For the past eight years or so, ENIGMA, the European Numbers Information Gathering & Monitoring Association, has collected information on numbers stations in Europe and the rest of the world. The ENIGMA newsletter provided numbers monitors with in-depth information. Now, in 2000, they have announced that ENIGMA will not be continuing on in its present form. According to an announcement from ENIGMA HQ, due to a variety of personal reasons from those who put out the newsletter, it will not be produced any longer. ENIGMA will continue, however, but only to conduct research into numbers-related matters. Subscription money will be refunded, however according to the announcement, refunds must be requested by December 1st.

ENIGMA was a fine organization devoted to numbers stations and other related information which put out a newsletter a couple times a year. ENIGMA was not without controversy, however, as a few editorials in the newsletter seemed to put down American SWL's and the internet. There was also the concern of information from ENIGMA being plagiarized on the internet and other places. However, the opinions of a couple of people should not overshadow the work that ENIGMA did. The newsletter contained good information about numbers stations with little speculation. ENIGMA HQ was serious about monitoring numbers stations.

A small group of ENIGMA members have set up ENIGMA 2000. This is a new entity separate from, but with close ties to, the original ENIGMA. This group will be centered around the website http://reachus.at/enigma. It's unclear as to what form ENIGMA 2000 will take, or what exactly the group will do, but the website will undergo an extensive overhaul in the next few weeks. as of this writing.

With the passing of the ENIGMA newsletter, numbers monitors have been discussing what to do to fill the void. The idea of producing another newsletter has come up, but nothing firm has been decided as of yet. If you have any ideas or are interested in a new numbers station newsletter, please contact me at the address at the top of the page.

The ENIGMA newsletter may be gone, but there are still plenty of other places to get numbers-related information. First, you can read this column in the ACE every month. Secondly, the Spooks mailing list provides up-to-date information & loggings. To subscribe, send an email to [email protected] with "subscribe spooks" as the message. Chris Smolinski's website www.spynumbers.com is a good spot to learn about individual stations, as well as having an extensive database of numbers loggings. Finally, the message forum at www.delphi.com/spynumbers is the site I set up to discuss numbers & intelligence-related information.

Next month, some new information on the stolen Enigma code machine stolen from the museum at Bletchly Park in England.

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