A Brief History
On November 26, 1977, the people of southern Britain were astonished to find their afternoon televisions hijacked by an entity claiming to be “Vrillon.” (Some television viewers reported the entity’s name to be Gillon or Asteron.)
Digging Deeper
Hijacking a television signal, even for only 6 minutes (5:10 pm to 5:16 pm) is highly unusual to say the least. That the hijacker claimed to represent the “Ashtar Galactic Command” is even more bizarre.
The hijacked signal came from the Hannington transmitter, a type of transmitter that does not receive its signal via cable but rather one that rebroadcasts a signal sent from another transmitter. Thus, this particular transmitter is much more susceptible to being hijacked than a landline-fed transmitter.
The hijacking was of the audio signal only, with normal video continuing during the incident. The buzzing voice of Vrillon (or whomever) told viewers that they have only a short time to learn to live together in peace and that “All your weapons of evil must be removed.” News of the event quickly spread throughout Britain and all over the world.
British authorities were quick to declare the hijacking a hoax that had been perpetrated by someone with a radio transmitter that overrode the television signal. In spite of the quick explanation, no such hoaxster was ever found, and the perpetrator remains unknown to this day. Unless, of course, it really was the Ashtar Galactic Command! Today, true believers in the UFO community either believe the incident was a real alien interaction or at least that it might have been. Question for students (and subscribers): What do you think? Please let us know in the comments section below this article.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Simpson, Edward N. TV History: The Most Important Technologies, People and Events that created the History of Television. 2019.
