Fox 32 Not Broadcasting Over the Air Again November 27 2017
The Max Headroom Incident: Revisiting The Masked Mystery, 32 Years Later 35:40
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TL;DL (Too Long; Didn't Listen)
On November 22, 1987, ii TV stations in Chicago had their broadcast signals hijacked by someone wearing a Max Headroom mask. In the years since, Redditors take played an integral role in getting to the bottom of this example. Who dunnit? Why? How? We dig into the story.
Thank you to u/gregorburns for this week's artwork. Information technology's called "The Max Headroom Incident." Yous can discover more than of his piece of work HERE .
Reddit Links:
-A Reddit postal service with some theories on the Max Headroom Incident
-Bowie Poag'due south Reddit post with his original "J and K" theory
Other Links:
-Chris Knittel and Alex Pasternak's article "The Mystery of the Creepiest Telly Hack."
Contact Us:
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Total Transcript:
This content was originally created for audio. The transcript has been edited from our original script for clarity. Heads up that some elements (i.e. music, sound effects, tone) are harder to translate to text.
Ben Brock Johnson: Amory, do you remember the yr 1987?
Amory Sivertson: No. No Ben, I do non. I was not alive.
Ben: Gotcha.
Amory: You win in the contest of who is older, congratulations.
Ben: Thank you very much. So we need to go a feel for the year 1987.
Amory: Yeah. Specifically the night of November 22nd, 1987 in Chicago. Where, during primetime television hours, something truly weird happened. A mysterious occurrence that's never been explained.
(music plays)
Ben: If you were in Chicago and flipping through Tv set channels in 1987, you would find a range of stuff.
(a montage of Goggle box commercials plays)
On Superior Courtroom ... and then he started to unzip my jeans… Nutritious foods like Campbell'due south Soup can aid go along your resistance upward.
Amory: Fright mongering from Court TV, and Cambpell'southward soup!
Ben: Possibly some of those loveable hella-creepy claymation California raisins!
(raisin commercial plays)
Raisin commercial: Oooh I heard it through the grapevine!
Amory: Specifically, on the night of Lord's day November 22nd, 1987, a one-flavour bear witness called Cadet James, the medico who wears scrubs and cowboy boots.
Buck James: "I don't requite a damn about politics is what I don't give a damn about." Dennis Weaver is Buck James, Sunday on ABC.
(Ben recites the commercial at the same time)
Ben: Dennis Weaver is Cadet James, Sunday on ABC
Amory: Over on PBS you had some serious masterpiece theater nerdery happening. Gotta love that public media baby.
(PBS horns play)
Ben: But if you lot were one of the thousands of Chicago residents watching WGN Channel 9'southward ix O'Clock News, you lot were about to hear and encounter something really unusual.
Amory: It happened during the sportscast. The announcer was talking most the Chicago Bears game.
WGN Announcer: Then they scored once more at the Lion's 31. Wayne Larabie called it like this on WGN radio…
Ben: Everything's going along unremarkably, then right in the middle of the announcer's clarification of the game, while the football newsreel played…
WGN Announcer: And then the defense, which hadn't put up a sack in 12 quarters finally di---
(static racket)
Amory: The screen goes black, for a long time.
Ben: Suddenly…
(weird distorted sounds play)
Ben: There'south this weird, twisted scene that pops up on the telly. It's someone in a mask, an oversized caput with sunglasses, square chin, white teeth, blond slicked back hair. This person is wearing a arrange and tie. And behind them at that place's a corrugated slice of metal? Maybe? Twirling in this hypnotic mode.
Amory: The grapheme jerks and shudders and seems to laugh. And then the scene cuts out once more and the screen goes blackness. When the sportscaster comes back on, he is bewildered.
WGN Announcer: Well if you're wondering what's happened, so am I. Really the calculator that nosotros have running our news from time to time took off and went wild. So what we're going to practise is start over from the top with the Bears and tell you again well-nigh the thirty-x victory they had…
Ben: It was not a computer glitch. It was a hostile takeover. Something called a circulate indicate intrusion. In this case people hijacked the airwaves of a major American television receiver station. And information technology wasn't over.
Amory: That was just the start of two signal intrusions that dark, 32 years agone to the day, that we are publishing this episode. It was weird. It was assuming. Federal investigators were chosen. There were news reports. Information technology was a fiasco. And it nonetheless has never been solved.
Ben: And spoiler, this is non one nosotros have solved either, yet. No one has. And because it's this intersection of hacker civilisation, destructive art, technology, and real life, this story notwithstanding resonates with people even after three decades.
Amory: Also, perchance you can assistance us find some answers. Mayhap.
Ben: I'm Ben Brock Johnson
Amory: I'm Amory Sivertson
Ben: And you're listening to Endless Thread, the testify featuring stories found in the vast ecosystem of online communities called Reddit.
Amory: We're coming to you from WBUR, Boston's NPR station. Today's episode…
Ben and Amory: To the Max...
Ben: ...Headroom.
The Max Headroom Intro: The Max Headroom-g-thousand story. So! Sit back. Relax. And Bask.
Amory: And so this thing that happened — this circulate intrusion — it really happened twice. And the 2nd fourth dimension, ii hours after, a little afterward 11p.m., it was fifty-fifty weirder.
Ben: Which, advisable, considering it happens during the BBC scientific discipline fiction testify, Dr. Who. Right in the middle of the PBS affiliate station WTTW'due south broadcast of the episode, "Horror of Fang Stone."
(a clip from "Horror of Fang Rock" plays)
Amory: And it starts out the aforementioned manner. The screen switches to someone in a strange mask, lunging at the camera while a piece of corrugated metallic spins backside them.
Ben: But then the person in the mask, starts talking. And heads upwardly, they're almost impossible to understand.
