Boston's Finest Thwart Cartoon Network Terror Plot

[briv]

Ad scheme triggers bomb scare
By Jessica Heslam, Laura Crimaldi and Dave Wedge
Wednesday, January 31, 2007 - Updated: 08:10 PM EST

A guerilla marketing campaign for a popular adult cartoon thrust Boston into pandemonium today until 10 circuit boards initially thought to be bombs were identified as battery-operated ads strategically placed around the city by the Cartoon Network.
Boston bomb scares
Federal, state and local police swarmed around the city as reports poured in of suspicious devices, closing roads, tunnels and bridges for hours.
The chaos touched off a traffic nightmare and prompted a tense press conference from Gov. Deval Patrick and Mayor Thomas M. Menino, who assured residents the matter was under control. Fears of a possible terrorist act were quelled when it was determined the devices were part of an underground advertising campaign for the Cartoon Network TV show ?Aqua Teen Hunger Force.?
The device features a character called a mooninite.
?The packages in question are magnetic lights that pose no danger. They are part of an outdoor marketing campaign in 10 cities in support of Adult Swim?s animated television show Aqua Teen Hunger Force. They have been in place for two to three weeks in Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle, Portland, Austin, San Francisco, and Philadelphia.Parent company Turner Broadcasting is in contact with local and federal law enforcement on the exact locations of the billboards. We regret that they were mistakenly thought to pose any danger,? said a statement by Turner Broadcasting, which also owns CNN.
A source told the Herald that a memo is being sent out to City Hall employees notifying them that the devices are part of the marketing campaign. Authorities said there are 38 devices in Boston and Somerville.
City Councilor Michael Flaherty was fuming and demanded that Turner Broadcasting ?reimburse the city of Boston for every dime spent today on this serious public safety threat.?
?It?s outragoues, reckless and totally irresponsible,? Flaherty said. ?What a waste of resources.?
Todd Vanderlin, a New York City student, was visiting his buddy in Boston Jan. 15 when he spotted one of the illuminated devices on a South Boston bridge. He snapped photos of it and took it down.
?I saw one on a bridge. It was glowing. It?s like a light bright,? Vanderlin told the Herald.
Vanderlin said the device, which broke while he was taking it down, is a light-emitting diode or LED that was manufactured in China. It consists of four double D batteries that connect to a large capacitor and photoresister, a device that illuminated the device at night.
?That?s as complex as it gets,? Vanderlin said by phone. ?It?s a simple, little, wiring thing. It?s so harmless it?s not even funny. My friend has it hanging in his office.?
Vanderlin said he spoke with the manufacturer, Interference Inc. in New York. The company had no comment earlier today and a woman said the CEO was unavailable

 

[kz1000ps]

I understand the gravity of the situation as it existed before roughly 4:30 this afternoon, but at this point all I can do is laugh my ass off at the whole thing. As a big fan of the show, I know that the Mooninites would be if they were actual living, umm, graphics.

For those who don't know anything about the show and want to test the waters:
http://www.dailymotion.com/visited/search/Aqua Teen Hunger Force/video/xnlqn_athf-403-remooned

 

[statler]

Is anybody else completely emarassed about this? These things have been a bunch of major cities for weeks and Boston was the only city to completly lose its shit over them. I think it makes us look like a bunch of paranoid hicks.

 

[budman3]

re

I don't think it makes us look like hicks at all! Even though Aqua Teen Hunger Force is a casual commonplace amongst a certain demographic, one that is very prominent in this city especially compared to some of the other 9 cities this was tried out in, it is far from a pop-culture standard and a pretty foreign program to most people in the country, including Boston. Boston is the only city that noticed a black disk with wires and batteries and other suspicious mechanics that in broad day light look like they serve no regular purpose hanging from a major highway and other heavy traffic locations across the city. I think its great advertising, and I wish I grabbed one had I known it was glow in the dark and worth anything. But it is far from stodgy or prudish of us to take notice of this. What about the one in Sullivan Square wasn't suspicious? It looked like a haphazard bomb hanging in a heavy traffic location, come on! Hind-sight is 20/20.

