When the alert went off, be honest, did you think the Russia had launched one?

[Tping]

When the alert went off did you, for a fraction of a second, think Vlad had finally snapped and pressed the button?

Disappointing if he had because I if I’d known, I’d have added more loo roll to the Tesco delivery.

Yep. That was all I could think of. "Make it stop!" We're bombarded by alerts and notifications all the time, as a curse of the modern age, and most of the time I don't even look at something designed to "grab my attention". If I'm interrupted from doing something by some advert or sales pitch, that makes me even less likely to pay attention to it. I do think that if the government are not careful, and use them very sparingly indeed, over-use of these alerts could make them counter-productive.

Nope. I keep hoping for aliens if I’m honest

Assumed it was weather related. Maybe bad storms heading our way.
Dd is 19 and did think it was the Russians. Had to explain as a child in the 80s that was all old hat to me.

No,in East Sussex it went off at 7pm. we were watching a crime film, momentarily thought it was in the film, then the inverter alarm on the solar, which does alarm in hot weather.. The way a lot of idiots reacted during the eclipse proved people actually need to be warned. Thousands of people had eye issues, hospitals set up "eclipse clinics". my DD showed me people boasting about their eye problems on there. shame they didn't do one then.

I assumed it was related to the fires, not WW3.

I was quite pleased when I read the message because I remember 1976 when we had weeks and weeks without rain. The moment the Government finally got round to thinking about doing something - appointing a Minister for Drought - the heavens opened!

No, I thought some sort of malware had got onto my phone - the noise was horrible!

I was whatsapping at the time and just thought my phone had malfunctioned.

It went off on my husband's phone first and I just thought he was watching a TikToc and was annoyed at him 🤣

No. I wasn't in earshot of my phone but DH and I were in the same room as his phone. I just thought "why's his phone making that strange noise"? And actually thought he'd set an alarm/timer for something.

I think it would have been different if I'd been somewhere with lots of other people and lots of phones going off. When the "test" happened last year we were sitting in the cafe at Dunwich Heath (the irony!) and it was very odd when all the phones went off together

It crossed my mind for a second, and I won't lie.
We are living in unpredictable times where some very unstable people have devastating weapons at their disposal so my stomach dropped for a millisecond.
The wildfires are less of a threat to human lives but what effect will this loss of habitat have on our wildlife?.
Where are they supposed to go now we have 20.0000 new homes being erected each year in our small country?.
None of this is good.

I'd been having a conversation with ChatGPT a few minutes earlier (I think I was asking it about the news or something) and had put my phone down to fold some washing. When I heard the alarm my first thought was that I'd said something to trigger the AI to freak out!

Nukes didn't cross my mind. I think if things ever got to that point we'd see more of a gradual cold war style build-up. Why would Putin randomly nuke us now? I fully understand why it's many people's first thought though.

I thought someone had left the fridge door open. It beeps to tell you off in a whiny tone. The volume is low on my phone though so I can imagine it would have been different had it been at full blast. I never got any of the practice ones.

I was on a busy LNER train whizzing towards London. When the carriage filled with the racket of everyone's phones going off. I thought at first it was a train alarm, given that a couple of trains have....fallen over rather recently. And sure enough we started to slow down.

I realised pretty quickly what it was and, having slowed almost to a stop, we picked up speed very quickly again. Which makes me think the driver freaked out and made a similar mistake to me! Far too much of a coincidence. 🤔

I was expecting a delivery and have a Ring doorbell that alerts on my phone. I immediately thought my doorbell was having some sort of breakdown in the heat, then looked at my screen and realised it was an alert.

I don’t have stereophonic hearing so didn’t have a clue where whatever the noise was, actually was.

Maybe these alerts should announce ‘this is your phone sending you a government alert about XXX’. Then I’ll know what the noise is, and @Tping will know it’s not bloody Putin.

Would the Labour government be better putting their efforts into banning disposable bbq and Chinese lanterns and bonfires ?

Nope. I didn't realise it was the emergency alert, so was more concerned it was some sort of device in the house or the motorhome warning of imminent danger or a major fault. I was relieved when it was a phone alert

I think it’s a legitimate response to a request from emergency services. If it prevents one fire from breaking out, it could save many millions of pounds, people’s homes, land and wildlife and even human lives.

I didn't actually hear it over the racket my kids were making, so I just read the message on the screen the next time I picked my phone up.

I sort of hoped so...I don't want to die under the "care" of the NHS. Nuke would be much kinder.

Nope. Didn't even cross my mind.

I don't think the Government would even put out an alert if we had missiles inbound.

There would be no time for anyone to do anything other than mass panic.

I don't know of a safe place to run to, and the chance of me getting there in under five minutes, amid a crowd of other panicking people, is nil.

When it went off, given the huge number of wildfires recently, and especially after what happened in Stourbridge, my first thought was that it was a local alert, warning of fires nearby.

Yes I did, but then I went to check my phone and sadly it was a weather warning instead.

Oh well, another day living in clown world I guess. 🤡

Nope.

My first thought was 'what the fuck is this, its all in Welsh' 😂I live in Wales and the first one came through in Welsh. Had to ask my DD to translate, which she did. Then we got a second one in English.

But no, we assumed it was to do with the wildfire situation in the UK which was clear (if you have been following the news) had become an emergency situation.

No. Had already seen the first thread about it so was actually looking it up on the government website when it went off. My cat however from his reaction clearly thought another fox had got through the cat flap and was eating his food, next doors dog was in the garden again, and there was a national shortage of dreamies. He was furious with me for allowing the false alarm.

Quite a few people on this thread did not know what it was, so plenty of people here living under rocks.
I had the alert once before when they first tested it but had not committed that sound to memory, so did not know what it was yesterday.

I was outside, the phones were inside and I thought it might be the neighbour's smoke alarm.

The thread has been useful for me as I have now turned off the alert sound, and it will only vibrate next time.