Dana Schwartz (2:47)

It's early 2018. John Aaron, a morning news anchor for W in Washington, is enjoying one of the best days of his life. He's on his honeymoon in Hawaii.

John Aaron (3:00)

Went to the the highest mountain, watched the sunrise, the whole nine, and we were just loving it. We were staying in Maui. We had been to Honolulu before and Maui just blew it out of the water. We loved it.

Dana Schwartz (3:12)

That's John. Some Honolulu shade being thrown here, but okay, out kayaking, they seem something incredible.

John Aaron (3:20)

And then the whale surfaced like a few yards from us and did like a tail splash and everything. And I was like, wow, I'm gonna tell everybody about this. What could possibly top this as a big thing that happened on our honeymoon?

Dana Schwartz (3:35)

What indeed. On the morning of January 13, he and his new wife Natalia are busy getting ready for the day. It also happens to be Natalia's birthday. But then at exactly 8:07am local time, something odd happens. Something that most people would give an almost zero chance of ever happening.

John Aaron (4:00)

We heard our phones buzzing up a storm in the corner and, you know, thought that it was maybe a bunch of birthday wishes for my wife. We didn't think anything about it. And then finally there's a PA system in our room, apparently, who knew? And that kind of crackled to life. And presumably, I guess it was the hotel manager came on the loudspeaker and announced verbatim the warning that had come over our phones.

Dana Schwartz (4:27)

The all caps warning sent to John's phone and read over the public address system in their hotel is chilling in its simplicity.

John Aaron (4:37)

Ballistic missile threat inbound to Hawaii. Seek immediate shelter. This is not a drill.

Dana Schwartz (4:42)

It's repeated a second time.

Sponsor/Advertiser (4:45)

Ballistic missile threat inbound to Hawaii. Seek immediate shelter. This is not a drill.

Dana Schwartz (4:51)

John and Natalia look at each other. It doesn't feel like a prank or a hoax.

John Aaron (4:57)

We tried to just get ourselves together as quickly as possible. Me being kind of like a person who thinks several steps ahead. I was like, okay, we're gonna need water, we're gonna need clothes, we're gonna need phone chargers. And I'm starting to gather this stuff. And my wife goes, let's go. You got out of here. So we made our way out of

Dana Schwartz (5:16)

the room, but out of the room and to where? To do what? All across the island, hundreds of thousands of people are scrambling to respond to an announcement that seems Surreal. A ballistic nuclear missile is headed straight for them. As far as they know, it's the end of the world. John and Natalia thought they had the rest of their lives to spend together. Right now, the rest of their lives can be counted in minutes. Welcome to Very Special Episodes, an I Heart original podcast. I'm your host, Dana Schwartz, and this is 10 minutes to live.

Jason English (6:13)

Welcome back to Very Special Episodes. I'm Jason. She's Dana.

Holly Dube (6:16)

Hi.

Jason English (6:17)

He's Zaron.

Zarin Fox Burnett (6:18)

Shut up.

Jason English (6:18)

Today we're gonna go back to 2018 and a very scary text message that people got all over Hawaii. I remember this news story from the time.

Zarin Fox Burnett (6:29)

Same.

Jason English (6:29)

First off, before we go so dark. Do you guys have any Hawaii connections? Either of you?

Dana Schwartz (6:34)

I traveled there with my husband. It was beautiful. We went to Kauai and had an amazing. I would love to go back.

Sponsor/Advertiser (6:40)

Yeah.

Zarin Fox Burnett (6:40)

I hadn't been there till recently, and now over the last three years, I've been like, five times. And so it's become like this, like, second home that I just absolutely love. And I'm always trying to talk my wife into moving there. I'm like, how do we move there? Like, how do we make this happen? Which I think everybody kind of does.

Jason English (6:55)

I've heard this story. Dana, Maybe you've heard this because you work in television, that John Wells, before each season will bring his whole writer's room to a retreat in Hawaii, and they'll try to, like, plan out the whole season, but also then just hang out in Hawaii for a week or two.

Dana Schwartz (7:13)

I have not heard this, and I'm like, how do I get a job like that?

Jason English (7:16)

Get on the pit. Let's go. Yeah, well, maybe we can do that with this, with Zarin. You get a house out there. That could be the home base.

Zarin Fox Burnett (7:22)

You guys are invited.

Jason English (7:23)

We'll go next season and hope we don't get any terrifying text messages to scare us off.

Dana Schwartz (7:30)

The phrase this is not a drill is sometimes used as a punchline. You might announce to your kids, it's time for dinner, and that this is not not a drill. But that sentence carries a lot of weight in Hawaii. It's what Hawaiian civilians and stationed soldiers heard Dec. 7, 1941, just before the devastating attack on Pearl Harbor. We interrupt this program to bring you a special news bulletin. The Japanese have attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, by air. President Roosevelt has just announced. The attack also was made on all naval and military activities on the principal island of Ohaus. When they HEAR IT Nearly 80 years later, John and Natalia don't know where they're going there's no playbook for this. No In Case of Nuclear War pamphlet in the hotel room drawer. They head out of the room and into the hallway, where other hotel guests are milling about in a state of confusion.

