A U.S. Air Force fighter wing in Germany accidentally sent out a missile attack warning to its members last week, warning that a missile was inbound and urging recipients to take shelter. The warning was rescinded eight minutes later.

The missile attack warning flashed across screens of computers at the 52nd Fighter Wing at Spangdahlem Air Base. The warning consisted of the words:

Inbound Missile. Severity: High: Type: Other. Missile Inbound. Seek Shelter Immediately! Sites at Risk:

According to Stars and Stripes, a member of the 52nd Wing was creating a template to send out in case of attack. And also promptly sent it out to the entire wing.

A pilot of the 480th Fighter Squadron walks toward his F-16C at Spandahlem Air Base, August 2014. Air Force photo, SSgt Daryl Knee.

Air Force Times quoted the public affairs officer for the 52nd as saying, "Our command post has robust standard operating procedures that govern distribution of actual emergency messages to the wing and have added checklist items to mitigate accidental distribution of test messages in the future," which is bureaucrat-speak for "It won't happen again."

The emoji used in the message is known as the " Flushed Face Emoji ", or 😳. It is also known as the "Blushing Face", "Shame", or "Embarrassment", although the latter only counts for what happened after the message was sent. The actual emoji image varies from platform to platform but the Air Force's AtHoc emergency alert system appears to use the Twitter image.

The 52nd Fighter Wing is a " Wild Weasel " unit trained to attack enemy air defenses in wartime. A wing typically controls two or three fighter squadrons of 24 aircraft each, but the 52nd is comprised of one squadron of 24 F-16C/D Fighting Falcons and two TPS-75 mobile tactical radar systems .

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