 

[bowesst]

Is anybody else completely emarassed about this? These things have been a bunch of major cities for weeks and Boston was the only city to completly lose its shit over them. I think it makes us look like a bunch of paranoid hicks.

No. It wasn't only Boston law enforcement but also Homeland Security and the FBI. If Turner Broadcasting wants to try a new form of marketing that's fine but why would they choose the combination of small electronic packages and locations at bridges and T stations?

The other thing I don't understand is how this would be an effective ad campaign if the chaos that happened yesterday didn't happen. Some guy who has never heard of the show is on Storrow Drive and sees the "ad" hanging from the bridge. Suddenly he knows what the show is about and can't wait to get home to watch it? The only reason this was successful is because it was on the national news all day yesterday.

 

[statler]

But why wasn't this scene repeated in any of the other cities? Are they really less observant? New York? Really?
I haven't heard anything from the other cities yet, but I'm guessing they were probably placed in similar areas, spotted, maybe investigated and dismissed as non threatening. Boston was the only city to go into hyper-panic mode over these things.

 

[Waldorf]

This is turning into the Red Scare of today. People are getting arrested, the authorities are instilling fear into the public, and Cartoon Network characters are being destroyed. What next, a massive arms race with Frylock?

 

[PerfectHandle]

The problems began when the police called the contraption at Sullivan a "suspicious package." It may have been suspicious, but it wasn't a package. Putting that out there gave the impression that there was a wire filled bag hanging under the highway and thus gave the terrorism angle legitimacy and freaked everyone out. From there, it's easy to see why others across the city might have felt unsafe about the MOONINITES (!!!) that they had been seeing for two weeks (!!!).

It looks to me like the Police had to project some type of seriousness to justify shutting down a T line and 93, so they used vaguely threatening language to describe the lite brite Mooninite and then exploded it with a water cannon. (I'm still laughing that they did this. It's completely ridiculous and sensational.)

While it was stupid for Turner/PR Firm/Cartoon Network to do this without saying anything to BPD or the State Police, I will certainly have to burn out my ear drums if I hear the phrase "in a post-9/11 world" one more time.

 

[Waldorf]

^ I agree. They didn't have to use all of that rhetoric. Now the media keeps referring to the event as 'the terrorism threat'. That is utterly irresponsible of the Globe and the Herald. It is was not a terrorism threat - ever.

 

[kmp1284]

It was also a very shotty ad campaign to begin with. What Joe Schmoe is going to go home and watch a tv show that is only capable of advertising itself with a nintendo style figure flipping you the bird. It said nothing about what the product was or anything, as far as I am concerned they should all just be taken down and smashed with baseball bats just because they are so stupid looking. I watched a youtube clip and was immediately compelled to ask what kind of person actually watches this crap.

 

[statler]

*Sigh*

Here's part of an article from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

Cartoon Network publicity stunt sparks panic in Boston -- but not here

The King County Sheriff's Office confirmed Wednesday that several illuminated "cartoon figures giving the finger" have been turned in, but it is reacting differently from law enforcement authorities in Boston, where the devices caused a bomb scare, shutting down streets, bridges and a section of the Charles River and forcing an evacuation of a hospital. Two men were arrested.

"To us, they're so obviously not suspicious," said King County sheriff's spokesman John Urquhart. "They're not suspicious devices or packages. We don't consider them dangerous."

 

[Waldorf]

Dolphin's toy mistaken for a bomb

January 31, 2007

WINDLEY KEY, Fla. --A dolphin's toy that resembled a bomb scared spectators Wednesday and prompted officials at a marine park to call 911. A dolphin playing in a tank at Theater of the Sea surfaced with several items, including one that looked like a homemade bomb.

The toy in question was a softball-sized glass jar containing a black substance and covered by a white substance, the Monroe County Sheriff's Office said.

Authorities said about 15 people, mostly employees, evacuated the facility around 11 a.m. while the sheriff's bomb squad investigated, The Key West Citizen reported.

