Stranger Things Season 3: The Code Explained

Here’s what the intercepted radio code means in Stranger Things Season 3.

The following contains spoilers for Stranger Things season 3 episode 3 “The Case of the Missing Lifeguard.”

Erect the mast for the Cadillac of ham radios in Hawkins, Indiana – a town plagued by supernatural beasts and top-level conspiracies – and you’re likely to pick up something weird. That’s just what happened to Dustin Henderson.

Fresh from science camp, Dustin set up Cerebro on a Hawkins hillside to chat with his out-of-state girlfriend. Instead, he stumbled upon a coded transmission from Russia, or at least in Russian.

Steve ‘The Hair’ Harrington made the link between music playing in the background of Dustin’s recording and the ‘Indiana Flyer’ pay-per-ride pony toy in the town’s new and shiny Starcourt Mall, and the gang realised that the signal came from Hawkins itself, right underneath their feet.

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Once translated, here’s what the message said:

“The week is long.

 The silver cat feeds when blue meets yellow in the west.

 A trip to China sounds nice, if you tread lightly.”

In episode three, Brainy Robin (played by newcomer Maya Hawke), Steve Harrington’s workmate at ice-cream shop Scoops Ahoy, decodes the transmission as follows:

The silver cat = Lynx Transportation (a firm making deliveries to the mall with a silver cat logo).

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When blue meets yellow in the west = a quarter to nine in the evening (the hands on Starcourt Mall’s clock are blue and yellow).

A trip to China sounds nice = Imperial Panda Chinese restaurant in the food court

If you tread lightly = Kaufman Shoe shop

read more: Stranger Things Season 3 – Complete Easter Egg and Reference Guide

In other words, the message reads that the secret delivery will come from Lynx Mountain Transportation at quarter to nine, disguised as supplies for the restaurant and shoe shop.

The next mystery to solve: what’s inside those boxes?

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Stranger Things Season 3 is out now on Netflix. Read more about the show on Den Of Geek here.

Listen to our analysis of Stranger Things on the Sci Fi Fidelity podcast:

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