You can't blame this one on Orson Welles.
The famed actor and director was said to have terrified the nation on October 30, 1938 with a radio adaption of H.G.Wells' science fiction epic "The War of the Worlds" where Martians invade the earth and cause all manner of interplanetary aggravation.
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Some historians question just how many Americans were convinced that little green men were actually roaming around their backyards, but the story became the stuff of broadcast legend.
And this brings us to present-day Florida, which is admittedly not the most inventive segue we could think of, but nevertheless some Sunshine State residents had a rather rude awakening in the wee small hours of April 20.
Florida Officials Apologize for Early Wake Up
Emergency management officials said an “Emergency Alert” test issued at 4:45 a.m. was sent out to people's cell phones by mistake, WFTV reported, which is early even for a Martian.
“The whole of the emergency management community apologizes for this error and steps will be taken to prevent it from occurring again,” officials said.
Officials said that there will be large-scale exercises simulating major, multi-patient medical emergencies on April 20.
People in Florida may see increased ambulance traffic around the hospitals, but no part of this exercise will impact patient care.
So far, it appears the test was only sent out in Florida.
The incident seems to have rattled a good number of cages if social media is any indication.
"Been awake ever since. What idiot decided to set the alarm off at that time?!" one person tweeted.
"Can we come together and sue the hell out of someone over this?" one tweet read.
"I have my sound turned off," another resident noted. "However it was also on TV. And it kept repeating itself. I am on cat time so I am up early anyways.
False Alarm Leads Some to Disable Alerts
"Nope didn’t hear a thing - slept like a baby," another commenter said. "turned it off years ago -if real Emergency my Dog will wake me up."
One person said that he had disabled certain alerts, "but I want to know when we go to war with China or North Korea."
"There’s NO need for a TEST to be done that early," he tweeted. "This will cause many people to just disable it altogether!"
Hey, it could've been worse.
In 2013, hackers broke into the emergency systems for two television stations located around Marquette, Mich. and put fake alerts warning people of zombie attacks--yeah, seriously--in various counties in the state's Upper Peninsula.
And 2018 people in Hawaii got a doomsday scenario delivered right to their phones claiming an incoming missile was about to give them a 20-megaton aloha.
The Federal Communications Commission attributed the bogus warning to human error when an unnamed human "pushed the wrong button."
WFTV reporter Alexa Lorenzo probably had the best reaction to the Florida misstep.
"Early Emergency Alert test," she tweeted. "Now that you’re up, tune in to @WFTV."
