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'Zombie Alert' Also Aired In Michigan; Hacking Traced To Overseas Source

OK, we're pretty sure this isn't real. (A 1012 Halloween-related festival in Georgia.)
Erik S. Lesser
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EPA /LANDOV
OK, we're pretty sure this isn't real. (A 1012 Halloween-related festival in Georgia.)

It wasn't just Montana's KRTV that got hacked on Monday by someone who broadcast an emergency alert that "the bodies of the dead are rising from their graves and attacking the living."

Michigan's WNMU-TV and WBUP-TV say they too were also victims of this zombie prank. There, the alert came on the air during a later afternoon broadcast of Barney.

Now, the Michigan stations say the hack has been traced "to an overseas source."

We'll watch for reports from elsewhere.

As The Atlantic Wire points out, "hacking the emergency alert system is funny until it's not" and people react to news that isn't true — or don't trust an alert that's for real.

Meanwhile, our friend Linda Holmes over at Monkey See looks at this from another angle:

"Ten Clues That The Zombie Outbreak Being Announced On Your Television Is Not A Hoax."

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Mark Memmott is NPR's supervising senior editor for Standards & Practices. In that role, he's a resource for NPR's journalists – helping them raise the right questions as they do their work and uphold the organization's standards.