Did a New York TV station predict a train crash with a Dr Seuss quote?
It should have been a slightly bizarre occurrence that was seen by a scant few people watching late-night television, then forgotten about shortly afterwards. However, the internet never forgets.
On September 28th, 2016, the folks watching the Utica, New York-based TV channel WKTV saw a strange banner come up with what seemed to be an Emergency Broadcast System message running across it. Part of the message read, “Civil authorities have issued a Hazardous Materials Warning for The United States. Effective until September 29, 02:16 AM EDT.” Before finishing with an instruction to “wait for further instructions.”
Immediately afterwards, WKTV set about assuring its viewers that the whole thing was a mistake. A technical error stemming from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. In a brief article published by WKTV about the error the same evening, they said the message “had the National Location Code in it.”
The statement continued, “Tests should not have that code as it is automatically re-transmitted. We have contacted New York State Broadcasters Association who administers the Emergency Alert System in New York. We are working with FEMA to resolve this. Our apologies for the confusion this may have caused.”
It was a little brutal of them to throw a federal agency under the bus with that much vigour, but it really did seem like a communication error. Besides, federal departments have been known to make mistakes like this with much higher consequences than mildly confusing the viewers of a local TV station in Utica. However, what no one was expecting were the headlines the following day, which threw the whole situation into an alarming new light.
The very next day, a New Jersey transit train crashed in Hoboken, killing one person and injuring a hundred others.
How did this train crash happen?
Reportedly, the reason for the crash was the driver’s undiagnosed sleep apnea. He fell asleep at the train’s helm and, obviously, didn’t slow down as the train arrived at Hoboken Station. This was the worst possible state of affairs, however, and Hoboken Station is the end of the line, where the train was going to terminate. The train ploughed through the bumper block and the rail concourse, destroying large parts of the station’s infrastructure and injuring not only passengers on the train, but those at the station as well.
These two events would be unconnected were it not for one crucial piece of the story I left out at the start. I said that I only put part of the message there. The section I left out was just after the words “September 29th, 02:16 AM EDT,” a time about five hours before the fateful crash. Then, the next part of the message featured an absolutely baffling quote from the Dr Seuss children’s book Green Eggs and Ham. One that would have sounded ludicrous when the message went out, but terrifying after the crash.
“Would you. Could you. On a Train?”
Conspiracy theorists went absolutely spare in the days up to it. Alleging that a sleeper cell was somehow activated because of this message. Especially considering that the words following the quote were “wait for further instructions.” Were they onto something? Did they know something we don’t? Absolutely not, don’t be stupid. However, it is always worth remembering that sometimes coincidences can be this huge. That no matter how much they might want to believe otherwise, conspiracy theorists are wrong about things being linked.
No matter how much they might appear to be on the surface.