Top 10 Scariest Times TV Broadcasts Were Interrupted

WatchMojo

Watching the news is scary enough without things like this happening! For this list, we’ll be looking at the most spine-chilling moments where broadcasts had their feeds unexpectedly cut due to human intervention.

Transcript

00:00 you do what they tell you to do and hope that someone's going to save you.

00:03 Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the top 10 scariest times

00:08 broadcasts were interrupted. For this list, we'll be looking at the most spine-chilling

00:19 moments where broadcasts had their feeds unexpectedly cut due to human intervention.

00:24 Did you watch any of these broadcast hijackings live? Let us know in the comments below.

00:29 Hey, Mojoholics! For a chance to win cash prizes, play our live daily trivia challenges

00:35 every day at 3pm and 8pm Eastern, only at watchmojo.com/play.

00:39 Many, many Falun Gong people insisted that their health was so much better

00:51 and that they had to do it for their children.

00:55 Falun Gong is an alternative spirituality movement that originated in China in the early 1990s.

01:00 Led by Li Hongzhi, the new religious group has faced intense persecution from the Chinese

01:06 government, which has since declared it a heretical organization. In 2002, state TV

01:11 broadcasts were hijacked by members of the Fulongong to air a clip of Hongzhi, with most

01:17 reports stating the event lasted almost an hour. It was also accompanied by a film that accused

01:22 the Chinese government of oppression. The film addressed the 2001 Tiananmen Square self-immolation

01:28 incident involving some of their alleged members, which they claimed was staged by the government.

01:32 These hijackings actually occurred multiple times throughout 2002 and resulted in the arrest and

01:37 conviction of 15 members of the group. Falun Gong never really have a particular, from organization

01:45 point of view, when you use Falun Gong as an organization, do not have a policy that, "Oh,

01:51 master said you go and vote for him."

01:54 9. AL-MANAR TV BROADCAST HIJACK

01:57 The 2006 Lebanon War was a conflict primarily between Israeli Defense Forces and the Lebanese

02:03 militant group Hezbollah. As the war raged on in mid-2006, Israel launched physical and

02:09 psychological warfare on the Hezbollah TV station, Al-Manar. In addition to striking

02:14 the station's headquarters, they also interrupted their satellite transmission to broadcast messages

02:19 of their own. One particularly terrifying video included images of Hezbollah Secretary

02:24 General Hassan Nasrallah with crosshairs on his face and a series of gunshots.

02:28 This was followed by images of dead people meant to represent Hezbollah soldiers,

02:40 and a clip of Israeli forces raiding buildings in Lebanon. The war came to an end in August 2006,

02:46 after a ceasefire was brokered by the UN.

02:49 8. ART BELL AND THE FRANTIC AREA 51 CALLER

02:53 They are not what they claim to be.

02:57 As the host of the paranormal radio show, Coast to Coast AM, Art Bell's voice was heard in over

03:03 400 radio stations around the US. On September 11, 1997, Bell received a call from a distraught

03:10 man claiming to be a former employee of the nearby Area 51.

03:14 They're extra-dimensional beings that an earlier precursor of the space program made contact with.

03:24 The caller then details a reported contact with aliens,

03:27 and a conspiracy by the government to wipe out heavily populated areas.

03:31 I started getting…

03:34 Suddenly, the call goes off, and the show loses its transmission signal.

03:40 The abrupt disconnection raised questions about possible interference from the government.

03:44 Months later, another person phoned in claiming that he was the Area 51 caller,

03:48 and that it was all a prank. But the authenticity of this claim is still disputed.

03:53 Some of what I do is flat-out entertainment. I've never hidden that fact. Some of it is hard science.

04:00 7. MAYDAY INTERRUPTION

04:09 On January 3, 2007, an episode of the Canadian docuseries, Mayday, was airing on Australia's

04:16 Seven Network when the audio feed was suddenly interrupted by a terrifying message. For about

04:21 six minutes, a voice, in what appears to be an American accent, is heard saying,

04:26 "Jesus Christ, help us, Lord", repeatedly.

04:28 A representative for the Seven Network refuted claims of a signal intrusion,

04:38 and chalked it up to a technical glitch. According to them, the audio was part of the episode,

04:43 and actually said, "Jesus Christ, one of the Nazarenes". It was later discovered that the

04:48 audio came from an old videotaped broadcast from the Iraq War. However, it remains unclear how the

04:54 disturbing clip made its way into the Mayday episode. 6. IRANIAN STATE TV HIJACKED

05:08 The death of Masa Amini in September 2022, after her arrest by Iran's Morality Police,

05:13 sparked nationwide protests calling for an end to the country's regime, among other things.

05:17 On October 8, 2022, some protesters took their cause to the airwaves when they apparently hacked

05:23 into the live broadcast of the state-run TV channel. A group called Adelat Ali interrupted

05:28 the feed to display a message against Iran's Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. In the clip,

05:33 a target is placed on an image of Khamenei, along with statements that claim he has blood on his

05:38 hands. It also contained pictures of Amini and three other women who lost their lives during

05:43 the protests. 5. SOUTHERN TELEVISION BROADCAST INTERRUPTION

05:48 Could this be the work of aliens, or just a hoax perpetrated by some mischievous humans?