 

[lexicon506]

even though after the fact it is pretty embarassing for the city of Boston, I'll laugh when Seattle blows up! :twisted:

 

[lexicon506]

Don't you guys find it a little strange that these ads were up for weeks without anyone taking notice, then all of a sudden the police got several phone calls in one day. If you ask me, the advertising company is behind those calls, without yesterday's scare, their campaign would have been completely ineffective.....I love conspiracies

 

[Jasonik]

 

[statler]

Obviously the electronic devices/bombs/secret advertisements were considered dangerous once they were discovered partially obscured in difficult to reach public places by officials in Boston, otherwise all the other cities would have left them alone. The fact that they were removed in all cities shows that they were considered to be a threat on a national scale.

An embarrassment? Hardly. If only they had checked and acted on the no fly list on 9/11. That minor oversight and inaction resulted in thousands of deaths.

Agree 100%. I'd rather be "embarassed" at something like this as opposed to what went on during 9/11. So they might have overreated a bit, I'd rather take measures and have nothing be wrong than not take measures and have something go horribly wrong.

I'm not worried about being laughed at either. I'm so scared of what the Aqua Teen Hunger Force watchers think of the city and the people who live here.

Does it really make feel safer knowing that our bomb squads, ATF and Homeland Security agents can't tell the difference between a bomb and a light brite?

Do you really feel better knowing that rather than a calm, rational response to what briefly could have been a real threat, the city went into full-scale panic mode?

You are not embarrassed by the fact that when it became obvious that our officials screwed up on major scale, rather then admit they made mistakes, promise to review policy & procedures and correct any all errors, they launched into a diatribe vowing to hold responsible anyone (other than themselves, of course) involved in this mess.

Do you like the fact that, rather do some actual investigative reporting, the local media just swallowed the official line whole, without ever stopping to question what the hell they were doing? Not to mention adding an insufferable layer of hype and panic to the proceedings?

And lastly, are you really comfortable with the fact they we have arrested a man, who is in U.S. on political asylum, for hanging up a fucking sign!?! Were we afraid he might get homesick?
When they do it, it's social injustice. When we do it it 'safeguarding the Commonwealth.'

 

[castevens]

Seriously, as I stated in the other thread, I agree 100% that there was an overreaction, but I am COMPLETELY unfazed by the overreaction.

Like I said, now the terrorists know what to do. Put 13 lite-brites up in the city, and a 14th one connected to C4 on the back side of it, connected to a support column on the Zakim Bridge.

The Police SHOULD have been worried, just in case. They probably shouldn't have gathered so much media attention in the process, but they SHOULD have been mobilized. These were electronic devices, albeit unharmful ones. But one wire, painted the same color as the bridge support, could have lead to any amount of C4.

 

[statler]

Seriously, as I stated in the other thread, I agree 100% that there was an overreaction, but I am COMPLETELY unfazed by the overreaction.

Like I said, now the terrorists know what to do. Put 13 lite-brites up in the city, and a 14th one connected to C4 on the back side of it, connected to a support column on the Zakim Bridge.

The Police SHOULD have been worried, just in case. They probably shouldn't have gathered so much media attention in the process, but they SHOULD have been mobilized. These were electronic devices, albeit unharmful ones. But one wire, painted the same color as the bridge support, could have lead to any amount of C4.

You are right, the actualy bomb squad and various agents probably did know the signs were harmless but needed to follow up anyway.

It wasn't so much much the action of the squads but the reaction of the officials.

A simple "False alarm, nothing to see here." would have been the appropriate response, (which is what the other cities did) but instead they frothed with anger like they had been the victim of some massive hoax designed to terrorize the city, when in fact it was obvious to anyone with half a brain that it was a simple misunderstanding. (With the exeption of the two actual "fake bombs" -why is nobody talking about them?) This is what I'm so embrassed about. All the other cities handled this situation sooo much better.

Someone came up with a good analogy. If a tree branch scrapes against my my window and I think it is a burglar, so I shoot out my window, it's not the tree's fault I have a broken window.

Lastly, any true terrorist worth their salt will paint the entire device "concrete gray" and place it completely out of sight. Why would they even risk it being discovered?

