Max Headroom it sounds like a commercial airline specification but that's about as far removed from Max Headroom as you can get because in reality he was a mesmerizing 80s AI played by actor Matt frewer who really stood the test of time combined with some impressive makeup and visual effects this uncanny valley pseudo simulation really felt like something else it's only natural then that people wanted to mimic this quirky new synthesized character after all imitation is the greatest form of flattery however on the 22nd of November 1987 when WGN TV's new cast was interrupted by a strange intruded signal of someone who looked like a Dollar Tree Max Headroom I'm sure flattery was the furthest feeling anyone had in their minds this was an unnerving disturbing and bewildering event that until this day no one has an explanation for all right but before we get into that I guess we should cover a bit of Max Headroom history because as common knowledge as he may be to my core audience for many young whipper snappers he probably sounds more like a WCW wrestler God even WCW is probably a too old reference for a lot of you it was on the UK's Channel 4 that Max Headroom made his debut during the Spring of 1985 in a cyberpunk TV movie called Max Headroom 20 minutes into the future the premise of which was really quite interesting Edison Carter played also by frua is a Maverick truth-seeking journalist trying to uncover the greed and Horror in a running man style future ah near future including the company that employs him Network 23 you are trialing blipvert advertising which forces 30 seconds of TV advertising into a three-second package directly into a viewer's mind sometimes with dire effects despite being their top reporter the network decides to neutralize Carter and whilst fleeing corporate goons he crashes straight through a barrier reading Max Headroom 2.3 meters these signs used to be over almost every car park and Bridge in the UK until it was changed to Max height possibly due to the popularity of Headroom himself anyway with Carter in a coma Network 23 creates an AI program based on his mind this glitchy Proto AI wakes sprouting the first words Max Headroom the last thing Carter saw flash into his eyes their plan was with Max as an AI they not only Keep Their audience happy but believe they can have complete control over what he says and does but fearing what it knows the plan is scrapped and the same goons are sought to dispose of both Max and Carter who subsequently screw it up with Max ending up in the hands of the punk controlled competitor Big Time TV and the real Carter free to live his life again enter data go on rage however as good as this short movie is it had grander Ambitions than itself really it was just a launch platform for Max who several days later appeared as the host of The Max Headroom show combining music television with a chat show format and befitting channel 4's Mantra to deliver new and edgy content what would you do to help the world if you could spend thirty thousand pounds a week for the next Thousand Years well that's how much the government are spending on Trident missiles no facts like that just wipe you out I'd rather tap down by 1986 Max had crossed the Atlantic airing in the US on Cinemax quickly becoming a cult personality before landing the role as a global spokesperson the new Coke I've got an idea why doesn't New Coke have a taste test where New Coke takes it takes on Pepsi and we'll call it the new Coke pop quiz Swatch were even sponsored to create a Max Headroom watch pretty neat hey in fact Max was everywhere on magazine covers in books on VHS and even classic computer games which mostly Rift on the dystopian cyberpunk of that original TV movie but the fact that new Coke fell flat on its ass is perhaps the most perfect outcome of using Max as your promotional Aid because Max's core Mantra was always to challenge the status quo whether in the corporate commercial or cyberpunk sense I guess Coke missed the memo because using him as your corporate Shield is pretty hilarious but as we know you can get away with all sorts if you do it with charm especially in America and Max certainly had that listen to this next time reach for a Coke become a cocologist what are you waiting for Catch the Wave hey there you funky little fellows boy have I got a treat for you this episode is brought to you by Monk pack mama monk Pat now monk Pac are the perfect snack for anyone who wants to eat better or cut back on sugar and carbs without sacrificing on taste plus there's no high intensity sweetener or sugar alcohols leaving that bitter aftertaste here mmm reminds me of candy bars from my childhood but without all the rubbish jokes on the wrapper monk pekar gluten-free contain one gram of sugar or less two to three grams of net carbs and each bar is 150 calories or less perfect for snacking or breakfast on the go I strongly urge you to try coconut almond and peanut butter coca chip they are good yeah 20 of your first purchase of any monk pack products by visiting monkpak.com and entering code nerd at checkout or just simply click the link in the description down below to get 20 off that's so good so then as we arrive on the 