When the tape began, Turner fled the room in a fit of emotion, but what the New Yorker reporter described watching is precisely the video posted by Ballaban. Then Turner slipped a tape into a VCR, and explained that he knew “we would only sign off once”, so he asked a military band to play Nearer My God to Thee for a camera. Turner told the reporter (who wrote during the pre-byline era of the New Yorker’s “Talk of the Town” section) that the rumors about the video were true, and then showed it in his Georgia office, after a speech about how “if we don’t become extinct by exhausting the planet’s natural resources, then we’ll destroy ourselves through nuclear war”. There is also indirect confirmation of the video’s authenticity through the diligent work of fact-checkers at the New Yorker, who in 1988 were presented with an article about Turner and his ultimate broadcast (paywall alert). The band fits too: the band’s regiment, US Army Forces Command, is legible above an identifiable logo on the bass drum of a percussionist in the video Georgia’s nearby Fort McPherson was base for US Army Ground Forces Command until 2011. The reflecting pool before which the band plays has been removed since the 1980s, but is clearly visible in photos and video of the mansion from the decade. The video clearly takes place at CNN’s then headquarters in Georgia, the Turner mansion, identifiable by the distinctive, devil-horn shape of the facade above the door frame. Neither CNN nor a representative for Turner, who left his management roles at the network’s parent company in 2006, replied to requests for comment, but details of the video seem to corroborate it was actually made for broadcast during an apocalyptic event such as a nuclear holocaust – a very real threat in June 1980. The video fades to black.īallaban said the video was well known at CNN six years ago and remains so today, although it took some effort to track down: “It’s one of those things you only look for if you’re a really bored intern or have a lot of time on your hands.” The low resolution obscures the faces of the musicians, who finish a brief version of the song and snap their instruments to attention. One soldier raises a flag to the right, the musicians raise their instruments, and they begin the mournful hymn mentioned by Turner – said by survivors to be the last song played by the band on the Titanic. The grainy video posted to Jalopnik on Monday, lasting little more than a minute, shows just what Turner said it would: a military band stands in formation between the columns of the Turner broadcasting mansion and the circular reflecting pool that lay on the lawn in the 1980s. The source who provided him the video also took screenshots of its home in CNN’s Mira archive, under the all-caps heading of “TURNER DOOMSDAY VIDEO – HFR till end of the world confirmed.” (HFR means “hold for release”, though the circumstances of what authority should, could or would confirm the apocalypse to a CNN employee, and how – and what that employee should consider when weighing whether to publish the video as he or she and the remnants of humanity stared down the ruination of our species, apparently via CNN broadcast – are unfortunately all omitted.) When that time comes, we’ll cover it, play Nearer My God to Thee and sign off.”īallaban told the Guardian he first saw the video while interning at CNN in 2009, after hearing about it from a professor who had ties with the network. The legend has circulated for decades, boosted by Turner’s own words in June 1980, when he said, “We’re gonna go on air June 1, and we’re gonna stay on until the end of the world.
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