 

[Jasonik]

Timeline Of Events In Scare

A message from the Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis.

"I would like to commend everyone involved in the response to yesterday's events. The citizens of Boston had their lives disrupted by what turned out to be a misguided publicity stunt. The men and women of the Boston Police Department and our various law enforcement partners responded to the situations presented to them efficiently and effectively, the way they have been trained to respond."

Officers raced across the city in response to calls reporting bombs and other suspicious devices. As trained, our officers placed themselves in harms way to protect the public. Tough decisions were made to ensure safe situations. I cannot say enough about the rapid, efficient and skillful response by everyone involved in the day?s events. This response resulted in officers being held over to address the threats, which were being reported throughout the Boston area.

Some have criticized the response to these incidents without having all the facts and circumstances known to them.

As the day unfolded the law enforcement community was informed in the early morning hours of the arrest by British authorities of several terror suspects.

* At 6:53 a.m. DHS reported that a Washington D.C. Metro station was closed down due to a suspicious package.

* At 8:18 a.m. an MBTA worker reported a suspicious device attached to a stanchion supporting Interstate 93 and near the train line. Appropriate units responded and determined that this device was suspicious and had components consistent with improvised explosive devices.

* At 8:52 a.m. DHS notified Law Enforcement officials that at least 4 people were being treated at a post office after being overcome by fumes emanating from a package at a post office in New York City.

* At 9 a.m. The Boston Police Bomb squad is requested by the MBTA to Sullivan Square and examines the item. As a precaution I-93 is closed and the device is rendered safe and determined to be some sort of hoax device at 10:21 a.m.

* At 12:54 p.m. the Boston Police Bomb squad receives a call for a suspicious device at the intersection of Stuart and Charles Street. That device appears similar to the first device containing batteries, wires, magnets and other components similar to the device in Sullivan Square. Using approved procedures the item is photographed, X-rayed and eventually rendered safe.

* Six minutes later at 1:02 p.m. Boston Police received a call from New England Medical Center Security that they had uncovered a pipe bomb in their building in a desk drawer. Shortly thereafter Hospital Security reported that a suspect had been seen leaving the area of the pipe bomb in an agitated state stating, "God is warning you that today is going to be a sad Day." The suspect was reported to have fled the hospital. Boston Police continue to investigate this incident. No further details at this time.

* At 1:08 p.m. the Boston Police Bomb Squad arrived and confirmed the existence of an item which appeared to be a pipe bomb inside the hospital.

* At 1:11 p.m. information was received and a request was made by the Massachusetts State Police to have the bomb squad assist with locating devices under the Longfellow and BU bridges.

At this point we had multiple reports of possible improvised explosive devices of various types. As those devices were being investigated and rendered safe, detectives from the Boston Police Department and Massachusetts State Police were running down information on a cartoon character possibly associated with these devices, that later led to websites associated with that character and individuals placing these devices around the area.

Boston Police begin to receive numerous calls for similar devices throughout Boston and surrounding areas.

* At approximately 4:30 p.m. detectives from the Boston Police Department were contacted and were verifying information from representatives from the corporation responsible for this advertising campaign.

* At 4:51 p.m. Turner Broadcasting representatives were verified as taking responsibility for placing devices with the cartoon character. This was at the same time a press conference was underway at Boston Police Headquarters.

Officers identified a device (possible pipe bomb) at the New England Medical Center which turned out to be unrelated. Another type of device was located under the Longfellow Bridge, which is being investigated by the Massachusetts State Police.

During this time, ATF, FBI, Federal Protective Services, United States Secret Service, Massachusetts State Police, Federal Park Police, Transit Police, and our UASI Partners pulled together and redeployed resources in the event a larger response was needed.

Later in the evening the emergency event was declared resolved.

"I recognize that this event caused you to work extra hours, to inconvenience your families and cause them concern. I want to convey my deep appreciation of your dedicated service and my pride in the manner in which the members of this Department responded to this incident."

http://www.thebostonchannel.com/news/10903594/detail.html


Phony threat escalated real danger in hoax
By Peter Gelzinis
Boston Herald Columnist
Friday, February 2, 2007 - Updated: 07:58 AM EST

It wasn?t the blinking ?Mooninites? that had the Boston Police Department running at Code Red Wednesday.

