I am scared..

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..of Emergency Alert System tests and the like. We had a Amber Alert up here recently (it was a false alarm,though) and it scared the living sh-err,stuff out of me. Not immediately,when I saw it I was silent,but I couldn't get to bed later that night and a few nights after. Thaaat tone. Thaaaat voice. The red (the screen,last time I saw it,is red for the EAS tests up here) screen alone is enough to scare me.

Here is a video (starts off with a clip of Regis and Kelly,then goes to the test) if you're not familar. Before you hit 'play' it shows the 'red screen of doom' as I like to call it..heh.For me watching it WITHOUT audio still scares me!

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=HgAkxVxo9MU[/youtube]

Anyone else scared of stuff like this? It may be the noise that tips me off. I've recently been really sensitive about noise level,from what I've read 'it's an Aspie thing'..hmm.

They can...

The only terrorists around right now are in the White House.

Relax.

Btdt

I'd like to second that before someone derides you as a commie, or something. My "countdown" calendar was my best surprise gift this Christmas.

Does anyone else miss the soothing, minute-long tone of the old Emergency Broadcast System?

The fear is of the sound, not of an emergency.

I get really scared when my school has a "lockdown", even if it's just to bring the drug-sniffing dogs through. Something about being locked in a classroom really terrifies me.

The EAS just annoys me. And the 15-second tests always seem to come at the worst times. I was watching a football game, and as it was getting good towards the end, and the test came on. I could still see the game, but I couldn't hear the announcers.

Me too, especially when my school kept having bomb threats. I feel trapped and start freaking out REALLY badly (Shaking, hyperventalating, rocking back and forth, etc)

Hey, thanks for linking to my video.

Read the comments on the page. You can tell it's a very common fear with people. When I was younger, I was DEATHLY afraid of this thing. I used to have to wake my parents up if it woke me up at night. I had dreams of me trying not to hear it if it came on. If we were on the highway and it got stormy outside, I used to have to tell my mom to turn off the radio if the EAS came on because I was so scared of the noise.

I remember clear as DAY being woken up by this as a kid one morning back in 1998 or 1999. For me, it was terror; that scary sounding noise, the entire room glowing fricking RED, the TV displaying "THIS CABLE SYSTEM IS CONDUCTING A REQUIRED TEST OF THE EAS SYSTEM" (and that's exactly what it said, thank you photographic memory), some creepy metallic computer voice droning on about how this system is supposed to save your ass....and then The Wonder Years comes back on Nick at Night. Just typing about it made me freaked out.

Another morning, it woke me up and I ran to my mother in the kitchen. She told me I was being silly, afraid of a noise. So did everyone else.

I guess as I got older, I wasn't as afraid of the noise as much as the fact that the EAS could be the last sound you hear in case of nuclear war! That's why I hate hearing it at night, half-awake, because until I come to fully and realize it's just a test, I'm thinking every disaster in the book!

Some grow out of their fears, some do not. Having a phobia is nothing to be ashamed of

May I add, it's also common to fear things you don't understand, especially as a kid. I don't even think many adults understand how it works!

If you're interested, the first and last three tones are FSK (frequency shift keying) tones that use the same technique as a telephone modem, except telephone modems play the tones a LOT faster. The long BOOOOOOOP is a two-tone sine wave deliberately designed to get your attention and has been used since the 1960s. How it gets your attention, well, nothing else sounds like it, does it?

Thanks, now my nightmares of freezing as the EAS tone startles my brain. Seriously, for 10 child years that was my biggest fear at night.