The event caused a panic, it was widely reported in newspapers in multiple countries, mostly in the United Kingdom and the United States.

Forty-four years ago, a strange event occurred in the history of the TV broadcast. A live TV broadcasting was taken over by the so-called alien intelligence for full six minutes and conveyed a bizarre message for all humanity. This mysterious event remained unsolved till today.

On November 26, 1977, at around 5 p.m., a regular news programing of the Independent Broadcasting Authority on Southern Television network, Southern England was interrupted by a computer-generated voice. When Southern TV’s news anchor Andrew Gardner was delivering the top news headlines, his voice got distorted, TV picture wobbled and people heard a strange, metallic buzzing and then a deep and somber, echoing voice that seemed to had been electronically disguised bellowed out from a person claiming to be an alien from another world.

The voice called himself Vrillion and represented a certain body known as “The Ashtar Galactic Command.” It delivered an enigmatic message, asking humans to give up warlike ways and embrace peace before it was too late.

The entire message reads: “This is the voice of Vrillon, a representative of the Ashtar Galactic Command, speaking to you. For many years you have seen us as lights in the skies. We speak to you now in peace and wisdom as we have done to your brothers and sisters all over this, your planet Earth. We come to warn you of the destiny of your race and your world so that you may communicate to your fellow beings the course you must take to avoid the disaster which threatens your world, and the beings on our worlds around you.

This is in order that you may share in the great awakening, as the planet passes into the New Age of Aquarius. The New Age can be a time of great peace and evolution for your race, but only if your rulers are made aware of the evil forces that can overshadow their judgments.

Be still now and listen, for your chance may not come again. All your weapons of evil must be removed. The time for conflict is now past and the race of which you are a part may proceed to the higher stages of its evolution if you show yourselves worthy to do this. You have but a short time to learn to live together in peace and goodwill. Small groups all over the planet are learning this, and exist to pass on the light of the dawning New Age to you all.

You are free to accept or reject their teachings, but only those who learn to live in peace will pass to the higher realms of spiritual evolution. Hear now the voice of Vrillon, a representative of the Ashtar Galactic Command, speaking to you. Be aware also that there are many false prophets and guides operating in your world. They will suck your energy from you – the energy you call money and will put it to evil ends and give you worthless dross in return.

Your inner divine self will protect you from this. You must learn to be sensitive to the voice within that can tell you what is truth, and what is confusion, chaos and untruth. Learn to listen to the voice of truth which is within you and you will lead yourselves onto the path of evolution. This is our message to our dear friends. We have watched you growing for many years as you too have watched our lights in your skies.

You know now that we are here, and that there are more beings on and around your Earth than your scientists admit. We are deeply concerned about you and your path towards the light and will do all we can to help you. Have no fear, seek only to know yourselves, and live in harmony with the ways of your planet Earth.

We of the Ashtar Galactic Command thank you for your attention. We are now leaving the plane of your existence. May you be blessed by the supreme love and truth of the cosmos.”

During the whole transmission, the video feed was touched with just a slight distortion. The message ended during the programming of the Looney Tunes cartoon. Andrew Gardner remained silent on the incident and acted as if nothing happened. However, the strange transmission was heard by thousands of people in the south of England who must have thought it was a joke.

The TV station apologized to its viewers for the inconvenience and publicly dismissed the whole matter as a hoax. Soon, all British media outlets published the news about this incident, and then it grabbed the attention of international media. The ITV Company, whose broadcast was interrupted by this message, long and carefully searched for the culprit of the incident, a possible prankster or ingenious technician who managed to hack their equipment. Unfortunately, they failed to trace the culprit. They only managed to find out that the signal was sent to the Hannington transmitter antenna located on Connington Hill and broadcasting to Berkshire and North Hampshire. And the signal source was quite small, located somewhere near the antenna.

This incident has been studied many times by various researchers of anomalous phenomena and UFOlogists. Particularly famous is the work of John Reppion, a collector of British bizarre tales and folklore.

Reppion claimed that the person behind the mysterious message had thoroughly prepared for his case and specially chose the time of the late afternoon news for the broadcast so that the maximum number of people could hear it. Reppion went on to examine several subsequent cases in which pranksters tried to interfere with American TV broadcasts, and found that they were fundamentally different from the “message of Ashtar.”

All American pranksters sent deliberately humorous messages on TV, while Vrillon’s voice was broadcast in all seriousness and never said anything that would indicate something funny. And even the way Vrillon’s voice sounded betrayed something completely different. It was not exactly a human voice, but something strange, electronic, extraterrestrial. Some supposedly real recordings of this broadcast can be found on the net, but these may only be late reconstruction attempts.

Many UFOlogists nowadays believe that Ashtar’s message was a real attempt by aliens to establish contact with earthlings and try to convince them not to start World War III. It is believed that in the late 1970s, the Cold War between the West and the USSR became especially tense, and many people believed that a nuclear war was about to begin.