Hacker in the mask: That does information technology. He's a frickin' nerd. That's correct, I call back I'chiliad better than Chuck Swirsky. Frickin' liberal.
Amory: People who have studied this video for hours say that the first part of this bit says, among other things, "That does it. He's a frickin' nerd. That'southward correct, I think I'm ameliorate than Chuck Swirsky, frickin' liberal."
Ben: Is he a frickin' liberal?
Chuck Swirsky: Well, I hateful, that that depends on who you lot talk to, I hateful...
Ben: Meet Chuck Swirsky. The i person whose name was yelled out by the masked people hijacking television broadcasts in Chicago on November 22nd, 1987.
Amory: Today, Chuck is the play-past-play radio announcer for the Chicago Bulls. Back in 1987, his task was also in sports.
Chuck: Well I was sports director at WGN Radio in Chicago, doing college basketball game for DePaul University, the Cubs Radio Network, Bears Radio Network, Northwestern Football. Yous know, in the city, patently, the sports passion is very, very strong.
Amory: Exercise you recall anything else virtually that day?
Chuck: I can't fifty-fifty tell you, in all artlessness, what the atmospheric condition was like November 22nd, 1987. I'm sure, because it's Chicago, it was cold and it either snowed or information technology was gray and it was, you know, maybe sleet like we're experiencing now. I idea it was simply a normal Sunday, a normal Bears Lord's day until about ix to 10 o'clock. Then my world rocked big fourth dimension.
(music plays)
Ben: Chuck says he doesn't commonly take his work home with him. So, as an employee of WGN, he wasn't watching his visitor's Tv station when, during the nine o'clock news, the broadcast was hijacked.
Chuck: And then all all of a sudden I started getting calls. Similar, a lot of calls. I mean, a ridiculous amount of calls: "Hey, did you just hear..." or "Did you see?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Max Headroom!"
"Yeah, what about Max Headroom?"
"Well, I mean, he mentioned y'all!"
I said, "What'd he say?"
"He said you were a freakin' liberal."
I went, "What!? Come on." I thought it was a practical joke!
Ben: The person who was taking over the Goggle box broadcast was wearing a Max Headroom mask. Amory, yous call back Max Headroom, yeah?
Amory: Withal not built-in yet, Ben. Only at the time, Chuck didn't know him all that well either.
Chuck: I actually didn't understand this whole Max Headroom phenomenon. I mean, I really couldn't relate to him. I had no connectedness.
Ben: So Max Headroom was this fictional character described by his creators as an bogus intelligence. He was played by a real person in a ton of makeup to make him look sort of computer generated. And he also sounded computer generated. His vox would like pitch shift and stutter randomly.
Max Headroom: This is M-M-Max Headroom.
Amory: He looked similar a news program talking head, that floated in this calculator generated cube. And Max was a satire. Created to poke fun at the stereotypical self, western, white male person newscaster. Hither'southward tech writer and editor Alex Pasternack on the super-meta plot that was created around Max Headroom the character.
Alex Pasternack: Basically, Max was a journalist working at a television station owned by a large corporation. And he had discovered some dark secret about the corporation and was in the process of reporting on information technology for his employer, endemic by this corporation, when he is assassinated. And his brain is preserved by his hacker friend. The brain is uploaded to the network. And Max Headroom became this digital character who would drib into idiot box broadcasts.
(Max Headroom plays)
Max Headroom: This is the Thou-M-M-M-Max Headroom Prove and I am — cocky swagger — Max Headroom. And it'southward great to take you all back with me again. I'm lamentable, there's a guy who keeps moving around over there. Alright alright well I wish he'd only damn well proceed even so! I'm tryna practice a show here!
Ben: In his original inception in 1984, Max was pretty culling. His character was that of a hacked-together, robotic bogus intelligence that existed to subvert the mainstream. Alex Pasternack says both Max and the incident itself connected to the rise of hacker culture.
Alex Pasternak: Hackers were starting to gain notoriety as as criminals. They were being prosecuted by the government. Just they'd also been born in this world of hobbyists and pranksters. And Max, I call up, embodied the hacker who's a protester. And who has a sure agenda and is fighting a good cause. That'south role of what makes this whole affair even more cyberpunk when the signal intrusion has happened.
(music plays)
Amory: Without getting likewise deep into Max Headroom's origins, this was a bizarre example of life imitating fine art — a hacker dropping into a real Tv set broadcast, posing as a grapheme, who was a fictional hacker himself.
Ben: Max Headroom was too this character that imagined and made fun of a dystopian future where decadent mega corporations used computers to replace journalists.
Amory: Information technology really is time for me to await for a new job.
Ben: Well, that was over thirty years ago and it still hasn't happened, Amory, and then I call up we're condom for at present. Point is, this weird, stuttering, virtual newscaster poked fun at newscasters and normies.
Amory: And no offense to Chuck or other sportscasters here, Chuck was, and maybe is, a chip of a normie?
Chuck: There wasn't anyone in the circle of friends of mine that said, "Hey, Max Headroom!" And so when this occurred, information technology completely caught me off guard. I was shocked.
Amory: Did y'all always fright for your prophylactic?
Chuck: Honestly, I did. I had a couple of friends tell me, yous know, Swirsk, that'southward my nickname, you know, you better seek protection. Whoever did this had to exist pretty smart and sharp to practise what he did. But why he signaled [sic] out me, I take no idea.
Ben: Whether or not "Swirsk" understood the indicate of Max Headroom, his earth really was flipped upside down.
Chuck: Later that prune played, I received calls from radio, goggle box stations, non only in Chicago, but across the Us. And once it reached the Associated Press and United Press International, the two wire services at the time, then the whole affair started to mushroom.
