with the morse code almost sounds like there is interference. Maybe when played on the radio in the jungle it would be less obviously "odd" than when in a high def digital format.

Waterluvian 4y ago
There’s also the case of that one guy blinking “torture” in Morse code. I think we may oftentimes underestimate the chasm of difference between proper training and the lack thereof. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine brought that into focus for me, and probably a lot of people, that you can dress the part, talk the part, and still be complete garbage. It might be very easy to miss the signals when you’re focused on all the things that real warfighters have committed to muscle memory.
- 3pac 4y ago
  The crew of the USS Pueblo giving the Hawaiian good luck sign. It's an all-American moment.
- walrus01 4y ago
  There's also the method of using slang/phrasing that's obvious to your own side but the captors might be oblivious to, as in the North Korean captive example: "Bucher was psychologically tortured such as being put through a mock firing squad in an effort to make him confess. Eventually, the Koreans threatened to execute his men in front of him, and Bucher relented and agreed to 'confess to his and the crew's transgression.' Bucher wrote the confession since a 'confession' by definition needed to be written by the confessor himself. They verified the meaning of what he wrote, but failed to catch the pun when he said "We paean the North Korean state. We paean their great leader Kim Il Sung" ("We paean" sounds almost identical to "we pee on").[4]"
kika 4y ago
That "paramilitary training" mostly included training which end of the gun the bullet flies out and that's about it I believe. I've seen quite a few documentaries with/about FARC and the way they hold guns did not instill a lot of confidence in their training.
- peeonkim 4y ago
  Even the US forces have sensible limits on when and where you are provided interrogation resistance training, counter-intelligence, etc. Your third-world paramilitary is lucky to know how to use their iron sights in those days.
furyofantares 4y ago
I think you might find hostages much more motivated than their captors to spend time decoding a weird part of a song (out of nothing else to do or a desire to not think about their situation, rather than an expectation of a message meant for them).
icehawk 4y ago
Listening to it it's a bit easier to hear when the volume level of the sound is turned down to the point its a bit too quiet, I'm not actaully sure its intentional-- but if it is thats sort of a masterstroke.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
jasonhansel 4y ago
Given the inherent difficulties in providing specialized training to a thinly-spread and relatively disorganized guerrilla group, I'm guessing that they wouldn't have had the organizational capacity to conduct Morse code lessons.

memalign 4y ago

The message: “19 people rescued. You're next. Don't lose hope.” More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Days_(Natalia_Gutierrez_y_Angelo_song) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Days_(Natalia_Gutierrez...

aardvarkr 4y ago
If you know what to listen for it’s pretty easy to figure it out. Here’s the song on YouTube and the morse code part starts around 2:30. Super cool. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fVUWjoTxOU8 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fVUWjoTxOU8
- 7402 4y ago
  It's not easy for me to figure out. I'd guess it's at around 25 wpm. (Anybody know?) At that speed with an absolutely clear signal and when I'm totally relaxed I can copy maybe 50% of what I hear. I can barely get a letter or two from that song - there's a lot going on on top of the Morse code. When code was required for US ham radio licenses, it took passing a 20 wpm test to get the top license (Amateur Extra). Commercial Radiotelegraph Licenses used to require 20 wpm for a second class license and 25 wpm for a first class license. Unless someone was in the equivalent of the Signal Corps, I'd be surprised if they could copy the message.
  - thaumasiotes 4y ago
    I assume this got played more than one time. The message is included three times per play of the song. And the hint of a message was surely enough to motivate hostages who noticed it to focus on decoding it over time. It wasn't necessary for everyone to be able to decode it themselves: > one rescued hostage spoke of hearing the Morse code message in his psychological evaluation and had passed on its meaning to his fellow captives.
  - wglb 4y ago
    Brief review it seems to be about 20 wpm. It is tricky, as it seems to go from channel to channel. Among hams, this was not all that strenuous to decode, particularly if the song is repeated. Many hams, particularly in Europe, work contests at speeds at or over 40 wpm. I'm one of the ones that got the Extra class license at 20 wpm. My peak speed was about 40 wpm. One of the teachers not far from where I grew up, W7QYA, Flo, was usually found at 60 wpm. There is a weekly operating activity called CWT from CWops where the speeds are often on the order of 40 wpm. It sounds like their basic training covered Morse Code. I know that pilots used to be required to know the code. Some time ago, the requirement for Merchant Marine operators to know code was dropped. Nowadays, it is pretty much ham radio operators that have facility in morse code operation.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

boterock 4y ago

I always thought of this as a gimmick from the government. Why would they risk an operation just to send hopes to the hostages. I always felt this was more to get good will from people than for the hostages themselves. And as always, only part of the story is told. Who were the guerrilla? who where the hostages? not defending them, but in the countryside is common that the guerilla defends the farmers, and the hostages are corrupt politicans.

