amber alert war

Ontario Amber Alert had people freaking out thinking Ukraine war escalated bigtime

Many woke up to a jolt when the Ontario Provincial Police issued a province-wide Amber Alert at 6 a.m. Friday morning. Luckily, the alert was cancelled just 45 minutes later when the missing one-year-old girl was found safe and a man was arrested according to Waterloo Regional Police, but some initially thought the alert was something else entirely.

With tensions running high amid the largest European war unfolding since World War II, waking up to the deafening wail of alert tones from digital devices and televisions had some people thinking their worst fears may have come true overnight.

In case you've been cut off from world events, tensions between eastern and western powers are higher than they've been since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and a full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces has worrying hashtags like #worldwar3 trending on Twitter.

While there have been no direct confrontations between Russian and NATO forces that would escalate this to a global conflict, a lot can happen overnight, and the alert was enough to make some groggy-eyed Ontario residents panic before they read the message on their phones.

As with every Amber Alert, people whined on Twitter about the unexpected wake-up call, though this round of complaints — while still coming off as indifferent to the fate of a missing child — were fuelled by concerns of an already tense situation overseas spiralling further out of control.

The jarring alert tone — similar to what one would hear during a national emergency — ringing out during early morning had some ready to pack up and head for the hills.

It only really took a moment to actually read the alert and realize that there was no impending nuclear attack, a conclusion people probably shouldn't be racing to in the first place.

Lead photo by

Jack Landau


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