On November 22, 1987, Chicago television was interrupted by something no one was meant to see.

First, during the news on WGN-TV, the screen flickered, broke apart, and was replaced by a distorted figure in a Max Headroom mask. The intrusion lasted only seconds before the station regained control.

Later that night, it happened again.

This time, during a broadcast of Doctor Who on WTTW, the masked figure returned. The audio was distorted. The performance was bizarre, mocking, and chaotic. Then, just as suddenly, it was gone.

No confirmed culprit was ever identified.

In this episode of Noir Frequency, we open the file on the Max Headroom Incident: the most infamous unsolved broadcast signal intrusion in television history. We follow the events of that night, the analogue technology that made it possible, the microwave links and line-of-sight systems behind the signal, the FCC and FBI investigation, and the strange afterlife of a prank that lasted less than two minutes but has haunted the internet for decades.

This is a story about television, masks, media ghosts, analogue vulnerability, and the unsettling moment when the screen stopped being a window and became a doorway.

Who was behind the mask?

How did they do it?

And why has such a short interruption refused to disappear?

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The story is the evidence. The conclusion is yours.

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