agomez314 4y ago
I would suggest you look up a bit on the history of the conflict, which is long and very bloody. Most of the time its regular citizens and army personnel that are kidnapped (it's a business in human trafficking) - i knew some of them and the experiences are horrific.
- masaav 4y ago
  As a Colombian the entire country has been terrorized by FARC for decades now. They will kill even civilians.
School-Cotton 4y ago
Have you shared this opinion with any Colombian people? I’m not Colombian, so I can’t be certain, but my impression is that 99% of them hate the FARC.
- malermeister 4y ago
  Having been to Colombia recently, this sounds quite possible. There's no angels in this conflict and support is definitely divided.
- masaav 4y ago
  Yep that impression is correct. Speaking from experience.
- boterock 4y ago
  That is exactly the point. That is the impression, impression made by media mostly.

agomez314 4y ago

Colombia's had some of the most creative spec ops tactics anywhere. They rescued 15 hostages by posing as NGOS with no bullets shot [1]. Many other examples exist. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Jaque https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Jaque)

whymauri 4y ago
They were high profile, high value hostages too, including a presidential candidate. In 2003, a failed operation to liberate a kidnapped governor led to the governor being executed, further raising the stakes.
rdl 4y ago
Downside with doing stuff like that is putting all NGO personnel at risk going forward.
- paxys 4y ago
  Yup. Kinda like how the US used a doctor to stake out Bin Laden's compound under the guise of a vaccination campaign. It triggered massive public distrust in NGOs and was a massive setback for the Polio eradication efforts in Pakistan.
  - whimsicalism 4y ago
    Yeah, although they did try to pretend that they found out about it from some other manner.
  - patrec 4y ago
    It's worse than that; was a massive setback for the *world-wide* eradication of Polio which appeared to be close to accomplished, since Pakistan and Afghanistan were (and remain) the last countries with endemic Polio. It also feeds into general vaccine skepticism that will complicate getting other diseases under control. Still, I guess not ridding the world of polio was a small price to pay for Obama's re-election (https://www.wired.com/2012/08/bin-laden-book/ https://www.wired.com/2012/08/bin-laden-book/) at least when compared to what it took to get Bush re-elected.

saghm 4y ago

Dream Theater hid a (decidedly less wholesome) message in Morse code in one of their songs, and it took fans a while to find it even after the band revealed that something was hidden in the song (third bullet point from the bottom here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Train_of_Thought_(Dream_Theater_album)#Songs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Train_of_Thought_(Dream_Theate...). I imagine that hiding these sorts of messages in songs would be fairly easy, but making them possible to decipher for a passive listener without being too obvious seems a lot tougher.

Doctor_Fegg 4y ago
Mike Oldfield’s Amarok has “FUCK OFF RB” in Morse code - RB being his label boss at the time, Richard Branson. It’s pretty prominent and blatant.

vhold 4y ago

I wonder if they took any inspiration from Martin Galway's not-so-secret morse code hidden message in the C64 Rambo intro song, which is a game about rescuing prisoners of war, that was released in 1985. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfXpQUVc8dc&ab_channel=Zeusdaz-TheUnemulatedRetroGameChannel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfXpQUVc8dc&ab_channel=Zeusd... https://tcrf.net/Rambo:_First_Blood_Part_II_(Commodore_64) https://tcrf.net/Rambo:_First_Blood_Part_II_(Commodore_64)

chasing 4y ago

Amazing. Also it just sounds really... cool. Almost a little unsettlingly like a real-world version of some strange encoding in a Boards of Canada track or something. Wild.

neilv 4y ago

> The code was inserted in three different places within the song and the team decided to transmit one simple message: "19 people rescued. You're next. Don't lose hope." After eight months, the song was ready for its first broadcast Was there also rescuing going on during the development of the song?

bigbacaloa 4y ago

Sounds like an excellent propaganda op of totally dubious value with respect to the actual hostages.

pschuegr 4y ago

I'd rather be a prisoner than listen to that. Was my first thought. Second thought for anybody that found this interesting: https://crooked.com/podcast-series/wind-of-change/ https://crooked.com/podcast-series/wind-of-change/ explores the idea that the CIA was responsible for the writing of the Scorpions hit Wind of Change.