That Time An Official Emergency Broadcast Warned Of Zombies Attacking
Imagine sitting down for some afternoon television viewing and having the worst possible news come scrolling (and speaking) on the screen. That was the case in 2013 when some folks in Montana were treated to an apocalypse of zombies, a warning that had to have shaken some people to the core. It looked like they were closer to The Walking Dead than they may have realized.
But either the citizens of Great Falls, Montana, got over that zombies hype quicker than everyone else, or they must be scholars of Aesop’s “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” because apparently nothing rattles them.
Back in 2013, Great Falls’ CBS affiliate KRTV had their on-air telecast interrupted by a message from the Emergency Broadcast System, but instead of tornadoes or floods, the message warned of zombies attacking!
It was definitely not a zombie test, but it wasn’t exactly true, either. The usual list of affected counties and areas scrolled across the top of the screen, but then a digitally altered voice popped up. That warning gets quite ominous saying, “Civil authorities in your area have reported that the bodies of the dead are rising from their graves and attacking the living.”
This was in between other zombies’ warnings against approaching the undead due to their being dangerous.
Even if zombies had a Greenpeace uniform on and was holding a giant lollipop, I wouldn’t confront it.
Amazingly, no one called the authorities about the zombies, and many people discovered it happened only because KRTV soon updated their website, alerting citizens that the message was, of course, bogus.
Not that there weren’t signs of fraudulence. The message about zombies advised viewers to follow on-screen instructions, and unless they were talking about ordering a Perfect Pancake from the number on the screen, there was no advice to follow.
Also, it advises people to tune into an AM radio station in case they get separated from their TV, and then almost immediately says that the station is going off the air, and then doesn’t do that at all. So, I guess no zombies after all.
No one knows who hacked into KRTV’s systems in order to get that message out there, so we don’t know who to give this “A for effort”. But it’s just as well, seeing as how the “D for execution” might have hurt their feelings.
