Each Friday we travel back in time, one year at a time, for a look at some of the cultural goodies that may appear closer than they really are in The Rear-View Mirror. Join us on our weekly journey into the past!

In Switzerland, where I live, this happens once a year, in early February: all public sirens across the country are tested, sounding the signal for ‘general alert’. When I grew up, in the last dozen years of the Cold War or so, most people would have associated the signal with their fears of nuclear war. If we heard these sirens on any day other than the first Wednesday in February, we’d most likely have to head for the nearest shelter because some hot-headed madman in Moscow had pushed the big red button.

For me, though, that’s not what the sirens meant. For me, they always meant this: the Morlocks are coming.

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