The AMBER Alert system was created in Texas in 1996 after the abduction of nine-year-old Amber Hagerman, and it later expanded across the United States as a way to broadcast urgent information about missing children quickly. As the alerts moved to mobile phones, television and radio, the loud warning tone became familiar to millions of people who had never heard it in an emergency. Online, creators borrowed that instant recognition, turning a public-safety signal into a shorthand for something missing, lost or suddenly urgent.