John Aaron (8:31)

So we got no instructions whatsoever other than to seek shelter. We went out into the hallway and it was not a crazy scene, but an uncomfortable scene. There were people walking around. Some people were walking quickly, some people were walking slowly. Some people were crying.

Dana Schwartz (8:47)

The scene is eerie. Some people seem resigned, others confused. John and Natalia still don't know where to go, but they know the upper level of a hotel isn't the best place to be.

John Aaron (9:01)

We went down a stairwell and there was a couple huddled in the bottom corner of the stairwell, kind of clutching each other, and it seemed like they were sobbing. I asked some people, I said, hey, where are you going? And the answers were, I don't know.

Dana Schwartz (9:15)

John is in news gathering mode, asking questions, searching for answers. He tries dialing 91 1, but predictably the lines are jammed. But Natalia can make a call.

John Aaron (9:28)

My wife was on the phone with her mom when the alert came in, and she was talking to her as we were walking down and I said, you know, you gotta get off the phone. We gotta focus. And she, like, said goodbye to her mom, thinking, like, I wonder if that's the last time I'm gonna say goodbye to her

Dana Schwartz (9:46)

by itself. The alert would be worrisome in any era. Panic inducing, actually. But consider the context of the time. In early 2018, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had been conducting nuclear weapons testing as part of ongoing tensions between his country and the nuclear equipped United States. He even said, the United States should know that the button for nuclear weapons is on my table. Not exactly a soothing thought. But 2018 will also mark another milestone. North Korea will have nuclear missiles that can reach American soil.

Sponsor/Advertiser (10:29)

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is warning the United States that his country's nuclear force is now a reality, not just a threat.

Dana Schwartz (10:39)

If North Korea were to ever launch a strike, its relatively close proximity to Hawaii makes the islands a prime target. So the alert doesn't come out of nowhere. There's been a nuclear anxiety, one reminiscent of the Cold War. John knows this, as do most people in Hawaii, which makes the tension that much thicker. Still in survival mode, John figures the safest option is to find space where there might be some kind of insulation from a nuclear blast, however hopeless that might sound. He heads for the hotel's lower level.

John Aaron (11:20)

If something bad is truly happening, I want to be in as low of a position as possible. I want to have sturdy walls around me. I want to be sealed off from the exterior. So I kept going down until we found a janitorial closet, like an access hallway thing.

Dana Schwartz (11:39)

John pounds on the door. Not sure who might open it.

John Aaron (11:43)

Someone opened, we got inside and we closed the door. No one else asked to come in, and it was us and a few other people who had already found that place. And it had cokes, it had water, it had a sink, it had a drain. And I thought, well, this is my home for two weeks.

Dana Schwartz (12:01)

Two weeks was long considered the rule of thumb for how long survivors would need to wait out the worst radiation fallout. Inside a tiny room barely bigger than a walk in closet. Closet. The guests all exchange nervous glances. No one can really make sense of what's happening, including a small child.

John Aaron (12:23)

My wife's a doctor. She's been in high pressure situations too. So we were both very, I think, measured in the whole thing. She actually comforted one of the people in our little shelter. It was a younger girl and she was very shaken up. My wife said, like, it's okay, it's my birthday. That gets me. Because she kind of brought this poor girl back down to earth when nothing else was making her feel better.

Dana Schwartz (12:49)

On Kauai, part time resident Holly Dube is packing up. She's getting ready to return to Texas with her boyfriend when their cell phones buzz. They see the alert. Her first thought is that she needs to have some way for her and her boyfriend to be identified.

Holly Dube (13:08)

So I said, let's put our fanny packs on and put our IDs in there in case our torsos are found and they'll know we didn't make it.

Dana Schwartz (13:17)

That's Holly.

Holly Dube (13:18)

And I remember there was one room on this resort where we were staying. There was one room that had four walls, no windows, and a pretty solid door. And I said, let's go to that room. And that was the best idea that we came up with. So in my pajamas and in my silly fanny pack, you know, with my ID in it, and same with my boyfriend. We started running through the resort.

Dana Schwartz (13:42)

As they head for the room, Holly makes a call to her two sons. One doesn't pick up, the other does.

Holly Dube (13:49)

I said to him, alex, there's a bomb headed for Hawaii right now. And he thought I was kidding. Although, I don't know. I'm not a kidder, typically, you know, he said, mom, Mom. No, there isn't. Yes, there is, Alex. We just got an official notice from the state of Hawaii that there's a bomb headed for Hawaii right now. I don't think that's true, Mom. Alex, I can't argue with you right now. I'm just calling to tell you that I love you and I love your brother. You've been the most wonderful part of my life. I'm so proud of both of you. And if I don't make it, you'll know what happened.

Dana Schwartz (14:25)

Inside the windowless room, other guests are standing shoulder to shoulder, staring into their phones.