05:58 You be the judge. On November 26, 1977, an evening news broadcast on the UK's Southern

06:05 Television was hijacked and overridden by an unknown source. For approximately six minutes,

06:11 a distorted voice claiming to be Vrillon, a spokesperson of the Ashtar Galactic Command,

06:17 delivered a bizarre message. The cryptic figure

06:28 warned humanity about the dangers of war and the importance of living together in peace and

06:32 harmony. After the lengthy message had passed, the source terminated the transmission and all

06:37 was back to normal. The UK's Independent Broadcast Authority has since labelled the

06:42 incident a hoax, but the supposed perpetrator has never been identified.

06:55 4. KALUGA BROADCAST INTRUSION In the 1960s, two of the world's most

07:00 powerful nations came very close to nuclear war. Regarded as the Cuban Missile Crisis,

07:06 this thirteen-day period in 1962 marked a tense confrontation between the United States and the

07:11 Soviet Union over the deployment of Soviet nuclear-armed missiles in Cuba. This served

07:16 as the backdrop for a particularly dangerous broadcast intrusion in the city of Kaluga,

07:21 Russia. In 1966, a radio broadcast was suddenly interrupted with news that the US had engaged the

07:27 Soviet Union in nuclear war. Judging by the volatility of that period, this could have

07:32 easily set off a catastrophic conflict between both countries. Thankfully, authorities ultimately

07:38 learned that it was a hoax carried out by an eighteen-year-old. However, other broadcast

07:42 signal intrusions did continue in the Soviet Union over the next two decades.

07:47 3. ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE WARNING

07:49 In 2013, TV viewers in Montana must have thought that a zombie apocalypse was finally upon us.

08:00 During the airing of an episode of The Steve Wilkos Show on the local station KRTV,

08:04 a cryptic emergency alert began flashing across the screen. This was accompanied by a distorted

08:10 voice warning viewers of a horde of dead bodies rising and attacking people.

08:14 "Civil authorities in your area have reported that the bodies of the dead are rising from their

08:19 graves and attacking the living." The station quickly followed this up with a statement

08:23 confirming that they were hacked and that the claims were false. Similar hijacks occurred on

08:28 other stations, including in other states like Michigan. In this case, however, the hacker

08:32 responsible for the incidents was found and arrested by law enforcement. "Do not attempt

08:38 to approach or apprehend these bodies as they are considered extremely dangerous."

08:42 2. KNBC HOSTAGE SITUATION

08:45 "He saw us arriving, he put the gun down and said, 'I don't want to hurt anybody,' and that was it."

08:51 This terrifying incident occurred on August 19, 1987, when a man named Gary Stolman entered the

08:57 KNBC TV studio in Los Angeles and took a journalist hostage. Stolman pointed what looked like a gun at

09:04 consumer reporter David Horowitz and demanded that he read a handwritten statement live on air.

09:09 "I think by mail order, pardon me, what is this?"

09:14 At that moment, then-KNBC News Director Tom Capra immediately cut off the broadcast feed.

09:20 Once the statement had been read, Stolman revealed that he had been holding an air gun

09:24 and placed it on the news desk. Stolman, who was said to have been suffering mental health problems,

09:28 was swiftly arrested on felony charges. After about a seven-minute interruption,

09:33 the broadcast was restored. "He has been identified as Gary Stolman,

09:37 and he said he never intended to harm anyone. Indeed, the gun proved a fake."

09:41 Before we continue, be sure to subscribe to our channel and ring the bell to get notified about

09:46 our latest videos. You have the option to be notified for occasional videos or all of them.

09:51 If you're on your phone, make sure you go into settings and switch on your notifications.

09:54 1. The Max Headroom Incident

10:01 "Oh, I just made a giant masterpiece for all the greatest world newspaper nerds."

10:06 This is sure to go down as the most disturbing hijacking in broadcast history.

10:13 On November 22nd, 1987, two local TV stations in the Chicago area were disrupted by an unknown

10:20 individual wearing a Max Headroom mask and costume. The first interruption occurred for

10:25 about seventeen seconds during the evening news on WGN-TV before the normal broadcast was restored.

10:31 Later that night, while an episode of Doctor Who aired on PBS affiliate WTTW, an individual in the

10:43 same mask appeared on the screen and engaged in bizarre behavior for about one minute and a half.

10:49 Despite an extensive investigation into the hijackings, the masked individual or individuals

10:55 were never identified, and the motives behind the incident remain unclear.

11:00 Late last night, as followers of the British TV fantasy series Doctor Who

11:03 watched an episode entitled "Horror of Fang Rock," they were startled by this.

11:08 Check out these other clips from WatchMojo,

11:12 and be sure to subscribe and ring the bell to be notified about our latest videos.

11:17 [Music]

11:27 [BLANK_AUDIO]

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended