The 2007 Boston Mooninite Panic

[Music] it's always surprising when history mimics fiction there have been literally hundreds of science fiction novels and movies about alien invaders attacking the earth but one winter day in boston the city literally found itself under attack by little men from the moon and the city had to deploy all its considerable resources to beat back the attack while local and national news reported breathlessly on the battle it is history so bizarre that it simply deserves to be remembered boston was in the midst of rush hour approximately eight in the morning on wednesday january 31st 2007 when a worker from the massachusetts bay transportation authority noticed a suspicious object attached to a stanchion supporting a raised section of ramp onto interstate 93 and the subway and bus station near sullivan square in charleston neighborhood north of the charles river across from downtown boston the us was a changed nation after the terrorist attacks of september 11 2001 and that was particularly true in boston the two airplanes that had taken down the twin towers had taken off from boston's logan international airport cities across the country were on high alert and this this object or rather device a rectangle approximately one by one and a half feet clearly didn't belong there it had a circuit board it had wires coming out of the side and ominously it had d-cell batteries taped along the side the mbta worker didn't know what it was but a device of unknown purpose attached to a stanchion supporting a major highway raised obvious concern unsure whether the device represented a threat the mbta shut down part of the boston subway's orange line beginning of a difficult day for boston commuters according to the mbta website more than 200 000 people take the orange line each day a timeline in the boston globe said that by 8 15 massachusetts state police arrived and by nine bomb squads from both the state police and the boston police department were on scene the globe referred to responding authorities as an army of emergency vehicles unsure as to the nature of the device at 9 30 police decided to shut down a section of interstate 93 and adjacent roadways i-93 is one of three primary interstate highways connecting massachusetts new hampshire and vermont important route for boston commuter traffic 2021 survey by the website boston.com found that fully half of the website's readers who commute said they used i-93 every day already the police response was making the news and news helicopters circled the bridge the wcvb news 5 and abc affiliate first broke into regular programming with a special report at 9 00 a.m reports continued on local and national outlets all day the bomb squad decided that the best course of action was to blow the device up they destroyed it using a water cannon a type of device that uses a shaped charge and a water projectile to blow a device to pieces and sever any detonator connections the highway was finally reopened around 10 15 having been closed down for 45 minutes during peak rush hour but the problems were just beginning just as events with the first device were winding down the globe writes in quick sequence just after noon reports of similarly suspicious devices flooded police lines sending anti-terrorism forces to over a dozen locations in boston cambridge and somerville the winchester star wrote that police said four calls all around 1 pm reported devices at the boston university bridge in the longfellow bridge both of which spanned the charles river at a boston street corner and at the tufts new england medical center by now the events were making national news and terrifying many bostonians the globe reported that people reached for cell phones to call loved ones while others glanced at maps to check the proximity of the devices being investigated by police to their homes and offices the globe quoted 26 year old bostonian adam bastian what's going on here no one seemed to know what was happening 40 year old donna manka told the paper it's scary i had friends calling me up telling me not to come in well 68 year old john reedy said that it really affected him psychologically when he saw the vans go by with darkened windows and the words bomb squad across the back meanwhile more traffic was being snarled the winchester star noted that subway service was shut down across longfellow bridge between boston and cambridge and along storrow drive at one point the city of the us coast guard shut down river traffic along a section of the charles river bill fein the general manager at wcbv tv said there was nothing that said that this was not a diversion or a prelude to something bigger cars were not running on storrow drive trains were not running this paralyzed the city for a whole day between 2 and 3 pm police with bomb sniffing dogs were sent to inspect city hall nbc news reported cable news viewers in this country were treated to hours of live coverage this afternoon as suspicious packages were discovered all over boston roads were closed the charles river was closed and questions were asked about terrorism but by then the story was already changing according to the boston globe the first hint came when one of the objects was taken into the dark and something became obvious which couldn't be seen in the bright sunlight the objects included a series of led lights that were showing a picture of some sort of character somewhere between 2 and 3 p.m a boston police analyst finally realized what he was looking at and astoundingly realized that the culprits came from the moon the displays on the devices represented