(A montage of news clips play)
"Concluding night, someone bankrupt into regular programming here on Aqueduct 9."... "The pirates interrupted WGN and WTTW programming with a show of their own!"... "Even in a medium that is no stranger to bizarre moments, these were truly bizarre."... "Reporter: 'So what did you retrieve most the whole thing?' Child: 'Very, very funny.'"
Amory: Funny to a kid maybe, considering the second intrusion got real weird. After calling out Chuck Swirsky, the person in the Max Headroom mask, who appeared to be a man, also pulled down his pants revealing his bare ass. And so a woman showed upwardly, also in a mask, to spank him repeatedly with a wing swatter.
The Masked Hacker: Ohhh practise it ahhh!
Ben: The person starts screaming what sounds like "oohhhhhh oh exercise it." This was not funny to Chuck Swirsky. Because that, combined with the person in the video calling him out specifically for being a "frickin' liberal," led to some questions he wasn't prepared to answer.
Chuck: People started asking me, "Well, then in the upcoming election, who are you who are y'all taking in 1988?" Y'all know, "What are your views on this, this and this?" You know, I just want to be a guy, you know, just a guy on the street.
Amory: Whatever his feelings about politics, Chuck had been thrust into the spotlight in a broadcast signal hack. One of a short list of like takeovers that seemed to be growing in number in the mid 1980s, looked at past some as a new class of terrorism. One that, even with its silliness and spanking, was about to become very serious.
News Broadcaster: The incidents are now under investigation by the FCC and the FBI.
(music plays)
Ben: FCC spokesperson Phil Bradford went on TV at the time and said this.
Phil Bradford: It is very serious and we'd like to inform anybody who is involved in this type of thing that it is serious and that nosotros volition have every step that we tin to find out who is doing it. And one time nosotros take adamant that, nosotros will make sure that the full extent of the law is carried out.
Amory: The maximum penalty? A $100,000 fine and prison house fourth dimension.
Ben: More than on the FCC's investigation and questions about whether they did have every step to find the perpetrators... in a minute.
[Sponsor Break]
(music plays)
Ben: Then, when some masked marauders took over 90 seconds of TV fourth dimension in the major marketplace of Chicago in 1987 it looked, and felt more anything, like a prank. At least to some observers. But to other people, it was a huge bargain.
Amory: Broadcast intrusions aren't new. Just doing it with a purpose, historically, has had political implications.
Ben: In 1966, a radio circulate intrusion in a Soviet Wedlock metropolis claimed nuclear war had broken out with the United States.
Amory: In 1977, a UK television station delivered a message, supposedly from outer space, most a disaster that would touch the homo race.
(The Alien Clip Plays)
Aliens: We come to warn you of the destiny of your race.
Amory: In 1986, HBO was in the process of irresolute its delivery engineering science. People used to exist able to get Home Box Part for complimentary past putting up a satellite dish. But HBO was gonna brand it so that everyone had to pay a fee to get that stuff. Which angered a guy name John McDougal, whose satellite dish business concern relied on the old fashion. McDougal hacked the delivery system and put up a bulletin for viewers that said...
"Good evening HBO from Helm Midnight. $12.95 a month? No way! Showtime, Movie Channel, beware!"
Ben: McDougal got turned in by a guy who overheard him bragging nigh his stunt.
Amory: A year later, thousands of randy viewers headed to the Playboy satellite network only to be met with a message from the Bible.
(music plays)
Amory: Specifically, the books of Exodus and Matthew.
Religious message: Thus sayeth the Lord thy God. Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. Repent for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand.
Ben: Years afterward, an uplink engineer employed by the Christian Broadcasting Network would be charged with the crime of trying to interrupt TV smut with religious morals.
Ben: All of these intrusions led to a feeling that in that location was an outbreak of hostile broadcast takeovers. But the Max Headroom incident was dissimilar because information technology was a successful interruption that included existent video content — not just text overlays. It was a daring move.
Amory: Which nosotros learned, in function, from one of the but deep swoop pieces of journalism produced well-nigh this incident, from a reporter named Chris.
Chris Knittel: Hello. My name is Chris Knittel. I'm a documentary producer, journalist, author.
Amory: Chris is usually doing documentary piece of work about pretty heavy stuff — dog fighting, gun running, drug habit. Max Headroom was a petty outside of his usual wheelhouse. But when he stumbled upon YouTube videos of the broadcast interruption at two in the morn one night in 2012, he became obsessed.
Chris: I was instantly sort of captured by this, by the imagery and the sounds and sort of spooked and kind of bewildered with information technology.
Ben: Chris gear up out to practice an investigative piece. One of the areas Chris focused on was the tech needed to pull off a stunt like this. In office, because once yous sympathise the tools, you lot start to narrow the list of suspects. And what you need, simply put, is to become a broadcaster yourself.
Amory: This is what investigators focused on, too. Once the FCC got involved, there were ii offices tackling the intrusion: the office in Washington D.C. and the regional office in Chicago. Chris talked to a guy named Michael Marcus, an investigator on the example from the D.C. office, and Marcus had a lot to say on the topic. Including the fact that, when he started trying to figure out who was behind the intrusion, he ran into some issues.
Chris: According to him, his easily were tied behind his back. He said that he did take what he thought was a credible idea of where they broadcasted [sic] their transmission, where they sent their signal out. But someone who he would not name, specifically who he worked with — I think his dominate — did non want him to go and pursue that, did not want him knocking on doors.
Amory: Why? Why not knock on doors?
Chris: That I don't know.
Ben: Chris did have a theory though. Ane that continued to this thought that if you follow the tech, you can detect your broadcast intrusion perps. WGN, the first station that had its airwaves hacked, might have had some disgruntled employees.