22nd of November 1987 at possibly the height of Max's popularity we have to ask ourselves just exactly what was this all right before this point it had been a perfectly normal evening for Channel 9 otherwise known as WGN TV an independent TV station operating out of Chicago Illinois the nine o'clock news had progressed up to the sports segment with Dan Rohn providing some synoptical commentary of the Chicago Bears victory over the Detroit Lions when at 9 14 PM the transmission was interrupted all right it's claimed that WGN Engineers quickly leapt into action and 20 seconds later had switched the frequency of the studio transmission link to a backup frequency restoring a puzzle Dan Rhone to our screens well if you're wondering what's happened so am I actually the computer that we have running our news from time to time took off and went wild so what we're going to do is start over from the top of the Bears the computer took off and went walk out well that's certainly one way of explaining it to those with single point IQs but the reality here is that this was a signal intrusion or hijacking which I'll refer to from here as a hack originating from an unknown location and with an unknown purpose what we see is a figure wearing a vinyl Max Headroom mask produced by Caesar from 1986 onwards behind this figure is what appears to be a section of corrugated steel being rotated slowly from left to right mimicking the effect of headroom's animated background but perhaps the most disturbing part is the sound all right presumably there should be audio but all we get is Distortion linked to the on-screen visuals for whatever reason this signal hack hasn't been fully successful and instead of recognizable sound Distortion from the video signal is leaking into the audio carrier wave now if this incident was isolated it probably wouldn't be as fascinating part of television history as it is but as the Knight rolled on little did the residents of Chicago realize that they would be in for another visit from Max at 11 19 pm on Channel 11 the PBS operated WTTW was rerunning horror of fang Rock the 92nd episode of Doctor Who first broadcast in September 77. oh yeah in this episode a shape-shifting alien Scout arrives intending to take over Earth and use it in an Intergalactic War by 11 20 PM WTTW was airing a perhaps not so different type of shapeshifter and like WGN it was not intended the main difference here was that we also had audio and it actually made sense at least on the face of it it may have been distorted almost alien-like in itself but by listening carefully you could pick out just what Max was saying away now my brother is wearing the other one thank you two minutes later it was over and Doctor Who had been restored WTTW had allowed the whole signal hack to run uninterrupted and into the eyes of thousands of viewers if I had done this because they had no other choice at 11 20 PM all the WTTW Engineers had left the building leaving pre-recorded material to Simply reel itself out so when the signal was hijacked there was no one in the building who could do anything and perhaps this is exactly why this particular hack was rolled out so late in the evening but then you might ask why was the first hack cut short why did whoever Max was not realize that WGN would be able to cut the signal quickly the answer I have to that is perhaps perhaps it actually went more to plan than we were led to believe and to understand why we need to understand a bit more about the perpetrators themselves we don't know how many attempts there have been but before 1987 there have been numerous documented successes at hijacking or intruding on television signals and all of these hacks had one thing in common the people behind it knew what they were doing on the 26th of November 1977 an ITN News Bulletin broadcast by Southern television in the UK had its audio signal hijacked by a six-minute speech purporting to be from rillion of the ashtar galactic command s the monologue detailed the destiny of the human race and a disaster waiting to happen although no one knows specifically who was behind this it's suspected to be a southern television employee on the 14th of September 1985 in Poland a television network was hijacked by a group of astronomers from the University of Toran in collaboration with a trade Union relying on their combined Technical and radio astronomy knowledge they used a ZX spectrum and some rudimentary transmitting equipment to encode a message over a Polish James Bond knockoff series and again several days later over the news the message read solidarity it is our duty to boycott the election June a great month for the very best from HBO Premiere film on the 27th of April 1986 HBO's signal from Long Island New York was interrupted for five minutes by Captain Midnight the message here was much simpler a color bar background with text outraged at HBO's Service rates it turned out that John McDougall who had a second job as a master satellite control operator was behind the hack HBO's prices were having a knock-on effect of his main job selling satellite dishes and these are just early hacks there have been numerous since but just as satellite jamming required specialist knowledge then so did overriding an analog broadcast signal it also required some pretty specialist equipment that the average Joe just wouldn't have access to saying that the basic premise was simple WGN TV were broadcasting from bear Studio to the transmitter located atop of the John Hancock Center this was via the STL or Studio 2 transmitter link for that signal to be intruded upon all the hacker had to do was broadcast a stronger microwave signal on the same frequency towards the same transmitter this didn't have to be a stronger signal overall it could have been a weaker signal but broadcast much closer therefore still managing to overpower the original the relaying transmitter would then presume the stronger signal was the intended signal and be broadcast across Chicago by the John Hancock relay transmitter for WTTW the premise was the same however the transmitter was located atop the Sears tower now called the Willis Tower it figures members our perpetrator would have to either be in between these two towers or relocate close to each one for each hack so in order for each TV station to restore their signal either the hijacking broadcast would have to end all the transmitter would need to be switched to expect a different frequency from the studio it's reported that WGN TV were able to do this quickly as they had access to the transmitter controls whereas WTTW were thwarted because they had no hands on deck but let's take a look at that first hack again then the defense you can see the point where the transmitter picks up the new signal as it goes black you can then hear the point at which the footage kicks in now most people argue that the Distortion at the top and the base of the screen make it obvious that the footage is pre-recorded after all you get this effect when tape is stretched by the recording and playing mechanisms and that stretching isn't evident on the normal broadcast indicating it derives from the intruder's material however I found some footage from wgn's umatic live broadcast recording which have a much better signal to noise ratio and as you can see no stretching this fan is more likely to be from signal Distortion what we do get however are other VHS type artifacts which look like they derive from the intruder's material and these also stop when the original broadcast returns although not immediately when the hijack finishes there's a couple of seconds where it continues perfectly consistent with what we'd seen prior the signal is then brought back under control and the screen goes completely black well if you're one if I up the brightness for continuity is even clearer like this you can even see a ghost image of Max on the initial dark frames we then get Dan Rowan moments later well if you're wondering what's happened Amber run up to this video I've trolled the internet scanned through archives newspapers and even found some incredibly good documentaries on other YouTube channels but I've yet to hear anyone remark that perhaps the first hack wasn't in fact shut down by WGN TV but actually it ran its course of course I'm merely speculating but another point of contention is that no footage from the first hack appears in the second surely if this was meant to be included as one performance piece the hacker would have rewound the tape for round two but that doesn't happen hack number two shares zero content with the first at the very least it indicates that the person who performed the second hack Eva didn't care about getting the first part out didn't consider it important or perhaps they just forgot to rewind in all that excitement we don't know maybe even the person who broadcast the hack is someone entirely different to who we see on camera The Hunt is on this afternoon for Chicago's video pirate mission tonight is trying to find out who's responsible for two acts of video piracy and while it may have been a stunt it is not treated as a joke Chicago's video pirate could face a jail sentence and fines for his freelance exercise in public access there are three main factors that make the content feel so disturbing the first is the element of the unknown because we don't know what the motive is here we don't know what the messages really mean we don't even know who's behind it and because of that we fear it the fear of the unknown is the basis for a lot of hatred in the world and that's why after the event some people were surprisingly riled up about it I got so upset that I won the Boston TV set I really did the pirate also overpowered the signal at wpm TV during Bear football highlights on the evening sportscast the second is the destruction it caused to most people disruption to the normal flow of TV is just not possible they can't comprehend that their scheduled programming will be rescheduled let alone completely thrown off course by someone who seemingly has no connection to the TV station itself this disruption makes us feel uneasy after all if the news can be disrupted what else in our lives is more fragile than it seems the third is the mask for centuries masks have been used to invoke fear to create an aura of dread someone who wears a mask is instantly lifeless soulless it prevents the connection that is normally so natural between humans and even humans and animals we can't get a sense of what this character is thinking we can't get a sense of their feelings we can't even get a sense of their Humanity really I've complicated it the latter two all feed into the first factor of the unknown but by disseminating each part you quickly realize that it's the sheer number of unknown elements here that makes the whole spectacle as disturbing as it feels but it's the mask which prevents us from gleaming any information from the first hack after all we can't even lip read whoever this is there's no identifying information other than what we see but in the second hack we can pretty much interpret all of the voice and attempt to work out its meaning if indeed there is any all right this way uh somebody wants to get attention what do they do they go break into a a television broadcast just to get attention like throwing a brick through your window so to speak okay it's not too surprised it's not too bright really surprise the video this time kicks in immediately there's no Darkness there's no tape rolling so maybe it was played too early before the signal was secured or maybe we are just rolling from the end of the first intrusion we begin with what most sources claim to be now Chuck swarsky is a sports commentator and announcer at the time he was working for WGN and specifically covered the Chicago Bears so maybe our hacker was hoping to catch Chuck in action on WGN although that's unlikely as Chuck's usual job was on WGN Radio however if we clean up the first part I don't think he says that does it it could easily be because if or the end of another sentence and this could completely throw off the meaning most people interpret Max as meaning that Chuck swerski is a nerd and a freaking liberal himself but he could just as well be taking the Mickey out of another news reader perhaps even the guy presenting that evening Dan Rowan imagine the delivery as something like this Dan Rowan he doesn't he's a freaking nerd I'm sorry I think I'm better than Chuck swarsky freaking liberal Max could just as easily be a fan of Swarovski rather than a hater and his real Target may never be known but for me the intonation and the higher playful frequency of his voice at this part fits better in this context we then move on to foreign the whole monologue seems rambling chaotic Loosely strung together perhaps trying to imitate headroom's casual quips but to lesser effect by this point Headroom had been appearing in New Coke adverts for a while here our guy is trolling by throwing a Pepsi can whilst pushing Coke's slogan in a playful questioning manner he then flips the birds of a camera the next line is most likely a reference to local Chicago singer Lou pride and his song of the same name he then hums the tune to a kids TV show called Clutch Cargo a series from the 50s that had been re-running in the Chicago area during the 70s this is a reference to the last episode of Clutch Cargo called a big X he then complains about his piles before we get treated to a lovely sound of something wet and sloppy hitting the floor before alluding to the fact that the defecation he's just made aligns with what WGN consider to be the news greatest World newspaper nerds is a misrepresentation of what WGN stands for world's greatest news the other one we then move on to the glove now this could be taken literally but November 1987 was also slap bang in the middle of Michael Jackson's Bad Tour which heavily featured MJ wearing a single glove on the opposing hand of Max tellingly this tour was also sponsored by Pepsi perhaps alluding to Pepsi being a dirty brand or perhaps MJ himself or maybe it's just a reference to the new Coke and Pepsi rivalry again this is something that hasn't been posited elsewhere and all I can do is speculate we then get a very clear jump cut further confirming that this is definitely pre-recorded material another figure most likely a woman appears from the right wearing what appears to be a German barmaid costume Max then holds up his mask which seems to have what news segments described as a marital Aid sticking out of its mouth while saying where do we go they're coming to get me perhaps in reference to this very broadcast and how naughty they have been a slightly higher pitched voice running through the same Distortion filter who we presume is the new character then says whilst beginning to spank Max Max responds with exclamation but for the woman perhaps playfully touches his butt you can then see the point at which the recording stops and the signal is dropped allowing Doctor Who to continue to the utter dismay of some viewers no I just thought it would be just a slight mess up but that in the middle of the teeth it's going to be you're going to have to tape over it this is well the first is that they were likely two people involved in the filming at least presuming the camera was on a tripod then the barmaid would have been responsible for rotating the metal sheet during the first section then when she appears on screen we can see the metal sheet is static it's possible that these are the only two people who know exactly what happened that evening the audio for the whole incident seems to be run through some sort of effects box perhaps something as simple as a microphone hooked up to a guitar effects pedal this is why everything seems distorted and it's certainly easier than adding all this in post recording it's also a more complex setup than just relying on the camcorder's built-in microphone again this Duo knew what they were doing the effects used are actually pretty good that rotating metal sheet has been thought about not only did they know what they were doing but they also spent a lot of time preparing and planning we also have evidence for Max's disdain for WGN or at least certain news readers at WGN it's no accident that the first intrusion was on that channel and perhaps this re-establishes the argument that the whole performance was intended to run solely on WGN during the popular nine o'clock news although given the short time frame they were clearly prepared for the second intrusion regardless knowing just how to intrude on both signals was definitely predetermined this could quite easily posit Max as a disgruntled former employee of WGN someone would be Technical know-how and motive to pull off something like this we can also extrapolate that Max is very likely to be politically conservative it's hard to tell just how conservative but his liberal quip certainly doesn't seem to be a positive remark you could posit that the German barmaid dress and ties of the real Max Headroom to Aryan imagery could be a reference to Nazi Germany and place him very politically right but this is pure speculation there's just no evidence for it the rest seems to be ramblings based in local or pop culture references to Lou pride and Clutch Cargo perhaps suggest that Max resided or had ties to the Chicago area for at least a decade but again it's just speculation anyone who tries to sell you this as hard evidence is either trying to sensationalize or would just make a piss poor detective your love is fading is also an opening lyric for the Temptation song I know I'm losing you that's being covered by a multitude of other groups so could just as easily be a reference to that and Clutch Cargo well that was aired across the entire nation this at best is just circumstantial evidence what's clear is even with the WGN references there doesn't seem to be an overriding narrative or message it feels very much like this was perhaps even a joke a thing was done because it could be done perhaps to gain notoriety among the local hacking scene perhaps as a very private joke among friends we can also presume that the signal was broadcast from somewhere between John Hancock Tower and the Sears Tower which is actually not a huge patch of Chicago but big enough for it to be almost impossible to triangulate the signal still you could perhaps Whittle the location down to a few of the high-rise blocks which existed in 1987. however the lack of evidence didn't stop the internet from getting in on the case some 20 years since the event took place in 2013 Vice threw a freedom of information request got hold of the FBI report of the Headroom incident the report was written by the assistant bureau chief in the fcc's field operations Bureau Dr Michael Marcus Marcus an expert in TV hacking and radio Transmissions had joined the FCC in 1979 and immediately began developing policies for Advanced Radio Technologies he would go on to help catch Thomas Haney who hacked the Playboy TV channel with religious text in September 87. Marcus States I think the bad guy got close to the receiving end and just transmitted a signal that was received with a stronger strength than the more distant intended signal he posits that the intrusion very likely took place from a high-rise apartment near to the towers or even a rooftop the studio transmitter link frequency would be easy enough to get hold of and then with proximity on their side the intruding microwave signal just needed to be strong enough to be picked up by the tower transmitters taking preference from the studio transmitter link Marcus States it did need a dish antenna but if they got close to the STL receiver antenna at the TV transmitter then a direct TV size antenna might have been adequate he postulates that the gear required to pull this off might have cost around ten thousand dollars but could have been sourced from the amateur radio Market it could also have been reasonably mobile the FBI went to Great Lengths pulling and printing stills from the broadcast quality umatic cassette copy that was recorded from the intrusion in a bid to identify the culprits or at least pin down the filming location but perhaps the most intriguing evidence was that spinning backdrop Marcus goes on to say that the background looked to be about eight feet wide industrial type metal may be a roll down Warehouse door that would have limited it to certain places in the city where the video could have been filmed and one tip sounded particularly promising one but pointed at a particular person someone who worked for a company that had a warehouse-like space in the city a place that might have played host to be video shoot unfortunately the investigators had no probable cause and therefore no warrant this was just a hunch a hunch but led to a dead end it had to be someone who knew the technology maybe a broadcast techie but there were other techies who could figure it out also the case went cold in 2012 a Reddit user by the name of B Pogue created a thread entitled I believe I know who was behind the Max Headroom incident that occurred on Chicago TV in 1987. the poster goes on
