WEBVTT - TechStuff Classic: TechStuff Tests the Emergency Broadcast System 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:07.160 Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:13.960 stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:14.000 --> 0:00:16.640 I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with 0:00:16.680 --> 0:00:19.440 how Stuff Works and I love all things tech. And 0:00:20.440 --> 0:00:25.680 this is only a podcast about a test. Yes, this 0:00:25.880 --> 0:00:29.280 is a classic episode of tech Stuff where Chris Poulett 0:00:29.360 --> 0:00:34.320 and I talk about the emergency broadcast system. It's that 0:00:34.680 --> 0:00:39.400 wonderful system that is it's truly valuable, but I remember 0:00:39.760 --> 0:00:44.360 vividly as a child being startled every single time it 0:00:44.400 --> 0:00:46.640 would come on television. If you don't know what I'm 0:00:46.680 --> 0:00:49.559 talking about, you gotta listen to this episode. Have a 0:00:49.560 --> 0:00:52.680 little trip back in time. Originally, this episode aired on 0:00:52.760 --> 0:00:56.400 August first, two thousand twelve, so I hope you enjoy 0:00:56.600 --> 0:01:00.560 this classic episode. Tech Stuff tests the emergency broadcast system. 0:01:01.000 --> 0:01:04.160 So we wanted to do an episode about the emergency 0:01:04.160 --> 0:01:06.720 broadcast system. This was actually a request that was sent 0:01:06.800 --> 0:01:10.160 in by a couple of different listeners, which is interesting 0:01:10.240 --> 0:01:13.600 because it doesn't really technically exist anymore. Now we have 0:01:13.640 --> 0:01:16.119 a new system in the United States called the Emergency 0:01:16.160 --> 0:01:19.120 Alert System. Also, I should apologize to all of our 0:01:19.200 --> 0:01:22.280 listeners from places other than the United States. This is 0:01:22.280 --> 0:01:25.680 a very United States centric podcast, but it's interesting anyway, 0:01:26.000 --> 0:01:29.840 trust me. Well, it's it's become something that's uh that's 0:01:29.880 --> 0:01:33.880 important in most situations too. I mean they're they're uh 0:01:34.080 --> 0:01:37.520 tragedies and big events that happen in places all over 0:01:37.520 --> 0:01:40.880 the world, so that the question is you've got a country, um, 0:01:40.920 --> 0:01:43.000 you know, it doesn't have to necessarily be the United States. 0:01:43.080 --> 0:01:44.920 We have a country, have millions of people living there, 0:01:45.319 --> 0:01:47.960 and something is happening, there's an earthquake or a tsunami 0:01:48.160 --> 0:01:51.919 or uh some other kind of accident, um, or another 0:01:51.960 --> 0:01:54.200 country is invading or something like that. You know, something 0:01:54.240 --> 0:01:56.440 big where you need to tell people, hey, look out, 0:01:56.480 --> 0:01:59.040 there's something you need to evacuate. You need to get 0:01:59.080 --> 0:02:02.160 out of there. How do you rests so many people 0:02:02.280 --> 0:02:05.440 in a short time? Now for the United States, what 0:02:05.600 --> 0:02:08.880 inspired this was the need to reach out to people 0:02:08.919 --> 0:02:12.600 during World War two, um, and there wasn't a system 0:02:12.720 --> 0:02:15.800 and its subsequently the Cold War. Yeah yeah, well, I 0:02:15.800 --> 0:02:18.919 mean the the whole uh, the end of the the 0:02:19.200 --> 0:02:22.440 Second World War and it of course with the dropping 0:02:22.480 --> 0:02:26.600 of two atomic bombs on Japan and um, you know, 0:02:26.639 --> 0:02:29.400 it was apparent because other countries had that technology pretty 0:02:29.480 --> 0:02:32.880 much right away, and that that The Cold War between 0:02:32.880 --> 0:02:35.480 the United States and the Soviet Union began shortly after that, 0:02:35.560 --> 0:02:38.079 and then there was a UM there was a big 0:02:38.120 --> 0:02:41.679 fear in the United States, but about UM, what would 0:02:41.720 --> 0:02:46.079 happen if the Soviet Union launched a nuclear attack on 0:02:46.080 --> 0:02:49.799 the United States? How do you warn people? And they said, well, 0:02:49.840 --> 0:02:53.160 you know, judging by what we did in World War