(loud emergency system beeps)
- [Announcer] Several authorities in your area
have reported that the bodies of the dead
are rising from their graves and attacking the living.
Follow the messages onscreen that will be updated
as information becomes available.
- That was a real life warning about a zombie attack.
- From the Emergency Alert System.
(techno music)
- [Female Host] Radio stations and networks
have always had the ability to break
into regularly scheduled programing
in case of an emergency.
But it wasn't until the atomic age in 1951,
with the advent of CONELRAD,
Control of Electromagnetic Radiation,
a system that was a kind of national contingency plan
was hatched in earnest.
- [Male Host] The idea was that in case of say a
nuclear event, AM stations would transmit
warnings and information before going off the air.
Then another station would take over
on the same frequency and so on, and so forth,
until the message spread across the entire nation.
- [Female Host] In 1963, the Emergency Broadcast System
replaced CONELRAD and instead of warning citizens
about the threat of war, it was used mostly to warn
of severe weather.
- [Male Host] However in 1971,
during a routine weekly test of the system
at the National Emergency Warning Center
at Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado,
Wayland S. Eberhardt, a civilian teletype operator,
placed the wrong tape into the transmitter
and that resulted in this little bitty hitting the wires.
[Announcer] Message authenticator, hatefulness hatefulness.
This is an emergency action notification EAN
directed by the President.
Normal broadcasting will cease immediately.
All stations will broadcast EAN Message One
preceded by the attention signal, per FCC rules.
Only stations holding NDEA may stay on air
in accord with their state EBS plan.
Broadcast EAN Message One.
Message authenticator, hatefulness hatefulness.
- [Male Host] Meanwhile some stations,
though curiously not all,
followed protocol and ceased regular programming.
They were on standby for a nail-biting
40 minutes waiting for an authentication code
until the National Emergency Warning Center
found the correct code to cancel the transmission.
- [Female Host] The Nixon administration
vowed to investigate the gaff,
but it was Louis I. Smoyer, the chief of the warning center,
who came up with a decidedly low-fi
but effective solution to keep the test tapes
far, far away from the warning tapes.
- [Male Host] In 1997, the FCC gave the system
a technological overhaul and changed the name
to the Emergency Alert System, or EAS.
Now the weekly test is an eight second
digital data signal produced by all AM,
FM, and broadcast TV stations,
as well as cable systems, digital radio,
and TV, and direct broadcast satellite providers.
- [Female Host] Digital transmissions
allow the EAS to transmit more information
into an emergency weather alert or other announcement,
target it to a more specific area
and send it out much faster.
- [Male Host] But the system is not without its flaws.
In 2013, a message about attacking zombies
was sent out over the Emergency Alert System
via television stations.
Viewers were told that dead bodies
were rising from their graves
and were advised not to apprehend
said dead, but dangerous individuals,
but to seek shelter instead.
- [Female Host] And just in case
some felt there was an actual zombie outbreak,
well one station, KRTV in Montana,
felt obliged to release this statement quote,
"This message did not originate from KRTV
"and there is no emergency."
- [Male Host] Meanwhile the FCC
ordered broadcasters to make passwords
more secure against zombie loving hackers, brilliant.
- [Male Announcer] Hey, if you enjoy this video,
be sure to check out these three videos as well.
- [Female Announcer] And don't forget to visit us
at stufftoblowyourmind.Com.
Okay, pop quiz, you're on a plane
that's collided on the runway with another plane.
After coming to a full stop,
the plane begins to fill with smoke.
Do you, A, shriek at the approaching flames,
B, stare at the approaching flames,
or C, do you flee?
- But of course, it's the media
where our zombie obsession really goes nuts.
I mean, you go back to George Romero's
Night of the Living Dead, Lucio Fulci's Zombie.
You have TV shows like AMC's The Walking Dead.
We have a comedy like Shaun of the Dead,
or something gritty and hardcore like 28 Days Later.
No matter what the exact flavor of the media,
we cannot get enough with our zombie obsession.
- [Announcer] Fear The Walking Dead
predicts written history.
And cultures across the world tell stories
of corpses possessed by some evil force
returning to terrify the living.
With the emergence of mass media,
films, books, and video games
transform this ancient fear into a kind of recreation.