Holly Dube (14:32)

Again, extremely surreal. And my boyfriend and I went in there, you know, I was standing there just thinking, is it going to be quick? I hope it is. I hope it doesn't hurt. I hope that it just takes me out immediately. I don't want to have any. I don't want to live if I've been bombed by a nuclear bomb.

Dana Schwartz (14:56)

Other scenes play out across the island at the University of Hawaii. Hundreds of students begin running across campus, heading for shelter in a classroom. This morning, just after 8am People in Hawaii were running for their lives. In a video that will go viral, a man lowers his children down through a manhole cover in the street into the sewer, thinking the safest place for them is underground. Some shoppers in stores begin lying down in aisles. Other stores, like a Walmart, refuse to admit anyone seeking shelter. So does a U Haul and a convenience store. Police are getting stopped in the street and asked for the location of the nearest shelter. They don't know what to say. At this point, most of them know as much as civilians do nothing in what's likely the strangest place to be, tourists at a Pearl harbor remembrance tour at the USS Arizona Memorial get the alert. While watching a video about the 1941 attack on Honolulu, a man named James Shields gets the the alert and starts feeling a tightness in his chest. He falls over on the beach, his girlfriend frantically calling for help. When he arrives at the hospital, he's told he's having a heart attack. It's not just cell phones. People at home watching television or driving with their radios on feel the same surge of panic. If you are outdoors, seek immediate shelter in a building. Remain indoors, well away from windows. If you are driving, pull safely to the side of the road and seek shelter in a building while lying on the floor. We'll announce when the threat has ended. The broadcast message ends with the now familiar clarification. This is not a drill. In almost each and every case, from John and Holly to people on the beach, their only impulse is to seek cover. Many don't know if they should even bother or what. Incoming means an hour a minute. As time ticks by, many do notice one there's no retraction, no follow up that this was all a mix up or mistake. There's no reason to believe the apocalypse is being canceled.

Holly Dube (17:29)

Of course your mind is racing in that situation. Is it real? Is it not real? Is this a hoax?

Dana Schwartz (17:35)

As it turns out, it's none of those things.

Sponsor/Advertiser (17:43)

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Dana Schwartz (20:52)

The state warning point of the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency, or hyema, is the island Alert and response unit for disasters both natural and man made. Staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week, hi Ema is charged with keeping people up to date. Now, in the aftermath of Kim Jong Un's saber rattling nuclear tests, the agency has been ramping up its missile alert drills. They know Hawaii would be a prime target for any attack on the US In a real nuclear strike, the North American Air Defense Command, or norad, would detect incoming missiles. Depending on where they were headed, NORAD would ultimately notify the appropriate watchdog group for Hawaii. That would be the Pacific Command, which would then alert hi ema. They in turn would notify the public via the state's Emergency Alert system, which beams out warnings to television, radio, cell phones, and even highway signs. All of this is accomplished in a software program called AlertSense, featuring a drop down menu. It's like the kind you use to select your state. When filling out an online form for a drill, the worker responds by selecting Test. Another worker starts a countdown timer to impact. Some other steps are recorded on a checklist and then the exercise is over. This drill has been done many times since North Korea's aggressive actions, but the morning of January 13th is a little different. Unlike the others, this one is unscheduled. Second, workers are notified of the drill via telephone, not in person. Also unusual. And the office is playing a recording, meaning the voice communicating the fake threat is an unfamiliar one. The person announcing the drill is supposed to say exercise three times, both before and after the command. So it might go something like exercise, exercise, exercise. A ballistic missile is headed our way. Exercise, exercise, exercise. This is to make absolutely, positively certain that everyone understands it is indeed a drill. But one of the workers on shift that morning doesn't hear the word exercise over and over. Maybe the phone connection is bad, or perhaps someone had the person on speakerphone and then picked up a receiver cutting them off. No one is exactly sure. So this employee hovers his mouse cursor over the drop down menu. There are two options. Click test and you'll satisfy the drill. Click missile alert and you'll notify hundreds of thousands of people that nuclear winter is imminent. Hawaii is the only state with a pre written alert like this, thanks to its proximity to North Korea. The employee who has not heard the word exercise and is instead fixated on the phrase this is not a drill clicks the second there's just one safeguard. The software asks the employee if they're sure. He clicks yes. And suddenly cell phones begin to vibrate, People picking them up and eyeing them with confusion followed rapidly by fear. Instead, inside hi, EMA employee. Cell phones begin going off too. It's a symphony of catastrophe.

Sponsor/Advertiser (24:52)

Ballistic missile threat inbound to Hawaii. Seek immediate shelter. This is not a drill.

Dana Schwartz (25:02)

Like the others. Cynthia Lazaroff got her notice of doomsday on a cell phone.

Cynthia Lazaroff (25:08)

So it's kind of an interesting little sidebar here because my phone was actually on silent. But our nephew was visiting and he came running in and held his phone up and he was panting. He had run quite a distance to get to us. He'd been doing, I think, yoga down near the beach and it had come through. And that's how I found out about it.

