The U.S. government says an al-Qaeda informant who warned of a "dirty" nuclear bomb in New York has failed a lie detector test. Shortly after Christmas, a report that six terrorists had entered the U.S. from Canada was retracted.

The Orange Alert remains in effect. The Department of Homeland Security says it was based on more than one report.

But the second incident has some wondering whom to trust in terror alerts, while others continue to believe they are meaningful and potentially accurate.

In Madison Park, Junius Rochester told KOMO 4 News: "We've had so many up and downs, alerts that didn't seem to go anywhere. It's like the old Russian story of wolf, wolf."

Robin Brownstein was more critical: "I think it's an attempt to get people trembling and ready to go to war."

Bob Campbell is more concerned: "(I) try to get my family prepared for anything."

Ronald Woods organized U.S.-British cooperation in the Gulf War. He says occasionally, intelligence goofs can happen. He added: "In that war, we had information that Saddam was training a thousand terrorists in a desert camp, and that if we invaded they would go after targets."

The U.S. and Britain invaded. No one knows if 1,000 terrorists were turned loose, but British Intelligence later told Woods he had been tailed around London -- possibly as a target.

Woods takes intelligence seriously but says government needs to asks questions: "Are these sources good? Does this information look hard? And after that a political judgment, do I release this information or not? And you never know whether it's going to happen or not."

The Department of Homeland Security says the orange alert was based on more that one report. It was based on increased Al-Qaeda chatter and money transfers.

An expert from the Center for American Politics, Steven Livingston, says America must be careful in responding to intercepted messages:

"It is interesting to think about the fact that all Al-Qaeda needs to do is pick up the phone and chat a lot and send messages back and forth a lot and they have achieved their objective," he says. "The objective of terrorism is to raise anxiety, raise concern to sew terror."

Despite the errors and the concerns, local emergency managers say increased watchfulness and increased preparedness helps us all -- in earthquakes and natural disasters and in the 3,000 hazardous material spills that happen every year in our state.