Hi, I'm Ran Levy. Welcome back to Malicious Life in collaboration with Cyber Reason. cyber reason. Well, if you're wondering what's happened, so am I.

Anyway, today's story begins on November 22nd, 1987 at 914 PM.

Channel 9 is running its 9 o'clock news hour.

Sports anchor Dan Rone is reviewing an easy 30 to 10 win

of the second and eight Chicago Bears over their hapless rivals,

the two and eight Detroit Lions.

On screen, Lions quarterback Chuck Long drops back into the pocket.

Bears linemen Richard Dent comes rushing around his blocker and opens his arms wide,

heading straight for long.

He's about to crush this poor quarterback when suddenly without warning

the signal cuts out. The screen is black for thousands of Chicago homes.

In the WGM TV control room in the north of the city,

technicians are baffled.

They scramble.

After 15 seconds, a low quality video appears on screen.

It's somebody in a tan suit wearing sunglasses over a mask of Max Hedro, a fictional AI character

from an 80s TV series. They're sitting in front of a slab of corrugated metal spinning one way than the other back and forth hypnotically.

They're nodding at the camera, maybe laughing or trying to say something. A loud grading, buzzing sound is all

that can be heard. Then the feed goes black again. Station engineers panicking managed to shift their

broadcast frequency. After 28 seconds off air, the 9 o'clock news finally comes back on.

Well, if you're wondering what's happened, so am I.

The anchor replies, giggling, a bit flustered. Actually the computer that we have

...