Two, 0:02:53.200 --> 0:02:56.480 that was fairly effective. But we need a system. We 0:02:56.520 --> 0:02:58.399 need we need to plan, we need to figure out 0:02:58.400 --> 0:03:00.960 how we can do this effectively and let everybody know 0:03:01.040 --> 0:03:02.880 in a short period of time because we're not going 0:03:02.919 --> 0:03:05.240 to have long we need to have a short period 0:03:05.240 --> 0:03:09.480 of time a message in place. How can we reach 0:03:09.520 --> 0:03:13.560 out to people? And that was basically the birth of UM. 0:03:13.600 --> 0:03:16.200 What now is the Emergency Alert System. But at that 0:03:16.280 --> 0:03:21.639 point UH was known as Connell rad Yes, UH in fact, 0:03:22.480 --> 0:03:24.440 which wasn't by the way, kind of sort of an 0:03:24.440 --> 0:03:28.000 acronym for a control of electromagnetic radiation, which is that's 0:03:28.040 --> 0:03:32.040 kind of terrifying, right, But that was established in one 0:03:32.120 --> 0:03:36.200 by under the administration of Harry S. Truman. Quick Quick 0:03:36.280 --> 0:03:39.920 Quick Trivia was the S stand for nothing, that's right. 0:03:40.160 --> 0:03:44.400 Harry S. Truman stood for nothing. No, that's not right. Nothing. 0:03:44.720 --> 0:03:46.720 He just wanted it. He liked it sort of, you know, 0:03:46.760 --> 0:03:49.240 like Michael J. Fox. So you don't say like the 0:03:49.400 --> 0:03:51.960 S stands for nothing, Like nothing isn't spelled with S. 0:03:52.360 --> 0:03:54.480 I don't mean to confuse you. The S doesn't mean anything. 0:03:54.720 --> 0:03:59.600 So control of electromagnetic radiation getting back on track. Prior 0:03:59.640 --> 0:04:02.800 to nine teen fifty one, these alerts went out over 0:04:03.200 --> 0:04:06.040 radio stations. They would get like an emergency bulletin, and 0:04:06.080 --> 0:04:07.640 it was pretty much up to the station whether or 0:04:07.680 --> 0:04:10.760 not they read it. Um conal Red kind of established 0:04:10.760 --> 0:04:14.200 a specific protocol that needed to be followed in the 0:04:14.240 --> 0:04:17.640 event of an emergency, and originally the idea was that 0:04:17.680 --> 0:04:20.520 it would alert citizens of the United States of an 0:04:20.560 --> 0:04:24.680 impending attack from the Soviet Union. In those days, we're 0:04:24.680 --> 0:04:28.440 talking about before intercontinental ballistic missiles, So these attacks would 0:04:28.440 --> 0:04:32.680 take the form of bombers flying overhead, and so conal 0:04:32.760 --> 0:04:36.400 Red had two main purposes. Really, one was to issue 0:04:36.440 --> 0:04:39.560 alerts to citizens to try and get them to safety 0:04:39.600 --> 0:04:41.320 as soon as possible in the case of the attack, 0:04:41.680 --> 0:04:45.240 and the second was to minimize the ability of the 0:04:45.279 --> 0:04:50.520 Soviets to target uh specific areas based on radio frequencies. 0:04:51.000 --> 0:04:54.240 So part of the connal Red protocol was that radio 0:04:54.360 --> 0:04:59.279 stations would shut down and they would only uh broadcast 0:04:59.360 --> 0:05:02.719 in a certain amount of time and under certain frequencies. 0:05:03.000 --> 0:05:07.520 So under the Comrade protocol you essentially had this. This 0:05:07.560 --> 0:05:09.760 is what would happen if if someone were to issue 0:05:09.760 --> 0:05:12.280 an alert. By the way, no alert was ever issued. 0:05:12.520 --> 0:05:15.919 It was originally called a key station system, and the 0:05:15.960 --> 0:05:18.560 idea was that you had these dedicated telephone circuits that 0:05:18.640 --> 0:05:22.960 connected the air defense control centers to certain key radio 0:05:23.040 --> 0:05:28.080 stations called basic key stations. If there were an appending attack, 0:05:28.400 --> 0:05:30.840 the Air Defense Control center would issue the alert to 0:05:30.880 --> 0:05:33.440 the key radio stations, these basic key stations that would 0:05:33.480 --> 0:05:37.520 then issue that same alert to relay key stations. These 0:05:37.520 --> 0:05:41.240 would be smaller regional radio stations, uh so they it 0:05:41.320 --> 0:05:43.680 was sort of a hierarchy, right, It went from Air 0:05:43.760 --> 