Chris: One expanse I didn't explore fully was in that location was a lot of layoffs in the months prior to the incident. To me, I feel like it's almost likely someone who is a erstwhile broadcast employee in any capacity. But there's no hard evidence out there.
Amory: Part of the reason for a lack of show might exist this tension that apparently existed between the FCC'southward national and regional offices.
Ben: Basically, local cops versus national cops. Bigfooting stuff. And plainly, this may have influenced the effectiveness of the Headroom investigation. Because even when the FCC function in D.C. got a tip about a company where the hackers may have pre-taped the video, the Chicago people refused to become and question them.
Ben: We asked a former FCC investigator about this. His name is Jim Higgins, and he worked on all of the 1980s broadcast intrusions cases.
Ben: Did that contribute to the challenges with the case?
Jim Higgins: Yeah, well, I'm non certain I would call it tension. I mean, the folks here in D.C. were, you know, had some ideas about how this should be done. And the Chicago guys, you know, had some ideas and but they were the ones that are on the front lines. And then they took some advice, but they didn't accept all of the advice. You know, I wasn't and then involved in that slice.
Amory: What about the idea that if you follow the applied science involved you'll observe the perpetrators?
Ben: Can you explain some of this in the simplest five-year-old terms of like how something like this happens? Is it someone getting close plenty to the transmitter to broadcast their own signal that overwhelms the other signal to the transmitter?
Jim: Really, you just yous just explained it probably in the simplest style. If your ability is quite a bit stronger than the desired betoken, and so you lot'll override the desired signal and your point will exit instead. And we discussed, you know, what kind of equipment it probably would have taken to do that. So we assumed someone who had admission to the means, only we're non sure of the motive.
Ben: People have mentioned this idea that, at least at ane of the stations, at that place had recently been some layoffs and the suggestion that there may take been a motive therein?
Jim: That's actually, now that you've mentioned that, that might have been something that I remember at present hearing from our Chicago guys.
(music plays)
Ben: So, fifty-fifty though the FCC's investigation never discovered the identity of the perpetrators, the evidence was pointing towards an within job. And whoever was behind it, this was definitely a big bargain at the fourth dimension. Laws were existence changed in the 1980s to brand intrusions similar this a felony. In that location were growing concerns near terrorism and extremism more generally. And at the fourth dimension, circulate intrusions felt like they could become a part of that. Not just hackers taking the piss out of the mainstream — more serious issues. There's non a lot of hard evidence anywhere here, which is why it's never been solved. It's also why this story continues to come back to life periodically. It captures the minds of people who want answers, including people on Reddit.
Amory: And you lot volition not be shocked to learn that Reddit did move the ball forward a chip. In function past focusing on the bizarre contents of the video itself. Which includes a parody of a Coke commercial, with the perpetrator throwing a Pepsi tin…
(Max Headroom Hacker video plays)
Max Headroom Hacker: Catch the moving ridge!
Ben: Also, a rendition of the theme vocal for the animated show Clutch Cargo…
Max Headroom Hacker: (sings) Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo.
Amory: And and so there'due south the straight jab at WGN, which, by the style, stands for World's Greatest Newspaper…
Max Headroom Hacker: Oh I just fabricated a behemothic masterpiece for all the greatest globe newspaper nerds.
Ben: And this moment, when the Max Headroom hacker pulls out a glove and says, we recollect, "My blood brother is wearing the other one. But information technology's dingy."
Max Headroom Hacker: My brother is wearing the other one, but it's dirty!
Amory: And that brings u.s. to 1 of the theories about the hack that has popped up over the years — that information technology was pulled off by these two brothers, known only to the public equally J and K.
Ben: This theory was introduced, on Reddit, past a guy named Bowie Poag. And Chris Knittel, the reporter, says this post is a big part of what has kept this story going decades after it happened.
Chris: To me, his story on Reddit simply sort of a kind of supercharged the mystery, you know, and kind of inspired people to go down their own rabbit holes.
(music plays)
Amory: Bowie, this Redditor, eventually updated his Reddit post. Proverb that he no longer considered J and K, the two brothers, suspects, this was due to new evidence he found in his own investigation — new evidence he won't share publicly. He declined to record an interview with u.s.. But he did answer a few of our questions via email, and so did his law-breaking-solving partner — this guy named Rick Klein. Rick is the chief curator of an online museum of classic Chicago telly, and he has a re-create of the Max Headroom circulate intrusion — the highest quality copy, he claims.
Ben: It was actually Chris' reporting that brought Rick and Bowie together. They both grew upwards in Chicago and witnessed the hack live when they were 13 years former. And they were both inspired by this hacker prankster subculture. They've since joined forces in an amateur investigation of the incident. They set up a tip line, they interviewed people who were around at the fourth dimension, they did their own analysis of the video, but still…
Amory: Even so no answer! Though they are the keepers of some secrets — things they say they just won't go into. Similar, who specifically they've spoken to and who they think the Max Headroom hackers were.
Ben: And if, right now, you are calling bull----, like this all feels a little suspicious, yous're non alone. A lot of this story feels suspicious, which made us suspicious. And so we asked Rick and Bowie if they were involved. They swore up and down that they were non. Fine.
Amory: Next stop on the ol' suspicion train? How about Chuck Swirsky, the sportscaster?
Ben: You lot didn't do it, right?
Chuck: Absolutely not. I don't even — honestly, information technology takes me assistance to movement pictures to a photo anthology on my calculator. I hateful, seriously, I'm shocked that it hasn't been solved.
Ben: Okay, what near Chris, who wrote thousands of words on this story? As a reporter who got interested decades later on the thing happened, information technology's pretty safe to say he was not directly involved. But what is his have on who was responsible?
Amory: When you lot started reporting on this, did y'all set out to solve it?
