Katsuhara lived on Honshu, the Japanese island. He stumbled onto our little group via a Google search on a Thursday afternoon a couple of months back but had quickly endeared himself to us and become one of our most prodigious contributors. He also spoke nearly perfect Chinese and provided valuable insight on numbers stations of the Eastern Hemisphere.

He ambushed us as soon as we got on, informing us that New Star Broadcasting had been in an immense flurry of activity. New Star was based somewhere near Taiwan. Instead of its usual discrete format, it was broadcasting continuously, sometimes even interrupting itself with what Katsuhara said were updates. He gave us a live audio feed.

…8988 8988. Yishang shi gei 3912…

“The preceding was meant for unit 3912,” he translated.

I asked him if he had any idea about the signal, which might have been related. He answered:

“I have not heard this ‘woodpecker’. I have, however, most interesting news. We may finally crack the New Star encryption.”