12:32 a.m. Sunday, April 27 1986, John R. MacDougall, a satellite TV dealer in Ocala, Florida was working at Central Florida Teleport, a company that uplinks services to satellites. He was overseeing the uplink for the now-defunct pay-per-view service, People's Choiceof the movie Pee Wee Hermans Big Adventure (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pee_Wee_Herman#Pee-wee.27s_Big_Adventure). At the end of his shift he swung the dish back in to its storage position pointing directly upward which happened to be the location of Galaxy 1 (http://www.panamsat.com/global_network/galaxy_1r.asp), the satellite that carries HBO. As a protest against the introduction of high fees and scrambling equipment which was blamed for the downturn in revenue in his business he transmited a signal onto the satellite over the top of the current signal which read as follows:

GOODEVENING HBO

FROM CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT

$12.95/MONTH?

NO WAY!

(SHOWTIME/MOVIE CHANNEL BEWARE)

MacDougall chose the name "Captain Midnight" from a movie he had seen recently called On the Air Live with Captain Midnight (1979 imdb.com) (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079664) After media pressure forced the Federal Communications Commission to act, MacDougall was charged and plea bargained a $5,000 fine and was placed on one year's probation.

External links

• Source: The Story of Captain Midnight (http://www.signaltonoise.net/library/captmidn.htm)