Southern Television broadcast interruption

On Saturday 26 November 1977, at 5:10 p.m. GMT, as ITN's Ivor Mills presented a news summary where he reported on clashes in then-Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) between security forces and the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army, the audio was replaced by a deep buzz, followed by a distorted voice delivering a message for almost four minutes. The speaker claimed to be Vrillon, a representative of the Ashtar Galactic Command (Ashtar being a name associated with extraterrestrial communication since 1952).Reports of the speaker's name varied in a few sources, with the Daily Mail and News of the World reporting the speaker as "Gillon of the Ashdown Galactic Command" and the Pennsylvania State University student newspaper the Daily Collegian as "the voice of Asteron". ==Transcript==

A complete transcript of the message reads: ==Explanation==

At that time, the Hannington television transmitter was unusual in being one of the few main transmitters that rebroadcast an off-air signal received from another transmitter, the IBA's Rowridge transmitter on the Isle of Wight, rather than being fed directly by a landline. As a consequence, it was open to this kind of signal intrusion, as even a relatively low-powered transmission very close to the rebroadcast receiver could overwhelm its reception of the intended signal, resulting in the unauthorised transmission being amplified and rebroadcast across a far wider area. The IBA stated that to carry out such a hoax would take "a considerable amount of technical know-how" and a spokesman for Southern Television confirmed: "A hoaxer jammed our transmitter in the wilds of North Hampshire by taking another transmitter very close to it." ==Public and media response==

The incident caused some local alarm, with hundreds of worried viewers flooding Southern Television with telephone calls after the intrusion. In the next day's Sunday newspapers, the IBA announced the broadcast was a hoax, confirming it was the first time such a hoax transmission had been made. Reports of the event carried worldwide, with numerous American newspapers picking up the story from United Press International. Speaking on British commercial radio on 6 December 1977, Sir John Whitmore also questioned newspaper reporting of the incident, referring to a recording of the complete broadcast that appeared to exist at the time. The broadcast became a footnote in ufology as some chose to accept the supposed "alien" broadcast at face value, questioning the explanation of a transmitter hijack. Within two days of the incident's report in the London Times, a letter to the editor published on 30 November 1977 asked, "[How] can the IBA — or anyone else — be sure that the broadcast was a hoax?" The editorial board of one American regional newspaper, the Eugene, Oregon Register-Guard, commented, "Nobody seemed to consider that 'Asteron' may have been for real." By as early as 1985, the story had entered urban folklore, with suggestions there had never been any explanation of the broadcast. A 1999 episode of children's television series ''It's a Mystery'', coincidentally produced by one of Southern's successors, Meridian Broadcasting, re-enacted the incident with faux news reports and viewers watching the incident play out at home. ==See also==