Anomaly•Registry
AR-0006

Max Headroom Broadcast Intrusion

Unsolved
Date 22 November 1987
Location Chicago, Illinois, United States. Two television stations, WGN-TV (channel 9) and WTTW (channel 11).
Coordinates 41.8781, -87.6298
Category Sounds and Signals

Summary

On the evening of 22 November 1987, someone overpowered the transmission links of two Chicago television stations, two hours apart, and put a figure in a rubber Max Headroom mask on air. The second intrusion ran for about ninety seconds and the station could do nothing to stop it. The Federal Communications Commission and the FBI investigated. Nobody has ever been identified, and nobody has ever claimed it.

22 NOVEMBER 1987 / CHICAGO WGN-TV / 9 / 9:14 P.M. 17s to 30s: the sources disagree no audio captured. transmitter manned: engineers changed frequency and took the signal back. WTTW / 11 / c. 11:15 P.M. 90 s audio captured. transmitter on the Sears Tower unmanned: it ran until the intruders chose to stop. 0s 30s 60s 90s never identified
Figure Drawn by Anomaly Registry from the broadcast recordings and contemporaneous reporting. The two durations are to scale. The WGN figure is shown as a range because the sources disagree: Wikipedia, citing 1987 reporting, gives almost 17 seconds; WTTW's own 2017 retrospective gives 30. The 90-second WTTW figure is consistent across every account.

What is documented

The first intrusion. At around 9:14 p.m. Central Time, during the sports segment of WGN-TV's nine o'clock news, the picture cut to a figure wearing a Max Headroom mask, rocking in front of a sheet of corrugated metal turning behind them. Max Headroom was a television character of the period, known for a stuttering delivery and a geometric computer-generated background; the corrugated sheet was an approximation of it.

The intruders did not capture the audio channel. Viewers heard a buzz. WGN engineers changed the frequency of the station's studio-to-transmitter link and the signal was recovered. Sports anchor Dan Roan returned to the air, remarked that he did not know what had happened either, and restarted his report on the Chicago Bears game.

How long the first one lasted is not settled. Wikipedia's account, drawing on contemporaneous reporting, gives almost 17 seconds. WTTW's own thirtieth-anniversary retrospective in 2017 says 30 seconds. Other accounts say 22, or "less than thirty." The registry does not choose between them. The relevant point is that WGN had a manned transmitter and recovered its signal in well under a minute.

The second intrusion. At about 11:15 to 11:20 p.m., during WTTW's broadcast of the Doctor Who serial Horror of Fang Rock, the same masked figure appeared again. This time the audio came through, heavily distorted.

The figure spoke for roughly a minute. The content was a run of disconnected references: a comment about nerds; an insult directed at WGN sportscaster Chuck Swirsky; a Pepsi can held to camera, a jab at Max Headroom's real-world work as a spokesman for New Coke; the theme of the 1959 cartoon series Clutch Cargo, hummed; a remark about the "Greatest World Newspaper" nerds, WGN's call letters standing for World's Greatest Newspaper; a knitted glove, held up and complained about. The sequence closed with the figure partly undressed and an accomplice in a French maid costume striking him with a flyswatter. Then it stopped, and Doctor Who resumed. The total was about ninety seconds.

Why WTTW could not stop it. WTTW's transmitter, on the Sears Tower, was unmanned that night. There was no engineer at the tower to change frequency, and the intrusion ran until the intruders chose to end it. WGN's transmitter was on the John Hancock Center and was attended.

The method. This was not a computer intrusion. Each station sent its programme from the studio to its transmitter over a microwave studio-to-transmitter link. A transmitter relays whatever arrives on that link at sufficient power. Someone with a directional antenna, a line of sight to the tower, the correct frequency, and more transmitted power than the station's own link could simply overwrite the input, and the tower would rebroadcast it to every set in the metropolitan area without knowing anything was wrong.

The investigation. The FCC opened a criminal investigation and the FBI's Chicago field office joined it. An FCC official was quoted in reporting at the time putting the maximum penalty at a $100,000 fine and up to a year in prison. No perpetrator was identified. The case has never been closed by an arrest, a confession, or a credible claim.

The picture quality. The WTTW segment shows video scan lines consistent with playback from tape, indicating that at least that portion was recorded in advance rather than performed live into the transmitter.

Leading explanations

There is no leading explanation of who did it, only of what kind of person could have.

Someone with broadcast engineering knowledge (widely held, unproven). The consistent view among the engineers involved is that the intruder understood microwave link engineering: which frequencies to use, how much power was needed, and where to stand. Al Skierkiewicz, a WTTW broadcast engineer who assisted the FCC investigation, has described the likely profile as a broadcast engineer, a satellite technician, or an experienced amateur radio operator, or some combination. The equipment has been estimated at a used broadcast transmitter, a small dish, and a rooftop or high floor with a sight line to the tower.

A grievance against WGN (suggested by the content, not established). The only person named in the broadcast is a WGN sportscaster, and both the "World's Greatest Newspaper" jibe and the choice of WGN as the first target point at the station. Whether this indicates a former employee, a viewer with a complaint, or nothing at all is not determinable from the tape.

Named suspects (unverified). Names have circulated online for years, most prominently in a 2010 internet post. None has been corroborated, none has been charged, and the registry does not repeat unverified accusations against private individuals.

What the popular version gets wrong

"The station was hacked." No. Nothing was hacked in any computing sense. The intruders transmitted a stronger radio signal at the receiver on top of a skyscraper. The vulnerability was in the physics of an analogue microwave relay, not in software.

"It could happen again tomorrow." It could not, at least not this way. The attack depended on an analogue studio-to-transmitter link that would relay the strongest signal it received. American broadcasters completed the transition to digital transmission in 2009, and the technique does not transfer.

"The message was a coded threat." There is no evidence of a code. What survives on the tape is a series of jokes about a soft drink war, a cartoon theme, a local sportscaster, and a newspaper's slogan. The registry records the content as it is, which is a prank with an audience of one city.

"Nobody was ever punished because nobody could work out how it was done." How it was done was understood within days. The engineering was reconstructed. What was never established was who was holding the antenna.

Current status

Unsolved. The mechanism is understood, the recordings exist, both stations and the FCC investigated at the time, and nearly forty years later there is still no identification. The absence of any claim of responsibility is itself unusual, and remains the most interesting unexplained feature of the case.

Sources

  • Federal Communications Commission, broadcast signal intrusion investigation records, November 1987.
  • Hayner, Don. "2 channels interrupted to the Max." Chicago Sun-Times, 24 November 1987.
  • Camper, John and Daley, Steve. Chicago Tribune, 24 November 1987.
  • Shefsky, Jay. "30 Years Later, Notorious 'Max Headroom Incident' Remains a Mystery." WTTW News, 21 November 2017. Includes interviews with WTTW air director Paul Rizzo.
  • Unruh, Julie. WGN-TV, 23 November 2017.
  • Gallagher, Sean. Ars Technica, 22 November 2017.
  • The Museum of Classic Chicago Television: videotape recordings of both intrusions, as broadcast.

Last reviewed: July 2026. Records are provisional. Where the evidence changes, the entry changes. Found an error? Tell us.

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