If Orson Wells would raise his head!

In 1938 Orson Wells made a radio serial of the science fiction novel The War of the Worlds, in which the Martians invaded the Earth, in such a realistic way that panic broke out in the streets of New York. In 1949, Radio Quito in Ecuador put something similar on the air, even with actors pretending to be firefighters and policemen, and people, when they found out that it was not true, got so angry that they started a fire in the station’s headquarters building, and five people died. On Sunday, the British government experimented with a new national emergency service to warn of weather disasters or terrorist attacks… and all it did was make the nation a laughing stock!

Agreeing on what time and on what day mobile phones, tablets and electronic devices from all over the country had to ring and vibrate in unison was already an odyssey. The theaters objected to it being in the middle of a performance, for obvious reasons. The football league warned of the danger of a stampede if the masses thought something was happening in the middle of the Cup semi-final. It couldn’t coincide with the London marathon either, lest it throw the athletes off pace. The automobile club asked that it better not be at rush hour, because drivers could become alarmed (on the other hand, the objective by definition of an alarm system), get distracted and start looking at the message, leading to accidents. Those responsible for the kennels warned that the animals would start barking like crazy. The ones in nursing homes, who would freak out and could have heart attacks. Women victims of domestic abuse, who would reveal the existence of the phone they hide from their partners in case they suffer an attack…

In the end, between some things and others and with so many inconveniences, the Government opted for Sunday at three in the afternoon, before those who had gone out to spend the weekend hit the roads, and when there were only a couple of from football and rugby matches (where, with the ambient noise, absolutely nothing was heard). But the whole experiment lost its meaning to a large extent, because in previous days the BBC and the newspapers dedicated themselves to explaining to people in great detail how to make their mobile not ring: turn it off, put it in airplane mode, or go to settings, and there cancel emergencies. In short, the complete opposite of what it was about, which was to prepare the British in case there is an attack by Putin with chemical or nuclear weapons (not cybernetic, because then the mobile phones would not ring), a tsunami, an earthquake, a great fire, an environmental disaster, events that endanger lives…

In any case, the test was done at the scheduled time… more or less. That was the first setback, because it had to be at three o’clock, and on some mobiles (depending on the operator) it rang early at 2:59 p.m., and on others late, at 3:10 p.m. The noise and vibration were supposed to last ten seconds, but it was only five. And the Welsh version was mistranslated. Instead of saying “this is not a real emergency, but if it were, you should follow the instructions and save yourself, you and your loved ones”, he said “safe your belly button”. Those who speak this language had a laugh at the expense of the Government.

The Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, had urged the British to ignore the press and not turn off their mobile phones, partly due to the need to justify the thirty million euros that the experiment cost, whose objective was to test whether, in the midst of a terrorist attack or environmental disaster, a message could be delivered to the public in less than fifteen minutes. It has not been made clear, because millions of telephones were disconnected, and many that were disconnected received it early or late… The metaphor of a country that does not work, where nurses, civil servants, doctors and train drivers have spent months on strike, with no end in sight.

The only consolation for London is that it is not the first time that a test of this type has gone wrong. In 2018, the US government blundered and warned Hawaiians that a missile was headed their way. And not long ago, Florida retirees woke up at 4:45 in the morning with their cell phones screaming like they weren’t stitched together… But there was also some favorable effect: no thief thought of robbing at three in the afternoon, lest they he will forget to turn off the phone and give away his presence.