0:05:47.599 defense control centers to a certain number of basic radio 0:05:47.640 --> 0:05:51.880 stations to every other radio station. Once they received the alert, 0:05:52.160 --> 0:05:55.120 the radio stations would then broadcast a predetermined message out 0:05:55.120 --> 0:05:56.760 to the listeners. And the way it would work is 0:05:56.800 --> 0:06:00.240 that the stations would turn off for five seconds, so 0:06:00.279 --> 0:06:03.360 they'd stopped transmitting for five seconds, come back on for 0:06:03.400 --> 0:06:06.839 five seconds, go off for five more seconds, then come 0:06:06.880 --> 0:06:09.600 on and transmit a tone for fifteen seconds. Now, this 0:06:09.720 --> 0:06:13.320 was the the audible alert saying something is up. You 0:06:13.360 --> 0:06:16.520 get the predetermined message. Uh, actually we're really What you 0:06:16.560 --> 0:06:18.760 had to do was tuned to one of two frequencies. 0:06:19.000 --> 0:06:22.360 There was a frequency they killer Hurts frequency and the 0:06:22.440 --> 0:06:26.440 twelve forty kill Hurts frequency. Now, these two frequencies were 0:06:26.480 --> 0:06:29.800 the only two that were authorized to broadcast during one 0:06:29.800 --> 0:06:34.320 of these emergencies, and uh, on radios at the time, 0:06:34.600 --> 0:06:38.400 you would see this little symbol over those those frequencies, 0:06:38.880 --> 0:06:41.479 and it was a triangle inside a circle, and that's 0:06:41.520 --> 0:06:46.080 the Civil Defense mark. Yeah, you might remember the symbol 0:06:46.200 --> 0:06:48.120 sort of red, white and blue if you've seen it 0:06:48.160 --> 0:06:52.200 around and uh it's still not terribly uncommon to see 0:06:52.240 --> 0:06:55.240 it every once in a while someplace. So yeah, but 0:06:55.279 --> 0:06:57.599 that was that was saying like, these are the two frequencies. 0:06:57.720 --> 0:06:59.840 If you if your favorite radio station is an on, 0:07:00.320 --> 0:07:03.120 tune into this station because this is where the information 0:07:03.160 --> 0:07:06.280 is going to come from. Uh. It was not the 0:07:06.360 --> 0:07:09.000 best system for a couple of different reasons. One was 0:07:09.080 --> 0:07:13.960 that it was prone to false alarms if like an 0:07:14.040 --> 0:07:16.360 electrical storm could set off a false alarm because you're 0:07:16.360 --> 0:07:19.360 talking about electricity and radio frequencies. There is a relationship 0:07:19.400 --> 0:07:22.560 there and we have talked about that extensively on this podcast. 0:07:23.080 --> 0:07:25.440 So listen to our episodes about radio to learn more 0:07:25.480 --> 0:07:29.120 about electromagnetism, radio waves and electricity because I can't go 0:07:29.160 --> 0:07:32.240 into it here. But the the lightning strikes could cause 0:07:32.280 --> 0:07:34.760 false alarms, which is, you know, a bad thing if 0:07:35.400 --> 0:07:38.680 if you've been told that this alert system means that 0:07:38.720 --> 0:07:41.760 there's an impending attack from Soviet planes, it might cause 0:07:41.800 --> 0:07:46.800 a little stress. Also, the switching mechanism, because it would 0:07:46.880 --> 0:07:49.920 make transmitters switch on and off in this this um 0:07:50.320 --> 0:07:54.400 the sequence could cause transmitters to fail over time, just 0:07:54.640 --> 0:07:57.360 from powering up and powering down so frequently within a 0:07:57.360 --> 0:08:01.640 certain amount of time. And then of course, uh, this 0:08:01.720 --> 0:08:05.200 whole system, this idea of cutting off radio contact so 0:08:05.240 --> 0:08:09.840 that you could minimize the ability for Soviets to target 0:08:09.880 --> 0:08:15.440 in on specific regions. It became meaningless once intercontinental ballistic 0:08:15.480 --> 0:08:18.960 missiles became a real thing, right because now you're not 0:08:19.000 --> 0:08:23.240 talking about planes anymore. You're talking about guided missiles and 0:08:23.440 --> 0:08:29.040 um or at least targeted missiles. So it became clear 0:08:29.080 --> 0:08:33.079 that connal red was starting to no longer be very relevant, 0:08:33.160 --> 0:08:36.559 so they the government started to think, well, what can 0:08:36.600 --> 0:08:40.240 we do that will provide a similar method for us 0:08:40.240 --> 0:08:44.360 to message out emergency notices, but use a different approach, 0:08:44.800 --> 0:08:48.160 And that was what sort of led into the development 0:08:48.200 --> 0:08:52.199 of the Emergency Broadcast System e b S YEP. In 0:08:52.280 --> 0:08:57.480 nine EBS made its debut um and uh again it 0:08:57.600 --> 0:09:01.080 it never was used, of course, to uh, to communicate 0:09:01.200 --> 0:09:04.440 the threat of war, not on purpose. We'll get there, 0:09:05.800 --> 0:09:10.640 but I'm assuming that you listened to the Wow that 0:09:10.800 --> 0:09:14.319 was fun. Um, we'll get to that. But yeah, I 0:09:14.360 --> 0:09:18.240 mean it was a much more robust system. Um. And 0:09:18.400 --> 0:09:21.480 it's during the Kennedy administration for those of you keeping track, yep, 0:09:21.679 --> 0:09:24.000 yep and um. One of the nice things about it 0:09:24.160 --> 0:09:27.839 is uh here again, well you could kind of tell 0:09:28.040 --> 0:09:30.840 kind of judge the mood too. Um. If you had 0:09:30.960 --> 0:09:35.960 heard something come over conald Rad, you probably immediately would 0:09:36.000 --> 0:09:39.640 have thought war. But EBS was actually used for other 0:09:39.760 --> 0:09:44.120 things too. I remember weather alerts coming in using the 0:09:44.160 --> 0:09:46.599 exact same thing, and so you would hear and this 0:09:46.760 --> 0:09:49.640 was used on multiple radio stations. You didn't necessarily have 0:09:49.760 --> 0:09:52.920 to tune into one radio station to get your information. 0:09:53.000 --> 0:09:55.760 It would be broadcast over TV and radio because you 0:09:55.840 --> 0:09:58.480 no longer had to worry about that targeting issue. Then 0:09:58.800 --> 0:10:01.199 meant that all the stations could be used instead of 0:10:02.120 --> 0:10:04.520 having to tune into a specific one while everything else 0:10:04.600 --> 0:10:06.880 is turned off. And hey, that's more effective anyway to 0:10:06.960 --> 0:10:10.720 reach people. Um. But yeah, you would hear this this tone, 0:10:11.760 --> 0:10:15.040 which it's hard to explain it if you've never heard it. 0:10:15.200 --> 0:10:18.839 You're splitting other than e're splitting and annoying between but 0:10:18.920 --> 0:10:21.840 it does get your attention. Apparently it's the combined as 0:10:21.920 --> 0:10:25.000 sign waves of eight hundred and fifty three hurts and 0:10:25.080 --> 0:10:29.320 nine sixty hurts specifically chosen because it does grab your 0:10:29.360 --> 0:10:32.640 attention because it's very jarring to hear it. It's just 0:10:34.800 --> 0:10:37.199 you you can't ignore it. If you can hear you 0:10:37.280 --> 0:10:40.440 can't ignore it. That's that's true. Um. And of course, uh, 0:10:41.120 --> 0:10:42.920 those of us who are familiar with it other than 0:10:43.000 --> 0:10:46.280 you know, being living somewhere where they're multiple weather uh 0:10:46.440 --> 0:10:51.079 situations like tornadoes or tornadoes. Yeah, no kidding, Um, you 0:10:51.120 --> 0:10:54.960 would probably have heard this through the the alerts which 0:10:55.240 --> 0:10:57.920 Jonathan and I grew up with, which was yeah, they 0:10:57.920 --> 0:11:00.040 would say they would come on and say, well, this 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:02.599 is a test of the emergency broadcast system, and for 0:11:02.720 --> 0:11:04.760 the next sixty seconds, we will be testing out the 0:11:04.760 --> 0:11:06.880 emergency broadcast system. It would there was actually a very 0:11:06.920 --> 0:11:09.559 specific script that would fall and then there would be 0:11:09.760 --> 0:11:12.560 after they would tell you there's a test coming. They 0:11:12.600 --> 0:11:16.200 would play this tone, and then there'd be another message 0:11:16.240 --> 0:11:17.839 that would appear at the end saying this was a 0:11:17.920 --> 0:11:20.000 test of the emergency broadcast system. If this had been 0:11:20.040 --> 0:11:23.040 a real emergency, you would have received more information at 0:11:23.080 --> 0:11:25.840 this point alerting you to blah blah blah, blah blah, 0:11:25.880 --> 0:11:28.640 we now return you to your regularly scheduled programming type stuff. 