Max Headroom pirating incident

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The Max Headroom impostor who hijacked WGN and WTTW.

The Max Headroom Pirating Incident occurred on November 22, 1987 and is an example of what is known in the television business as broadcast signal intrusion.

1 WGN
2 WTTW
3 Aftermath
4 Transcript
5 Similar incidents
6 References
7 External links

[edit] WGN

The hijacker was successful in interrupting two separate television broadcasts at two different stations on the same day. The first occurrence of the signal hijack took place during WGN-TV's 9:00 p.m. news. During Bears highlights in the sports report, the signal was interrupted by a video of a person wearing a Max Headroom mask standing or sitting in front of a swaying sheet of corrugated metal. There was no audio. The hijack was stopped after only 20 seconds when WGN switched transmission from the Sears Tower to the John Hancock Center.^[1]

The incident left sports reporter Dan Roan flustered, saying, "Well, if you're wondering what happened, so am I."^[2]

[edit] WTTW

Later that night around 11:15 p.m. during a broadcast of the Doctor Who episode Horror of Fang Rock on WTTW, the station's signal was hijacked by the same person. It was the same video that was broadcast during the WGN hijack, but this time there was garbled audio. The person in the Max Headroom mask appeared, as before, this time saying, "That does it. He's a freakin' nerd." before laughing and jeering, "Yeah, I think I'm better than Chuck Swirsky. Freakin' liberal.".^[3]

The pirate continued to utter strange phrases, including Coca-Cola's advertizing slogan "Catch the Wave" while holding a Pepsi can (Max Headroom was a Coke spokesperson at the time. Also note the object on his middle finger, which bears a striking resemblance to a dildo.), saying "Your love is fading", humming the theme song to Clutch Cargo (pausing midway to say "I stole CBS"), and stating that he had "made a giant masterpiece for all the greatest world's newspaper nerds" (WGN is an acronym for 'World's Greatest Newspaper'), holding up a glove and saying "his brother is wearing the other one" and puts the glove on, but takes it off because he says that it's dirty; the picture then cuts to the person undressed below the waist and being spanked with a flyswatter by an unknown person, screaming and saying, "They're coming to get me!" and "Come get me, bitch!". The transmission blacked out and cut off, and the hijack was over after about 90 seconds.^[4]

[edit] Aftermath

WTTW, which maintains its transmitter atop the Sears Tower, found that its engineers were unable to stop the hijacker because at the time there were no engineers on duty at the Sears Tower. Also, the station's master control center was unable to contact its transmitting equipment remotely to switch the STL (Studio To Transmitter Link), unlike their counterparts at WGN-TV, who were able to thwart the intruder by switching their John Hancock Center transmitter STL remotely within seconds. According to a WBBM-TV employee, the masked video pirate had attempted to break in on several other Chicago TV stations, however these attempts were un-successful.^[5]

The Max Headroom incident made national headlines and was reported on the CBS Evening News the next day.

WTTW and WGN join HBO as victims of broadcast signal intrusion. There has not been a broadcast intrusion incident of this kind in America since.

The pirate was never caught or identified, and as of 2007 he remains unknown.

[edit] Transcript

Due to the garbled nature of the audio, it is sometimes unclear exactly what the person is saying and no official transcript of the dialogue uttered during the incident has ever been provided.

The following is a collection of interpretations of the banter that can be heard, appearing here in the same chronological order in which they were uttered:

(Pirate broadcast begins just as a supporting character on the interrupted Doctor Who episode is offered a drink).

"That does it, he's a freakin' nerd" or "That doctor is a freakin' nerd."
"Yeah, I think I'm better than Chuck Swirsky."
"Freakin' liberal" or "He's a liberal."
"Oh, Jesus.”
(Garbled)
"Yeah... Catch the wave."
(Garbled words or moaning)
"Your love is fading.”
(Laughter)
(Hums theme song to Clutch Cargo show)
"I stole CBS", "I stole PBS", or "I still see the X.”
(Continues humming theme song to Clutch Cargo show)
"Oh.”
"Oh, my files" or "Oh, my piles.” ("Piles" are slang for hemorrhoids)
(Laughter or moaning)
"Oh, I just made" or "Oh, I just laid," "a giant masterpiece for all the world's greatest newspaper nerds."
(Laughter or moaning)
"My brother" or "My mother," is wearing the other one, it's dirty.”
(Garbled, possibly ending with "signing off.”)

(Pirate broadcast now switches to “spanking scene”).

"Ohhhh, they're coming to get me.”
"Come get me, bitch.”
(Screaming)
"Oh, do it.”
(Screaming)

Immediately following the end of the pirate broadcast, the first words heard as the regular Doctor Who program resumes (and spoken by Doctor Who himself) are: As far as I can tell, a massive electric shock, he died instantly!.

[edit] Similar incidents

On November 26, 1977 at 5:12 p.m., an Independent Television News broadcast on British television was interrupted by the voice of someone calling themselves "Vrillon of the Ashtar Galactic Command," in conjunction with a continuous “bopping” or “buzzing” sound. During this incident, the actual newscast video remained unchanged, but with the voice of "Vrillon" overriding the normal audio. The interrupting voice was electronically disguised and warned viewers about the dangers of nuclear weapons and stated that humanity had “but a short time to learn to live together in peace and goodwill,” before destroying itself. This altered broadcast lasted for approximately five and a half minutes and the identify of the “alien” Vrillon has never been discovered.^[6]

On January 3, 2007, during the broadcast of an Australian documentary program about a train crash, an audio loop unexpectedly started playing, clearly saying in an American accent, “Jesus Christ, help us all, Lord”. This same voice message continued to repeat itself over and over during the show for a total of six minutes. A spokesman for the Australian television network that aired the program later denied that the transmission was a prank or a security breach and claimed that the repeated line was actually part of the original broadcast and said, “Jesus Christ one of the Navarines.” Subsequent investigation by independent researchers revealed that the invading transmission was actually from a video taped news broadcast of a civilian truck being ambushed in Iraq. It remains unknown whether or not this was an intentional act of television piracy or a genuine glitch of some sort. ^[7]