The Russian Woodpecker in Tales of Transhumanism

The Russian Woodpecker was an evil Soviet signal in Ukraine that broadcast between 1976 and 1989. The purpose of the signal was, among other things, to provide the Soviets with a convenient and mess-free method of turning people into zombies, to control the weather, and to drive shortwave radio listeners around the world crazy by interfering with regularly scheduled broadcasts. Think I'm joking? Think again.

Much like the Sputnik satellite and the Mir Space Station, the Russian Woodpecker signal, which was broadcast from a massive array outside of Chernobyl, was one of the USSR's many ventures into the art of mind control. The Soviets claimed that the signal, which sounds like someone tapping a pencil against a table 8-14 times a second, was merely part of an early warning defense system for ballistic missile strikes. In reality however, the installation was designed to rapidly turn civilians living in the Soviet satellite states into vicious zombies at the press of a button in case the United States tried anything funny on their front lawn. The clicking sound that the array produced was simply the byproduct of the constant radio waves being broadcast by the installation that kept those within it's ranges mind's malleable and ready to be transformed into zombies. The array also functioned as a weather control station until 1986 when operators at the station accidentally spawned a series of severe thunderstorms and several tornadoes, the latter of which led to a devastating meltdown at a nearby nuclear power plant, after which the weather control station was permanently decommissioned.

In addition to interfering with shortwave radio communications around the world, the Russian Woodpecker signal contributed significantly to the already heightened paranoia of the Cold War. After American conspiracy theorists unearthed the source of the signal and it's ultimate purpose, fears ran rampant among the American public over the thought of being transformed into a Soviet zombie. The CIA immediately began work on an array of their own, hoping to develop similar zombie creating technology. Their work, which was disguised as an SETI dish, was initially tested on the citizens on Haiti, successfully turning the entire nation into zombies. However unlike the Soviet bred zombies, the Haitian zombies were lazy, unmotivated, and totally uninterested in dismembering the enemies of the United States, which led to the CIA scrapping the project all together.

The installation was shut down in late 1989, with many historians citing the end of the Cold War as the cause. The real reason however, is because the FCC was investigating the signals, and was apparently getting very close to replicating the mind control signals. Rather than share the technology the Soviets opted to disable the station and scrap it for parts. However internal sources claim that Vladimir Putin has secretly begun reactivating the array and boosting its signal strength, possibly to a level where it would be strong enough to control the minds of Americans. Which, let's face it, are regularly controlled by their media outlets every day anyway, so a giant, fuck-off mind control radar really should have no problem.

Press play if you've got the balls.