You may remember a few years ago when pranksters hacked one of those big electronic road signs in Texas and changed it to read “ZOMBIES AHEAD.” The story made the news all over the country, and brought to light the fact that such signs are often not secured with passwords they way they ought to be (though they are physically locked, requiring vandals to actually break in to make changes).
Well, it seems some Doctor Who fans in Boulder, Colorado decided to put the security on those signs to the test themselves. It seems that after breaking the locks on the sign’s control box, they found that security on the sign was again not quite as tight as it should be, so they changed it to warn passersby of a Dalek invasion:
Tampering with road signs is illegal, and authorities in Boulder are currently investigating the situation in an attempt to ascertain how the vandals were able to break in and change the message.
If you’re one of the all-too-many Americans who aren’t familiar with Doctor Who, the Daleks are the Doctor’s primary nemesis (think the Borg in the 1990s Star Trek: The Next Generation). First introduced in 1963’s The Dead Planet, the Daleks have cropped up regularly throughout Doctor Who‘s nearly 50-year run, nearly always bent on exterminating all non-Dalek life. Their squawky voice and distinctive trash can-like shape have made them one of the most iconic villains in science fiction history. In the video below, you can see them facing off against another of the Doctor’s most fearsome enemies, the Cybermen: