On the evening of 22 November 1987 somebody took over two Chicago television signals. At 9:14 pm WGN-TV cut to a figure in a Max Headroom mask rocking in front of a sheet of corrugated metal, about thirty seconds of it, no audio but static, and the engineers killed it by switching transmitters. At 11:20 pm the same figure got onto WTTW during a Doctor Who serial and this time there was sound: ninety seconds of half-finished references to soft drink advertising and sports, ending in something crude. Overpowering a studio-to-transmitter microwave link needs real equipment and real knowledge of where to point it. Nobody has ever been identified. The five-year statute of limitations ran out in 1992, so whoever did it could say so tomorrow and face nothing.
Chicago, Illinois
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