Yes, mine has done that, too, 3 times, and all in the wee hours of the morning. It's such a startling, odd noise that it scares the pants off of me!

Yes, my phone receives Amber and other emergency alerts. It is alarming! It reminds you to turn your phone OFF when you really don't want it to make noise.

http://www.amberalert.gov/

"

AMBER Alert

Did you receive an AMBER Alert on your phone? Learn more about the new Wireless Emergency Alert program.

As of January 1, 2013, AMBER Alerts™ will now be automatically sent through the Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) program to millions of cell phone users. If you have a WEA-enabled phone, you are automatically enrolled for the three alerts: President, Imminent Threat and AMBER Alerts. The addition of AMBER Alerts to this notification system is a result of a partnership between CTIA and the wireless industry, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)."

In addition to my cell, my home phone gets alerts (missing dementia people) from the local police department.

Oh wow I had no idea. I never had them before but we have new phones and both went off. Thanks for educating me! I learned something new today.

I had that happen only once, driving alone on the freeway, and it nearly gave me a heart attack. I thought there was some kind of emergency condition with the car or on the freeway--high speed chase or something.

I think you can delete amber alert notifications. contact your provider to learn how to do it. They are scary aren't they? I wonder how much help they really are, oh well, even if one life is saved I guess that's good enough

ETA go to settings, click notifications, scroll down til you get to Amber alerts. turn it off.

I had an Amber Alert once, last summer while vising my sister in Md. Got another alert last month while on the road in our RV. It was a tornado alert. It said if you get this alert take shelter immediately! I was terrified. We went into Cabelas for over an hour til the winds and rain finally eased up.

I told DH give me 2' of snow and a blizzard any day, I can handle that. This tornado stuff is for the birds!

Yes, I get emergency cell broadcasts. I think it is a great system to have.

I was at a party a few years ago when suddenly everyone's phones were going off at once because of severe weather.

We had enough advance notice to leave and make it to our respective homes safely.

I also just got the AMBER alert for Texas.

If you open up settings, you will see this screen or one similar.

If you click on emergency broadcasts you will see a screen like this.

You can disable whatever you wish, except I believe presidential alerts.

Now THAT would be scary to receive!!

Mine has done it in the middle of the night, I just hate that! Like I can do something about these things. I finally turned off all alerts.

I would never disable my alert. Mine has gone off here a couple of times, once when my mom was in the car with me. I explained to her what it was, and told her to keep an eye out for the 2012 Camry, or whatever make of vehicle it was that had a little girl inside. You never know when you might be able to save someone's life.

My iPhone did that on the very first night that I had it, I nearly had a heart attack! I disabled it on my phone since we live out in the woods and I'm home 95% of the time.

I looked through every single thing in my settings and there's nothing like that on mine. I looked at all the various notification lists and everything else. Maybe some phones can't turn off. I would not turn them off especially since it could warn of bad weather.

This was our first experience with it. Now we know what it is.

Raven, perhaps you can at least adjust the sound in your ringer settings? Having the alert wouldn't be bad if it weren't so intrusive as to make you have an accident!

I turned off all of my alerts. Nothing I can do about it when I am asleep at 1:30 in the morning. It will be on my Facebook page when I wake up in the morning, I will see it before I ever leave the house.

Raven, what kind of phone do you have? Plllog, o don't believe adjusting volume will alter the volume of emergency broadcasts.

Could Texas Gem and bossyvossy be giving Iphone advice?

On my Android phone (Android 4.4.4), for those with those, under Settings, Sound, Emergency Tone, the choices are Off, Alert, and Vibrate. I have mine Off. I don't do none of them there emergencies. I still get the message, just without any drama.

I have Sprint and I get severe weather alerts.

We got an Amber Alert on our cellphones when we were vacationing in Arizona.....first time we had seen it.

How to turn them off on iPhone

More on Android

Windows 10 phone

TG, I think you're right. I thought the tone itself was adjustable, but I can't find a reference for it (I'm using an older OS).

I think having a wake you up tone is great for extreme weather alerts. I assume that Presidential is for things like the 9/11 attacks, so also good. For just strong weather alerts, however, when if you're tucked in bed you're likely safe, and for Amber alerts, when you're not going to be doing anything to help from bed, they should be silenced in Do Not Disturb mode, and you should be able to adjust the regular tone to something that won't make you crash your car! A little moderation is a great thing. They defeat the purpose of the whole thing by making it an opt in/opt out choice only.

