Danger Will Robinson, Danger!

Danger Will Robinson, Danger! was Originally Posted on November 4, 2005 by lavarock

I used to work in radio in Kentucky in the 70’s.

On a particular Saturday morning (I think it was Feb 21st 1971) as I drove to the station, something strange was happening. A calm reassuring voice came on the air and told us that the US was under attack by forces yet unknown or identified. The threat was real and was almost immediate!

In the 70’s each radio and television station generally had a newswire service with an old Teletype machine. You may see these in old movies or shows and consisted of a heavy metal machine with gears and knobs and paper spewing out of it. Imagine it is a giant electrical typewriter of sorts. Connected to the Associated Press or United Press International, they would constantly type out International, State and local news, sports and weather reports. The term “rip and read” comes from station people ripping the news off of the machine and running into a microphone to read the latest press items to the audience. “This just in”, while being handed a small sheet of paper, also refers to the same type of event.

At this time on a Saturday, the Emergency Broadcast System (EBS) would send down tests and we would test the system of notifying the public of major events. I believe this was set up after the Cuban Missile scare. Some may remember EBS as the answer to the old CONALRAD system.

The National Emergency Warning Center in Cheyenne Mountain Colorado is a giant underground fortress [made famous in the movie War Games]. On that Saturday, an Air Force person went to his machine to perform the regularly scheduled test. Nearby was a set of punch tapes, strips of long paper with holes punched in it used to make a pre-recorded transmission. He inserted the tape and pushed the button to transmit. As was the process, his transmission would interrupt the news feeds normally sent by AP and UPI to all stations across the country and his machine typed directly to all machines then turned on. I have the actual printout here somewhere but he message read in effect:

“BUST BUST”

XXXXXXXXXX

AUTHENTICATOR WORD: HATEFULNESS

THE PRESIDENT HAS DECLARED A NATIONAL EMERGENCY EXISTS. NORMAL BROADCASTING IS TO CEASE IMMEDIATELY.

YOU ARE INSTRUCTED TO OPEN YOUR ENVELOPE IMMEDIATELY, VALIDATE THE AUTHENTICAOR WORD AND FOLLOW PROCEEDURES.

XXXXXXXXXX

Stations across the country opened their sealed envelopes of codes and verified that today’s code MATCHED! This was not a test!

Many stations did what they were supposed to, that is to play the announcement message and then go off the air, leaving the most powerful stations to broadcast Civil Defense messages to the public.

The Warning center immediately discovered the problem and tried to recall the message by broadcasting a cancel message. Since no one thought ahead, there was no pre-punched tape to cancel an alert as alerts were supposed to be real. Thus the technical typed the message my hand in a very slow manner, one letter at a time… CANCEL CANCEL CANCEL NOT AN EMERGENCY

The problem is that the tech did not immediately send the correct keyword, which would verify the cancel command. Stations recognizing that the cancel message MIGHT have been written by someone taking over communications, they correctly did not immediately cancel the alert. Later it was typed in. The code? IMPISH

Impish was the correct code, but many stations were already off the air and even some of the primary stations who were supposed to remain on the air, had gone off. Their people just said the heck with sitting in a building all-alone on a Saturday when the US is under attack. I’m going home to be with my wife… etc.

The military did not scramble jets because this was the same center that would have known of any attack and called for it itself.
The operator who made the mistake was a civilian and had been there many years. He just made a mistake. It was one that told all of the US that a state of emergency existed, when it didn’t.

It was not just the public who was perplexed. Congress immediately called the White House. “What is the President up to?” The answer was that the President was not directing us to war and he had no idea what was up.
A big deal was made of the mistake because it showed up flaws in the system. The alert looked real but came at a time when the test would normally be transmitted. Many stations used to seeing the row of X’s and hearing the 10 bells, would just rip the sheet off the pages and file it, never taking a second look. Others said, “Well it is a mistake because it came during the test period”.

In our stations case, we did exactly what we were supposed to. We played the emergency recording, which directed listeners to change channels. We went off the air and monitored our Primary station. The Primary went off the air in confusion and we immediately came back on the air and continued broadcasting. As the mistake and correct cancel message came down the wire, we played the correct end of emergency message and began normal broadcasting.

During this time, our listeners heard the messages about the alert. The messages told them we were under attack and then that all was clear.

The messages were delivered by a calm reassuring voice. That voice was mine. Of course it was calm and reassuring. It was recorded. It was recorded months early. I was laughing at the time. I thought the message would never be used. But it was, the joke was on me, and I sounded great!