“6955 kHz” is episode six of season three of Fringe.
A lighthouse keeper in Stockton Harbor, Maine, a man in New York’s Chinatown and a housewife in Merrimack County, New Hampshire, all have ham radios and, with others online, start listening to what sounds like a numbers station. The housewife is recording and typing. Then stops typing and feels a pain in her head. Everyone looks to be having a seizure, before collapsing. They come around again. The lighthouse keeper seems puzzles, the man in New York isn’t responding to his friend and the housewife sees her husband and grabs a knife, telling him to stay away from her. Asking who he is. Then who she is.
Peter brings AltLiv breakfast in bed. They are talking and it seems he’s got them U2 tickets. Then Walter rings from the lab; he’s not happy with Peter tinkering around with the plans of machine Walternate has. If he ends up breaking the universe, this time it’s on Peter’s head. Then Broyles rings AltLiv.
In New Hampshire, Broyles tells AltLiv, Peter and Walter that 15 people up and down the eastern seaboard all suffered retrograde amnesia at the same time. All were using shortwave radios. Becky Woomer’s husband left her alone for 3 minutes, in which time she forgot everything, including her name. There are concerns this is a potential terror attack.
Laird Woomer confirms Becky was listening to a numbers station. They’re kind of a mystery. Walter has found the reel-to-reel Becky used to record it and Peter tells him that’s what it was used for. Walter says listening to the recording could cause them to forget why they were listening. Broyles has heard of numbers stations.
At Massive Dynamic, Nina Sharp tells them no-one knows what numbers stations are or where they come from. Artificially generated voices stream random numbers in a wide variety of languages. They were hired by the DoD to investigate them. Beyond the fact that the first one was discovered 70 years ago, they discovered nothing. The point of origin could never be triangulated. There are theories, none with any proof. Walter wants to see Becky and has an idea about how to analyse the tape without losing their memories. He needs something from the child development centre. Nina tells Peter to go after Walter so he doesn’t get lost. AltLiv wants Astrid to look at the data, then talks to Nina about the machine. She’d like Nina to talk to Walter about it. Nina is surprised that AltLiv hasn’t spoken to Walter herself. Then Broyles calls AltLiv.
She and Broyles go to a radio tower in Alford, Massachusetts, where Homeland traced the broadcast to. Someone broke in, killed the people working there and wired in a cube-shaped device that is currently floating. Due to magnetics, apparently. Broyles gets prints.
In the lab, Walter has discovered a way to listen to the tape. There are two signals; one is the numbers, the second wave he’s suppressed. He believes it’s the pulse responsible for the amnesia. He doesn’t know where the numbers are coming from, but the device is the source of the pulse. Astrid asks why people were given amnesia. Peter says because they came close to figuring out the code and what numbers stations are. And someone didn’t want them to. Peter and Walter talk about Walternate’s machine; Peter explains how it came alive and responded to him. Then Astrid tells them they have a suspect from the prints and the photo is being taken to Laird Woomer. And Becky is back home.
A man is taking another cube to another radio tower. Laird is being shown his photo, Joseph Feller, their suspect. Laird has never seen him before. Walter is with Becky and is reassuring her about her memory. Peter has a list of everyone Becky has spoken to about numbers stations. He shows one name to AltLiv. Edward Markham. Which means nothing to the alternate. Peter reminds her. Meanwhile, Fuller is wiring up the device. One of the people affected is an aeroplane pilot. Not a great job to be doing when you lose your memory.
Astrid says the code is really complex, and there are now hints as to where the machine Walternate had originated. It sounds like it’s not merely ancient tech, but very, very ancient tech. AltLiv is making quite a few mistakes. If the others ever compile notes, they’ll probably realise who she is.