Sean Stevens died on March 23 of cancer. He was 47. In January 2007, Stevens and fellow artist Peter Berdovsky placed battery-powered LED signs depicting Mooninites — characters from the Adult Swim cartoon Aqua Teen Hunger Force — around Boston as part of a guerrilla marketing campaign for the show's upcoming film. The signs, which depicted a pixelated cartoon alien flipping its middle finger, triggered a citywide bomb scare that shut down highways, bridges, and parts of the Charles River. [1][2]

The incident became a cause celebre. Boston authorities charged Stevens and Berdovsky with placing hoax devices to incite panic. The men faced up to five years in prison for what was, by any reasonable assessment, a cartoon on a circuit board. Turner Broadcasting, which owned Adult Swim, eventually paid $2 million in restitution to the city. The charges against Stevens and Berdovsky were resolved with community service. [3]

The Mooninite panic became shorthand for two things simultaneously: the absurdity of post-9/11 security theater and the vulnerability of a public trained to see threats in everything. Stevens and Berdovsky, at their post-arrest press conference, refused to discuss the case and instead answered only questions about hairstyles — a performance piece within a performance piece that infuriated officials and delighted the internet. [1]

Berdovsky announced Stevens' death on Facebook, calling him "a deeply inspirational human." Stevens spent his later years as an artist and inventor. The Mooninite signs are now in private collections. The panic they caused is in the history books. [2]

-- MAYA CALLOWAY, New York