Chris: I don't know the answer to that because I don't know if I want it to be solved.
Amory: Really?
Chris: I don't know.
Ben: What! Why not?
Chris: You know, sometimes when y'all see your heroes, yous're disappointed.
Ben: Are they your heroes?
Chris: You know, I wouldn't rank them as my heroes. Just, you know, it's folklore. Information technology's a myth. You lot know, it'south an urban legend. It's culture jamming, you know, sometimes I retrieve that things similar this are meliorate left unsolved.
Ben: Wow this feels like a direct claiming.
Amory: I know! Mission accustomed.
Ben: Mission failed.
Amory: Then far.
Ben: The statute of limitations is long past. Then information technology's a piddling odd that the perpetrators haven't come forrard, for bragging rights at the very to the lowest degree. But it is possible that the fable of the Max Headroom signal intrusion is more important, and more powerful, without an unmasking. Perhaps it'southward more useful every bit a reminder to hackers that civilisation jamming is possible.
Chris: Bursting into the nightly news, into everyone's favorite programme late at night and just invade their encephalon and plow their night upside down for but a cursory moment. You know, culture jamming.
Amory: Even though it's just basically similar gibberish, at that place'south no clear message that nosotros're supposed to take away from it?
Chris: How do you lot know it's gibberish?
Amory: Well, that'south true.
Chris: I hateful, for all we know, it's it'south all information technology. Information technology appears to be gibberish, but it could be a coded bulletin.
Ben: And the myth continues. As well as the mystery.
Chris: I tin can say without a dubiousness the individuals involved are tight lipped. And they must have some sort of code that they decided to alive by.
Ben: Nosotros gotta scissure the pact, Amory.
Chris: Or do we?
Ben: Chris, you've been no assistance, give thanks you very much.
Chris: Who knows what could be unleashed?
Amory: Chris feels like, in a manner, this story is an aspirational legend for hackers of the day and hackers at present. It'due south a cartel — a way to say, "See what yous can do? You can finish people in the middle of the rat race. Make the audition look upwards from their dead end jobs, snap out of their TV-watching zombie land." Y'all can culture jam.
Ben: Editor Alex Pasternack points out that in that location's some irony here, in the thought of Max Headroom being office of culture jamming. Past 1987, Max Headroom the brand had gone through its own transformation. From a subversive cyberpunk movie character, to a music video jockey with his own Boob tube show in the US.
Alex: By that point, he had become a television pitchman. He was selling Coca-Cola. And in that location were these really funny ads.
(Coke commercial plays)
Coke Commercial: Grab it if you lot tin can, can. Take hold of the moving ridge. Coke!
Alex: I think I saw him existence interviewed on Letterman a lot because my parents watched Letterman.
David Letterman: I tell you lot what, Max, could you describe yourself for u.s.a.? Simply tell the folks a little chip about what you lot are, what you practise.
Max Headroom: I suppose I see myself as witty! Urbane! Highly-ly-ly talented! Talented! Talented! Hugely successful and a keen sense of style…
Alex: The signal intruders may not have had enough fourth dimension to say everything they wanted to. But I think my sense is that like they were performing, they were doing something that was that was meant to be, in some ways, a piece of work of art. And in effect, a protest of the corporate media environment. You know, I think that in that location's there'due south something poetic about that. There's a sure delectability in the mystery of all of it.
Amory: In the decades since the incident, the mainstream has moved on. Forgotten nearly Max Headroom. Coca-Cola has new pitch people. The Max TV testify is long gone. But the subversives think. Headroom echos in the masked hacktivist group Anonymous, in the modern re-imaginings of Guy Fawkes, in the graphic novel "Five for Vendetta." So in a way, the Chicago intrusion was a more pure and lasting version of Max Headroom. perhaps precisely considering the perpetrators have never been caught.
Ben: Amory, what is the equivalent of this incident in 2019 or 2020? Like, is it Jack Dorsey getting his Twitter feed hacked? Is it some crazy Netflix takeover move that nosotros oasis't even seen notwithstanding? What is it?
Amory: Maybe information technology'southward this:
CBS News anchor: At present to this story. A search is nether way for a hacker who acquired panic by triggering all of Dallas'south emergency sirens at the same time.
(sirens play)
Ben: Hey, I bet Chuck Swirsky is just glad all those sirens weren't singing his name.
Amory: You wish they were singing your name, don't you Ben.
Ben: I mean, I'one thousand interested. I'm interested to hear that.
Amory: Y'all improve get a LOT better at computers.
Ben: On it!
Max Headroom (singing): It's been a great show. We're sorry that information technology's through. Farewell is such a sad worrrrrrrrrrd. Then permit's just say, bye. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen!
David Letterman: Max Headroom!
Bonus: Interview with Bowie Poag (u/bpoag) & Rick Klein, amateur investigators of the Max Headroom incident
When and why did you lot decide to comport your own investigation into the Max Headroom case?
Rick: I always wondered who information technology was, and once I started making contacts with various people working in local idiot box (due to the continuing growth of and attending from my Museum) I started believing that *someone* must know something. The simply question was who and whether at that place would be proof. The investigation such as it was didn't actually brainstorm in earnest until Bowie and I started talking about information technology and sharing info and clues.
Bowie: I had some interest in the case beforehand, but I didn't really become that securely interested in information technology until I met upward with Rick. This was right after the Motherboard article was published, where nosotros had both been featured. Here's this guy named Rick who had been working a completely different angle to mine, which I found interesting, then, we began to share notes over the next few years, and casually looking into things where we nevertheless could.
Why were the 2 of you well-positioned to behave such an investigation?