0:11:28.840 --> 0:11:30.719 And they were required to do this test once in 0:11:30.720 --> 0:11:33.360 a week. Yeah, regular, on a regular basis. I didn't 0:11:33.360 --> 0:11:35.439 think it was quite that frequently. It was once a 0:11:35.480 --> 0:11:39.920 week unless you had actually had to issue a real alert. 0:11:40.559 --> 0:11:42.240 If you had to issue a real alert, you could 0:11:42.280 --> 0:11:44.760 skip over some time. But it was once a week 0:11:44.840 --> 0:11:48.000 at essentially a random time between eight thirty in the 0:11:48.080 --> 0:11:51.680 morning and sunset at night, uh sometime during the week. 0:11:52.120 --> 0:11:56.200 So it wasn't that we'll get into this too. There 0:11:56.280 --> 0:11:58.240 wasn't a time where every single station had to do 0:11:58.320 --> 0:12:00.840 it at the same time. It was unique to various stations, 0:12:01.440 --> 0:12:05.240 and like you were saying, Chris, you know these alerts 0:12:05.640 --> 0:12:08.040 went out not just for a national emergency. In fact, 0:12:08.080 --> 0:12:12.240 they never went out on purpose for a national emergency instead, 0:12:12.640 --> 0:12:16.240 uh so so never it was never used purposefully for 0:12:16.360 --> 0:12:19.440 that reason, even though that was the genesis of this system, 0:12:20.120 --> 0:12:22.640 it was used more than oh, I don't know, several 0:12:22.720 --> 0:12:27.160 thousand times to alert for civil emergencies, sometimes an alert 0:12:27.240 --> 0:12:30.559 about to be on the lookout for a suspect in 0:12:30.679 --> 0:12:33.760 a in a particularly nasty crime that could be an alert, 0:12:34.200 --> 0:12:36.480 or for the weather, alerts like the ones that Chris 0:12:36.520 --> 0:12:40.080 and I grew up with. I can remember that happening 0:12:41.320 --> 0:12:46.880 so many times. Deep this is just a test of 0:12:47.000 --> 0:12:49.400 the fact that we're gonna go listen to a sponsor now. 0:12:57.160 --> 0:13:01.679 The way the emergency broadcast system worked was that the 0:13:01.880 --> 0:13:05.880 only message that no station could ignore or was supposed 0:13:05.880 --> 0:13:08.959 to ignore, was a national one. Right, So, if you 0:13:09.160 --> 0:13:12.160 are a radio station in the middle of nowhere and 0:13:12.240 --> 0:13:15.199 the national alert goes out, you were supposed to to 0:13:15.600 --> 0:13:18.600 broadcast it just like every other station in the country, 0:13:19.520 --> 0:13:22.600 Whereas if it were a local or regional you may 0:13:22.720 --> 0:13:25.760 or may not have been able to ignore that message. 0:13:26.000 --> 0:13:28.800 And not broadcast it. The way it worked was that, 0:13:28.960 --> 0:13:31.640 again like the Connel red system, where you had the 0:13:31.840 --> 0:13:35.040 key stations, the basic key stations, and the relay key stations, 0:13:35.679 --> 0:13:38.840 there was a similar setup for the emergency broadcast system. 0:13:39.760 --> 0:13:43.160 You had these primary points of contact, which would be 0:13:43.280 --> 0:13:47.319 major broadcast stations usually, but these primary points of contact 0:13:47.440 --> 0:13:50.719 had to issue all broadcast all the alerts they got. 0:13:51.000 --> 0:13:53.120 They had no choice because they were a primary point 0:13:53.160 --> 0:13:55.760 of contact. But if you were further down the chain, 0:13:56.280 --> 0:13:59.120 like you are a secondary point or further down, then 0:13:59.320 --> 0:14:03.080 you could elect whether or not to broadcast that alert, 0:14:03.200 --> 0:14:05.720 assuming it wasn't a national alert that was the only one. 0:14:05.760 --> 0:14:09.880 Of course, everyone had to broadcast. So um, you know 0:14:10.160 --> 0:14:12.480 there were that explains why you might be in an 0:14:12.559 --> 0:14:17.559 area where a weather service alert is being broadcast and 0:14:17.679 --> 0:14:19.600 you saw it on one channel, but you switched to 0:14:19.600 --> 0:14:22.920 another local channel and there's nothing that could be why it. 0:14:23.040 --> 0:14:25.720 Maybe that that other channels not a primary point and 0:14:25.840 --> 0:14:31.640 therefore was not required to broadcast it. Um. Now, the 0:14:32.200 --> 0:14:37.080 the incident that Jonathan mentioned, famous incident, Now I read 0:14:37.080 --> 0:14:39.520 an account of this from a person who was working 0:14:39.960 --> 0:14:43.000 at a radio station in St. Louis at the time. 0:14:43.080 --> 0:14:45.600 It happened. Um. At the time it happened, by the way, 0:14:45.640 --> 0:14:49.480 is February nine, yep. And what he had said was 0:14:49.640 --> 0:14:54.880 that every Saturday at ten thirty three, the radio stations 0:14:54.880 --> 0:15:00.480 would receive a test message from Cheyenne Mountain and Colorado. 0:15:01.320 --> 0:15:03.240 And so basically it would say and there was a 0:15:03.320 --> 0:15:07.600 code word that it would include that would let you 0:15:07.680 --> 0:15:11.200 know that it was was genuine. And so at ten 0:15:11.280 --> 0:15:14.280 thirty three, um, there there was a teletype machine in 0:15:14.320 --> 0:15:16.400 the other room, and he heard it and and typically 0:15:16.480 --> 0:15:18.520 it would it would dig a couple of times to 0:15:18.600 --> 0:15:20.920 let you know, hey, there's something something on the wire, 0:15:21.320 --> 0:15:23.120 you know, a news story on the wire. But this 0:15:23.240 --> 0:15:27.800 one rang ten times, which he knew was a big deal. Um. 0:15:28.760 --> 0:15:31.520 And so he ran into the other room and got 0:15:31.600 --> 0:15:37.320 a message that said he needed to broadcast a warning 0:15:37.520 --> 0:15:41.360 that there was an announcement coming from the national you know, 0:15:41.480 --> 0:15:45.480 from the federal government and it was something bad and impending, 0:15:45.720 --> 0:15:48.440 and be on the alert because it was time to 0:15:48.560 --> 0:15:52.040 broadcast a message. But they really weren't told what that 0:15:52.120 --> 0:15:56.040 message was, what it was. Well, here's the hateful, hateful, 0:15:56.640 --> 0:15:58.960 the you know, which was a code word, meaning that 0:15:59.200 --> 0:16:01.160 the code that was actually a code word. The hateful 0:16:01.200 --> 0:16:04.480 was a code word that meant there's a messages coming up, 0:16:04.520 --> 0:16:07.240 there's an attack coming up, but more details will follow. 0:16:07.920 --> 0:16:10.800 Go ahead and initiate the alert system. And it was 0:16:10.840 --> 0:16:14.160 a mistake that was made by a teletype operator who 0:16:14.240 --> 0:16:17.320 sent this authenticated code out to the system, which meant 0:16:17.360 --> 0:16:19.960 it went to all those those primary points of contact, 0:16:20.160 --> 0:16:23.800 and it didn't say it didn't say a minute later, oops, 0:16:23.960 --> 0:16:26.360 my bad. No, no, it took a while, and in fact, 0:16:26.400 --> 0:16:28.760 the first time they tried to resend it, they sent 0:16:28.960 --> 0:16:32.440 the wrong code, so it didn't resend the message. It 0:16:32.560 --> 0:16:36.160 was only forty minutes after the initial message was sent 0:16:36.200 --> 0:16:41.040 out that the cancelation, the correct cancelation went out. So 0:16:41.400 --> 0:16:44.720 what happened was actually very telling in a way because 0:16:44.920 --> 0:16:48.000 some radio, radio and television stations, actually a lot of 0:16:48.080 --> 0:16:50.440 them didn't do anything at all, so they did not 0:16:50.560 --> 0:16:53.840 broadcast this message, and that, in a way is a 0:16:53.920 --> 0:16:56.800 problem because the whole purpose of the system is to 0:16:57.120 --> 0:17:01.040 relay a national emergency to everybody. Now. Now, in many 0:17:01.040 --> 0:17:02.760 of these cases, it may be that the people in 0:17:02.840 --> 0:17:06.320 charge said, there's no information here, we have no real 0:17:06.520 --> 0:17:10.439 I mean, it's a confirmed code, but there's no confirmed information. 