False Hawaii Missile Alert Sent After Drill Recording Said 'This Is Not A Drill' (npr.org)

A false ballistic missile alert in Hawaii was sent on January 13 because an emergency worker believed there really was a missile threat, according to a preliminary investigation by The Federal Communications Commission. From a report: The report finds that the false alert was not the result of a worker choosing the wrong alert by accident from a drop-down menu, but rather because the worker misunderstood a drill as a true emergency. The drill incorrectly included the language "This is not a drill."

Comments

So the worker did their job

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny, it said it wasn't a drill, so the worker treated the alert as the real deal.

I'm glad we have that person ready to save Hawaii from a missile strike. If anything they deserve a raise for doing such a standup job.

Captcha: grenade

Re:So the worker did their job

[Anonymous Coward]

And of course management immediately blamed the worker for clicking the wrong button when he was just following orders.

Re:So the worker did their job

[ShanghaiBill]

And of course management immediately blamed the worker for clicking the wrong button

Indeed. They lied to millions of people about what happened. So will anyone lose their job over this? Or will our emergency response system continue to be managed by irresponsible blame shifting liars?

Re:So the worker did their job

[arth1]

One would presume that someone who was paying attention at the time would at least seek clarification on the mixed message before sending a whole state into a panic.

When there are mere seconds between thousands of lives being saved or lost, I would hope that they do not seek clarification, but err on the side of caution. I would commend this person and fire the idiot who approved the text "This is not a drill" in a drill.

Re:So the worker did their job

[hey!]

One of the things every system designer needs to understand is the role of emotion in human cognition. Survival-related reactions like fear or anger have absolute priority over all higher levels of cognition. Once you suspect a tiger in the grass, your perceptions will tend to process only confirmatory data. That's your reptilian brain trying to get you the hell out of Dodge.

So it's a statistical certainty that if you broadcast an emergency announcement that concludes with "exercise, exercise, exercise", a substantial fraction of the recpients will not perceive that concluding disclaimer at all. That inability to process contradictory data will continue until the level of emotional arousal drops. Cognitive psychologists call this the "Emotional Refractory Period", or ERP. Until the ERP is over you can't count on rational judgment, only on rote training.

So from a systems or exercise designer's standpoint, you need to start the drill with the disclaimer. Ending it with a disclaimer is nearly useless. What's more, introducing conflicting signals ("this is not a drill") is a really bad idea, because you risk triggering a higher priority behavior control system.

The refractory nature of emotions is why it's so important to control things like anger, which served us well when we were living in paleolithic hunter-gatherer bands but causes mostly mischief in modern society. If you get angry or fearful because of misinformation, you literally can't fix that until you stop being angry or afraid. That's what makes survival related emotions such potent tools of political manipulation.

Re:So the worker did their job

[T.E.D.]

Quite. If a human listener cannot trust the phrase "This is not a drill" to be an indicator that this is not a drill, then the phrase itself has no meaning whatsoever and shouldn't be included in either case.

Re:So the worker did their job

[hey!]

There is no purpose to the phrase "this is not a drill" if you use it in drills. Better to omit it.

I've just heard an exercise message that began "exercise exercise exercise." I'm so angry I'm going to forget that I heard it. What?

The relevant emotion here is fear.

false alert, just higher up the chain

[networkBoy]

Still a false alert, just that level of the alert chain wasn't to blame. Whomever put "This is not a drill" in the drill message was to blame.

The worker didn't misunderstand anything

[enriquevagu]

the worker misunderstood a drill as a true emergency. The drill incorrectly included the language "This is not a drill."
If "This is not a drill" was included, the worker didn't misunderstand anything. He correctly understood the message and performed as expected. Dont' blame him, blame the person who sent the drill.

Re:Fear Mongering

[MightyYar]

I'm curious to know what big failure you are referring to? Russia annexing some bordering territory? Oh, wait, that was the last two administrations. North Korea developing advanced missile and nuclear technology? Oops, it was those last two administrations. Oh, you mean that quagmire in the Middle East! ...That he inherited from the last two administrations.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think he has any clue what he's doing, but lets not pretend he's straying far off the recent track record of US foreign policy.

Hawaii takes "this is not a drill" seriously ...

[perpenso]

Funny, it said it wasn't a drill, so the worker treated the alert as the real deal.

For some reason people in Hawaii take the phrase "this is not a drill" seriously.
https://www.archives.gov/bosto...

Missile flight time to Hawaii is 20 minutes

[perpenso]

The message played for the drill said "excercise, exercise, exercise" according to TFA, followed by the real message that would be played, which includes "this is not a drill".

One would presume that someone who was paying attention at the time would at least seek clarification on the mixed message before sending a whole state into a panic.

That is pre-12/7 thinking.

More seriously, missile flight time from North Korea to Hawaii is 20 minutes. How many minutes did military detection and verification consume? How many more minutes to notifying Hawaii Emergency Services? How many for the information to propagate to the worker? How many minutes does it take civilians to take shelter?

Each minute of delay will cost lives in a real attack. In a false alarm people suffered some temporary stress and the government embarrassment. If this is a one off as the government debugs the alert process and procedures there is no real problem here. If its recurring and the public begins to ignore alerts assuming its another false alarm, then there is a problem.

When did Americans become so INSANELY afraid??

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a trend I have noticed for the last 10 years: Americans have become so ridiculously afraid of literally everything... Constantly on the edge, flipping by a hair trigger. Everything is OMG this, and creepy that, and don't dare or try anything that could even remotely make one imagine it might possibly cause dreams where one might dream of dreaming of imagining that there might be a chance it might be imaginable that there might be a risk.

It's mad, to see it from the outside.

Is it the fearmongering? Is it psychotropic drugs given to livestock and then in the meat? Is it the constant fearmongering of the news? Is it because intelligence has actually gone up and everyone now being better at coming up with possible ways it could go wrong?

I just know, this won't end well.
Or maybe I'm just affected by it too.

Re:Fear Mongering

[AK Marc]

Oh, wait, that was the last two administrations.

Is that code for "started under Bush?"

Oops, it was those last two administrations.

Is that code for "started under Bush?"

That he inherited from the last two administrations.

Is that code for "started under Bush?"

You can see the Republican apologists. It's like for Vietnam, where the Republicans still blame JFK, when the first American boots on the ground in Vietnam and first American losses were under Eisenhower. And it was Eisenhower who explicitly interrupted the elections that was the proximate cause of the "civil war" that became a proxy war. But that's forgotten and "continuing a failed policy by a Republican" is somehow turned into "started by a Democrat."

I'm not a Democrat, but I do believe in telling the truth.