page_title: 2007 Boston Mooninite panic
section_title: Reactions
hierarchical_section_title: 2007 Boston Mooninite panic / Subsequent scare / Reactions
caption_attribution_description: Hollywood Mooninite
context_page_description: On January 31, 2007, the Boston Police Department and Boston Fire Department mistakenly identified battery-powered LED placards depicting the Mooninites, characters from the Adult Swim animated television series Aqua Teen Hunger Force, as improvised explosive devices, leading to an ensuing panic. Placed throughout Boston, Massachusetts, and the surrounding cities of Cambridge and Somerville, these devices were part of a nationwide guerrilla marketing advertising campaign for Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters, a film based on Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
  The incident led to controversy and criticism from a number of media sources, including The Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, Fox News, The San Francisco Chronicle, The New York Times, CNN and The Boston Herald, some of which ridiculed the city's response to the devices – including the arrests of the two men hired to place the placards around the area – as disproportionate and indicative of a generation gap between city officials and the younger residents of Boston, at whom the ads were targeted.
context_section_description: The Boston Globe stated that the "marketing gambit exposes a wide generation gap," quoting one 29-year-old blogger as writing "Repeat after me, authorities. L-E-D. Not I-E-D. Get it?"  The Globe's Brainiac blog was quick to credit bloggers such as Todd Vanderlin and Brian Stuart for being among the first to report on the ad's origin.  The Brainiac blog earned praise from other media outlets for their timely coverage of events, even as the paper continued to report on simply "suspicious objects".
  Los Angeles Times editorials derided the reaction of Boston's officials, remarking, "Emergency personnel and anti-terrorism squads shut down more than a dozen highways, transit stations and other locations across the city Wednesday after receiving reports about multiple suspicious devices. The slender, placemat-sized items had dozens of colored lights, exposed wires and circuitry, and were powered by a row of D batteries wrapped in black tape. In other words, they looked like an upscale version of Hasbro's Lite-Brite, a toy for artistic grade schoolers." Bruce Schneier, a computer security expert and writer on contemporary security issues, summed up the incident as a "non-terrorist embarrassment in Boston".
  The Boston Herald stated that part of the reaction in the response could be blamed on two packages that did not blink. According to Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis, phony pipe bombs were also discovered that day, one inside Tufts-New England Medical Center at 1 p.m. A security guard described "an agitated white male" fleeing saying, "God is warning you that today is going to be a sad day."  The Herald went on to characterize the placement of the devices as a "coordinated hoax." Davis also mentioned other incidents of the day that may have influenced the reaction, including a Washington, D.C. metro stop being shut down due to a suspected package, and fumes emanating from a package at a post office in New York City, resulting in four people being treated there. "It was almost like we had a kind of perfect storm of circumstances falling into place," Davis said.
  The advertising magazine Brandweek said that the incident, which it labeled a fiasco, would cause marketers to "steer clear of guerrilla tactics until the controversy around the Aqua Teen Hunger Force stunt-turned-bomb-scare in Boston dies down." It further said the incident "will no doubt be followed by a reassessment of the potential price of what used to be known as a low-cost method to generate buzz."
  According to Fox News, fans of Aqua Teen Hunger Force mocked Boston officials during the press conference of Berdovsky and Stevens, calling the arrests an overreaction, while holding signs supporting the actions of the two. These signs had slogans such as "Free Peter" and "1-31-07 Never Forget," satirizing Mayor Tom Menino's mentions of 9/11. Other local Boston residents were quoted by local papers. "We all thought it was pretty funny," said one student. "The majority of us recognize the difference between a bomb and a Lite-Brite," said another. One resident said that the police response was "silly and insane," and that "we're the laughingstock." Something Positive, a webcomic written and drawn by Waltham resident R. K. Milholland, also weighed in on the issue. Bloggers on a Boston LiveJournal community commented on channel 4 footage of the first device being exploded and clearly identified it as a "Mooninite," reacting in disbelief.
  Karl Carter of Atlanta-based Guerrilla Tactics Media said fans of the show Aqua Teen Hunger Force would recognize the character and think it was funny, but other people who saw the signs wouldn't get the joke. "This is probably better set up for nightclubs and other sorts of scenarios where the people that are receiving the message, one, would know what it's about, but also two, wouldn't be frightened," he said. "You know, if you put these in certain environments, like public spaces in this post-9/11 sensitivity, then of course you're going to wind up in trouble." Make magazine editor Phillip Torrone said the advertisers should have used 
caption: Err advertisement located in Los Angeles
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