Dana Schwartz (25:32)

There's a slight delay in Cynthia and her husband Bruce getting the alert on their phone, which gives her a fleeting bit of hope that maybe it was a prank or hoax. But then her screen lights up. Unlike many others, Cynthia is able to put the crisis in more context. She's a documentary filmmaker who has spent decades examining and participating in US and Russia relations pertaining to nuclear weapons. She's keenly aware of the omnipresent threat of the world taking a sudden, sharp turn toward a global conflict. In fact, she had just spoken to former Secretary of Defense William Perry, and

Cynthia Lazaroff (26:20)

he said to me that today we're at A greater risk of some sort of a nuclear catastrophe than we were during the Cold War, and that most people are blissfully unaware of this danger. That because we don't understand the danger, he said, we make no serious attempt to repair the hostility between the United States and Russia. So we're allowing ourselves to sleepwalk into another catastrophe. We must wake up. So for me, at that moment, with my background and expertise, I realized that I'd been sleepwalking myself since the end of the Cold War. And that was a sort of devastating personal revelation.

Dana Schwartz (26:59)

For me, living in Kauai, the immediacy of the nuclear threat is like nothing she's ever expected, experienced. It's largely something she's examined in the abstract. But because of her knowledge, she knows how long it might take to get a ballistic missile from North Korea to Honolulu. Friends are calling to ask her exactly that.

Cynthia Lazaroff (27:22)

And I said, well, I'm not sure if it's a submarine. It could be very nothing. I mean, we don't know. I mean, a submarine. It could be very fast in terms of when I spoke to them and how many minutes had already unfolded. And I said, you know, it could take 25 minutes if it's a launch from North Korea, it could take 25 minutes from the Soviet. It all depended on where it was coming from. But I knew that it was a matter of, you know, within that window of time. It'd been a matter of minutes, but I also lost track of time.

Dana Schwartz (27:50)

And she also knows about radiation. There is precious little she can do about that. But she does grab some clothing to use as protection.

Cynthia Lazaroff (27:59)

So I grabbed a bag, a woven bag, and I started throwing things in it. I threw in my phone, my phone charger, my computer, my computer charger, my purse, my passport, and then I grabbed a shawl to wrap around my face in case of radiation, and then a pair of leggings for the same reason. And then I thought food and water.

Dana Schwartz (28:27)

She and her husband Bruce, also a nuclear expert, decide to seek shelter at a friend's property.

Cynthia Lazaroff (28:34)

That's when I began to think, well, the first thing was, well, where do we go? And we decided to meet and shelter on a neighbor's property who has a meditation cave because it was the most sealed environment that we knew we could get to quickly. And then it was, well, what do I take with me? And I looked down at my phone, and it had 12% charge. And I thought, what am I going to do?

Dana Schwartz (29:00)

Cars are speeding upwards of 100 miles an hour. Other cars cross the median. Some are pulled over Everyone is in a hurry to get somewhere, most not knowing where that somewhere should be. Like many others, Cynthia has family on the mainland. Her oldest daughter, family that may not have any idea what's happening, and family that may not fully understand why she needs to speak to them for what she believes is the last time.

Cynthia Lazaroff (29:32)

So I parked the car as close as I could to the steps to the cave, and I started running towards them. It was still ringing and ringing. And just as I got to the foot of the steps to the cave, she picked up. And I said, mackenzie, I don't know if you've heard, but we've all got this message on our cell phones that we're going to be hit by a nuclear missile and we're going to shelter in the cave if we can, and I'll call you if I can from the cave, but I just want you to know that I love you. And she said, mom, I love you, too. At that moment, time stopped for me, and I just stood there, frozen. It was the moment that it all became the most real for me. And I thought, am I ever gonna hear her voice again?

Dana Schwartz (30:22)

There was another thought. If Cynthia could survive, would she want to? Today's nuclear arsenals are a thousand times more powerful than the bombs dropped in 1945.

Cynthia Lazaroff (30:36)

Depending on how far I would be away from the epicenter at Sympathy, if it struck anywhere nearby, first of all, the chances of survival would be minimal. And then if I did survive, there's the understanding of, based on what we know, what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, just the horrors of what happened to the people who immediately survived but were suffering from radiation sickness, et cetera. One of the hibakusha survival survivors of Hiroshima, Setsuko Thurlow, describes them as, you know, when she was a child, she was a school child who survived, and she saw what she thought were ghosts with skin falling off their bodies and blood. I mean, everything you can imagine, just horrific. So I thought I probably wouldn't be able to survive and that I probably wouldn't want to survive. I mean, Khrushchev, the Soviet leader, said that the living would envy the dead after a nuclear war.

