The Story of America’s Creepiest Unsolved TV Hack

Source: http://all-that-is-interesting.com/m..._medium=social

In 1987, Chicago TV stations were overtaken by a masked man who continues to baffle authorities to this day.



On November 22, 1987, Chicago sportscaster Dan Roan was covering the highlights of the Bears recent victory over the Detroit Lions.

It was his usual spot during Channel 9’s “Nine O’Clock News” segment, one he had been doing for years, always the same. Tonight, however, it would be different.

At 9:14, Dan Roan disappeared from the screen. In fact, everything disappeared from the screen as it flickered into darkness. Then, fifteen seconds later, a new figure appeared.

Dressed in a rubber mask . and wearing sunglasses, the mysterious intruder was dressed like artificial intelligence television character Max Headroom. Even the gray background behind the figure was reminiscent of the simulated background that appeared behind Headroom.

There was hardly any sound, but the image was still frightening. The figure bobbed around in front of the spinning background as buzzing noise played.

After 30 seconds, signal engineers at WGN, who broadcasted Channel 9, switched the frequency of the studio link to another transmitter, bringing Dan Roan back to audiences screens.

“Well, if you’re wondering what’s happened,” he said, clearly as confused as the viewers, “…ha-ha…so am I.”

After the brief interruption, Roan continued his previously scheduled broadcast.

Studio engineers assumed that the hijack was an inside job, and immediately began searching the building for the masked intruder. However, their search was unsuccessful, as the broadcast turned out to be a pre-recording, from a third party at a separate location.

And, there was another one on the way.



Almost exactly two hours after the first episode, the Max Headroom impersonator was back — this time on Channel 11.

At 11:15 pm, the PBS affiliate WWTW was airing a Doctor Who episode titled “The Horror of Fang Rock.”

Then, as suddenly as before, the video cut out.

Scan lines, like those at the beginning of a VHS recording, appeared followed by the familiar masked figure. The figure bobbed in front of the rotating background as before, the same creepy mask covering his face. However, unlike the 9:15 recording, this one had audio.

“That does it,” the figure said, its voice distorted. “He’s a fricken nerd.”

The figure then laughed. He mentions Chuck Swirsky, a WGN pundit, claiming to be better than him.

Then he held up a can of Pepsi while reciting the Coca-Cola slogan “catch the wave.” Max Headroom was, at the time, being used as a spokesperson for Coke.

After that, the Max Headroom hack turned creepier.

The figure flashed the finger at the camera, his middle finger covered in a rubber extension. He sang “your love is fading,” lyrics to “(I Know) I’m Losing You” by the Temptations. He hummed tunelessly. He muttered phrases from television shows. He screamed nonsense and thhen he began to moan.

After a moment, he paused to claim he had “made a giant masterpiece for all the greatest world newspaper nerds,” referencing WGN’s acronym and corporate parent the Chicago Tribune.

Then, he held up a glove, like the one popularized by Michael Jackson and exclaimed: “my brother is wearing the other one” before pulling it on and saying “But it’s dirty! It’s like you got bloodstains on it!”

The camera then cut to a shot of a man’s torso and partially exposed buttocks. The Max Headroom mask had been removed and was being held up to the camera. The rubber extension that had covered the figures finger was stuffed inside the mouth of the mask.

“They’re coming to get me!” the man screamed suddenly.

“Bend over, bitch,” a female voice responded. The man was then spanked repeatedly with a flyswatter as he screamed.



The entire Max Headroom hack lasted one minute, twenty-two seconds before signal transmitters were able to black it out. They discovered that at the time of the incident there were no engineers on duty at the WTTW transmitter tower. Had there been someone there, the signal could have been stopped. By the time they noticed the error, however, the 90-second transmission was over.

Since there was no one on duty during the transmission, the only copies of the hack came from Doctor Who fans who had been taping the episode on their VCR’s. WGN and WTTW covered the incident, broadcasting the video, again and again, calling the mastermind behind it a “TV Video Pirate.” Most Chicagoans were amused, some were confused, and some were upset that their television show had been interrupted

However, while viewers found the Max Headroom hack funny, the government didn’t. The FCC, the agency that regulates the airwaves, dedicated all of their efforts to finding the mysterious masked figure, even offering a reward to anyone with information.

“I would like to inform anybody involved in this kinda thing, that there’s a maximum penalty of $100,000, one-year in jail, or both,” Phil Bradford, an FCC spokesman, told a reporter the following day. “All in all, there are some who may view this as comical,” WTTW spokesman Anders Yocom said. “But it is a very serious matter because illegal interference of a broadcast signal is a violation of federal law. ”

Eventually, the FCC worked out how the hacker had done it. By placing his or her own dish antenna between the transmitter tower, the hacker could have effectively interrupted the original signal. They wouldn’t even have needed expensive equipment, just good timing and positioning.

They were also able to pinpoint a location where the video might have been shot. Based on the background of the videos, agents from the FCC determined it was most likely the roll down door of a warehouse and tracked it to a district that had warehouses with doors like it.

However, though the FCC had found most pieces of the puzzle, the biggest one remained — who was the man behind the mask?

A few rumors about the Max Headroom hack floated around but they were quickly dismissed, and some weren’t even investigated. It seemed that whoever had done it simply faded into oblivion, satisfied with their work, uneager to continue drawing attention to themselves.