Rick: Well, I think I had adult my ties to people who worked in local goggle box of the past. I also had the best available source tape of the incident (not the re-create posted on YouTube by the way). Besides this I also was able to use my Museum as a "cover" for inquiries, since I would often reach out to people who may accept saved old tapes. A petty fleck of an reward compared to just Joe Accident walking in off the street asking questions. As far as Bowie goes, he has advanced technical noesis in computers and the methods and means of hacking in general. He as well has a bang-up eye for particular and tin examine testify or test theories quite well.
Bowie: I wouldn't say we're well-positioned, outside of the fact that Rick and I both grew up in the area, Rick has a good number of contacts with people in the local broadcasting circles in Chicago, and I still call back what the local hacking scene was like in the late lxxx's. For my own part, it simply seemed like a fun and interesting puzzle to piece of work on. I like being able to throw my hat in the ring on older puzzles that might benefit from being examined with more modern approaches, and seeing what I tin can do with them. I remember about 10 years agone, before the whole Max thing spun upwardly, I tried my hand at cracking "Z340", one of the Zodiac serial killer'southward last undeciphered letters. For fun, on Reddit, I took a couple days off from work to sit down and see what I could extract out of it, and actually managed to emerge something meaningful after the first day or so. (There are unusual fold lines in the letter of the alphabet, and none of those folds crosses through any symbol.) ..Later, around that time, the Headroom case attracted my attention, and stirred up some memories of old acquaintances I had dorsum when I was a tween.. and so, I figured I'd throw my lid in on that puzzle next.
How collaborative was it and how much did you each do individually?
Rick: Well, we had a few tips come up from my "tip line". I also had information from my continual investigating and talking to people. Bowie did a very thorough technical analysis of the videotape of the incident which yielded a major piece of information. Bowie too did enquiry into other technical aspects of the hack which he was able to ostend with my aid. We both did "in the field" reconnaissance and information gathering (if you want to call it that) where I put a little actress on the line in order to go info and evidence, but in the terminate it was mostly a collaborative effort. We notwithstanding disagree on some things and we aren't absolutely certain about anything – but we are very confident in what we do know. I even so agree out promise for a confession or that "smoking gun" piece of evidence that removes all doubt.
Bowie: Rick has actually been working on it longer than I have, but it's something we've worked on, together, since the publication of the Motherboard article, in 2013. It's always been pretty casual. While it's been years since we've clocked whatever serious time on it, we even so talk about the instance on and off every few months, or when something interesting appears in the media nearly information technology. As for the work, this involved doing things similar stepping through the incident videos frame by frame, reconstructing parts of information technology, stripping the sound and sending it off to a lab to run across if it could be cleaned upwards or further deciphered, interviewing people who were around at the time, things similar that. In that location are a couple interesting discoveries that emerged from that effort. If you lot want an instance, we used to believe that the rotating background behind Max was a canvass of corrugated metal. We no longer practise; If you lot zoom in a bit on the background, and look closely at the black stripes, there's sort of a repeating little dimple in information technology, every few inches. Our best guess was that these stripes must have come from something like a dented roll of black electrical tape. We besides noticed in sure frames where the edge of the rotating background is visible, that the stripes themselves seem to extend and hang limp off the border a fiddling. We call these "dog ears". So, to exam out the theory that the background was something like electrical record on cardboard rather than corrugated metal, we went out and bought a couple rolls of electrical tape, and spray-painted a large slice of cardboard white, and laid out the stripes in the same pattern. With an old camera and light source in the correct position, sure plenty, information technology seems to take the aforementioned backdrop every bit what we see in the video, dog ears and all. It looked eerily similar to the original.
You concluded that "the possibility of this having been an 'exterior job' is basically nada … all the things which needed to accept been possessed past an outside amateur or amateurs, no matter how talented, only did not exist in the wild in 1987." What would take needed to be "possessed" that did not exist in the wild in 1987? (please speak every bit technically as needed)
Rick: That'south a Bowie quote, so I will let him address it if he wants. I'll just point out that I prefer not to speak in absolutes as much equally Bowie, so I wouldn't say the possibility is basically aught, but I would authorize it by simply stating that it is extremely unlikely. :-)
Bowie: Rick has a point nearly the dangers of speaking in absolutes, simply, from what we've gathered, I'd nevertheless say it'south basically zero, even now. Among other things, Max needed to have had access to (and a deep working familiarity with) the kinds of commercial equipment required, and knowledge of the STL locations of each station.
The Dept of Justice'due south default v-twelvemonth statute of limitations for prosecuting the "Headroom Hacker" has long since passed. Why do you think, still, no one has come forward
Rick: Perhaps the person doesn't want to admit information technology due to bug of ego, or doesn't want to worry well-nigh other possible (non-legal) consequences for him.
Bowie: That, and privacy.. Because Max is likely a senior citizen at this betoken, I would imagine not wanting to spend your retirement beingness hounded past the internet and the media would play into it.
We spoke to Chuck Swirsky who says he did non have any notable "enemies" and has no idea why anyone would phone call him a "fricken nerd" and a "fricken liberal?" Do yous guys take whatever guesses, educated or otherwise?
Rick: From my reading of the video, Max was disparaging sportscaster Dan Roan, not Chuck Swirsky. Call back, the recording of the hack was initially planned for the WGN 9:00 Newscast. Due to a combination of technical difficulties and a WGN engineer who took evasive action, the hack was stopped in its tracks. Max then "regrouped" and used the same tape to hijack WTTW during Doctor Who. Unfortunately the WGN digs and references didn't make much sense, but Max probably felt like he didn't want to be browbeaten and switched to WTTW simply because he could.