Dana Schwartz (31:43)

At Haima, workers realize the alert has gone external. At this point, you'd think there would be something like an undo button, another single mouse click that could retract the alert and send out a notice that it was just a drill. But the software doesn't have that. There are just two. Fake alert and real alert. The employee who pressed the button or clicked the dropdown menu is frozen in place, other employees scramble to take over his terminal. While they can't take back the message, they can prevent it from being sent out over and over again. If someone had their phone off or is out of cell range, then canceling it means they won't get the message when they turn it back on. That's better than nothing. But actually reversing course and letting people know they're not in danger of nuclear annihilation is proving to be challenging. Within minutes, Hyma is able to call the Honolulu police and notify them of the error. While that allows cops to inform people individually and through the bullhorns on their patrol cars, the police don't have enough reach on social media to spread the word quickly. 911 is overwhelmed. Instead of getting a few hundred calls that time of day, the norm, they get over 7,500. Instead of gushing out via a single channel, the correction trickles out and relatively few people see it. Even when they do, how do they know what to even believe? There's a bigger problem. Haima is under the impression, the mistaken impression that they need to reach out to the Federal Emergency Management Agency or fema for guidance on releasing a retraction. There are different types of recalls, and they want to be sure they use the right one. They actually don't need to confer with FEMA on this, but they think it's the prudent thing to do. But trying to establish contact with FEMA wastes more time, which is already flying by. By the time FEMA gets on the line, it's 8:30am 23 minutes after the alert had been sent. There's social media. State governor David Ige opens his Twitter app, or what's now known as X. But Ige has a problem. He can't remember his password. What could be an official channel for getting the word out that the alert is false isn't going to work for another 15 minutes. Hyema employees can post to the agency agency's social media accounts, but not everyone is going to think to check those pages. The same holds true of Local news at 8:19 Hawaii News now is able to confirm the message was sent out in error, but only to people with the Hawaii News now app on their phones. It only adds to the chorus of confusion. Hyema has one card left to create on the fly a retraction message in the Alert Sense program. That's the channel reaching the greatest number of people and the quickest. But that message can only be drafted and sent via another portal. So Hyema Waits as an employee works remotely manually programming an all clear message. This will take a relative eternity of about 14 minutes. Across Hawaii, people are continuing to seek what shelter they can. Some are climbing into bathtubs. Others are spotting fallout shelters left over from the cold war, wrongly assuming that they lead to safe harbor. But virtually all of those signs are relics that lead to shelters long since repurposed or closed up. As hyema works, much of the island is wondering what to do with the few minutes they have remaining. Cynthia is one of them. She gets off the phone with her daughter, Jogging toward the cave. She sees her friend smiling.

Cynthia Lazaroff (36:14)

I ran up the hill to the cave and as I got to the door of the cave, it opened and it was my neighbor Colleen. And she walked out smiling and she said it was a false alarm. It took our government 38 minutes to send a message out on our cell phones announcing that it was a false alarm.

Dana Schwartz (36:37)

In the closet, John Aaron gets the same message.

John Aaron (36:41)

We were there for like the full, you know, 30 plus minutes just sitting and watching, waiting to see what was going to happen. And then I don't know if someone knocked on the door or if someone all of a sudden got a little bit of cell service, but we heard, you know, hey, we got the all clear. And, you know, it was just the biggest relief washing over you after that.

Dana Schwartz (37:00)

And so does Holly dubay.

Holly Dube (37:02)

Then we got a text over our phone again or an alert over our phone that said this was a false alert. There is no nuclear bomb. Repeat, there is no nuclear nuclear bomb. You're not in danger. And everybody just sort of quietly dispersed.

Dana Schwartz (37:17)

The hi EMA employee working on the message has finally succeeded. The alert read, there is no missile threat or danger to the state of Hawaii. Repeat, false alarm. Highway signs offer the same information. Missile alert in error. There is no threat. It took 38 minutes from the time the alert was sent out to the time the Correction was made. 38 minutes for an untold number of people to confront their mortality, say goodbye to their families, and wait for impact. What the people in Hawaii experienced was human error turned into human terror. But in the nuclear age, it's not unheard of. And worse, it's likely to happen again.

Sponsor/Advertiser (38:13)

Support for the show comes from public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index. With AI it all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year. You can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors llc. SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete Disclosures available at public.comDisclosures Time for

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Dana Schwartz (41:33)

Everyone knows at least something about the Cuban Missile crisis, which brought the threat of nuclear destruction to the feet of President John F. Kennedy. This government, as promised, has maintained the closest surveillance of the Soviet military buildup on the island of Cuba. Within the past week, unmistakable evidence has established the fact that a series of offensive missile sites is now in preparation for on that imprisoned island. When nuclear superpowers have very real, very human people at the helm, mistakes can be made. And when you realize that it's almost a miracle, what happened in Hawaii doesn't happen more often.

Alex Wellerstein (42:23)

And then my favorite, there was one in Chicago. The White Sox, I believe, had won the pennant. And the fire marshal was also the person in charge of the air raid siren. And he thought it would be good fun to celebrate this by setting off all the air raid sirens and indicating that nuclear attack was about to begin.

Dana Schwartz (42:44)

That's Alex Wellerstein. Alex is a Harvard educated historian of science at the Stevens Institute of Technology. He's a nuclear historian. And for him, the Hawaii incident is, well, kind of inevitable.

Alex Wellerstein (43:00)

If you have a sufficiently complicated technical system and it involves humans interacting with it, and it can have technical errors of any sort, especially ones that involve sensors that are pointed at the sky and things like this, it's inevitable that you'll have some level of error.

