We listened to Sirius XM’s Howard Stern Show. Funny as we ran into Howard not long ago in New York’s West Village. The interview was to talk about Jim Carrey’s new book, Memoirs and Misinformation. Jim waxed nostalgic rethinking how it felt at that instant when he received the text of all texts at his Maui home, saying missiles were heading to Hawaii, and thought, “What can I do with this last moment?”
Read: False Hawaii Missile Alert | Twitter Blues + Our Experience
Of interest to Stern, and memory jogging personally to us, was the cover photo for the book. That photo was snapped just seconds following the inadvertent Hawaii alert text to all of our cell phones which stated: “Ballistic missile threat inbound to Hawaii. Seek immediate Shelter. This is not a drill.” Oh how well we still remember it to this day. Your editors were in Honolulu at the time, doing work for Beat of Hawaii.
NY Times best-selling author Carrey said, “My assistant Linda, who at the time was warning me that we had 10 minutes to live, and she was clutching the phone so tightly that she actually accidentally took a screenshot… And this is my face staring into the abyss…this is my face after I’ve been told I have 10 minutes to live.”
Jim went on to say that he felt the photo was perfect in its depiction of “misinformation.”
Carrey is on a book publicity tour and we also caught him on last night’s “Tonight Show.” He said about the text, “It was completely real to us,” saying he tried to get off the island with his daughter, but he couldn’t.
Carrey went on to talk about saying his goodbyes and going to the beach for what he thought were his life’s final moments at the ocean. “I just decided to go through a list of gratitudes, and honest to God, I just could not stop thinking of wonderful things that have happened to me and blessings I’ve had… It was lovely… And I got to a point of grace at about two minutes to spare when I found out it wasn’t actually happening. All I was planning to do was closing my eyes and be thankful because it’s been a good ride.”
Then, on finally learning that the entire thing was a ruse, he said, I got p*ssed off and heads rolled.”
Singer Diana Ross was also in Hawaii for the episode, and said that she became “very frightened” on receiving the alert. She said she evacuated to a hotel basement.
As for us, Jeff said this was absolutely not real, and after a few minutes, we went back to work and started thinking about writing about the whole thing on Beat of Hawaii.
Did you get the infamous alert?
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where is the picture Jim Carrey refers to???
Yes, we received the alert. I was still in bed and my wife came in – we were living on Kauai at the time. I said that it wasn’t real and rolled back over, as I was up late the night before reading a book. She immediately began to text friends of ours on the islands to see if they received the same alert. She also tuned into KKCR and other local radio stations to see if there was any more information…If Ron Wiley wasn’t talking about it, it wasn’t real.
So I guess you can say that our reactions were mixed.
Aloha! Yes, I was there…A friend and I were visiting my adult daughter in Oahu when … at 8:11 a.m. all three of our cellphones dinged and we all got very (VERY!) quiet. It was a warning that a ballistic missile was heading our way. We each took a couple of minutes to contact loved ones. I texted my husband, forwarding the text. He immediately called us and was scrambling online to see if he could get more information. My daughter contacted coworkers who were hunkered down in a walk-in fridge in a restaurant in Chinatown. And we turned on the news — the governor was trying to get details but was coming up empty-handed. It wasn’t until 35 minutes later that we learned it was a human error: Someone had pushed the wrong button! Not gonna lie, all three of us were sacred. My souvenir of that trip…I saved and framed the text warning and the next day’s newspaper headline ‘OOPS!’ it reads in huge letters!
Hi Tea.
Thanks.
Aloha.
A day I will never forget! My family and I had arrived on Kauai on Friday, January 12 from Minneapolis. Because of the time change we were all up very early on Saturday, January 13th and decided to take a walk from our condo at Waipouli along the Ke Ala Hele Makalae path. We were about 1 ½ mile away from our condo when all six of our phones started pinging with an alert. We all assumed it was for the snowstorm that was happening back home. When I checked my phone and saw the missile alert, it felt like my heart stopped. I knew that we had about 10 minutes before impact. I was trying my hardest to be strong for my kids, but they all knew by the look on my face that I thought this was the end. My oldest son (he was 15 at the time) grabbed his Grandma’s hand and said, “Grammy I don’t want to die”. She told him “you are not going to die” but actually she thought this was the end. As we were making our way back to the condo it was like a bad horror movie – everyone was outside looking up at the sky wondering when the missile would hit. I called home to my parents to say goodbye – I was hysterical and thought I’d never see them again. By the time we made it back to our condo we had received the next message that it was a false alarm. It’s not the way we wanted to start our family vacation, but it turned out to be one of our best times together. We were grateful that we were able to spend the next 10 days together in paradise.
