The End Was Near

The message of Feb. 20, 1971

It was Saturday, Feb 20, 1971.

Richard Nixon was in the White House and The Beatles officially broke up the year before.

"One Bad Apple" by The Osmonds was the number one song (dear God). The Baltimore Orioles were the reigning baseball World Series champions, while the Colts had won won Super Bowl V a month earlier.

And the world nearly ended. Or at least those listening to radio or watching TV might have thought that.

No. Make that "MUST have thought that."

We have a system for broadcasting "in the case of an ACTUAL emergency," as you've know doubt heard over the years. We now call it the Emergency Alert System.

In 1971, it was the Emergency Broadcast System, and a major mistake caused "War of the Worlds" -like panic.

At 9:33 that morning, NORAD teletype operator W. S. Eberhardt sent the wrong tape over the EBS to over 2,500 radio and television stations in the United States. Eberhardt had access to three tapes: a test and two tapes that delivered actual emergency messages.

Incidentally, I can't seem to find what happened to poor Mr. Eberhardt.

The alert, as it said in the picture above:
*****

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

*****

The tape Eberhardt used, with the code word "HATEFULNESS," instructed stations to cease broadcasting immediately and begin and Emergency Action Notification (EAN) using Message #1. The message indicated that there were not other specifics, but the alert was at the direction of the US Government.

Six cancellation messages were attempted over the next 40 minutes, but each time they failed due to the use of the wrong code word or improper protocols. Finally, at 10:13 a.m., the code word "IMPISH" came across and the alert was canceled.

Many radio stations actually ignored the alert due to it being sent at the time that a regularly-scheduled test was to be delivered. Other broadcasters didn't have EAN protocols in place.

We are fortunate in that there are two examples of what radio stations did that morning exist on the internet. Radio station WOWO in Fort Wayne, IN had a befuddled, yet calm and authoritative Bob Sievers on the air. Later in this recording, WCCO of Minneapolis/St. Paul also exhibits a necessary level of calm. I'd like to believe I'd be able to do the same.



While we've fortunately never had to activate the system for the most dreaded of national emergencies, there are still uses for the system in terms of local warnings for things such as weather alerts.

The cell phone alert that snapped Hawaii to life on Jan 13, 2018

There have been subsequent false alarms, such as the alert on Jan 13, 2018 when residents of Hawaii were alarmed with the news of a imminent ballistic missile strike. In fact, I remember that quite well, as a friend of mine posted that news on Facebook.  Essentially, he posted words along the lines of: "I don't know what's going to happen, but if this is goodbye..."

Some 38 minutes later, that report turned out to be false.

Thankfully.

Watch how they saw it in Hawaii on CBS.



(UPDATE!) One more, thanks to AJ Szymanowski. While not the same, I thought of the day President Ronald Reagan joked into an open microphone about bombing Russia. Reagan was preparing to deliver his weekly radio address on Aug 11, 1984 when he joked with engineers during soundcheck. However, the feed went to stations who were already rolling tape. The inadvertent comments came across, but they were not broadcast live. Still, it was something to hear.

I thought about using it in this post, and when AJ tweeted a similar note to me, I decided to come back and add it. Thanks, AJ.