Ben Bowlin is a veteran podcaster at HowStuffWorks, and has worked on numerous shows, including Stuff They Don't Want You To Know, CarStuff and BrainStuff.

Over years of bizarre research on everything from ancient civilizations to previously undiscovered (and hilarious) antics of history’s most influential figures and institutions, Ben and his team have compiled the absolute best, weirdest and most ridiculous stories in human history.

On a chilly November night in 1987, viewers in Chicago sat down for what they thought would be a normal evening of local news and sci-fi reruns. But what they got instead was something far stranger—a sudden flicker, a buzz of static, and then… him. A man in a rubbery mask, bobbing and weaving before a swaying metal backdrop, his distorted voice crackling through the airwaves like a ghost in the machine.

The hijacker’s messages were bizarre, disjointed, and vaguely menacing—mocking television stations, corporations, and perhaps the very nature of mass media itself. For 90 seconds, the intruder took over WTTW’s broadcast of Doctor Who, turning public television into a surreal and unsettling performance art piece—or a warning.

This case file,tune in as we sift through the static and rewind the weird in…The Max Headroom Signal Hijacking

-Rebel Moon, Zack Snyder, Max Headroom, hijacking, pop culture, 80s television, signal interference, media history, Doctor Who, conspiracy theories, Max Headroom, signal hijacking, broadcast television, AI, media, 1980s, unsolved mysteries, pop culture, technology, communication

In the shimmering psychospace between perception and the unknown, there exists a world not accessible by plane, train, or spacecraft—but by molecule. Dimethyltryptamine—DMT—the so-called “spirit molecule,” has earned its reputation as a chemical key to an entirely different dimension. In mere moments, those who inhale its vapor find themselves blasted beyond the limits of language and reason, tumbling through a fractal landscape and staring wide-eyed at the impossible.

And waiting there, in that kaleidoscopic void? The whispering architects of hyperspace who, according to countless psychonauts, greet travelers with messages, mischief, and sometimes unnerving mirth. Are they figments of a chemically untethered brain, or emissaries from a hidden layer of reality?

This casefile, join the Theorists as they free-fall into the cerebral psychosphere without packing their metaphysical parachutes in…DMT and Machine Elves