In 1981, a faceless broadcaster appeared out of nowhere and listed future tragedies—9/11, COVID, the 2020 election. Then he warned the viewers: watching would change everything.
On November 22, 1981, at exactly 9:14 PM, something unprecedented happened in the living rooms of Chicago. As families settled in for the evening news on WGN-TV Channel 9, their screens flickered, audio cut out for three seconds, and then… he appeared.
A man in a crisp navy suit sat behind what appeared to be a news desk, but the background was wrong – completely black, as if he existed in a void. His face was pale, unremarkable, the kind you’d forget in a crowd. But his eyes held an intensity that made viewers lean forward in their chairs, some later describing feeling “hypnotized” by his gaze.
In his left hand, he held a stack of white index cards. In his right, a silver pen that caught the studio lights in a way that seemed impossible given the darkness behind him. When he spoke, his voice carried the cadence of a seasoned broadcaster, calm and authoritative, as if he’d done this countless times before.
“Good evening, Chicago,” he began, his smile never reaching his eyes. “I have some important announcements to make.”
The Impossible Predictions Begin
What followed defied explanation. For the next 8 minutes and 33 seconds, the mysterious broadcaster read from his index cards with mechanical precision:
“September 11, 2001 – towers fall. The sky weeps metal and ash. Two becomes one becomes none.”
“March 15, 2020 – the world stops breathing. Masks become faces. Distance becomes love.”
“November 7, 2020 – the count divides the nation. Red bleeds blue. Democracy holds its breath.”
“December 26, 2004 – the ocean rises in anger. 230,000 voices silenced by one wave.”
Between each prediction, he would pause, flip to the next card, and continue with the same unsettling calm. Viewers who recorded the broadcast noted that he never blinked during these pauses – not once in over eight minutes.
The predictions continued: Hurricane Katrina, the 2008 financial collapse, the death of Princess Diana, 9/11, COVID-19, Brexit, the 2016 election, wildfires that wouldn’t occur for decades. Each event described with an accuracy that would prove chillingly precise.
But it wasn’t just the major events. He mentioned smaller details that made investigators’ blood run cold: “The challenger explodes 73 seconds after launch, January 28, 1986. The teacher’s name is Christa.” “A wall falls in Berlin, November 9, 1989. Dancing in the rubble of division.” “A princess dies in Paris tunnel, August 31, 1997. The driver had been drinking.”
The Investigation Begins
By 9:22 PM, the regular WGN broadcast resumed as if nothing had happened. Anchorman Floyd Kalber continued reading the evening news, apparently unaware that anything unusual had occurred. The station’s phone lines immediately lit up with confused and frightened viewers.
WGN’s technical director, Marcus Chen, would later testify that their equipment showed no signs of external interference. Their transmission had continued normally – according to their instruments, they had never been hijacked at all. Yet hundreds of viewers had witnessed something else entirely.
The FCC launched an immediate investigation, led by Special Agent Patricia Reyes. What they discovered made the case even more disturbing. The hijack signal was incredibly strong – stronger than WGN’s own transmission – yet it appeared on no monitoring equipment. It was as if the signal existed only for home television receivers.
“In 30 years of broadcasting, I’d never seen anything like it,” Chen told investigators. “It should have been impossible. Our equipment didn’t register any interruption, but clearly something had overridden our signal to reach viewers’ homes directly.”
The Suppressed Evidence
Within 48 hours, federal agents had confiscated every VHS recording of the incident they could find. Viewers who had taped the evening news were visited by men in suits who politely but firmly requested their tapes “for national security purposes.”
The official FCC report, filed on December 15, 1981, classified the incident as “equipment malfunction causing false signal interpretation.” The case was closed, the files sealed, and everyone involved was transferred to different departments or took early retirement.
But Patricia Reyes kept copies. Before her death in 2019, she entrusted these recordings to her daughter, Maria, with strict instructions: “Don’t release these until enough time has passed for people to see the pattern. They’ll need to see how accurate he was.”
