- [Narrator] Next time you're in a shop, and you hear something
(eerie music) you don't understand over
the public address system, don't worry, the store
manager hasn't gone crazy. It's likely they're just sending messages to the staff, using a secret code. For some reason, they don't want you to know what's going on. Maybe they don't want to alarm you, or maybe what they're saying is just too disgusting for words. - Amazing.
(chimes echoing) Secret codes are all around us. Here is our top 10 secret codes you're not meant to know. Number 10, operation rising star. There are many secret codes between staff on cruise ships. If you are on a cruise ship and you hear, operation bright star,
it means a passenger has been taken ill. On the other hand, the slight alternative, operation rising star, unfortunately means a passenger has passed away. They use secret codes, because cruising is extremely popular with the elderly. And if you intentionally
frighten an old person you might make the situation even worse. Operation rising star happens
more than you might think. On average 200 people a
year die on cruise ships. For this reason, ocean going cruise ships legally have to have an onboard morgue. Number nine, friend of Bill W. If anyone ever asks you if you're a friend of Bill W, and you're not, don't feel left out. There's no guy called Bill, who's friend with everyone except you. Instead, friend of Bill W is a code between members of alcoholics anonymous, making sure they stay, well, anonymous. Bill W is William Wilson, who co-founded AA back in 1935. It's said that if an AA member is stuck in an airport on a long delay, tempted to go to the bar,
they can ask the staff to put an announcement out
for a friend of Bill W. If there's another AA
member at the airport, they'll meet with them, and hopefully talk them out of a relapse. Number eight, TFL spillage codes. Transport for London, or TFL, are the body that run
public transport in London. The trains, the underground,
and the red buses all come under their watch. Moving a city of over
seven-million people around can be a messy business. So, TFL developed a list of secret codes to tell their cleaners what need cleaning. Code one is blood. Code two is urine, or feces. Code three is vomit. Code four is general
spillage, a drink maybe. Code five is broke glass. And code six is litter. The most intriguing one is code seven, which is anything not
covered by codes one to six. I'll let you think of what that could be. Number seven, time check. If you're in a shop and you hear, time check one o'clock, on the public address system, it isn't a shop help employee
telling you `what time it is. It means, there's a
bomb threat in the shop. The time check alerts the
shops staff to the threat, and tells them they need
to stop what they're doing and look for the suspected bomb. The practice started in the UK, at the department store John Lewis, and spread around the world. I'm sure the news that they were supposed to stay and look for the
bomb went down a storm with the teenage shop assistants on their first day of work. Number six, Doctor Brown. Hospitals have a large number of codes to deal with the large amount
of stuff that happens there. They often differ from place to place. But one that is popular
is, could Doctor Brown "please come to the emergency room? this means that there is a serious threat to hospital staff taking place, such as a patient getting violent. The code alerts hospital
security to come straight away. Before you ask, I'm not entirely sure what happens if you are a doctor and your last name is actually Brown. I guess you'll just spend a
lot of time break up fights. Number five, dating site codes. For years people have used codes when putting their
dating profiles together. Some were to save space, like GSOH, for good sense of humor. Others to alert potential partners to certain issues, discretely. If you see the numbers,
437737 in a dating profile, well, that means he or she has herpes. Why those numbers? Well, just think of the old style phones, which had letters and numbers. Unless you've got some cream
to hand, I'd swipe left. Number four, IT support codes. We've all been there, you're at work and your computer refuses to
do what it's supposed to do. You call the quiet nerdy IT
guy, who lives in the basement. He remotes in and magically fixes it. What you don't know is that the jargon he uses to describe your issue is a secret code, aimed squarely at you. If he says your problem is a PEBKAC, that means problem exists
between keyboard and chair. Basically the problem
is you, not the machine. If your issue is assigned an ID 10 T code, that doesn't meant it's more serious, just that the IT guy
thinks you're an idiot. Number three, inspector sands. We're back on the London underground now, and it's time to meet inspector sands. If a message comes through
on the public address system, will inspector sands please
report to the main entrance? Or whatever, it means there's
a fire in the tube station. After a tragedy in America in 1913, when 73 people died in
a crush at a theater, because someone yelled fire, there became a need to alert
staff to a possible fire without alarming the
public, and causing mayhem. Secret codes developed in a
variety of places to do this. In Walmart stores for example,
they code red for fire, which conveniently brings us on to number two, code Adam. This one was started by Walmart but is now used all over America. Code Adam is the secret
code for a missing child. It was devised in 1994
in memory of Adam Walsh, a six-year-old boy who went missing from a Sears store in 1981. Tragically Adam Walsh was
found murdered 16 days later. When a missing child is reported to staff, the store goes into a code Adam situation. All staff will be
notified of the code Adam, and given a description
of the missing child. The store doors will be locked. If the child is not
found within 10 minutes, law enforcement will be called. The store doors will not be reopened until the child is found, or when law enforcement
gives the go ahead. In addition, if the child is
found within the 10 minutes but in the company of an unknown adult, the police will be called, and the adult will be detained, if it's safe to do so. Today, many stores,
malls, amusement parks, hospitals, and museums have
their own code Adam program. Congress even mandated in 2003 that all federal office
buildings adopt the program too. A small piece of good that
came from a terrible tragedy. Number one, codes on banknotes. Secret codes don't just come
from public address systems. They're also in your pockets. That's right, the
banknotes in your pocket, or wallet, are covered in them. I'm talking about the alleged illuminati symbols on dollar bills. I'm talking about something
more sophisticated, hiding in plain sight. On many countries
banknotes there's a series of colored circles arranged in a pattern. Modern photocopying
machines have been programed to recognize the specific colors and patterns of these circles. If they see them, they
will refuse to function, 'cause that could be naughty. This technique has been
used all around the world, including India, the UK, and the Eurozone. If you're fascinated about these codes, than check out this video here. It goes into a lot more
depth on the subject. So there we are, 10 secret codes that have alerted the
world to crime, danger, spillages, and much more besides. Which secret code do you
think is the most important? Leave a comment below and let us know. Thanks for watching, and
subscribe to Be Amazed. (chimes echoing)
