The Southern Television Broadcast Interruption

Summary

On 26 November 1977 a voice claiming to speak for an alien "Galactic Command" replaced the sound of ITN's news for viewers of one Hampshire transmitter. Engineers explained within days how it was done; who did it has never been established.

The picture never changed. The network was never touched. Someone with a transmitter, standing close to a relay station that took its programme out of the air, simply spoke louder than the station it was listening to.

What is documented

The interruption. At 5:10 pm on Saturday 26 November 1977, during an ITN news summary carried by Southern Television, viewers who received their sound from the Hannington transmitter in north Hampshire heard it give way to a deep buzzing and then a distorted male voice. The picture carried on as normal. The interference ran on into the cartoon that followed the news.

The voice. It said it was the representative of the "Ashtar Galactic Command" and told its listeners that humanity must abandon its weapons: "All your weapons of evil must be removed." On surviving recordings the speaker's name sounds like "Vrillon". Newspapers at the time printed it as "Gillon" or "Asteron", and some called the command "Ashdown".

The duration. Accounts differ. The message itself lasted almost four minutes; normal sound returned after about five and a half; later accounts often say six minutes.

The reaction. Newspapers reported hundreds of telephone calls to Southern Television and dozens of emergency calls to the police. Later that evening Southern apologised on air "for the interference in sound experienced by some viewers". The Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA), which owned and ran the transmitters, said the interruption was the first of its kind in the country.

How it was done. Hannington did not receive its programmes by landline. Unusually, it picked up the signal broadcast by the IBA's Rowridge transmitter on the Isle of Wight, about 70 kilometres to the south, and re-transmitted it. The IBA and Southern Television explained that a relatively low-powered transmitter very close to Hannington's receiving aerial could swamp the distant Rowridge signal, and the relay would then rebroadcast whatever it received. A Southern spokesman said a hoaxer had "jammed our transmitter in the wilds of North Hampshire by taking another transmitter very close to it." By 30 November the loophole had been closed.

The investigation. Hampshire Police, the Post Office, which was then responsible for tracing radio interference, and the IBA investigated. In December a Home Office spokesman said the investigation was complete, although nobody had been caught, and that there was little hope of finding the culprit unless the hoax was repeated. Nobody has ever been identified.

The name. "Ashtar" was not new. In 1952 the American contactee George Van Tassel had claimed telepathic messages from a being of that name, and by the mid-1950s an "Ashtar Command" was established in UFO-religious lore. The Aetherius Society, a British UFO religious movement, looked into the broadcast and agreed that it was a hoax.

Leading explanations

A hoax transmitted into Hannington's off-air receiver. Established. This was the explanation of the IBA and Southern Television within days, and it fits the facts: only viewers served by Hannington heard the voice, only the sound was affected, and the fault lay in the one link in the chain that listened to the air. The broadcasters closed the loophole by 30 November.

The perpetrator (unknown). The police, the Post Office and the IBA did not identify anyone, and the Home Office closed the inquiry in December 1977. Whoever built or borrowed the transmitter, and why, is the part of the case that remains open.

A message from space (the broadcast's own claim; rejected). The IBA, the police and the broadcaster treated it as a hoax from the start, and so did the Aetherius Society, a UFO religious group.

Current status

Partially explained. The method is settled: a local transmitter overpowered the off-air feed of a relay station, which rebroadcast the intruder's audio to its viewers. The loophole was closed within four days. The identity of the person or people responsible was never established, the official investigation ended in December 1977, and no one has since been identified. What would close the case is a credible, verifiable account from the perpetrator or a record from the 1977 investigation naming a suspect.

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