BOONE, IA – On Thursday afternoon, an Amber Alert test was received by cell phones across the US…only, no law enforcement agencies initiated the test.  According to iowaamberalert.org, “ONLY A LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCY MAY ACTIVATE THE AMBER ALERT The goal of the AMBER Plan is for the safe recovery of missing children that a law enforcement agency believes have been abducted and are in danger of serious bodily harm or death. The AMBER Alert Activation is not to be used for runaway cases or parental abduction cases, unless the life of the child is in grave danger.”

According to Boone County Emergency Management Director Dave Morlan, his sources says that the notification was indeed an Amber Alert test, but it was not meant to be sent out to phones across the US.  The National Center of Exploited Children was running what they thought was an internal test of the notification.  Somehow, the text broke out of what was to be a closed testing environment and triggered cell phone messages throughout the country.  The National Center for Exploited Children has apologized for the distribution of the test.