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Who sent the Joker Amber Alert? Missouri residents get emergency text from 'Gotham City'

'Missouri towns have such whack names, I really assumed that the test amber alert for Gotham City, Mo was a real place,' a Twitter user said

Residents across Missouri were shocked on Tuesday after they received an Amber Alert text on their phones that seemed to be a reference to The Joker from Batman. Around 4:52 pm on January 18, 2022, users got an emergency alert with multiple Batman references, leaving them perplexed. The text read, "GOTHAM CITY MO PURPLE/GREEN 1978 DODGE 3700GT MO UKIDME http://www.bit.ly/MoAlerts." It did not take long for Batman fans to figure out that the vehicle number was a reference to the purple-green car driven by Joker's goons in the 1989 Batman film starring Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson. 

Confused residents started Googling the details repeatedly to find the reason for the cryptic alert, before taking to social media to share the bizarre incident. The Joker Amber Alert soon took over the internet as the 'Believe it or not' news for the day. Many recipients speculated that the Missouri Police systems got hacked and some prankster had sent out the alert until the MSHP issued an official statement to clarify the reality. A confused user took to Twitter immediately after getting the alert, "Bro why the f**k I get an amber alert for gotham city ain’t batman supposed to handle this shit?" 

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It turns out that the DC-esque Amber Alert was accidentally sent out by the Missouri State Highway Patrol (MSHP). The state police explained that faux pas a while later, assuring everyone that the alert was actually a test message sent across the state. Around 5:21 pm, the MSHP also broadcasted a new alert clarifying that it was indeed a test. 

However, that did not stop netizens from sharing their hilarious tweets about their first reactions to the text alert. Writer Brenden Schaeffer tweeted, "I hundred percent googled Gotham City Missouri, so they got me."

Another user shared, "Missouri towns have such whack names, I really assumed that the test amber alert for Gotham City, Mo was a real place." A furious third user tweeted, "Whoever absolutely trolled everyone in the Saint Louis, Mo area with an amber alert for "Gotham city" by a car with the description of the joker's car, I hope you have a rock in your shoe and popcorn kernels stuck in your teeth."

Fox producer Tom Franklin tweeted, "So everyone in Missouri with a cell phone appears to have been pranked with a #Batman -related Amber Alert. 1. There is no Gotham City, MO. 2. The license plate... 3. The car is the exact car Joker's goons used in the 1989 Batman movie. Question is: who accidentally hit "send"?"