There have been countless predictions about the end of the world over the years. with the latest determining that the end would begin on September 23rd thanks to the mythical Planet X or Niburu. It is all the work of alleged “Christian numerologist” David Meade according to The Washington Post, a prediction that has been called a hoax by both those in the scientific and faith-based community:
“Jesus lived for 33 years. The name Elohim, which is the name of God to the Jews, was mentioned 33 times [in the Bible],” Meade told The Washington Post. “It’s a very biblically significant, numerologically significant number. I’m talking astronomy. I’m talking the Bible … and merging the two.”
And Sept. 23 is 33 days since the Aug. 21 total solar eclipse, which Meade believes is an omen.
The idea of Planet X and the end of the world has been disproven numerous times before, but that hasn’t stopped prophecies from being shared. It also hasn’t stopped pranksters from taking advantage and scare a few folks. According to the OC Register, Orange County residents were interrupted by what looked like your typical emergency broadcast signal test on their televisions. But after the testing portion, several viewers were treated to odd recordings and statements that seemed to be connected to the September prediction for the coming Saturday:
The signal only seemed to affect those with Cox Communications and Spectrum services in the Orange County area, surprising them before they realized we weren’t really under attack and it was likely some sort of prank:
Stacy Laflamme of Lake Forest said she was watching the HGTV channel via Cox Communications about 11:05 a.m. when suddenly an emergency alert flashed across her screen followed by a voice.
“Realize this, extremely violent times will come,” a man’s voice boomed, according to a video of the alert…
Erin Mireles of Diamond Bar was watching the Bravo channel on Spectrum’s cable system when her show was interrupted by the alert.
“I was definitely startled, ’cause the volume increased exponentially,” she said. “I wasn’t alarmed in the sense of thinking something was wrong, ’cause I assumed it was some sort of hack. My channel changed back to Bravo after a couple minutes.”
The audio heard in the first video comes from a famous call to Art Bell’s Coast-To-Coast AM radio program where a very worried man claims to be an employee from Area 51, while the extra comments seem to be taken from the Christian radio program Insight for Living with Chuck Swindoll according to Gizmodo and some sleuths on Reddit. Cox representatives told the OC Register that the mishap was the result of radio stations conducting the test and their stations picking that up:
“With these tests, an emergency tone is sent out to initiate the test,” Camero said. “After the tone is transmitted, another tone is sent to end the message. It appears that the radio station (or stations) did not transmit the end tone to complete the test.”
Then the broadcast picked up some audio feed that bled into the alert.
Spectrum representatives added that they were “fed an incorrect audio file” and couldn’t confirm if the audio was intentional or someone hijacking the feed to take advantage. It seems to be a little too coincidental for it to just be random audio, especially since the Art Bell clip is from 1997 originally. Gizmodo adds that the incident could be another example similar to the Max Headroom incident from Chicago in 1987 and a more recent hack of Emergency Alert Systems in 2013 that warned of the dead returning to attack the living.
(Via Gizmodo / OC Register / Reddit / The Washington Post)