WZZZ is the local numbers station in Night Vale that broadcasts from a strange, tall antenna built out back of the abandoned gas station on Oxford Street. The broadcast consists of a monotone female voice reading out seemingly random numbers, interspersed with chimes, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week[1][2]
At one point, the monotone female voice reading out the numbers stopped reading out the numbers and took the name Fey.[3] It later emerged that Fey was a piece of self-aware software in a computer in a heavily defended metal box. After the computer was rebooted, the software that had once been Fey returned to reading out numbers in a monotone female voice.[2]
Prior to Fey's rise to sentience and subsequent fall, Cecil Palmer claimed to find the numbers station's predictability soothing.[2] While running a pledge drive for Night Vale Community Radio, he mentioned WZZZ as deserving community support,[1] although he doesn't know who manages it, what it is for, or what master it serves.[1][2]
In the episode Standing and Breathing, it is revealed that WZZZ was programmed by Melony Pennington, hence the same voice.
Parallels to Real World
Numbers stations much like the one described in Night Vale were actually employed during the cold war. Numbers or letters, often read by women or small children, were broadcasted along with beeps or a small melody. [4]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Episode 6, The Drawbridge
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Episode 42, Numbers
- ↑ Spelling of Fey
- ↑ http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-24910397