![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() All of them trace back in some way to Welles' fateful “interruption.” Many were a form of political protest, while others were just looking to have a little fun. They've served a variety of purposes, as you'll see on the following list. And Max remains the TV hero of the 80s and the early days of pranking on TV.What's clear is that signal intrusions – including unauthorized hijacking of radio, television or satellite feeds – have continued ever since. Over the years, there have been many investigations trying to find out exactly what happened. Thirty two minutes past midnight, the screen flickered into color bars with a message appearing on the top. It emerged a year and a half earlier, when HBO aired The Falcon and the Snowman. It became a new form of pranksterism, protest, or even some classified it as terrorism. Some companies even intentionally made commercials with Max Headroom just so that they try to milk the cow and its popularity. What followed in years after of the incident was a number of copycats and parodies. It remains one of the strangest crimes in TV history, a rare broadcast signal intrusion with no clear motive, method, or culprits. Within hours of the incident, federal officials were called in to investigate the crime. Thanks to Doctor Who fans who were taping the show, the network was able to find copies of the hijacker’s telecast. Technicians from the WTTW headquarters attempted to take corrective measures, but they couldn’t. WTTW found that its engineers were unable to stop the hijacker due to the fact that there were no engineers on duty at the Sears Tower. The irony is that Max Headroom was a Coca-Cola’s spokesperson at the time. He even utter some various random phrases, including Coke’s advertising slogan, “Catch the Wave” while holding a Pepsi can. He’s a fricking nerd!” The masked man continued to laugh, moan, and scream for several seconds. ![]() The man on the screen kept saying “That does it. The signal was hijacked by the same person, at least that is what people thought at the time.ĭuring the second interruption, the masked man came with distorted and crackling audio. This time, it was during a broadcast of the Doctor Who serial at the PBS member station WTTW. Later that night on November 22, at around 11:15, or two hours after the first incident, the mask returned. Once the storm has passed, and everything continued as normal, another hijack happened. But the signal got hijacked, and the rest is history. The TV network broadcasted its signal from a 100-story John Hancock tower some seven miles away. In the control room of WGN-TV, technicians on duty stared blankly at their screens while the incident was happening. The people responsible for the incident have never been identified. It was just a masked man with the face of Max Headroom appearing on screen and doing nothing aside from moving his head around the screen. The first incident did not feature any sound. The first one came at 9:14 pm, and lasted for 25 seconds during the sportscast on 9 O’Clock news on WGN-TV Channel 9. It happened on the evening of November 22. The Max Headroom broadcast signal intrusion was a television signal hijacking occurring Chicago, Illinois. The FBI investigated the incident, but the case remains an unsolved mystery. The masked creep gargled on-air, and then disappeared. It was the creepiest interruption in the history of television. A person wearing a mask of the iconic 80s character interrupted broadcasts in Chicago. Dan Roan, the popular local sportscaster was narrating highlights of the Bears victory.Īnd on that Sunday night in 1987, Max Headroom became a conspiracy theory folder, one that is not solved 30 years later. Right up until 9:14 PM on November 22, 1987, what appeared on Chicago’s television sets was normal: entertainment, news, and game shows. But then, the unthinkable and the unpredictable happened. When you look back at the day, it was like any other Sunday night at Chicago’s WGN-TV. ![]()
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