So originally planned, and as had occurred, Max broke in to WGN's signal during Dan Roan's sports report. Then he comments on hm and calls him (Dan) a "frickin' nerd" and says something like "this guy thinks he'due south better than Chuck Swirsky" or maybe it was "at least this guy'due south better than Chuck Swirsky". So Chuck Swirsky was used equally a reference simply only in comparison to Dan Roan is what I believe. Although perhaps the adjacent line about being a liberal was directed at Swirsky. Hard to say for sure.
Bowie: I've e'er interpreted it as "Yes, I think I'm better than Chuck Swirsky", as to imply that he (Max) was the more interesting i to spotter. To my knowledge, I don't think nosotros ever unearthed any real reason why anyone would have a problem with Chuck Swirsky. The "frickin' liberal" annotate itself is sort of telling, in that it suggests that "Max" is right-leaning, politically. I'd imagine that if Chuck were the focal betoken behind the signal intrusions, Max would have gone on at some length nigh him. Max'southward mention of Chuck seems to exist only done in passing. The remainder just seems like a mixture of olfactory organ-thumbing and bad prop comedy.
What motivation might someone have had to criticize and call out WGN in November of 1987?
Rick: Perhaps something related to a work dispute? Who knows.
Bowie: All-time guess? Some sort of ongoing work dispute. I don't retrieve it was a spur of the moment thing.
Why do you think the FCC has never been able to place the people behind the Max Headroom incident, fifty-fifty though they were able to quickly solve other circulate hacks effectually the aforementioned time (Helm Midnight, Playboy Idiot box)?
Rick: I think the Max perpetrator hid their tracks very well, to the point that even if they were a suspect, as long as they held firm under questioning, there would be no hard evidence to motility forrad.
Bowie: Agreed. It reads to me like some care was taken to obscure nearly every attribute of what was sent out, and so every bit to brand information technology rather difficult to pull anything out of it, forensically.
What was the significance of the Headroom incident back in 1987? Why practice you retrieve people are still fascinated by the Headroom Incident in 2019?
Rick: It was just a weird little by and large humorous event of a at present by-gone era of analog television. The strangeness and creepiness of it takes on more meaning as time goes past. And the fact that it'southward unsolved perhaps. Also the mask.
Bowie: Yeah.. I think information technology boils down to people having natural want to resolve or explain things that seem unresolved. Worse, it's a picayune creepy. I don't think it was meant to be creepy, just it came off that way, which certainly adds to information technology.
Nosotros contacted each of you individually for interviews, yet yous responded together. Why?
Rick: We concur to coordinate media responses so as to not blindside the other and to likewise make certain we don't give too much away or attract unwanted attention.
Bowie: Like I mentioned above, It's been years since Rick and I have logged any existent time against the case, but people still contact us pretty regularly about information technology. Most people are absurd virtually it, merely curious about it and desire to acquire more, but so there are people who want to brand a name for themselves past either trying to exploit us, or people we've talked to nearly the example. Whenever something comes up, Rick and I run everything by each other to help protect against that. Information technology'south been that way for years.
Declining our invitation for an interview is harmless enough. Doing and so for "a lot of reasons," as you wrote, "almost of which [you'd] adopt not to talk about" sounds suspicious, naturally. What are your reasons for declining that yous ARE willing to share?
Rick: Bowie can accost this better probably but some other reason was possible negative reaction from the hacking customs, such every bit doxing, etc. We'd rather not stir the pot.
Bowie: Yup. And for me, some other big part of information technology is to avoid putting force per unit area on ourselves, and putting pressure on the people we've spoken with in the by. It'southward helpful to show that we take others' privacy seriously, if we await to have people come forward with what they know.
You also wrote, "there are a few subjects we can't actually go into at this point in fourth dimension." Which subjects are those (even if yous can't speak almost them in item)?
Rick: Who we believe Max may have been and how they may have done it.
Bowie: Mainly those, aye. That and who we've spoken with, and to what length.
Why are there subjects you can't go into at this point in time?
Bowie: Nosotros're merely trying to do what's right by people we've talked to. We've e'er tried to do that, which ordinarily translates to remaining silent.
Volition there ever be a time when you will be able to speak more freely about these subjects?
Bowie: Will there ever be a fourth dimension? God, I hope so.. hah.. there'south a million stories in the big urban center..It looks like 1980's Chicago was no exception.
Are you withholding information that could potentially pb to the identification of the perpetrators of the Headroom incident?
Rick: Yep.
Bowie: Yes, I'd imagine so.. and we've fabricated that clear before on Reddit.. we simply can't do that if it would be at someone else's expense. It wouldn't be right to do that, particularly to people who don't wish to put themselves in the spotlight.
Are you connected to the perpetrators of the Headroom incident in whatsoever way?
Bowie: Ha.. Flattered, but no.
Rick: Nope, honestly nosotros're not.
No offense, but you guys are being very cagey! Why shouldn't people suspect you?
Rick: We're just trying to protect our story, and what we know, until the time is correct, that'southward all.
Bowie: Agreed... I'yard sure our being overly cautious comes across every bit suspicious to some, unfortunately. As for why people shouldn't doubtable us…well, there's the obvious.. Rick and I didn't know each other when we were kids, but we were both barely 13 in November of 1987, and I was living way out in the suburbs when the Headroom incidents happened. I had a budding beginners-level interest in hacking, sure, but aught anywhere near that kind of level.
Annihilation else you want to say?
Bowie: Just a cheers for the opportunity, and for being understanding and off-white. That's all we really ask of anybody. We're just a couple of guys who spent their spare time looking at the instance, not some shadowy clandestine cabal sitting around grin, rubbing our hands together. Some people don't get that, which is why we don't often grant interviews. I think most people get it, and respect that we're trying to exercise the right thing here. We don't want to disappoint anyone, only for now, there are still people who've just chosen privacy over publicity, and we take to honor that.
Reddit is expert at solving mysteries. Why haven't Redditors been able to solve this ane?
