A repost of a story first linked to in 2007
http://www.timboucher.com/journal/2007/01/04/jesus-christ-help-us-all-lord/
On January 2nd, a major primetime television broadcast in Australia was interrupted by about 7 minutes (or 10, depending who you ask) of a bizarre audio loop. Our Australian correspondent on the ground, “astepoutside”, fills us in on the details:
It was a show about train disaster or something, then suddenly an audio loop that it says in the story was saying “Jesus Christ, one of the Navarines” started playing over and over again… for 6 minutes straight. The most surreal TV watchig experience i have ever had. The only thing is, I swear that it was saying “Jesus christ, god save us all now” when I head it..
The program was called “Mayday” or possibly “Mayday: Head On Collison.” Okay, here we go. “Mayday” is the name of a television series about disasters, also known as Air Emergency in the United States, and Air Crash Investigation in the rest of the world. Another source gives the synopsis for the “Head On Collision” episode as being:
“A calm trip through the Rocky Mountains ends in disaster when a VIA Rail train slams head-on into an enormous freight train; how did the two trains wind up on the same piece of track?; an inquiry makes shocking discoveries about freight train management.”
How did the two trains wind up on the same track indeed? How did audio from one program and video from another get broadcast together for such a long time on a major television station?
Official news reports on the subject are sketchy at best:
THE Seven Network has apologised to viewers after receiving complaints about a major technical glitch which interrupted a prime-time transmission tonight.
The program, Mayday Head on Collision, which began airing at 7.30pm, was interrupted for several minutes by an audio track.
“It was an unfortunate technical error which was rectified as quickly as possible,” a Seven Network spokeswoman said.
“It only went to air in NSW and Victoria and the program resumed as soon as the error was corrected.”
The spokeswoman said the program’s vision went to air with different audio, which included the words “Jesus Christ”.
“It’s up to interpretation of exactly what was said, but we are working on ensuring it doesn’t happen again,” the spokeswoman said.
“We apologise to any viewers that were watching at the time.”
The other news item I have seen about this has slightly more information but is equally as dodgy:
A Seven spokesman said a technical glitch was responsible for the religious message being broadcast in Victoria and NSW.
The spokesman said the network was always “spreading the good word”, but not in a biblical sense.
“It was a technical glitch due to an audio problem with the tape,” he said.
“The line actually is ‘Jesus Christ one of the Navarines’ and this is from the documentary.
“It was not a prank, but one of those things that happen from time to time. The tape was stuck or something glitched between 7.35pm and 7.41pm, and we did everything we could to fix the problem as quickly as possible. Once everything was sorted, the program continued.”
However, thanks to the power and glory of YouTube, you can evaluate the audio track for yourself. In my opinion, they are quite clearly saying “Jesus Christ, help us all Lord” (with maybe a “fuck” at the end)
Also see this shorter clip from another person:
What’s interesting is that apparently the audio source has been most probably identified. And it just so happens to be another video available on YouTube:
Go to minute 2:07 of this video and compare the two.
So we have a number of questions to follow:
- Why did this happen at all?
- Why did it happen for so long?
- Why did it happen where and when it happened?
- Is there any particular significance which can be drawn out of this?
- Why did news reports of this clearly misrepresent what was being said in the audio?
- Is it possible other people actually heard different audio wherein Jesus being a “Navarine” (Nazarene?) was heard?
- What’s with the connection to the “Halliburton Ambush Iraq” video on YouTube?
Very intriguing media mystery!
Yup