Yep, we were renting the house up on Omao and I got the alert and Steve did not for some reason. We just shrugged our shoulders and went hiking at Maha’ulepu looking for seals. Where would we have gone anyhow? No basements or shelters on Kauai. Figured the military base had a few missiles up their sleeves if they were needed, too, so did not think much about it. Being from the midwest, we are not prone to panic. Was surprised at how many people freaked out about it and we got calls all day from mainlanders worrying about us.
Ed Oh yes! We were at home getting ready to go to work. My wife asked what the alert said and I could barely verbalize it. To be home by ourselves was a blessing. But the TV and radio did not confirm. We closed our curtains, time past, too much time, and finally, after 45 minutes, it was called off. It took a couple of weeks to get over it. We both lost employees due to their trauma. A terrible event!
we were in Kona getting ready to hobswimming. After comforting my frightened daughter I took a moment to reflect. My life was good. Then I remembered something from childhood and put on a fresh clean pair of underpants because Mom always said to wear clean underpants in case of emergency. I didn’t want to chance meeting her in heaven with sub standard underwear!
I was on the Big Island when I received the alert. My husband said we needed to get inside our condo and I said, do you really think being inside will make a bit of difference during a nuclear attack? Then I went out on our balcony, saw the maids coming and going as normal, and I had the same reaction as Jeff did, thinking there’s no way this is real. So I picked up my book and went back to reading until we received the notification it was a mistake.
Holy Cow! is this what Beat of Hawaii has come to? waxing on about “celebrities in Hawaii” while people continue to really suffer under this [edited] pandemic? Why don’t you take this time you have turned into People Magazine, and rattle the cages of your state government to look at facts/fear- we have jumped the shark and the solution is WAY worse than the disease…again, you “isolate the vulnerable (stats show obesity is #1; over 70 is high-risk) not the healthy!”
I got the now infamous alert after the fact. It was a weekend and I was sleeping late, at home in Volcano, with my cell phone turned OFF as usual. No worries. After finding Jesus years ago, I’m ready for Heaven at any time. Seriously.
Yeah, cause that’s what we want to read about when thinking of a dream vacation destination, “More C0vid and government please!” Ugh take a breath and try to think about LITERALLY anything else for a second, Nita. It’ll do ya some good.
Hi Can.
Thanks.
Aloha.
Wow!! Beat of Hawaii is just keeping us informed and entertained. So, it’s okay to let 70 year olds and “unhealthy” people die. Diabetes is a major problem with the indigenous people of Hawaii. Even without that problem, the islands cannot support tons of tourists coming to the islands and getting sick. Time to grow up, and respect the Hawaiian people and their island. Your vacation can wait until it is safe for everyone, especially the people that live there.
Hi Betsy.
Thanks.
Aloha.
I LOVE the “Beat of Hawaii” stories !! We get enough of the bad current news already from other sources, so any other stories about Hawaii life and travel are welcomed.
Hi John.
Thank you!
Aloha.
Just one more thing to impeach Ige over. The missle crisis, Mauna Kea, etc.
Lauhala is a street name I know really well! 😄
Great way to wake up on Kauai on a Saturday morning….
The first messages came over our phones that morning at 8:07am. Our android phones didn’t “sound off” but apparently iPhones did all over the state. (Especially for visitors!) Created mass panic.
The messages don’t come over the regular SMS/MMS app, but just appear on the phone screen as a Push Alert, then go away after you click on “OK” or “Next”. You’re not even sure if what you read was real or not.
We then received actual SMS message at 8:41am from KEMA (Kauai Emergency Management Agency) that said “JK”. 😛
Folks on the KIUC internal communication network knew within a few minutes that it was bogus because their on-duty operators confirmed with contacts at PMRF that it was a false alarm.
Our congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard tweeted ’bout a half hr later to all of her HI followers that the message was a false alarm…. Nice, if you have Twitter. ☹️
Two hours later and the news stories are all blowing up following this as lead story – fake news, here we go. 😇
But the kick of it all for us – my wife and and I slept through the whole thing.
It was the opening game for the senior softball season. My husband, the 1st baseman for the Kawaihau Seniors, had just turned onto Kuhio Hwy and immediately got stuck in a traffic jam due to a crash further ahead. Sitting in traffic, not moving, we got the alerts on our phones and heard many other chimes from surrounding cars. We read it, said “no way,” but couldn’t confirm either way. A number of cars ahead were flipping u-turns, and since we were only about 1/2 mile from home, we did too and headed home. My husband took his beer cooler, got the dog, sat down in his recliner, and turned on the TV. He said if he was gonna die, he’d be having his last beer with his dog. Knowing that there was a military base on Kauai that would make a good target, I closed windows and filled the bathtub. After about 15 minutes, we decided it had to be fake and loaded back into the car to go to the game. Evidently, many on the road either couldn’t go back or chose not to, as traffic was even worse!