Quite the contrary, what kept the cops on edge for a few hours were the two packages that didn?t blink . . . the ones that looked just like pipe bombs, rather than SpongeBob SquarePants.

According to Boston police Commissioner Ed Davis, the phony pipe bomb discovered inside Tufts-New England Medical Center at 1 p.m. Wednesday was accompanied by a security guard?s description of ?an agitated white male? fleeing the hospital saying, ?God is warning you that today is going to be a sad day.?

As fate would have it, this no-nonsense bomb call surfaced in the middle of a coordinated hoax. And it was immediately followed by another call for a ?pipe bomb? device tucked under the Longfellow and BU bridges.

Until those guerrilla marketeers at Turner Broadcasting finally owned up to their Mooninite shenanigans late Wednesday afternoon, Davis said that the chorus of law enforcement agencies had no choice but to assume that gag devices had been systematically planted all over town as a distraction for ?real? ones that had also been placed.

In other words, the police weren?t quite as punk?d as all those ?Aqua Teen Hunger Force? hipsters out there in the blogosphere would lead you to believe. It wasn?t those LEDs tacked onto all those circuit boards that police worried about, as much that guy with no light on upstairs, running away from what looked a helluva lot like a pipe bomb.

?Had we simply found these cartoon characters stuck here and there,? Davis said yesterday, ?I can assure you this thing would have been tamped down in pretty short order.

?But what troubled us was the discovery of those other two devices that looked very real indeed. And it wasn?t until the people from Turner took responsibility for what they had done, that we could think about the coincidence of what had taken place.?

Graced with 24-hour hindsight, Ed Davis said he could begin to view Wednesday?s hijinks as a ?useful opportunity to test the combined response of law enforcement.? Still, praising his officers, along with the efforts of all the other agencies, did not erase the quiet anger in his voice.

Almost two hours before the first Mooninite board was spotted under I-93 at 8:18 a.m., Davis was aware that a Metro station in Washington, D.C., had been evacuated because of a suspicious package.

Some 45 minutes later came another report of four people in a New York City post office overcome by noxious fumes wafting from yet another suspicious package.

Ed Davis also thought about the world biotech conference headed to Boston this spring and all the threats that are bound to accompany it.

?It was almost like we had a kind of perfect storm of circumstances falling into place,? he said.

Of Peter Berdovsky, 27, and Sean Stevens, 28, the two guerrilla artistes charged with tying a city in knots, Ed Davis chose to defer to the courts.

?They weren?t 14 years old,? he said, ?and we happen to live in a time when we have to be sensitive to such an incident.?

Berdovsky and Stevens have taken credit for pulling this techno-geek false alarm. The crime in sticking a blinking Mooninite under a bridge is not the bogus threat to the Homeland, but the life of a cop or bystander put at risk in the race to take it down.

Yet they can?t be the only two bozos made to pay for this stunt. The biggest culprits in this fiasco were not in Charlestown District court yesterday. They were hiding in their pinstriped suits - in glass highrises in Atlanta and Manhattan.

 

[statler]

As fate would have it, this no-nonsense bomb call surfaced in the middle of a coordinated hoax. And it was immediately followed by another call for a ?pipe bomb? device tucked under the Longfellow and BU bridges.

hoax (hōks) pronunciation
n.

1. An act intended to deceive or trick.
2. Something that has been established or accepted by fraudulent means.

This is another one of my pet peeves. The Mooninites thing was not a 'hoax'. There was was no intent to deceive or trick.
The only people that should be in trouble over this are the people responsible for the Medical Center 'bomb' and the BU Bridge 'bomb'. They should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
Everyone involved in the Mooninites thing should be absolved of all wrong doing and offered apologies. If anything, they can charge them with littering and/or some zoning rule about improper placement of signage, but I think that would be just petty. But, hey Boston officials wouldn't do anything petty, would they?