Turn your key, sir.

August 19, 2008 4:20 PM

Are there any documented instances of disaster/apocalypse training exercises where the participants could not be sure if it was real or not?

I was watching this episode of Spooks (MI5 in the US), which follows the team through a simulated nerve gas attack on ten British cities. As the episode progresses, the increasingly agitated group begins to suspect that the incident may be real, their fears fuelled by news broadcasts, crackly video linkups with other control centres and so on.

Another good example of this is the "Turn Your Key Sir!" scene from Wargames.

I find the whole idea of these kinds of exercises, the pressure they place on civil and military forces and the post-event effects of believing something truly terrible has happened absolutely fascinating.

Are there any books, documentaries, articles or websites which discuss this kind of immersive simulation, and its effects on preparedness and the people involved?

posted by Happy Dave to grab bag (13 comments total)

Possibly: War of the Worlds radio broadcast.
posted by nitsuj at 4:24 PM on August 19

Yeah, the War of the World's broadcast is a cracker of a story, but I think I'm looking more at closely controlled 'hothouse' situations rather than accidental public hysteria. Thanks for the link though.
posted by Happy Dave at 4:26 PM on August 19

The classic examples of the modern era would be both the 9/11 attacks and the 7/7 bombings in London, given that exercises happening at the same time closely simulated the attacks, including (in the case of 7/7 attacks) events in the same locations, which added greatly to the confusion and slowed response time. You have flight controllers and NORAD asking repeatedly if an incident is "real world or exercise", for example, during 9/11.
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 4:47 PM on August 19

I'm not sure if this qualifies, but there was De Grote Donorshow in the Netherlands, a fake reality show.

The shtick was that a terminally ill person was going to donate one of her kidneys to three potential recipients, and viewers were asked to vote which person was most deserving of an organ donation. It all seemed very creepy, and there was a big controversy in the days leading to the show.

The "donor" was an actress. However, all three potential recipients were real and knew the show was fake. They hoax was aired in order to make a point about the real need for more organ donation. Money made from the callers and text messengers was directed to a related charity.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 5:10 PM on August 19 [1 favorite]

exercises where the participants could not be sure if it was real or not?

If you put this through a thought experiment, you'll see that first of all, "real or not" is generally very difficult to pull off, and second, "real or not" is not actually the condition they need to train for.

Consider the risk of having someone react with real ammunition to a simulated attack, for example. Or a paramedic giving medication to a simulated victim. There are numerous comparable examples depending on what is being simulated.

In the second column, you don't want people trained to react because they think something is real, as if they would only step lively with a real threat to spur them. You want them trained to react according to plan based on specific discrete triggers. The actual simulation may well give them some experience with the adrenaline surge or whatnot that will apply when/if the real thing happens, but very often the purpose is as much about testing response procedures rather than individual nerve. The debriefing will be about whether people are trained and the procedures are correct rather than whether the simulation was "realistic" enough.
posted by dhartung at 5:50 PM on August 19 [1 favorite]

It's kind of far field, but you of course should research the Milgram Experiments. The subject matter wasn't anything as catastrophic as the destruction of whole towns, but participants were led to believe that they had caused an innocent stranger to suffer and perhaps die. Many who participated in Milgram Experiments were pretty horrified by the experience.
posted by Ms. Saint at 6:45 PM on August 19

A great answer from dhartung, and, to add to it: the point of training for crisis reactions is to enable people to react in real crises with the calm and focus with which they react to (known as such) exercises and simulations. This how you get soldiers who will advance towards the enemy who is shooting at them, doctors who will treat a ward full of highly-contagious patients, compliance officers who will bring down the hammer on popular, high-powered executives whom they suspect of wrong-doing, etc.
posted by MattD at 6:45 PM on August 19 [1 favorite]

I don't know if this counts, but in Madison, WI when I grew up, they had tornado drills every Wednesday at 12:05 pm. The locals knew what it was and ignored them, but the tourists would get all concerned.

One summer, we had an actual tornado touch down in Madison, at 12:05 pm, on a Thursday. I was at the zoo at the time. Everyone heard the sirens - and ignored them, despite it not being a drill, and despite the greenish-purple skies overhead. It took the zoo staff getting on the loudspeaker system, telling everyone that this was the real thing, for the visitors to take shelter in the Primate and Bird houses.
posted by spinifex23 at 9:14 PM on August 19 [1 favorite]

I just watched a movie, which I heard about from another post here, called Fail Safe. The original older version is here, but I haven't had time to watch it yet. It touched on a flaw in the strategic air command system which has a similar effect, not knowing what is real or false. Very well done and the ending was superb.

As for real events that have had this situation come up, I would definitely point you towards lots of information available about NORAD tests occuring on 9/11, simultaneous to the attacks, as well as training excercises in London on 7/7.
posted by mr.anthony337 at 10:48 PM on August 19

This is a personal story, and probably not on the large scale you are talking about, but I'll share it anyways.

When I was growing up, I spent 3 or 4 summer breaks at Boy Scout Camp in the Rocky Mtns. The first (or 2nd?) year I was there.. the staff at our specific campsite (roughly 30 to 40 boys as I recall) created a mock rockclimbing accident scene complete with fake blood and climbers stuck high up on ledges suffering from shock,etc. My memory of it is fairly vivid, although I'm sure as a younger man it had more impact on me. The one thing I do remember quite vividly though was the "debriefing" and impact it had teaching me the true meaning of "Be Prepared". It was probably one of the first times in my life I saw a real world example/lesson in why its important to keep a level head during chaotic situations. (and to some degree I credit that experience with having some influence on my current solid calm demeanor when things get difficult)
posted by jmnugent at 5:16 AM on August 20

Similar to De Grote Donorshow above there was a show a few years ago on British television, Space Cadets, where they convinced a group of people they have flow into space in a Russian Shuttle like vehicle (actually a wood-built simulator in a hanger in a British air field). They went to huge efforts to make it seem real and specially selected the people for their gullibility and lack of scientific knowledge (like accepting that the normal gravity was due to being in 'near-space' and the space-craft having 'gravity compensators') to get away with it.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 6:55 AM on August 20

Well, is wasn't a planned even but there was the 1983 Incident involving Stanislav Petrov. Very similar to the end of WarGames.
posted by Who_Am_I at 8:17 AM on August 20

even = event
posted by Who_Am_I at 8:17 AM on August 20