Bowie: Given enough time and try, they might. Across that, there's a fair number of people who don't fifty-fifty want it solved; they'd prefer information technology to be something like a landmark, which is understandable.
Bowie, how has your life changed since posting about Max Headroom?
Bowie: For a while, information technology was really, really interesting, digging into the forensics and piecing things together every bit best we've been able to, only digging effectually loses its shine after a while. I'm also glad to have made a new friend in Rick along the way, too. I've moved on to other puzzles in the time since. BOC Aquarius is my new fascination (Just search for Boards of Canada, 'Aquarius' and give it a mind, you'll see.) I've been feeling the urge to take a few days off of work to try and solve that one, too. ?
Practise you have any regrets related to Max Headroom?
Bowie: Many. I recollect I underestimated how interested the public would exist in what I had to share with regard to the Reddit AMA. What I thought would just something interesting to post 1 afternoon ended upwards condign a delivery to update, and maintain for years. The trolling, the accusations, things like that I wasn't really prepared for, either.
(for Rick)
Rick, when and why did you lot found the Museum of Classic Chicago Television?
Rick: Ever since I was in early on high school, I enjoyed finding old videotapes of broadcasts recorded off of Television. They felt like the closest thing to time-travelling for me. When I grew up, and where I grew upwardly, no one I knew had a videotape recorder. (well maybe one Aunt that we didn't see often – it certainly wasn't something I had access to) So once things aired, that was it. Stations would modify affiliations, or ringlet out some new graphics package or a logo alter and the old stuff would be all but forgotten.
When I get-go put in an old record and saw something I had completely forgotten about – UNTIL I saw it again – I was amazed and fascinated past that feeling, and it was probably a flake addictive as well. There was also the factor of the rarity of this footage, at to the lowest degree from the time menstruum I grew upwardly and am most interested in (late-seventies, early on-eighties) – because as mentioned non too many people had video recorders dorsum and then, especially in the 70s – so each tape establish of an uninterrupted recording feels like a lost jewel.
Combine this with an even further pre-existing involvement / attraction to things like garbage picking (such as when a neighbor down the street threw a whole ton of records out next to his garbage cans), collecting in general, flea markets and Maxwell street, information technology all came together.
Once I started sharing my odd passion on YouTube in 2006, things increased exponentially from at that place.
I incorporated equally a non-profit Museum starting in 2009 to help with any possible copyright problems. It has helped. I just want to share this material and I believe original broadcast off-the-air recordings are unique artifacts that should be given some exception to normal copyright law. While not always successful on this front end, I remember my museum has certainly helped raise the profile and sensation of these recordings and appreciation of them and has likewise inspired many other YouTube pages of similar material equally well every bit other sites such as The Oddity Archive which examine broadcast ephemera, among other things.
Rick, what type of presence does Max Headroom have in the museum?
Rick: For a long time information technology was the virtually viewed prune on the main site as well equally the YouTube page. (still in the top 5 at least I believe) It fits right in since besides more normal elements we besides similar to preserve moments that are even more than ephemeral – technical difficulties, special bulletins, on screen crawls, atmospheric condition alerts, stuff that merely happened one time – so this definitely fits that category.
What about the Playboy TV hack or Helm Midnight
Rick: The Playboy and Captain Midnight things were satellite hacks so didn't involvement me equally much since it wasn't strictly on a local channel. That said, I would enjoy finding an off-air recording of the cable stations that the two hacks appeared on, and so the affair could be preserved and seen in their entirety. It'south been a while since I looked these up on YouTube – it's possible someone already posted Captain Midnight merely maybe non as a get-go generation recording or posted the complete result without editing including from before and later on the issue portions of the movie (Falcon and the Snowman!)
Rick, I believe y'all were one of — if not the — original person to upload footage of the Headroom hack to YouTube. Is that right?
Rick: Yep, that was one of the first things I uploaded to YouTube, although not the first thing, in 2006. I was definitely the starting time to mail service it to YouTube. There was an earlier webpage on a separate site that someone did which talked about the hack and had a lower quality .RAM file (RealPlayer format) of a recording of information technology, so I wasn't the first to put it *online*, merely the first on YouTube.
Where did the footage you lot uploaded come from and why did yous upload it?
Rick: In finding and then many tapes over the years it was inevitable that I would come beyond multiple copies of information technology (the WTTW hack, non the WGN one) from multiple sources, since Doctor Who had enough of a nerdy obsessive fanbase to warrant recording it and saving the tapes. And I have establish multiple sources. The best though, and one which we (Bowie and I) used for a lot of our assay was an original VHS recording in SP (2 hour) mode with no reception problems – and then basically as practiced as you can find on a consumer format, extract perhaps if someone recorded it in Beta I on Betamax, but Beta was on its manner out in 1987 so that is less probable.
The very first tape I had of it was "borrowed" (kept and never returned) from a friend in eighth Grade whose male parent was a fan of Physician Who and would record the show every week. I asked my friend to snag that tape from his Dad to make sure he didn't record over information technology the side by side week. And then this was just a few days after the incident occurred, which I originally heard most from news reports. Coincidentally, the hack and reviewing the tape of the show somewhen led me to start watching Doctor Who and I became a large fan.
Rick, you opened up a Max Headroom tip line at some indicate. Did you lot get a lot of tips? Whatever good ones? Any funny ones? If there are any worth sharing, delight practice!
Rick: Aye. We had narrowed the range of focus before that, merely the bearding tip line electronic mail was the affair that really sparked it all off.
Other than that, we got another theories, some well defended and thought out, but nothing that survived our scrutiny subsequently a few days at nigh of looking into.
Source: https://www.wbur.org/endlessthread/2019/11/22/to-the-max-headroom
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