Holy False Alarm, Batman! Highway Patrol accidentally issues alert for Joker's getaway vehicle

"What are you waiting for? The Signal!" Apparently someone within the Missouri State Highway Patrol is a fan of Tim Burton's Batman, since they erroneously sent out an emergency alert to be on the lookout for the Joker's getaway vehicle.

As reported by Yahoo! Entertainment, a message that read: "Gotham City MO purple/green 1978 Dodge 3700 GT," was sent out to the state's blue alert system on Tuesday. This is a reference to the car that the Joker's gang used in Burton's 1989 film. The alert also mentioned a license plate saying "UKIDME," which was another reference to the comic book villain, played by Jack Nicholson in the film.

Well, it turned out to be a false alarm, as the message was only supposed to be a test of Missouri's blue alert system. Shortly after the alert was mistakenly sent out to mobile devices across the state, the highway patrol tweeted: "This was meant to be a test message, THERE WAS NO ALERT."

Later, the state highway patrol issued a news release explaining the snafu. "Today, a routine test of Missouri's Blue Alert system was inadvertently sent to wireless devices statewide," the release stated. "The Patrol regularly tests the Blue Alert system to ensure it works properly when needed. During the test, an option was incorrectly selected, allowing the message to be disseminated to the public. There is no Emergency Alert at this time. The Patrol appreciates the public's understanding and support of the Emergency Alert program."

To be fair, this is a far better private message accidentally made public than the time President Ronald Reagan nearly kicked off World War III, but still, holy misuse of official state equipment! Maybe they should look into installing a full-on Bat-signal next time, just to avoid any problems?

Seriously, though, mad props to whomever made the message: they clearly know their Batman trivia. That kind of thing goes a long way here at SYFY WIRE.