THIS IS NOT A TEST. THIS IS AN ACTUAL EMERGENCY. THE CONTINENTAL
UNITED STATES IS UNDER ATTACK BY A FORIEGN POWER. REPEAT. THIS IS NOT
A TEST THIS IS AN ACTUAL EMERGENCY
Then the password was a match
Every Saturday morning and Sunday night they would run the test at the
exact same time.
I have a copy of the UPI teletype messages from that
morning...Saturday, February 20th, 1971. Yes, the weekly wire-services
EBS test was done at the same time every week, 8:33 AM CST on Saturday. It
was run by an operator at NORAD headquarters in Colorado Springs. A
paper-punch tape was taken off a shelf, threaded into a teletype
machine, and a button pressed to interrupt the wire services and
transmit the test.
This day, the wrong tape was played. I was on the air at KRYS in Corpus Christi. Every station in town called each other..but no one in C.C. ran the message. Had it been an actual attack we'd of been behind the 8 ball.
February 20, 1971
The North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) erroneously transmitted anational level EBS warning message.
As a result, NORAD and its “Attack Warning” function were removed from the EBS.
Since then, only the President can activate the national level EBS.
On the morning of Saturday, February 20, 1971, Wayland S. Eberhardt, a civilian teletype operator, was going about hisroutine duties at the National Emergency Warning Center at Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado. One of the functions
Emergency Broadcast/Alert System Broadcast Mistakes Happen - Continued
2 |
Page
“the Mountain” during this era was to send out the weekly Emergency Broadcast System (EBS) test directive to thenation’s radio and television stations. They were, of course, also responsible for sending out the real warning. Whenstations received these messages they compared it against a card to determine what action to take.At 7:33 a.m. local time on that fateful Saturday, Mr. Eberhardt, a fifteen-year veteran of his job, fed the wrong tape intothe transmitter and set off a panic that is remembered to this day. He was later quoted by the New York Times as saying“
I can’t imagine how the hell I did it.
” But he did.President Nixon did not comment of the gaffe, but his Secretary of State, Melvin Laird, stated that there would be aninvestigation of what caused the false alert. The Pentagon released this statement that blamed civil defense: “
The Officeof Civil Defense is currently investigating the circumstances surrounding the transmittal of the erroneous message.
“The National Emergency Warning System is located within the NORAD Cheyenne Mountain complex but is not a NORADfunction. It is operated by the the U.S. Army’s Strategic Communications Command. This is a civil defense action andnot a military one. Louis I. Smoyer, the chief of the warning center, said simply, “
It damn sure won’t happen again. I’vegot to have time to sit up here and figure out how to make this thing fail safe.
”To his credit, Smoyer’s solution did not involve firing the hapless Wayland S. Eberhardt who was described as being“seriously shook up” over his mistake. Rather, the manager had a simple, low-tech remedy: He moved the tapes for thegenuine alerts away from the transmitter.The Greeley (Colorado) Tribune explained the new procedure to its readers on February 23, 1971:
“…In the past threetapes, one for the test and two for actual emergencies, were hanging on three labeled hooks above the transmitter… Inthe future only the test tape will be left near the transmitter. The two emergency tapes [will be] be sealed in clearly marked envelopes and placed inside a nearby cabinet.
“This decidedly analog fix seemed to work. And it appears that Mr. Eberhardt lived out the rest of his life in quietobscurity. He died in Colorado Springs, Colorado on November 20, 1996. But in Cold War trivia circles, he will never beforgotten."
UNITED STATES IS UNDER ATTACK BY A FORIEGN POWER. REPEAT. THIS IS NOT
A TEST THIS IS AN ACTUAL EMERGENCY
Then the password was a match
Every Saturday morning and Sunday night they would run the test at the
exact same time.
I have a copy of the UPI teletype messages from that
morning...Saturday, February 20th, 1971. Yes, the weekly wire-services
EBS test was done at the same time every week, 8:33 AM CST on Saturday. It
was run by an operator at NORAD headquarters in Colorado Springs. A
paper-punch tape was taken off a shelf, threaded into a teletype
machine, and a button pressed to interrupt the wire services and
transmit the test.
This day, the wrong tape was played. I was on the air at KRYS in Corpus Christi. Every station in town called each other..but no one in C.C. ran the message. Had it been an actual attack we'd of been behind the 8 ball.
February 20, 1971
The North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) erroneously transmitted anational level EBS warning message.
As a result, NORAD and its “Attack Warning” function were removed from the EBS.
Since then, only the President can activate the national level EBS.
On the morning of Saturday, February 20, 1971, Wayland S. Eberhardt, a civilian teletype operator, was going about hisroutine duties at the National Emergency Warning Center at Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado. One of the functions
Emergency Broadcast/Alert System Broadcast Mistakes Happen - Continued
2 |
Page
“the Mountain” during this era was to send out the weekly Emergency Broadcast System (EBS) test directive to thenation’s radio and television stations. They were, of course, also responsible for sending out the real warning. Whenstations received these messages they compared it against a card to determine what action to take.At 7:33 a.m. local time on that fateful Saturday, Mr. Eberhardt, a fifteen-year veteran of his job, fed the wrong tape intothe transmitter and set off a panic that is remembered to this day. He was later quoted by the New York Times as saying“
I can’t imagine how the hell I did it.
” But he did.President Nixon did not comment of the gaffe, but his Secretary of State, Melvin Laird, stated that there would be aninvestigation of what caused the false alert. The Pentagon released this statement that blamed civil defense: “
The Officeof Civil Defense is currently investigating the circumstances surrounding the transmittal of the erroneous message.
“The National Emergency Warning System is located within the NORAD Cheyenne Mountain complex but is not a NORADfunction. It is operated by the the U.S. Army’s Strategic Communications Command. This is a civil defense action andnot a military one. Louis I. Smoyer, the chief of the warning center, said simply, “
It damn sure won’t happen again. I’vegot to have time to sit up here and figure out how to make this thing fail safe.
”To his credit, Smoyer’s solution did not involve firing the hapless Wayland S. Eberhardt who was described as being“seriously shook up” over his mistake. Rather, the manager had a simple, low-tech remedy: He moved the tapes for thegenuine alerts away from the transmitter.The Greeley (Colorado) Tribune explained the new procedure to its readers on February 23, 1971:
“…In the past threetapes, one for the test and two for actual emergencies, were hanging on three labeled hooks above the transmitter… Inthe future only the test tape will be left near the transmitter. The two emergency tapes [will be] be sealed in clearly marked envelopes and placed inside a nearby cabinet.
“This decidedly analog fix seemed to work. And it appears that Mr. Eberhardt lived out the rest of his life in quietobscurity. He died in Colorado Springs, Colorado on November 20, 1996. But in Cold War trivia circles, he will never beforgotten."
