This doesn't add up for me and doesn't pass the smell test. Looking at that dashboard and the way it's set up and knowing PACOM stands for Pacific Command, I'm not buying this story at all. Look at the way that screen is designed. You don't just click one of those and it sends the alert off. The link sets the type of alert (i.e. Amber) and the destination/recipients (i.e county, statewide, etc.). It doesn't set the content. Logically, this must be true. An amber alert needs specifics like, most commonly, the license plate of a vehicle. That means someone clicked that link and then manually filled out the text "this is not a drill". That makes this peculiar sentence from the article make more sense - "I wish I could say there was a simple reason for why it took so long to get the correction to the false alert out". That line from the article struck me as odd the first time around, especially since no explanation at all was offered from what I saw. I believe they really thought there were incoming missiles and that's why they didn't rescind the alert immediately. Let's also remember that when this alert went out the person who sent it as well as anyone else working with them would have received it on their own phones and someone surely would have said "holy shit you just sent out a real nuclear war alert!" And then they would have gone back and filled out different text/content for an updated alert. There is precisely zero chance it took 38 whole minutes for everyone in that place to realize it was a real alert and figure out how to send a follow up.