to state that in their early teens a number of their friends were into the local freaking and hacking scene although much older than the poster they kept company two of these friends were brothers who they called Jay and K Jay had what he describes as moderate to severe autism and was being cared for by his brother k they go on to describe Jay as having a disturbing yet amusing sense of humor sort of sexually deviant in nature they also describe him as being erratic in conversation both traits you see in the max intrusion plus importantly they mentioned but Jay spoke in a very similar manner to the person seen in the video the poster goes on to say that at a party in Kay's apartment a discussion was overheard where Jay was planning to do something big over the weekend and when pressed K just said to watch channel 11 later tonight the poster knew that Jay was already into radio hacking and the electronics behind it Jay had mentioned a police radio he recently acquired and has hacked to cover practically everything Jay was also particularly into newspapers and apparently hung around convenience stores early in the morning to get the paper first thing the poster goes on to say they realize some time later it was likely Jay and K who were behind the prank with the woman being Kay's girlfriend now this sounds casually fairly convincing and there's a degree of further evidence and edits to back it up but by October 2015 a seemingly final edit was posted stating J and K have been officially eliminated as suspects the linked post however doesn't completely absolve the duo it describes conversations that the poster and Rick Klein have had now Rick Klein being the curator of the Museum of classic Chicago television and actually the operator of fuzzy memories TV who uploaded the hack video copy they having spoken to technicians actively working for WBBM WTTW and WGN concluded that it would be too difficult for an outsider to pull off the intrusions themselves therefore absorbing J and K from responsibility in their eyes Rick's theory is that Max had strong ties to the local Chicago broadcast community and perhaps therefore was a disgruntled former or even perhaps current employee of WGN at the time but maybe just maybe J and K were in fact behind this maybe they knew people in the broadcast community and maybe just maybe they pulled off the greatest TV hack of all time so what did you think about the whole thing very very funny what we read on the internet can never be known for sure motives can be covered up stories can be changed at will all we know for sure is that this November 35 years will have passed and given the statute of limitations has expired for the crime you'd expect that if someone was going to come forward they would have done so by now already this may well be a mystery that is never definitively solved and personally I think that's a good thing and I suspect exactly what its Architects wanted here's an event that years later people are still talking about and it was the perfect hack to do that the context of a period relocation for props and the confused content are a powerful potion a potion that will likely stand the test of time and have many people talking about it for many years to come the fact that Max Headroom as a character was really making a mockery of the very thing he purported to be is also perfect for this incident by taking on the Max Headroom Persona the hijacker manages to be both creepy yet hilarious hitting the pop culture nail on the head whilst maintaining that disparaging attitude towards their own parody all of these factors really make this the greatest television hack of all time before I go three things first please check out the independent film intrusion that's based on this whole Escapade I used a few clips from it throughout and it's really good viewing second make sure to check out the other references I've linked below because there's content on this which really deserves more coverage especially the bizarre's criminally underview documentary on it thirdly if you fancy watching something similar please check out my last video on the internet sensation but is evil because YouTube completely screwed that video over by slapping age restrictions over the first uploads and I had to re-upload it so you know I'd be grateful if you could give it a few more views and that's it that's the Max Headroom incident I hope you enjoyed this piece of history that I've found fascinating for so many years until next time I've been a budget Max Headroom hacker toodaloo oh God it's so warm in here I don't know how that guy did it fast for chisel right there that's the money shot oh yeah foreign no wonder he wasn't reading off a script no wonder he made it all up you wouldn't be able to see anything in front of me good God foreign
2022-07-29