Snidely- I am on an Android, running 6.0.1. I just checked and my emergency tone is set to silent and I still get the buzz and sound.

Could you check your emergency broadcast settings? Perhaps there is a setting in there (though I don't see one on mine) that allows the message to be displayed without any noise.

plllog- it depends on the weather I suppose. We not only have the emergency broadcasts but we also subscribe to weathercall which will call our phones when a tornado warning is issued.

I can't count the number of times we have gone to the basement in the middle of the night. Gotta love living in tornado alley! ;)

Amen Texas gem! Any warnings in our kind of weather is a welcome.

Wouldn't that count as "extreme"? The tornadoes? Even if they're common? "Strong", I presume, would be the ubiquitous "winter storm warning", which is good to know, but not a jump to act sort of thing if you're not going out, and okay to miss while you're sleeping.

TG, my setting is "Off" at the location I mentioned. In the Emergency App, everything is off except Presidential emergencies, grayed out so you can't turn it off. I must have done something with this in the past, I'm not sure.

I don't remember ever hearing any alert tones but to be honest, maybe I have and I ignored it. The only emergency I consider valid here is an earthquake, something for which no advance warning is available nor is a message to advise that one is happening needed. At bedtime I activate airplane mode.

Plllog- I do see your point. The only severe (not extreme) alerts I have received late at night had to do with flash flooding, which doesn't affect me but very well could affect some of my low lying neighbors, and severe thunderstorms which produce high winds and large hail.

I personally keep these alerts activated. Straight line winds can and do cause a lot of damage BUT, it isn't something I'm prepared to wake up in the middle of the night to suddenly batten down the hatches for. Large hail however? If my phone buzzes in the middle of the night for severe thunderstorms with straight line winds and producing large damaging hail, I will get up, get my outside dogs and bring them inside.

Whether that warning was sent at 2 PM or 2 am, my response would be the same. Protect my animals.

I guess what I'm saying is that, at least for me and the rather extreme weather we have around here, I still would want to be notified, even if it is the middle of the night so I can take steps to minimize damage and protect my pets and/or property.

I can't testify to what qualifies as severe weather in other parts of the country, I only know my own stomping grounds.

I've never been annoyed or awoken by a useless weather report. Every one I have received was not only valid, but acted on immediately to protect my family, property or pets, regardless of the hour.

I could see how getting a winter advisory in the middle of the night when you are safe and warm in your bed and knew a winter storm was coming could be an annoyance though, it just isn't my experience in my part of the country.

Snidely (and others) next time you upgrade your phone, check out the new settings.

I have an option under emergency broadcasts labeled earthquake tsunami warning system.

I have mine disabled since I live in an area of the country that basically has no earthquakes and definitely no tsunamis.

While poking around I also stumbled upon the advanced "do not disturb" settings my phone has.

I have not used any of these so I can not verify them but, apparently my new phone has the option to disable all calls, alerts, etc for specified time periods. (Weekday evenings, weekends, etc)

I don't know how this interacts with the emergency broadcast system but I did find it amusing that mobile providers FINALLY figured out a way to let mobile users leave their phone "off the hook". Talk about backwards engineering right?

Yes, a tsunami could have hours or even days warning, just not the earthquake itself. Sometimes we get tsunamis without being aware that there was a big quake to the West, so a warning would be good. The main thing, however, is if you see the water going away like the Red Sea in the bible, don't gawk! Head to high ground.

Re the storm warnings, I think it's more circumstance than climate. We do sometimes get big hail, but with the animals and car undercover, it's not something to rush out about. It's my citified viewpoint that made me forget seeing to the animals. That's certainly a good reason to be wakened. The time period settings you have sound useful. But my point was that it's good that one can choose the settings for each type to be on or off, but it would be better if one could set them to something in between, where there was an alert sound that didn't blast you out of your chair.

I had a similar situation and similarly jumped. I wasn't sure of its source but after a bit picked up one of the phones and there was an amber alert. Happened another time or two. Haven't had it happen for a while now.

They should have it start quietly then get louder so it's less likely to startle people. I bet less would opt out.

That's a really good idea, Chi.

That's an excellent idea, Chi! This happened to me in the car and I thought something catastrophic happened to it--glad I didn't cause an accident because I panicked. Yes, the noise scared me.