The stunt was pulled Monday night, when somebody with maybe too much The Walking Dead on the brain hacked into two Montana TV stations’ Emergency Alert System to warn of a real zombie apocalypse. The admittedly authentic-looking alert, which played over a commercial on Great Falls station KRTV and The Steve Wilkos Show on the local CW station, said “dead bodies are rising from their graves” and “attacking the living” in several counties. According to the Great Falls Tribune, there were at least four calls to police asking whether the alert was true — prompting KRTV to post a notice that the warning was bogus. The investigation continues, but the real scary part is how the pranksters apparently hacked into a federal system. Now their future will include jail, a TV development deal or at the least a cease-and-desist order from AMC. Here’s the CW feed:


Best story ever.
This wasn’t War of the Worlds. This was good hacking but amateur hour as it relates to filmmaking/storytelling. If someone signs this guy, this is the death knell of hollywood.
Do you have any idea how many times I have heard “this is the death knell of hollywood”?
Oh yeah, because “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” was a shining example of how the entertainment industry provides rich and layered stories that will be treasured for generations to come.
I think a death knell is going to have to be quite a lot worse than this.
That was more entertaining than anything NBC has broadcast in the last five years.
The most concerning part of this story is that four people actually that it was real.
One name you can cross off the “Possible Hacker” List:
Glen Mazzara
This is a serious question.
I saw “Warm Bodies” this weekend and I liked it. The theater was full of young people and it was enjoyable to experience them enjoying the movie.
But what does it say about young people in America today that they identify so strongly with wizards, vampires, werewolves, zombies, aliens, etc., when they’re not seeing a horror movie where a homicidal maniac is on the loose in some isolated, closed space?
That about covers it, doesn’t it? Did I miss any other non-human species or psychopaths?
Hopeless, cynical, resigned, scared about the future of the world? All of the above?
Because it’s a safe entertaining way for them to condition themselves for the shocks of real life (i.e. murder, abductions, death in general).
The same was said about the 1950s teen movies, too. Lots of zombies, aliens, werewolves, etc. It was to escape the constant threat of nuclear armageddon rammed down their throats on a daily basis. I think that generation turned out OK.
But all of these things in previous generations were sub-genres and B movies. In the past movies that resonated with young people dealt with social problems (“Rebel Without a Cause” as an example.)Isn’t it possible that the relentless culture of “murder, abductions, death in general” is the underlying factor for the identification in the first place? This stuff is huge box office. “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” was more like the old stuff. Square pegs being misunderstood, etc. “Warm Bodies” seems like a merger of the two – misunderstood zombies.
Nah. The underlying factor was around LONG before movies. It exists in our DNA. A dark side that needs to be kept fed. Look at it like this: the horror film has become the modern version of the public lynching. No different than when people gathered for the Salem Witch Trials, then the hangings on Gallows Hill.
Although “misunderstood” seems to be the Ground Zero ingredient generally for all of it.
Only mistake the hacker made was using the heavily modulated deep voice. Ruins it every time.