Hey YouTube, Jim here!
Welcome to Top10Archive!
Picture it: You're sitting at home watching reruns of My 600 lb Life when suddenly, the
screen goes black.
A lone man pops onto your screen. and says: "Hey YouTube, Jimsie here!
Welcome to Top10Archive!"
Creepy, right?
Well, maybe it would belong on this list of the top ten creepiest broadcast interruptions.
Now, on to the li...
Listen here, Archivists.
Now's the time to hit that subscribe button, click the bell, and you bet you should be
pounding that like button!
Oh, and comment about what you REALLY think of that Jim guy!
Woah.
That was weird.
Anyway...
10.
The Zombie Alert In 2013, KRTV in Great Falls, Montana, a clever
broadcast broke through The Steve Wilkos Show, one that horror fans should love.
The interruption appeared to be an emergency broadcast, which likely initially caused hearts
to stop, but the dire situation it was warning people about was too ridiculous to believe.
The hackers, clearly having fun, alerted viewers of a zombie apocalypse.
We'd be lying if we said we didn't want this to happen again in a larger format.
9.
Vrillon Long before the zombie apocalypse broadcast,
a service interruption on November 26th, 1977 implored the human race to give up a culture
of war and embrace peace.
That's right, I said "Human Race" because the broadcast, which interrupted Southern
TV news anchor Andrew Gardner, came from Vrillon, a representative of the Ashtar Galactic Command.
In a very "War of the Worlds"-type scenario, Vrillon engaged in a 6-minute-long diatribe
about how humanity needs to change.
Vrillon speaks about how his race has been watching humanity for years and how they're
"deeply concerned" about our current path.
8.
Captain Midnight Attacks HBO Whatever you do, don't tick off Captain Midnight.
You got that, HBO?
On April 27th, 1986, John R. MacDougall, an American electrical engineer, donned the pseudonym
Captain Midnight and took over Home Box Office's broadcast of The Falcon and the Snowman.
The message Captain Midnight had wasn't a positive one.
For the most part, he complained about the $12.95/month rate.
MacDougall...
I mean Captain Midnight... fought with HBO for 90 seconds for control of the signal before
abandoning his broadcast in fear of getting caught.
Which he did.
After entering into a plea bargain, MacDougall received a $5,000 fine and was put on unsupervised
probation.
7.
The Anti-Hezbollah Propaganda During the 2006 Lebanon War, satellite transmissions
of Hezbollah's Al Manar TV were overloaded by Israel engineers.
The broadcasts that came through were anti-Hezbollah propaganda, intended to strong-arm and frighten
supporters of Hezbollah into ceasing the war or defecting.
One memorable broadcast involved an image of Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah leader, with
crosshairs superimposed over his face.
A gunshow follows, along with a voice saying "Your day is coming."
The transmission ends with images of the Israeli Air Force destroying targets in Lebanon.
6.
The Playboy Interruption In 1987, Christian Broadcast Network technician,
Thomas M. Haynie, interrupted programming on the Playboy and Exxxtasy channels.
Haynie used CBN's equipment to cut into adult movies with messages like "Thus sayeth the
Lord thy god.
Remember the sabbath and keep it holy.
Repent.
The kingdom of God is at hand!"
Not quite the message you want to see while watching an adult film...
Haynie was convicted and three years of probation, a $1000 fine, and 150 hours of community service.
5.
Interrupting Mayday If you were watching Mayday: Head-On Collision
on January 3rd, 2007 in Australia, chances are you were privy to the unusual broadcast
that came through.
In the middle of the documentary on air travel disasters, the show's audio was replaced with
one repeating snippet from a story on an attack on a Haliburton convoy.
The audio was of driver Preston Wheeler saying, "Jesus Christ, help us all, Lord."
That looped for five minutes without apparent reason.
4.
The Pretty Things Shortly after the 2008 presidential election,
a news broadcast in Wyoming went to a series of black, white, and grey bars.
Text on the screen read "we present a special presentation" and a series of threes.
Shortly after, the picture switched to read "You will see such pretty things" followed
by several images of human heads.
The broadcast continued for several minutes, displaying text like "You are lost on the
path," "Why do you hate," and "You are ill."
It was also reported that the high frequency the broadcast operated on caused hallucinations
and vomiting.
3.
Max Headroom It's one of the most popular broadcast interruptions
that disrupted the signals of WGN-TV and WTTW in Chicago.
During a broadcast of Doctor Who, an intruder donned a Max Headroom mask and took over the
signal for 90 nonsensical seconds.
The person behind the Max Headroom mask was never uncovered and, more importantly, nobody
ever deciphered what exactly what they were trying to accomplish... and, quite frankly,
it's probably best we don't know.
2.
The Czech Nuclear Blast How do you frighten an entire demographic
of viewers?
Find a way to make them believe a nuclear weapon was just dropped in their home land.
The 2007 broadcast interrupted the Czech channel, CT2, during a weather report.
While viewers were watching for the day's weather, their screens flashed to video of
a mushroom cloud, as if the news broadcast was forced to cut to a more pertinent story.
The panic that ensued landed six members of the Ztohoven collective in jail, despite their
claims that they aren't a terrorist organization and were just trying to open the consumer's
eyes to the manipulation of news media.
1.
War with the United States In the Soviet Union, an 18-year-old was able
to hijack a radio signal in the city of Kaluga with an announcement that nuclear war had
broken out with the United States.
More specifically, the broadcast warned that nuclear-equipped rockets were launched from
the U.S. and "hurling downward on Soviet cities."
The incident unfolded in 1966, four years after the Cuban Missile Crisis and in the
middle
of the Cold War.