0:17:10.600 --> 0:17:13.560 And we have nothing to share with people, So why 0:17:13.640 --> 0:17:16.160 would we go ahead and do this when we don't 0:17:16.200 --> 0:17:18.280 have any information we could give them. Yeah, they were 0:17:18.320 --> 0:17:23.080 standing by to broadcast whatever the major announcement was about 0:17:23.119 --> 0:17:28.159 the attack. Right. Some of them hadn't even signaled the alert, right, 0:17:28.280 --> 0:17:31.000 They just the programming just kept on going, But other 0:17:31.119 --> 0:17:33.520 stations did. Some of them didn't know what to do, 0:17:34.160 --> 0:17:36.440 so some of them weren't doing it on purpose. Some 0:17:36.520 --> 0:17:37.920 of them weren't doing it because they didn't know what 0:17:38.000 --> 0:17:40.560 they were supposed to do. And a few actually broke 0:17:40.640 --> 0:17:43.040 into programming and said, we've received an alert from the 0:17:43.080 --> 0:17:46.840 Emergency Broadcast System. We know that there is a national emergency. 0:17:47.240 --> 0:17:51.440 We're awaiting for more information. Please stand by. And what 0:17:51.640 --> 0:17:54.320 Chris was talking about earlier was there are there a 0:17:54.400 --> 0:17:56.280 couple of recordings on the internet you can listen to 0:17:56.600 --> 0:17:59.680 that we're taken from that day, and one of them 0:17:59.760 --> 0:18:02.760 is um AND radio station from Fort Wayne, Indiana called 0:18:02.920 --> 0:18:05.200 w O w OH, and you can listen to that 0:18:05.280 --> 0:18:07.640 and you can find it on the internet. The actual 0:18:07.800 --> 0:18:11.359 it's snippets from that. Yeah, it's it's been edited. It's sorry, 0:18:13.040 --> 0:18:16.240 it's been edited down so that you get uh sections 0:18:16.400 --> 0:18:20.000 the important sections of of the broadcast. It's about what 0:18:20.080 --> 0:18:22.440 six minutes or so long, right, keeping in mind that 0:18:22.520 --> 0:18:24.720 that whole window was more like forty minutes. So this 0:18:24.840 --> 0:18:27.840 is six minutes of footage footage from six minutes of 0:18:27.920 --> 0:18:30.600 content from that forty minute window. Yeah. So basically what 0:18:30.760 --> 0:18:33.879 it said was, you know, hey, there there's something coming up. 0:18:34.000 --> 0:18:36.359 It's it's um. It's one of those things that would 0:18:36.400 --> 0:18:38.879 be funny if it weren't. If you don't put yourself 0:18:38.960 --> 0:18:40.920 back at that time, it would have been terrifying. It 0:18:41.040 --> 0:18:43.440 would have been terrifying because he's the person who was 0:18:43.560 --> 0:18:46.040 on the air. Was a you could tell, was it, uh, 0:18:46.359 --> 0:18:50.240 seasoned newsperson? Yeah, yeah, he Uh. He was very serious 0:18:50.280 --> 0:18:52.760 and said, you know, there's there's been a message. We're 0:18:52.800 --> 0:18:55.520 waiting word for what's going on. Uh. If you are 0:18:55.640 --> 0:18:58.880 listening and you are one of our reporters, come here immediately. 0:18:58.960 --> 0:19:03.040 We need you here right now. And and basically was talking, uh, 0:19:03.400 --> 0:19:05.639 not only to the audience, but to the the other 0:19:05.680 --> 0:19:08.720 reporters who might be listening. The message itself actually said, 0:19:08.880 --> 0:19:13.600 um message authenticator, hatefulness, hatefulness. This is an emergency action 0:19:13.680 --> 0:19:18.280 notification directed by the President normal broadcasting will cease immediately. 0:19:18.400 --> 0:19:22.120 All stations will broadcast e A N message one preceded 0:19:22.119 --> 0:19:25.440 by the attention signal. Per FCC rules, only stations holding 0:19:25.920 --> 0:19:28.280 nd N D e A may stay on the air 0:19:28.359 --> 0:19:31.480 and according and accord with state E B S plan. 0:19:32.480 --> 0:19:37.120 And UH that would have scared the pants off of me. Um. 0:19:38.000 --> 0:19:40.399 And it took a while, as Jonathan said, Uh, you know, 0:19:40.640 --> 0:19:42.920 kill e A N message. It was sent in error 0:19:43.440 --> 0:19:45.960 and it took a while for it to UH to 0:19:46.080 --> 0:19:49.760 show up. But the person he the person who I was, 0:19:49.880 --> 0:19:51.399 I was reading, I should have gotten the the U 0:19:51.520 --> 0:19:52.840 R L if I can find it real quick for 0:19:52.880 --> 0:19:56.600 you guys, I will um. The the person who was, 0:19:57.000 --> 0:20:01.240 who has actually posted photos of UH scans of his 0:20:01.400 --> 0:20:06.119 copies of these messages, was saying, excuse the burn marks. 