Dana Schwartz (43:23)

In 1979, NORAD computers began lighting up with information that prompted defense workers to sweat profusely. It looked as though the Soviet Union had launched nuclear weapons directly at the US Seemingly intending to disable US Defense capabilities. Fighter planes were launched. Before satellite data was retrieved, indicating it was a false alarm. Someone had mistakenly inserted a training tape into the computer systems. A similar incident took place in 1980 when US defense computers warned that Russia had dispatched more nuclear missiles quickly. One could see a pattern in the data. It went from two missiles to 200, then zero. It was glitchy. And again, fighter planes were in the air. But it was an error, this time coming from a faulty computer chip. Russia isn't exempt from scares either. In 1983, the country's version of an early warning system detected five missiles coming from the United States the monitoring worker, Stanislav Petrov, could have acted on it and could have conceivably started a world war. But as Petrov would later explain, he didn't think the US Would kickstart Armageddon with only five missiles. His common sense may have spared us all. But these are examples of internal errors. Public facing ones like Hawaii's are vastly different in that they cause widespread panic and misinformation. These are thankfully rare, but Americans have endured them before. In the late 1950s, a number of false alarms went off in American cities, including that World Series flub. In each case, only a quarter or so of people took the alerts seriously. Ideally, these events would not happen completely in vain. They provide priceless data on how people respond at this level of crisis. But as Alex points out, data collection around them has generally been poor.

Alex Wellerstein (45:45)

So this accident, it's not a good thing. But it does create conditions that allow us to answer questions we can't otherwise answer, like what would happen if we sent everybody a text telling that a nuclear missile was incoming? My sense is it wasn't studied as closely at the time as it should have been.

Dana Schwartz (46:05)

Researchers did make some discoveries, like how people respond to these alerts can depend on demographics. Younger people tend to be more likely to make assumptions about them being false or unreliable, acting on the belief nuclear war is no longer a pressing concern. Older people might be more inclined to believe them. Education matters, too.

Alex Wellerstein (46:31)

But one of the ones that fairly educated people had was they said, well, I knew that, that we weren't going to be at a war with North Korea at that moment. So I knew to dismiss it. And in some ways, that's the, the scariest response, because what do you know about what's going on in Pyongyang? Do you even know what time zone it is over there? Do you even know what's going on?

Dana Schwartz (46:51)

False alarms introduce another problem. The prospect of nuclear war can feel so remote that when we hear of a mistake, we might be more inclined to treat the next alert, maybe a real alert, like mistake two. In Hawaii, some people reported that they disregarded the alert because it wasn't accompanied by air sirens used for natural disasters, a pretty major assumption.

Alex Wellerstein (47:20)

Will people disregard the message, though? That is something worth worrying about. But with something like the Hawaii accident, is that going to make a place like Hawaii far less likely to broadcast the message or add hesitancy if they're not sure if it's real because they realize the political consequences are potentially very high for them?

Dana Schwartz (47:41)

So what's the answer, Alex? Is an advocate of preparedness. Think Bert the Turtle, the genial character used by the Department of Defense to sell kids on the idea of Cold War drills in the 1950s.

Alex Wellerstein (47:57)

And especially in a democracy. We have some say in this. So that's my argument. Not so much that hiding under our desks is the best strategy, though in some cases it's not the worst strategy, but that this is a possible tool for thinking about nuclear weapons in a much more serious and tangible way than we tend to think about them.

Dana Schwartz (48:23)

The Hawaii alert was, in a way, real. It was alerting us to the fact that in the face of actual nuclear attack, most of us wouldn't know what. What to do, where to go, or whether it's even survivable. A survey of 2,000Americans published in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists found nearly a quarter of people had given no thought to their game plan in the event of nuclear war. But what would that preparation even look like? Part of Alex's research is to look at the real world consequences. If North Korea or another country had launched a nuclear strike. What would have happened? Hawaii has some unique geography. There aren't many homes with basements that could theoretically provide some cover. For one thing, homes are usually wood construction, not concrete or brick, which makes fire a problem. The mountains would reflect much of the blast, keeping it concentrated. That's just a few of the many variables.

Alex Wellerstein (49:32)

Is it going to detonate on the ground or is it going to detonate in the air? Are you aiming at, like, a military base, like Pearl Harbor? Are you aiming at Honolulu because you want to do the maximum damage and maximum people? For any of those scenarios, you'll get somewhat different answers. How far off from its target does the weapon detonate?

Dana Schwartz (49:54)

According to nukemap, Alex's simulation of nuclear strikes, a missile launched from Pyongyang to Honolulu could conceivably kill 158,000 people in an instant. Many more would be injured and others would endure, as Cynthia explained, a fairly horrific radiation related demise. There was also this. When a false alert is dispensed, there's always a possibility it triggers reaction before retraction. What if someone in a position of power had taken the alert seriously and retaliated? This might sound far fetched, but think about it. If a nuclear alert is triggered, our government only has a small window of time to react. Remember that 1980 false alert? When asked if that could have conceivably started an escalation leading to World War iii, Assistant Secretary of Defense Thomas Ross told reporters, I'm going to Duck that question. That's not too comforting.

