Death Toll Revised Down to 24 After Monstrous Oklahoma Tornado…100+ Injured…Children Among the Dead…Some Drowned…Heartbreaking Pictures…Reporter Struggles to Share Terrible News

As Heard on Beck Radio: All the stunning videos from the tornado — Mom’s incredible interview, HD video, the time lapse

Entertainment

HACKED: TV Station’s Emergency Alert System Warns That ‘Bodies of the Dead Are Rising From Their Graves’

Feb. 11, 2013 8:20pm Jason Howerton

Credit: AP

Television viewers in several Montana counties had to be baffled when an emergency alert interrupted the “Steve Wilkos Show” to report that the zombie apocalypse had begun — and after millions of Americans had watched AMC’s “The Walking Dead” just the night before.

“Civil authorities in your area have reported that the bodies of the dead are rising from their graves and attacking the living,” the emergency alert calmly stated. “Do not attempt to approach or apprehend these bodies as they are considered very dangerous.”

The somewhat humorous — and clearly fake — alert was promptly yanked from the air and KRTV issued an apology on air and online for the mix-up.

Someone apparently hacked into the Emergency Alert System and announced on KRTV and the CW that “dead bodies are rising from their graves” in several Montana counties.

This message did not originate from KRTV, and there is no emergency.

Our engineers are investigating to determine what happened and if it affected other media outlets.

The Great Falls Tribune reports at least four people called the police to see if the hoax was true following the alert.

As Gawker observes, we don’t know who is responsible for the hack, how they did it or why. If nothing else, rest easy knowing the zombie apocalypse has been averted for at least one more day.

Watch the video of the emergency alert via Mediaite below:

Featured image via AP

This story has been updated

Benghazi, IRS, AP...What's next? Only TheBlaze TV offers the truth from Glenn Beck, Andrew Wilkow, and Real News from TheBlaze. Get instant access and a free trial here.

Back to The Blaze »

Comments (67)

figanodie
Posted on February 13, 2013 at 10:52am
Hey! My home town made national news…with zombies! How cool is that! AND…my parents did survive the zombie attack, so it’s all good. :)

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
OniKaze
Posted on February 12, 2013 at 12:59pm
That message should have been followed with a station warning stating simply this:

“Anyone who believes in Zombies, Vampires, or Werewolves needs to immediately go out and commit suicide… As you are too stupid to be allowed to continue to live amongst the rest of society, and your further existence is a threat to the future intelligence of mankind…We Thank you for your time and co-operation.”

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
Phelps
Posted on February 12, 2013 at 11:28am
The EBS is notoriously easy to “hack.” The entire command to activate it is in that “screech” you hear at the start and end of it. That contains the message and where it should be broadcast. Most stations are just repeater stations, picking up a master signal from one station in town. If you can put a small transmitter very close to the station’s receiver and overwhelm the signal from the master station, you can send a screech that you created on a laptop saying whatever you want, and that repeater will dutifully interrupt the broadcast and transmit it, and the station itself usually has it set to automatic, so there isn’t any human double checking it.

Where this gets really interesting is when they go to a master station and transmit something with the President’s code (which is public) and whole cities and even states and regions start getting crazy EBS messages.

Report this comment
Log in to ReplyReply
- jmorris42
  Posted on February 12, 2013 at 2:05pm
  Yup, that should be the story. Too much of our society is far too easy to hack. Including military hardware running off the shelf Windows PC hardware and software. If we ever get in a serious throwdown with an enemy that isn’t a bunch of misfit primitive screwheads we are going to find out exactly how dumb we have been.
  
  Report this comment
G-WHIZ
Posted on February 12, 2013 at 10:34am
KKK/(D)ROBERT BYRD….I’d reccognize him anywhere!

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
ellietoo
Posted on February 12, 2013 at 10:31am
Well, now we have another conspiracy to create. How can the government possibly be involved in tricking us on this one? You people give an inept and ignorant group of people too much credit.

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
kadster01
Posted on February 12, 2013 at 9:48am
Hahahaha! Classic. This brought out the Beavis and Butthead in me. I knew it was still in there somewhere.

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
Blu13
Posted on February 12, 2013 at 9:36am
Ugh. The undead can’t die already, can they?

Report this comment
Log in to ReplyReply
- G-WHIZ
  Posted on February 12, 2013 at 10:35am
  noooo….but they can VOTE[D]!!
  
  Report this comment
JACKTHETOAD
Posted on February 12, 2013 at 6:30am
Oh, that George Romero…he’s a million laughs.

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
Glytch
Posted on February 12, 2013 at 5:45am
Wait… what if the message was real… and the government is trying to cover it up to hide the fact that it’s really happening so there isn’t mass panic!!!! Everyone panic! The zombie apocalypse is here!

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
rfburn
Posted on February 12, 2013 at 1:45am
My hometown.

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
motherboard
Posted on February 12, 2013 at 1:37am
The story itself is sort of not clear on one point though. Did the hackers actually create the fake message, or did they hack in and simply play from a lsit of various saved alert warnings that already exisit, and if it is the second, I find it very interesting that such a message exsist in stand by mode for the EBS or whatever they call it. Wow, that was an awesome run on sentence. lol

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
jungle J
Posted on February 11, 2013 at 11:36pm
hackers should be shot on sight.

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
Lesbian Packing Hollow Points
Posted on February 11, 2013 at 11:03pm
This time it was fake, but one day soon, you all know it’s gonna happen for real.

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
Dkoonz
Posted on February 11, 2013 at 11:02pm
Now that is funny.

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
TJexcite
Posted on February 11, 2013 at 10:41pm
Most likely some engineer pushed the wrong button. They had this in the program list of alerts and it was to be the generic test alert.

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply

It appears that you have Javascript Disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser preferences for a better user experience on TheBlaze. You can not comment without Javascript enabled.