The Terrifying Final Message
Maria Reyes released the complete, unredacted footage in 2023. What it revealed sent shockwaves through the online community investigating the case. The government hadn’t just hidden the predictions – they had concealed the most disturbing part of the broadcast.
After reading his final prediction card, the mysterious broadcaster looked directly into the camera, his expression shifting from calm professionalism to something approaching pity. He set down his cards and leaned forward, as if he could see through the television screen into every living room in Chicago.
“Now,” he said, his voice dropping to barely above a whisper, “for those of you watching at home, I have a personal message.”
He paused, his eyes seeming to scan the audience beyond the camera.
“You think you’re safe in your living rooms, don’t you? You think this is just entertainment, just another mystery to solve. But you’re wrong about something fundamental.”
His smile returned, but now it carried a malevolent edge.
“You see, I’m not broadcasting from 1981. I’m broadcasting from your future. From a time when all these events I’ve described have come to pass. And from where I sit, I can see something you can’t.”
The camera zoomed in slowly on his face, though no camera operator was visible.
“I can see when you’re going to die.”
He reached for something off-camera and pulled out a thick, leather-bound book.
“Every person watching this broadcast right now, your name is in this book. Your date is in this book. The method is in this book. And the reason why…” He opened the book and began flipping through pages. “The reason why is because you chose to watch. You chose to listen. You chose to believe.”
The book’s pages rustled audibly, impossibly loud through television speakers.
“Free will is an illusion when someone knows your future. By watching this broadcast, by hearing these predictions, you’ve become part of the timeline that creates them. You are no longer observers – you are participants.”
He closed the book with a definitive snap.
“Thank you for your attention, Chicago. Sweet dreams.”
The screen cut to black for exactly 13 seconds before the regular newscast resumed.
The Pattern Emerges
In the years following Maria Reyes’ revelation, internet investigators made a disturbing discovery. They began tracking the death rates in the Chicago viewing area for people who had been watching television on November 22, 1981.
The results were statistically impossible to ignore. Viewers in the affected area showed mortality patterns that defied medical explanation. They didn’t all die immediately – that would have been too obvious. Instead, they died at precisely the rates and times that would be expected in a normal population, but with one crucial difference: their deaths consistently occurred on dates that corresponded to the major events the broadcaster had predicted.
A heart attack on September 11, 2001. A car accident on March 15, 2020. A stroke on November 7, 2020. The patterns were subtle enough to avoid notice for decades, but undeniable once identified.
The Copycat Phenomenon
Even more disturbing than the original broadcast is what has happened since Maria Reyes released the full footage. Reports have emerged of similar hijackings in other cities, always following the same pattern: a man in a suit, index cards, predictions that prove accurate, and always ending with the same terrifying message about viewers becoming “participants” rather than observers.
These new broadcasts don’t show future events – they show present-day occurrences with impossible accuracy. A hijacking in Portland correctly predicted the exact time and location of a multi-car accident three days later. A broadcast in Miami listed the names of lottery winners a week before the drawing.
But the most chilling aspect of these copycat incidents is that the broadcaster appears to be the same man from 1981. Not aged, not different – identical. As if he exists outside of time, moving from decade to decade, city to city, drawing more viewers into his mysterious web of predetermined fate.
Questions That Remain
Forty-four years later, the 1981 Chicago broadcast hijack remains unexplained. The identity of the broadcaster has never been determined. The source of his knowledge remains a mystery. The technology used to override television signals while remaining undetectable has never been replicated or explained.
But perhaps the most troubling question isn’t how he did it, or who he was, or where his knowledge came from.
The most troubling question is this: If watching the broadcast makes you a participant in the timeline rather than an observer, what does reading about it do?
What does sharing it do?
What does believing it do?
And if you’ve made it this far in this article, if you’ve absorbed every detail and considered every implication… have you already chosen your role in whatever comes next?
Shame theres no link to any sources, all i can find online is the max headroom incident which happened 6 years later on november 22nd. Ill keep searching for the older hijack from 1981 but im starting to think this story is lies until i find any evidence.