0:20:06.240 --> 0:20:09.840 I was smoking pretty heavily through this instance, because I 0:20:09.880 --> 0:20:12.720 think it was kind of stressed out. If you listen 0:20:12.800 --> 0:20:16.800 to the recording from the w O w O U incident, 0:20:17.400 --> 0:20:21.640 you actually hear the the newscaster kind of chuckling once 0:20:21.760 --> 0:20:25.080 the once the order was sent out about this was 0:20:25.200 --> 0:20:27.720 a mistake, and you know, kind of kind of because 0:20:27.760 --> 0:20:29.800 you know, clearly it was one of those stressful things 0:20:29.840 --> 0:20:32.760 and the chuckling is him releasing that stress, and it 0:20:32.880 --> 0:20:34.959 is an interesting moment in history to kind of pick 0:20:35.080 --> 0:20:38.639 up on that. Um. So yeah, not that was the 0:20:38.760 --> 0:20:42.879 only time that a national alert went out across the system, 0:20:42.920 --> 0:20:46.000 and again it wasn't a real one. It was a mistake. UM. 0:20:46.520 --> 0:20:50.719 And then what was supposed to happen is that, depending 0:20:50.800 --> 0:20:54.640 upon the nature of the emergency, UH, stations are supposed 0:20:54.640 --> 0:20:58.200 to read from a predetermined script like it's it's They're 0:20:58.240 --> 0:21:00.760 not supposed to just you know, kind of i'd commentary 0:21:00.800 --> 0:21:03.240 on it. There's a specific message that needs to be relayed. 0:21:03.840 --> 0:21:09.080 And so that was the general purpose of the Emergency 0:21:09.119 --> 0:21:11.200 Broadcast system, but it was starting to show its age 0:21:11.760 --> 0:21:14.399 uh sparticularly in the nineties because you started to have 0:21:15.119 --> 0:21:20.280 other methods of getting content on your television besides broadcast TV, 0:21:21.119 --> 0:21:25.480 and the emergency Broadcast system really affected radio and broadcast television. 0:21:26.000 --> 0:21:29.879 So there needed to be an overhaul of the system, 0:21:29.960 --> 0:21:32.200 and that's what happened in the late nineties and in 0:21:32.320 --> 0:21:35.920 nt you had the Emergency Alert System take its place. 0:21:37.080 --> 0:21:39.359 And now you might say, well, what's the difference. Well, 0:21:39.480 --> 0:21:43.080 for one thing, it doesn't just include broadcast stations. It 0:21:43.160 --> 0:21:47.120 also includes cable and participating satellite systems. So now you've 0:21:47.200 --> 0:21:50.920 got other methods of broadcast or or you know, other 0:21:51.000 --> 0:21:53.960 methods of getting content over your television included in this. 0:21:54.200 --> 0:21:58.440 So that way, if a citizen is watching cable television 0:21:58.600 --> 0:22:01.760 or something on satellite TV, they could still have access 0:22:01.840 --> 0:22:06.080 to an emergency message because clearly, you know, you don't 0:22:06.119 --> 0:22:08.679 want to leave everybody out. As as people have more 0:22:08.720 --> 0:22:11.600 and more ways of watching stuff, it's harder to reach 0:22:11.720 --> 0:22:15.000 them in a centralized way. Yeah, these these systems were 0:22:15.080 --> 0:22:18.720 developed to run on AM and FM radio and the 0:22:18.840 --> 0:22:21.800 local broadcast stations. So now we've gone from in the 0:22:21.920 --> 0:22:25.960 United States, UM, let's say, on average, probably three or 0:22:26.119 --> 0:22:30.119 four regular network broadcast stations, maybe a couple independence in 0:22:30.160 --> 0:22:33.160 the larger you know, larger cities, something in the ultra 0:22:33.240 --> 0:22:37.200 high frequency. Yeah, you know, maybe uh six or six 0:22:37.280 --> 0:22:39.920 to ten stations in big big markets. UM. Then you 0:22:40.000 --> 0:22:44.320 go to dozens or even hundreds of stations now with 0:22:44.520 --> 0:22:48.520 cable and satellite, UM, you know, plus uh you know 0:22:48.600 --> 0:22:52.400 the radio stations which have exploded in number, UM, satellite 0:22:52.480 --> 0:22:54.680 radio and all the other media that we listen to. Now, 0:22:55.320 --> 0:22:57.480 so yeah, the system, there's a lot of people know 0:22:57.560 --> 0:23:01.119 the system needed to to evolve with that development, and 0:23:01.200 --> 0:23:04.200