mooninites which the online urban dictionary explains come from the inner core of the moon but claimed to have five thousand dimensions and the moon knight on the suspicious device was making a rude hand gesture leading to the question enunciated colorfully by fox news anchor shepard smith what is this little light bright looking character thing seen flipping the bird at all eyes which fall upon it the answer comes from a very strange television show cartoon network was created as part of the turner broadcasting system in 1992 at the time airing reruns of classic cartoons to which the turner entertainment company had acquired rights although the network would move on to include original programming targeting children from preschool to age 14. in 2001 the network added adult swim nearing 9 p.m to 6 a.m eastern time which featured original programming targeted at teenagers and young adults as the network's regular audience would presumably be sleeping during those hours the shows were put it's mildly edgy and were aired with a disclaimer parents strongly cautioned the following programs are intended for mature audiences over the age of 18. these programs may contain some material that many parents would not find suitable for children it may include intense violence sexual situations coarse language and suggestive dialogue nowhere would that be more true than one of the network's longest running shows aqua teen hunger force officially debuted along with adult swim in september of 2001. the show is so bizarre so surreal that the website common sense media which offers advice to parents says that it might spark a discussion between parents and children over whether a cartoon actually needs a plot in order to be funny obviously images are not in the public domain but the show's absurdity shows in the main characters an anthropomorphized milkshake order of french fries and a meatball named meatwad despite the show's name the website tv tropes notes that the show has nothing to do with water teenagers or whatever a hunger force is but the show does include moona knights characters that resemble digitized figures from classic video games and who among other characteristics regularly make the rude gesture portrayed on the suspicious devices in boston by 2007 the cartoon was doing well enough to support a feature-length film which was entitled aqua team hunger force colon movie film for theaters made on a budget of just 750 000 and due for release in april of 2007 the film's producers decided to engage in non-traditional marketing techniques the term guerrilla marketing was popularized by a book published in 1984. the website of moose and marketing describes guerrilla marketing as a set of marketing actions employed to launch a marketing campaign at a fraction of the price it would typically cost guerrilla marketing often features street marketing outdoors advertising that incorporates both literally street elements and street culture for example light up led representations of cartoon characters placed in public places where they may be recognized and shared by people who understand their meaning in the case of the boston devices a new york marketing firm named interference inc engaged a local boston artist named peter bradovsky who also included a friend of his name sean stevens to place around 40 magnetic placards that had led lights that would represent moonanites around the greater boston area the two actually filmed themselves placing the devices presumably to prove that they had done the work for which they've been contracted and were reportedly paid just three hundred dollars a piece for their efforts notably no one sought a permit from the city of boston for the placing of placards the business media magazine inc explains sam ewan found out that the boston bomb scare which he'd apparently created while writing amtrak back to new york city from a meeting in washington d.c the office of his small marketing agency interference called to tell him that the company switchboard was lit up with calls but then cnn and other news networks were in live coverage of more than a dozen suspicious devices described as blinking electronic circuit boards found under an interstate highway and other boston sites a bomb squad had detonated one of ewen's mysterious props and police were looking for answers philip kent the director of turner broadcasting was quoted in the globe on february 1st saying this is not the kind of publicity we would ever seek the globe writes that on the afternoon of january 31st kent received a phone call from one of the company's executives saying turn on cnn referring to network coverage of the events in boston the globe continues the company realizing that its campaign was probably the cause went into damage control the company released an official statement around 8 30 in the evening reading in part we apologize to the citizens of boston that part of a marketing campaign was mistaken for a public danger we appreciate the gravity of this situation and like any responsible company would are putting all necessary resources towards understanding the facts surrounding it as quickly as possible but by then bradovsky had already been arrested stevens was arrested sometime before midnight and both were charged with placing a hoax device and disorderly conduct they were held the night and arraigned the next day and after being released held a press conference but to add to the absurdity of the situation at the press conference they didn't talk about the signs at all they only talked about haircuts bardowski started the press conference with what we really want