If you are a resident of Middlesex, Monmouth, Morris and Ocean counties in New Jersey and on Verizon, you may had a scary text message sent to your cell phone.  Verizon pushed out a test text message at 12:26pm to warn people to take shelter before 1:24pm to central New Jersey residents.  State Police and Homeland Security were immediately on investigation.

According to Monmouth County Sheriff Shaun Golden, the text was marked as an “extreme alert” stating there was a “civil emergency” in the area.  Sheriff Golden noted that there was “Quite a spike in 911 calls.”

Verizon stated the alert was suppose to say “test message.”  Residents in the central Jersey area has been told to ignore the alert and not to worry.

Verizon has sent out an apology to anyone who may have received this alert.

This test message was not clearly identified as a test.  We apologize for any inconvenience or concern this message may have caused.

Homeland Security immediately put word out on Twitter that there was no civic emergency.

If you live in this area, did you receive the alert?  Many statements are noticing that 99% of the population who have received the alert are on the Android OS and iOS devices.  Let us know below.