The Colour out of Space

At 5:05 on November 22, 1977, regular television programming in southern England was interrupted by a voice claiming to be that of "Grahama," representative of the "Ashtar Galactic Command," bearing the usual "space brother" boilerplate of coming in peace to save us from ouselves at the dawn of a New Age. It was quickly dismissed as a hoax, but an extremely complicated one to execute. Though the The Sunday Times the following December 4 surmised it was accomplished by students using just "£80 worth of equipment powered by an ordinary car battery," no one ever claimed responsibility, and independent investigations found that the message must have cut into at least five transmitters simultaneously, and it evaded detection by monitoring equipment which did not even register an interruption, "suggesting it was achieved in some way that bypassed our electrical system."

This was actually the second message from Grahama. A month earlier, he had said pointedly that "We conveyed to Sir John Whitmore and to Dr. Puharich that we would interfere on your radio and television communication systems to relay when the civilisations are coming close to landing on your planet Earth. It is now in motion. We wish you to know that we love you."