In the nascent days of satellite broadcasting, a handful of truly industrious individuals were able to find a way to make their 'message' heard in an incredibly unorthodox manner: by hijacking a broadcast!
YouTube user Top5s has created a showcase of incidents where broadcasts were interrupted by moments both stupefying and just plain stupid.
Perhaps the most perplexing is the 1987 incident in Chicago that was a quintessential look at the era that spawned it.
During the nine-o'clock newscast on November 22nd, the broadcast was suddenly interrupted by the appearance of a man wearing a mask of the popular 80's character Max Headroom.
The initial incident saw 'Max' cut into the newscast and merely meander around before engineers at WGN fixed the signal and the local sportscaster resumed the broadcast in a state of bewilderment.
Likely having figured out how they did it, the pirates once again took control of the airwaves later that night in a far more infamous event.
Around 11:15 PM, 'Max Headroom' made his unauthorized return to the Chicago airwaves and proceeded to mock WGN newscast personalities and the owners of the station.
The eerie moment is truly chilling even almost 30 years later, despite likely being the work of hobbyists with too much time on their hands.
Unlike other events of broadcast intrusion, the identity of the Chicago 'Max Headroom' remains a mystery to this day.
Other events featured in the video include an infamous 1977 interruption which allegedly came from aliens and the case of 'Captain Midnight,' who cut into the HBO feed to protest rising fees from the premium channel.
Check out the complete video for a look at a world when cable and satellite TV was still coming to fruition and technically-advanced individuals were able to hijack the medium.
Source: YouTube