The emergency mobile alert sound, reviewed

The Spinoff

25-05-2025

Another test, another shocking reminder of the emergency alert noise. We asked some experts to describe that indescribable sound.
First published in 2023 shortly after yet another emergency alert.
Over the past few days, weeks, months, years, people across the country have had their lives periodically punctuated by a loud warning screech emitting from their phone. Some of these have been warning of unusually heavy rain, others of a nationwide lockdown, most recently of Cyclone Gabrielle. It's a dreaded sound that many will be increasingly (and unfortunately) familiar with – but how exactly would you describe it? The start of the dial-up tone? The traffic lights at the start of Crash Team Racing? Or like the gates of hell opening up for us once more?
We asked some of our finest writers, musicians and thinkers to weigh in.
Sharon Lam, Writer
It 100% sounds like a robot Pingu going NOOT NOOT, right? With glowing red eyes? Surely everyone will also say this?
Joanna Cho, Author
I'm with my nieces in Auckland and I said 'the alarm sounds like Pingu' and they said 'what's that' and I put on Pingu on YouTube and now they're lying around my work computer watching Pingu so I can't work, fine by me.
The Beths, Band
The notes that make the tone wouldn't be out of place in a song like Silence Is Golden, but if we did that, we'd have a count in! No count in is just wrong. It's also twisted how it calls and answers to itself when you're in a group of people. It's a bit of a musical cheat code – it is 'harmony', but most harmony suggests a place it wants to go, or at least a place it came from – that's what brainy musicians call 'function'. The emergency tone screams for attention, but doesn't really suggest any movement. Ironically, this makes it musically 'non-functional'.
Haz Beats, Producer
A Tsunami siren. The big panic apocalypse end of the world type lol. Definitely a siren.
Jess Molina, Writer
Sounds like I'm about to panic over not panic-buying toilet paper
Toby Morris, Illustrator
I remember reading about the concept of 'the brown noise' in WWII, where they researched finding a perfect note that'd loosen any bowels. I feel like the emergency noise has gotten close to that, combined with the visual equivalent – when they researched the most unpleasant possible colour which they used for non-labelled cigarette packaging. It's giving uncomfortable meets unnatural meets poo, basically.
Aaron Yap, Psychic Glands DJ
It sounds like a chintzy 1950s sci-fi movie robot vaporising you with its laser beam.
Alan Holt, International Manager at New Zealand Music Commission
Off the top of my head it reminds me of a quite a few things – side two of Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music around the 10 minute mark, a less musical interpretation of 'Don't Take' from Sachiko M's Sine Wave Solo album and a less funky take on 'Sonata Number 5 (the 'Detroit Sonata')' from Bruce Russell's album Circuits of Omission : Sonaten für synthetisierten Klang (Opus 60).
Nick Ascroft, Poet
This sounds like a mouse ambulance reversing. As it should.
Jane Yee, Treasure Island Star
It sounds like all my nightmares coming true in one ear piercing screech. I physically left the couch vertically skywards when yesterday's one arrived. Usually have my phone on silent but I had been playing League of Legends Wild Rift on my phone which requires sound on and forgot to switch it back. I will never be the same again.
Britt Mann, PR Maven
The sound is getting familiar to me now. On Sunday it emanated separately and all at once from various corners of the house. The flatmate, the cat and I met each other's gaze in an instant. 'Was that…?' 'Yeah.' Severe, significant event. Red Alert Level Gabrielle. 'Top up?' She cracked the magnum of red we'd opened to mark the Beginning of the End of Days.
Janaye Henry, Comedian
If I was to Shazam that sound I reckon it would say Skrillex, Bangarang.
Reuben Jelleyman, Acoustician
The sound itself is basically the same as a phone dial tone but the emergency mobile alert is higher and richer in resonant sideband frequencies which makes the sound harsher. You also have the two beeps, which gets your attention. One beep would be easy to ignore. From my perspective the sound is strong enough to get your attention, but it's not meant to be harsh, it's to provoke fear. I would say it's easy to associate feelings with sound, that's normal. When we hear the alarm, it reminds us of the last time we were anticipating a tsunami or a storm and that puts us on edge.
Sanjay Patel, Comedian
It sounds like the government is alerting you to the fact that they have now finally discovered the most sordid thing you have searched for on the internet.
Imogen Taylor, Painter
If the alert was a painting it would probably be a whole exhibition of paintings and that exhibition would be in some art museum in some country quite far away that you'd been really excited about travelling to but when you got there you realised you got the museum dates mixed up and instead of there being a Georgia O'Keeffe retrospective on there was a fucking Banksy retrospective on and then to top it off you paid for the tickets which were horrendously expensive and went inside to look at the bullshit paintings but then realised whatever you had for lunch from that place on the corner outside the museum before you went in wasn't sitting right in your gut and you immediately need to find the bathroom somewhere.
Rose Hoare, Writer
It sounds antique to me. Like if they had emergency mobile alerts on Bridgerton, that's what they'd sound like.
It sounds like a boomer ringtone to me. The kind that would be mildly irritating in an office environment. You learn to block it over time, but it will always give you an inner eye roll and feeling of superiority. It doesn't exactly evoke authority. Or urgency for that matter.