Max Headroom Television Hijacking (1987; Lost Audio From First Transmission)

The Max Headroom Television Hijackings were a 1987 incident in which a group of at least three people (the perpetrator, his brother, and a female accomplice) interrupted television airings on November 22 on two ocassions and two different stations in Chicago. It got its name because the broadcasts involved a man wearing a mask of famous 80s character Max Headroom. The hijackers to this day still remain at large, although after a 2013 Reddit post, a handful of people feel confident they know the identities of the people involved. While some say the hijacking was a protest or part of a conspiracy, it is widely accepted to be an ellaborate prank.

The first hijacking took place during a news broadcast on now-famed Chicago station WGN-TV. Around 9 PM, anchor Dan Roan was doing his sports column on the Chicago Cubs when it was interrupted by about 30 seconds of good old Max, a distorted, shaking background, and an onimous buzzing noise. The noise was likely due to a failure to hijack the station's audio frequencies. The intrusion was stopped sucessfully, and when Dan returned back on the air he said "Well, if you're wondering what just happened so am I."

The second hijacking took place around 11:15 on WTTW (a PBS station) during an airing of Doctor Who. This time, the hijackers were able to successfully transmit their message, albeit with heavily distorted audio. Max muttered pop cultural phrases like "Feel the wave" (a mockery of New Coke), and "Your love is fading" (possibly a reference to The Temptations song "(I Know) I'm Losing You"). He also included meaningless random banter "I just created a masterpiece for all of the world's newspaper nerds" (said after a fart) and "My files!". The transmission ended with Max bent over, his rear exposed, and a female in a French maid outfit, smacking his bottom with a flyswatter saying "They're coming to get me."

Due to Doctor Who fans taping the episode airings regularly, many copies of the second hijacking survive in full. The first survives in its broadcast form, but with the distorted audio. The hijacking was not done live, it was done by pre-recorded video (as the jump cut from the second broadcast proved). This means that the audio from the first broadcast may still survive, albeit in the hands of the hijackers. Since leaking the tapes risks revealing the identies of he criminals, it is unlikely that this will see the light of day. Some think the first hijacking used the same video as the second, however it's hard to tell because the first 30 seconds of the second broadcast don't involve much movement other than Max swaying his head side to side.