to talk about today and it's kind of important to some people is uh haircuts in the 1970s according to national public radio the journalists that were assembled were not amused as the story unfolded outrage emerged jack cafferty of cnn owned by the same parrot company as cartoon network said on air in a post 911 world who puts cartoon characters attached to batteries on bridges around boston some sort of u.s representative edward markey told the boston globe it would be hard to dream bump a more appalling publicity stunt boston mayor thomas menino suggested that the network should have its broadcasting license revoked saying give me a break it's all about corporate greed but others quickly faulted boston officials for overreacting to what was described as a high-tech lightbrite a local blogger wrote repeat after me authorities led not ied get it a senior vice president of a boston-based advertising firm likened the reaction to the panic following the 1938 radio broadcast of war of the worlds boston news reporter jorge quiroga noted you talk to anybody close to college age and explain to them what was found and they knew exactly what it was gwen david worked at a local comic store where one of the signs had been posted she told news 5 the police came with a bomb squad and the detectives came and it was all very exciting but added i didn't feel scared at all i was not intimidated i knew that it was a moon night most people who are going to shop in our store are going to know that that is a moona knight the tech website schneider on security said now the police look really stupid but they're trying really hard not to act humiliated when massachusetts attorney general martha coakley said the things looked really sinister had a battery behind it and wires schneider responded for heaven's sake don't let her inside a radio shack in fact it was later determined that some of the signs had been up for as much as two weeks had been noticed by several boston residents without alarm a boston radio personality quipped i don't think the terrorism officials in boston are very observant good things september 11 didn't happen here we wouldn't have found it until september 20th the signs had also been placed in 10 other major cities including new york chicago and seattle no one raised any concerns in those cities although all were taken down after the boston incident to be fair the event did occur in context boston police commissioner ed davis noted according to boston.com that as the bpd attempted to make sense of the situation there were also reports of several terror suspects arrested in britain a suspicious package in the washington dc metro and at around 1 pm a call from boston medical center about a pipe bomb allegedly left by a man who proclaimed god is warning you that today is going to be a sad day before leaving the scene it was almost like we had a kind of perfect storm of circumstances falling into place he said by february 5th turner broadcasting company come up with agreement with the city of boston where they provided boston with a million dollars to cover the cost of the response and another million dollars as a goodwill gesture it's a notable sum giving that that's about two and a third times the budget of the film that the devices were intended to market but the president of cartoon network was forced to resign in the wake of the scandal aqua teen hunger force cullen movie film for theaters is considered to be a box office success selling about five and a half million dollars in tickets against a budget of just seven hundred fifty thousand dollars it's hard to say how much of that might have come from the publicity that came well from boston the charges against bardowski and stevens were dropped in exchange for community service burdoski who produces art in the boston area under the pseudonym zebler and was an immigrant from belarus wrote on his facebook page i was a refugee thanks for not kicking me out guys fifteen years after the great boston moonanite panic it's still yet to be decided whether it was officials or marketing that had gone awry and the question still hasn't been answered just two weeks later the boston bomb squad blew up another device that had been found next to a city street that turned out to be a traffic counting device that had been placed there by the city and just last august a suspicious package that caused the evacuation of new york's times square turned out to be an empty cookie jar but of course packages left behind at the 2013 boston marathon proved just how real the threat could be officials the media and the public are left to try to figure out how to respond to this threat even when it includes mononites as bostonian lynn walcott told the globe in 2007 a package is a suspicious package no matter how cute it is i hope you enjoyed this episode of the history guide short snippets of forgotten history and if you did enjoy feed the algorithm by making a comment or clicking that like button if you have suggestions for future episodes please send those to our suggestions email box check out our webpage at thehistoryguy.net and of course we're on facebook instagram and twitter you can book a special message from the history guy on cameo and check out our merchandise at teespring.com and if you'd like more episodes of forgotten history all you need to do is subscribe [Music] you

Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 176,927

Keywords: history, history guy, the history guy, boston, aqua teen hunger force, mooninite

Id: tGqXrV9kjSE

Length: 15min 42sec (942 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 31 2021