Alex Wellerstein (51:02)

A massive bit of misinformation like this false alarm, which could be regarded as that could lead to escalations that were would have really bad impacts. It's totally plausible. This is especially the case with systems where, for example, in the United States, the use of nuclear weapons is something that a single person, the United States President, can make the decision about that there are not a lot of safeguards there. So I'm not saying it's something where you should be worried about this as the number one worry on your list of worries. But if you're asking is it possible, is it plausible? Sure, it's totally possible and plausible. Do I think that it's super likely?

Dana Schwartz (51:44)

No, not super likely. And we know it sounds sensationalist, very TV movie of the week. But that's the point. If we don't confront the horror of nuclear fallout by confronting the devastating consequences, then we risk becoming numb to the idea. So how do we prevent it from happening again? There were, of course, state and FCC investigations into the hows and whys of the Hawaii alert. Haima called it a combination of human error and inadequate safeguards. The drill took place during a shift change, the agency said, confusing workers. The head of Haima resigned, as did the executive officer. The employee who selected the nuclear option was first reassigned and then fired. Some employees alleged the man who had worked at Hyema for over a decade had made mistakes before, confusing fake alerts for real ones, an accusation the employee disputed. While he said he hadn't heard the word exercise, other employees said they had. Speaking to the press, he insisted he hadn't made a mistake, that he heard the words this is not a drill and nothing else. He did as he was trained. He thought a nuclear missile really was coming to Hawaii. He remained anonymous out of fear some angry locals might seek retribution. This was probably a good decision. One man who managed to get through to 911 told a dispatcher that someone deserved a beating for the mistake. Another Hyema employee had his photo taken by the Associated Press, standing next to a computer monitor that ran with stories about the mistake. Some readers inferred he was the employee at fault and sent him death threats. He actually wasn't even in the office that day. In the end, only four medical events connected to the alert were officially reported. This included one elderly man who fell, one minor car accident, and someone who phoned 911 out of anxiety. No surprise there. The man who suffered a heart attack, lived to sue, and settled with the state in 2025 for $275,000. In July 2025, Haima sent out another emergency alert via phone notification. This one was clearly marked. This is only a test. The Hawaii false missile alert was an exercise in a certain kind of psychological experiment it would be impossible to ever replicate. For nearly 40 minutes, people believed that their time was coming to an end. It was a kind of near death experience, though, one that had implications for the entire world. So what happens after? How does that kind of event change how you live a life you didn't think you'd even have? For John Aaron, it meant realizing you could count on your brand new spouse.

John Aaron (55:15)

It was just like you'd been hit by a truck, you know, and you were just dealing with the aftermath. Yeah. No, I think it showed that we could trust each other implicitly and that we can work as a team. Like I told you, she told me to get my butt in gear and get out of the hotel room. When I was taking too long. I told her, we need to get down, we need to get lower. And she followed my lead on that. So, you know, I think it was a good give and take. And I think we, we knew that we could go through a really tricky situation together without melting down at each other, without, you know, getting caught up in nonsensical stuff.

Dana Schwartz (55:50)

For Cynthia, it was about recommitting to the idea of disarmament, part of her life's work.

Cynthia Lazaroff (55:57)

We've been so lucky. And I think people just need to understand that this isn't a dinosaur issue that went away at the end of the Cold War, that it's not something that's in the past, that it's right here and now. So that's. I think the first thing is to wake people up.

Dana Schwartz (56:15)

The days following were interesting.

Cynthia Lazaroff (56:18)

It was an apocalypse that didn't happen and, you know, it was an Armageddon that didn't begin. And so for me, I decided pretty much in that moment. I mean, I got home and the other thing that was going on for me is that my senses were all enhanced. It was like I was a child again. I have a crown flower bush. I'm looking at it right now outside my front door. And the colors were all more vibrant than I'd ever seen them before. The greens, the purples. There were butterflies dancing and flying everywhere. And I just stood there and stared. And I'd never done that before, like a child would do at the wonder of life.

Dana Schwartz (57:00)

But something else surprised her. Even knowing the effects of radiation sickness, even after hearing about the suffering of survivors. When the moment came, came she wanted to live.

Cynthia Lazaroff (57:12)

I found myself thinking, oh, I didn't do what I was supposed to do. I didn't think I could survive. I didn't think I'd want to survive for the reasons that I've mentioned. And now I'm in this moment, and

Dana Schwartz (57:25)

I want to try. For Holly Dube, it meant marrying her skills as a songwriter with her need to process what had happened. After getting back from Hawaii, she remained in bed for two weeks, the post traumatic stress of the situation leaving her exhausted.

Holly Dube (57:47)

I would say it was really life changing. So I think going through that made me look at my life differently, in that I kind of took on the philosophy of, if not now, when, you know, am I waiting to do anything that I've wanted to do? Am I showing enough love to the people that I love? Am I being who I want to be? Am I doing everything I should be doing? So it gave me, in a way, I would say, a sense of abandon about holding back for anything. And it's actually been lovely and Wonderful.

