Thread by @dave_brown24

All this talk about threats in the Persian Gulf has me thinking about the time I kept us from going to war with Iran.*

*OK, none of that's true. But bear with me. You'll see what I mean in a minute.

On Jan. 6, 2008, three U.S. warships that were transiting the Strait of Hormuz into the Persian Gulf were approached by five speedboats belonging to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy.

The boats "harassed and provoked" the warships, the Pentagon said, by coming within 200 yards of one of the ships. The Navy said one of the boats threatened to "explode" the warships over the radio. After several warnings, the boats sailed on.

The Navy denounced the maneuvers; Iran said they were routine. President George W. Bush called the encounter "provocative" and a "dangerous situation." He was days from heading to Israel to discuss the peace process, so people were already on edge.

On Jan. 10, the Pentagon released a four-minute video of the incident. In it, you can see a sailor communicating with someone on the boats, telling him he was getting too close and reminding him they were in international waters. The boats can be seen tearing through the waves.

Then it gets sporty. A low voice comes over the radio and says "I am coming to youuuuuuu." After a sailor tells him to alter his course immediately, the voice adds "you will explode in a few minutes." The sailor can be heard repeating the phrase to someone on the bridge.

Watch it for yourself. The first communication comes at 3:15, the second one at 3:44

You can imagine how people reacted. This was a little over seven years after the attack on the destroyer Cole, and the tragedy was still fresh in sailors' minds.

Iran called the footage a fabrication and released its own video of the incident. It's pretty much a guy on a boat using the open channel to talk to the cruiser Port Royal and requesting the ship's course and speed

At this point, other media outlets were casting doubt on the U.S. recording. After all, the guy making the threat doesn't sound like the guy on the boat. And the background is quieter. Scroll up and listen to it again.

In January 2008, I was managing editor at Navy Times. One of my reporters, Andy Scutro, stopped by my office and told me that on his ship embarks, he'd heard about radio hecklers who hassle Navy crews, especially when they go through the Strait.

I'd never heard that, but we started making calls anyway. I got retired Capt. Rick Hoffman, former CO of the cruiser Hue City, on the phone. I asked him about the heckler. "You know," he said, "I was just thinking the same thing."

He told me the radio prankster was called the "Filipino Monkey." I closed my eyes. What a terrible term. I feel bad typing it, but that's what he's called.

“For 25 years there’s been this mythical guy out there who, hour after hour, shouts obscenities and threats,” Hoffman said. “He could be tied up pierside somewhere or he could be on the bridge of a merchant ship.”

“He used to go all night long. The guy is crazy,” he said. “But who knows how many Filipino Monkeys there are? Could it have been a spurious transmission? Absolutely.”

He's right. It's not one guy. It's a floating handle for anyone who wants to make mischief. Sometimes it's someone on shore, other times it's Navy sailors themselves. It's 2 a.m., they get on the radio and make a bunch of monkey sounds. It gets boring out there, folks.

I called another skipper, same story. Andy got the same thing. We called the Navy, who said they included the audio to give the public the whole picture. They even put Gary Roughead, the four-star chief of naval operations, on the phone.

“Based on my experience operating in that part of the world, where there is a lot of maritime activity, trying to discern [who is speaking on the radio channel] is very hard to do,” he said.

“The reason there is audio superimposed over the video is it gives you a better idea of what is happening,” he said.

The problem, of course, was that the American people watching all this on the news didn't know about the monkey. I sure didn't.

Andy and I published our story on Jan. 11, and it went nuts. You can read it here: 911blogger.com/node/13357, since it's not on Navy Times anymore. It felt like the whole world picked it up. I did a bunch of radio and TV hits. I even appeared on Fox & Friends.

See?

I wonder if @stevedoocy and @kilmeade remember the story.

I don't have a screenshot, but the lower third at the time said "Monkey Business." Truly a chyron for the ages.

All that makeup ruined my new shirt, by the way. I hadn't learned some of the anti-pancake measures that the pros use.

So did we stop a war with Iran? Of course not. As I mentioned, people were already casting doubt on the audio. All we did was throw out a theory that may or may not be true. I like to think that we turned the temperature down on a single incident that could have escalated.

Anyway, it's worth keeping in the back of your mind while we all wait to learn more on the intelligence that prompted this latest round of collective nervousness.

Be calm, be skeptical, look at all the angles.

And watch out for monkeys.