Shortly after 8 a.m. local time Saturday, scores of Hawaii residents received an emergency cellphone alert with an alarming message: “BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.”
The message, reportedly sent by the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency in error, would turn out to be a false alarm, officials said. Nevertheless, it would take 38 minutes for authorities to clear up the mistake with a follow-up alert.
It is unclear how or why the initial alert was sent out, and how many people received it. Wireless emergency alerts are usually dispatched during critical emergency situations and are a partnership of the Federal Communications Commission, FEMA and the wireless industry. Shortly after the false alarm, FCC chairman Ajit Pai said the commission was launching an investigation into what happened.
So with false ballistic missile alerts causing panic and disruption across the state, everyone is left asking "What the hell just happened in Hawaii?" A simple mistake? Secret intercept? Government psyop? Drill gone almost live? Something else entirely? Corbett Report members are encouraged to log in and leave any data or information in the comments below.
There were two false alarms, according to reports now from the ground, about a half-hour apart.
They were not false alarms due to a mistake.
Someone really thought there was a missile coming in, and realized it was false only after a half-hour -- the point at which if it had been real everyone would have been incinerated. In other words yes, it was a "false alarm" because there was no missile but the people who sounded the alarm really believed there was an inbound attack.