Residents in Orange County, California got a rare treat a few days ago, when their television signals were hijacked by an “emergency alert” warning them of impending doom.
The broadcast actually contained a clip of the Area 51 caller, who frantically phoned into Art Bell’s Coast to Coast AM back in 1997, as well as clips from a Christian radio program speaking of “extremely violent times” to come.
According to the Orange County Register, Cox and Spectrum cable users saw the mysterious broadcast on Thursday, September 21, so it’s possible the whole thing was a prank leading into the (failed) September 23 doomsday prediction.
Some had claimed the rogue planet Nibiru would crash into Earth on Saturday, but unless I missed something major, that doesn’t seem to have happened.
At any rate, it’s still unclear exactly why the emergency alert was hijacked. A spokesman for Cox said their emergency broadcast test “picked up some audio feed that bled into the alert,” and that it was shut down within a few minutes, “as soon as they became aware.”
Meanwhile, in a Reddit thread on r/OrangeCounty, many wondered if anyone else had witnessed the strange broadcast. In another video, you can hear the clip of the Christian radio program, which turned out to be from Insight for Living with Chuck Swindoll.
Out of context, and as part of an emergency broadcast, both clips were undoubtedly creepy. Just on its own, the Area 51 caller is very strange, but imagine hearing it randomly through your television, or a sermon backed by church piano speaking of bad times ahead.
“It was the most unsettling thing I have ever heard in my life,” one Redditor commented.
