The spectrogram of an encrypted radio transmission would mean a US nuclear strike could occur within 72 hours. This is what Internet users who share this image suggest. It’s actually a false alarmist message that already circulated on social networks several months ago.

Published on: 06/11/2026 - 10:09

A message announcing the nuclear apocalypse? While former Fox News presenter Tucker Carlson announced, without providing proof, that Donald Trump would consider launching a nuclear strike on Iran, Internet users suggest that a radio transmission from the American army would indicate that this attack is imminent:

“There is a good chance that we will wake up to a big headline in the next 24 to 72 hours, as more than 20 US nuclear targeting codes have been transmitted in the last two hours and an encrypted data stream is currently being transmitted on the main US nuclear war frequency in Poland,” announces a user who shares a video, 27 seconds long, of the spectrogram of the supposed transmission. This alleged announcement, published on November 2, garnered more than 700,000 views in various messages on the X network.

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However, this is fake news. A reverse image search (see the process here) shows that the same message and the same video were broadcast on, at least, two previous dates: January 2 and August 29, 2026. This therefore puts into perspective the possibility of an imminent nuclear strike announced in the message.

The Observers editorial team also showed the video of the spectrogram to three experts. They believe that it is not possible to determine the exact content of the message transcribed there and to confirm that it is indeed linked to a nuclear strike.

Encrypted messages uninterpretable for the general public

“The screenshot looks like a recording from a kiwiSDR receiver (an amateur radio software on the Internet, Editor's note)” notes Nick Neznanovic, owner of the open source analysis X account Neet Intel, but the identifier and location of the message have been truncated. We cannot therefore know if the message was actually received in Poland, as claimed by the Internet user who shared the false news.

Then, if the radio transmission appears to use a frequency band around 11175 Khz, effectively “used for American army transmissions”, recognizes Nick Neznanovic, the interpretation made of it “does not make sense” considers the analyst.

“The content of such a message is encrypted and no one could claim to interpret it, it is the most encrypted information on the American side” explains Etienne Marcuz, associate researcher at the Foundation for Strategic Research. “No one in the public sphere could ever admit to having decoded or decrypted these messages — such a revelation would risk arrest or imprisonment in all NATO territories, in pro-NATO countries as well as in countries that purchase American military equipment,” also adds a person speaking anonymously from the X account @giammaiot, which brings together telecommunications researchers.

Probably routine transmissions

According to Etienne Marcuz, the transmission shared on the Internet would in fact be a routine communication of the American army. “This does not bode anything particular. There are transmissions like this every day on the American side,” reassures the researcher

The 11175 Khz frequency on which the message was transmitted is, in fact, used by the High Frequency Global Communications System (HFGCS), a short wave radio communication system of the American army, based on a network of 13 stations distributed throughout the world.

On July 4, Nick Neznanovic, for example, received, on this frequency, a message similar to the one shared by Internet users. Apart from the fact that there was obviously no nuclear strike on that date, the analyst did not notice any particular event following this message. Similar messages were recorded on other dates (for example here, here and there) again without any particular anomaly.

Donald Trump also formally ruled out the possibility of a nuclear strike against Iran, again recently, on October 15, to the American media Newsmax.

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