Hawaii employee who sent false missile alert thought U.S. was under attack

The Hawaii Emergency Management Agency officer who sent out an alert warning of a “ballistic missile threat” says he didn’t do so because he mistakenly pushed the wrong button, as Hawaiian authorities initially reported.

He truly believed the U.S. was under imminent attack.

A night-shift supervisor decided to subject morning crew workers to an unannounced drill exercise. But something went wrong, according to the initial findings of an investigation by federal officials. Although the recording for the drill included the phrase “exercise, exercise, exercise,” the audio also mistakenly included: “This is not a drill.”

The officer who issued the alert provided a written statement to the Federal Communications Commission explaining that he did not hear the “exercise, exercise, exercise” portion of an unscheduled drill exercise and only heard “This is not a drill.”

Read more: Hawaii’s governor forgot his Twitter password and couldn’t correct false missile alert

He said he therefore believed the emergency was real. The FCC has yet to interview the officer in person.

The alert infamously triggered mass panic in Hawaii for about 38 minutes on the morning of Jan. 13. The alert went out at 8:07 a.m., and although it took just one minute for the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency to realize it had made an error, it took more than a half hour for that information to be communicated to the public, many of whom started calling family and friends to say goodbye.

At 8:09 a.m., the governor was notified of the false alert, but he forgot his Twitter password and was unable to quickly get a corrective message out.