On November 22, 1987, thousands of television viewers in Chicago witnessed something straight out of a science fiction nightmare.

A masked stranger suddenly appeared on their screens, moving erratically against a bizarre background while delivering a series of distorted, seemingly nonsensical messages.

Two television stations were hijacked that night, and despite a federal investigation, the person responsible was never identified.

The Night Television Was Hijacked

The first interruption occurred at approximately 9:14 p.m. during WGN-TV’s evening news broadcast.

Without warning, the picture disappeared and was replaced by a figure wearing a rubber mask resembling Max Headroom, a popular television character of the 1980s.

The intruder swayed back and forth against a rotating metallic background while strange electronic noises filled the broadcast.

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Engineers regained control after approximately 30 seconds, but the mysterious figure wasn’t finished.

Around two hours later, Chicago’s public television station WTTW experienced an even stranger interruption during an episode of Doctor Who.

WTTW air director Paul Rizzo later recalled the chaos inside the station.

“All of a sudden we don’t have ‘Doctor Who’ on the air—we have this Max Headroom mask. And as the content got weirder we got increasingly stressed out about our inability to do anything about it.” – Paul Rizzo, WTTW News

The Bizarre Message Behind the Mask

Unlike the first intrusion, the second broadcast contained distorted speech, laughter and increasingly peculiar behavior.

The masked individual mocked television personalities, referenced advertisements and waved objects in front of the camera.

At one point, the stranger declared an unusual message.

“My brother is wearing the other one. But it’s dirty! The front’s got footprints on it!” – Unidentified Intruder, WTTW Broadcast Recording

The transmission eventually took an even more outrageous turn when the masked figure exposed his backside and was struck with a fly swatter by an accomplice.

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After approximately 90 seconds, the unauthorized broadcast ended, returning viewers to their regularly scheduled programming.

Who Was Behind the Broadcast?

The Federal Communications Commission launched an investigation, but identifying the intruder proved remarkably difficult.

Overriding two television signals required specialized equipment and considerable technical expertise, particularly in an era before modern digital broadcasting.

WTTW broadcast engineer Al Skierkiewicz believed the perpetrators possessed extensive knowledge of transmission systems.

“It had to be a broadcast engineer, a satellite engineer, or a ham radio operator. And probably a combination of at least two of those in order to pull this off.” – Al Skierkiewicz, WTTW News

Investigators never publicly identified the people responsible, and no arrests were made.

The original recordings survived, preserving one of the strangest incidents in American broadcasting history.

The Mystery That Never Left the Airwaves

Nearly four decades later, the Max Headroom incident remains unsolved.

Whoever orchestrated the intrusion possessed the technical knowledge to commandeer two television stations, yet left behind little evidence of their identity or intentions.

The masked stranger vanished as suddenly as he appeared, leaving one question hanging in the air.

Who was really behind the mask?

References:

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1987/11/23/A-video-pirate-struck

https://chicago.suntimes.com/27-years-ago-saturday-chicago-tv-got-hacked