At around 8 a.m. on January 31, 2007, the worlds of surreal late-night comedy and the post-9/11 war on terror came crashing down in Boston. That morning, the Boston Police Department’s bomb squad answered a call from the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA), which was now on alert. MBTA responded to a passenger’s call about a sign they noticed in Sullivan Square near Mystic River.
The caller reported a series of flashing, glowing lights in an odd shape – what looked like a middle finger. Within hours, police had closed portions of the I-93 freeway and the MBTA, and reports of the billboards began popping up around town. Several of the city’s major thoroughfares, such as the Longfellow Bridge and Boston University Bridge, have been cordoned off. Such were the MBTA subway’s red and orange lines. Local authorities soon began to coordinate with the federal government, and the US Coast Guard blocked passage on the Charles River, barring access from the Charles to Boston Harbor.
It wasn’t until 2 p.m. that a member of the Boston Police Department with a connection to pop culture recognized the strange shapes on the billboards. The strange glowing squares weren’t bombs, they were mooninites. More specifically, it was an advertisement for Adult Swim’s Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
Massachusetts College of Art student Peter “Zebbler” Berdovsky and his friend Sean Stevens were eventually called a hoax by city and state officials and arrested by the end of the day.
“It’s a hoax — and it’s not funny,” the then-governor. Deval Patrick
Zebbler and Stevens disagreed and tried to highlight the absurdity of the situation when they were not released on bail until the next day Answering questions about “Haircuts in the ’70s and how they affect our lives today and how we live in the future.” Infidel journalists asked that they were willing to lose the sympathy of those who thought the city had overreacted, to which they replied: “It’s not a small question.” Her lawyer tried to remind the assembled media that his clients were journalists.
Officials wanted to blame Zebbler and Stevens for the entire incident. Then-Rep. Ed Markey, now a Massachusetts Senator, narrated CNN that “whoever came up with this must look for another job. Scaring an entire region, closing down the T and major thoroughfares, and forcing first responders to spend 12 hours chasing jewelry instead of terrorists is a marketing rampage. It would be hard to think of a more horrifying publicity stunt.”
A few months later, the duo were more contrite when they reached a settlement with the state. The then Attorney General Martha Cookley noted that it would be difficult to prove that Zebbler and Stevens intended to create panic when they set up the devices around town, especially when the Mooninite posters had been installed without incident in several towns across the country. The two apologized and agreed to community service, while Turner, Adult Swim’s parent company, paid $1 million to Boston and another million to Homeland Security in compensation for their troubles.
However, Massachusetts politicians wanted to ensure that they would not get off so easily in the future. A few months later, in May 2007, Sen. Edward Kennedy introduced the Terrorist Hoax Improvements Act of 2007, which would have allowed the government to take civil action against parties involved in alleged hoaxes if they failed to “notify one or more parties … promptly and adequately of the actual nature of the activity.” to inform”. The bill never ended up anywhere.
In a new role input Zebbler, Stevens and others involved in the case report the incident as feeling fine today. While the incident complicated Zebbler’s attempt to become an American citizen and caused a “scary year,” it was resolved. Now the Great Mooninite Panic of 2007 has become something of a legendary intergenerational misunderstanding, a reminder of how quickly the state security apparatus can escalate.
And fifteen years later, Adult Swim seems a little more defiant in his memory, as seen on Twitter.