Dana Schwartz (58:21)

Later in 2018, she began processing that trauma through her own unique lens, One that was was formed by songwriting.

Holly Dube (58:31)

I felt better after two weeks, but after that and kind of after digesting that whole experience and so forth, I felt like in one of those old movies, I'm gonna write a musical about that.

Dana Schwartz (58:44)

This is not a Drill had its off Broadway premiere in late 2025. It's about what happens when people are faced with their mortality as the seconds tick down.

Holly Dube (58:56)

I would say that to anyone, Whether or not you had thought you were going to get blown up by a nuclear bomb, do what you want to do. Don't be afraid. You know, explore your creativity. Ask for that new job, Ask for a raise. Go ahead and do it, because none of us gets out of here alive. Right?

Dana Schwartz (59:20)

I just have to say, I find this episode so viscerally scary. I feel like I was scared for days after. Just like the horror of having to look your own mortality in the face. This truly is my nightmare situation. And it's also honestly, a nightmare situation for the guy who messed up at work. Like, imagining screwing up that badly.

Zarin Fox Burnett (59:41)

Oh, yeah.

Jason English (59:41)

I've thought since we first recorded this, like, okay, who do you call with that last call? If you're with your family, do you still call? I call my mom. Do I try to post something on social media that more people will see? Do I try to capture always thinking, if we get out of this, it would be good to have some contemporaneous Audio of the event, just in case.

Dana Schwartz (60:03)

Yeah.

Zarin Fox Burnett (60:03)

I think I go full journalist at that point and just start recording sound on my phone so I could have the document. And then hopefully they either find my phone or I survive. And I can be like, this is what it was like.

Jason English (60:12)

Yeah. When we're thinking about very special character, I think it's Holly who is in the moment thinking about, well, how are they gonna identify us if we're blown up here? M Cynthia looking down and seeing like, oh, man, my Phone's only at 12%. That is, like, almost as terrifying to me as the text itself.

Dana Schwartz (60:32)

Yeah.

Zarin Fox Burnett (60:32)

That is 100% how I would be in a nuclear Armageddon. Like, right now. My phone's at 14%. So I'm just that person. That's right. That's like. That's so real.

Jason English (60:41)

Darren. There are a lot of characters in this one.

Zarin Fox Burnett (60:43)

I was able to cast them.

Jason English (60:44)

You were all right.

Dana Schwartz (60:46)

Yes.

Zarin Fox Burnett (60:46)

I went through and I thought for Jon, Aaron, the morning news anchor, the birthday boy. I thought Aaron Eckhart, I just felt like he was. Had that kind of, like, morning news anchor in Hawaii kind of thing.

Dana Schwartz (60:56)

Yeah, he has that chin.

John Aaron (60:57)

Yes.

Zarin Fox Burnett (60:58)

Right. And then for his wife Natalia, Aaron, I thought Rachel McAdams, I may be, like, you know, swept up by the recent movie she's been in. But for Holly Dube, I was thinking Olivia Colman, I just thought because she seems both practical, but also somebody who could say the word torso and make it really hit. And then for the nuclear experts, Cynthia Lazaroff and Bruce Lazaroff, I love, by the way, that they go to a meditation cave. That detail was amazing. So I wanted to make em a real life married couple. So I picked Rachel Weitz and Daniel Craig. I could just somehow see the two of them both being nuclear experts. They're just so smart.

Jason English (61:30)

This is another one that I was surprised to see. It doesn't appear to have been made into a movie yet.

Zarin Fox Burnett (61:35)

Right.

Dana Schwartz (61:35)

Although there is that movie that Katherine Bigelow just made that I can't remember the name of. That's about, like, Countdown to a nuclear Disaster.

Zarin Fox Burnett (61:44)

Yes, I saw that. It's pretty harrowing. Yeah. It makes you realize, like, it's just a matter of pushing buttons and people panicking. And, like, also speaking of pushing buttons and people panicking, how does the system not have a let's undo this notice or send out a second notice? Like, how do you design the program and not have, like, another button to push?

Dana Schwartz (62:01)

Yeah, I think they probably revised the system.

Zarin Fox Burnett (62:04)

Or how about the governor who can't remember his Twitter password like how or his X password. I thought that was amazing. David Ige was like are you kidding me? Once again, very relatable.

Jason English (62:14)

Very Special Episodes is made by some very special people. This show is hosted by Dana Schwartz, Zarin Fox Burnett and Jason English. Our senior producer is Josh Fisher. Today's episode was written by Jake Ross. Editing and sound design by Chris Childs Mixing and mastering by Josh Fisher Additional editing by Mary Dew Original Music by Elise McCoy show logo by Lucy Quintanilla Social clips by Yarberry Media Executive producer is Jason English. If you ever want to email the show you you can hit us up@veryspecialepisodesmail.com Very Special Episodes is a production of iHeart Podcasts.

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Dana Schwartz (63:40)

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Holly Dube (66:23)

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