The War of the Worlds (radio drama)

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For the 1968 remake, see The War of the Worlds (radio 1968).
"Panic Broadcast" redirects here. For the Soilwork album, see The Panic Broadcast.
The War of the Worlds
Genre Radio drama
Running time 60 minutes
Home station CBS Radio
Starring
Announcer Dan Seymour
Writer(s)
Director(s) Orson Welles
Producer(s) John Houseman
Orson Welles
Exec. producer(s) Davidson Taylor (for CBS)
Narrated by Orson Welles
Recording studio Columbia Broadcasting Building, 485 Madison Avenue, New York
Air dates since October 30, 1938 (1938-10-30)
Opening theme Piano Concerto No. 1, by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

The War of the Worlds is an episode of the American radio drama anthology series The Mercury Theatre on the Air. It was performed as a Halloween episode of the series on October 30, 1938, and aired over the Columbia Broadcasting System radio network. Directed and narrated by actor and future filmmaker Orson Welles, the episode was an adaptation of H. G. Wells's novel The War of the Worlds (1898).

The first two thirds of the 60-minute broadcast were presented as a series of simulated news bulletins, which suggested to many listeners that an actual alien invasion by Martians was currently in progress. Compounding the issue was the fact that the Mercury Theatre on the Air was a sustaining show (it ran without commercial breaks), adding to the program's realism. Although there were sensationalist accounts in the press about a supposed panic in response to the broadcast, the precise extent of listener response has been debated.

In the days following the adaptation, however, there was widespread outrage and panic by certain listeners, who had believed the events described in the program were real.[1] The program's news-bulletin format was described as cruelly deceptive by some newspapers and public figures, leading to an outcry against the perpetrators of the broadcast. Despite these complaints, the episode secured Welles' fame as a dramatist.

Contents

Background [edit]

Orson Welles in 1937 (age 21), photographed by Carl Van Vechten

H. G. Wells's original novel relates the story of an alien invasion of Earth. The radio play's story was adapted by and written primarily by Howard Koch and Anne Froelick with input from Welles and the rest of the Mercury Theatre on the Air staff. The setting was switched from 19th-century England to contemporary Grover's Mill, an unincorporated village in West Windsor Township, New Jersey in the United States of America. The program's format was a (simulated) live newscast of developing events. To this end, Welles played recordings of Herbert Morrison's radio reports of the Hindenburg disaster for actor Frank Readick and the rest of the cast, to demonstrate the mood he wanted.

The broadcast employed techniques similar to those of The March of Time, the CBS news documentary and dramatization radio series.[2] Welles was a member of the program's regular cast, having first performed on The March of Time in March 1935.[3] The Mercury Theatre on the Air and The March of Time shared many cast members, as well as sound effects chief Ora D. Nichols.

The first two thirds of the 60 minute play was a contemporary retelling of events of the novel, presented as news bulletins. This approach was not new. Ronald Knox's satirical newscast of a riot overtaking London over the British Broadcasting Company in 1926 had a similar approach (and created much the same effect on its audience). Welles had been influenced by the Archibald MacLeish dramas The Fall of the City and Air Raid, the former of which had used Welles himself in the role of a live radio news reporter. However, the approach had never been taken with as much continued verisimilitude, and the innovative format has been cited[by whom?] as a key factor in the confusion that followed.

Though realistic, the play does use timeskips, at one point going from the start of a battle to its final casualty count within a minute.

A 2005 BBC report suggested, that Welles may have been influenced by that 1926 broadcast by Ronald Knox on BBC Radio. Knox's hoax broadcast mixed breathless reporting of a revolution sweeping across London with dance music and sound effects of destruction. Knox's broadcast caused a minor panic among listeners, who did not know that the program was fictional.[citation needed]

Plot summary [edit]

The program, broadcast from the 20th floor at 485 Madison Avenue in New York City, starts with an introduction from the novel, describing the intentions of the aliens and noting that the adaptation is set in 1939, a year ahead of the actual broadcast date.[4] The program continues with a weather report and an ordinary dance band remote featuring "Ramon Raquello and His Orchestra" (actually the CBS orchestra under the direction of Bernard Herrmann) that is interrupted by news flashes about strange explosions on Mars. Welles makes his first appearance as the (fictional) famous astronomer and Princeton professor Richard Pierson, who dismisses speculation about life on Mars.

The news grows more frequent and increasingly ominous as a cylindrical meteorite lands in Grover's Mill, New Jersey. A crowd gathers at the site. Reporter Carl Phillips (Readick) relates the events. The meteorite unscrews, revealing itself as a rocket machine. Onlookers catch a glimpse of a tentacled, pulsating, barely mobile Martian inside before it incinerates the crowd with Heat-Rays. Phillips's shouts about incoming flames are cut off in mid-sentence. (Later surveys indicate that many listeners heard only this portion of the show before contacting neighbors or family to inquire about the broadcast. Many contacted others in turn, leading to rumors and confusion.)

Regular programming breaks down as the studio struggles with casualty updates, firefighting developments and the like. A shaken Pierson speculates about Martian technology. The New Jersey state militia declares martial law and attacks the cylinder; a message from their field headquarters lectures about the overwhelming force of properly equipped infantry and the helplessness of the Martians in Earth's gravity until a tripod alien fighting machine rears up from the pit.

The Martians obliterate the militia, and the studio returns, now describing the Martians as an invading army. Emergency response bulletins give way to damage reports and evacuation instructions as millions of refugees clog the roads. Three Martian tripods from the cylinder destroy power stations and uproot bridges and railroads, reinforced by three others from a second cylinder as gas explosions continue. An unnamed Secretary of the Interior (Kenny Delmar) advises the nation. (The secretary was originally intended to be a portrayal of Franklin D. Roosevelt, then President, but CBS insisted this detail, among others, be changed. Welles directed Delmar to nonetheless imitate Roosevelt's voice.)

A live connection is established to a field artillery battery. Its gun crew reports damaging one machine and a release of black smoke/poison gas before fading into the sound of coughing. The lead plane of a wing of bombers broadcasts its approach and remains on the air as their engines are burned by the Heat-Ray and the plane dives on the invaders. Radio operators go active and fall silent, most right after reporting the approach of the black smoke. The bombers destroyed one machine, but cylinders are falling all across the country.

This section ends famously: A news reporter, broadcasting from atop the CBS building, describes the Martian invasion of New York City – "five great machines" wading across the Hudson River, poison smoke drifting over the city, people running and diving into the East River "like rats", others "falling like flies" – until he, too, succumbs to the poison gas. Finally, a despairing ham radio operator is heard calling, "2X2L calling CQ. Isn't there anyone on the air? Isn't there anyone on the air? Isn't there... anyone?"

After an intermission for station identification, in which announcer Dan Seymour mentions that the show is fiction, the last third is a monologue and dialogue. Welles returns as Professor Pierson, describing the aftermath of the attacks. The story ends, as does the novel, with the Martians falling victim to earthly pathogenic germs, to which they have no immunity.

After the play, Welles informally breaks character to remind listeners that the broadcast was a Halloween concoction, the equivalent, as he puts it, "of dressing up in a sheet, jumping out of a bush and saying, 'Boo!'". Popular mythology holds this "disclaimer" was hastily added to the broadcast at the insistence of CBS executives as they became aware of panic inspired by the program; in fact, it had appeared in Koch's working script for the play.[5]

Public reaction [edit]

The New York Times headline from October 31, 1938

Some listeners heard only a portion of the broadcast and, in the atmosphere of tension and anxiety prior to World War II, took it to be an actual news broadcast.[1] Newspapers reported that panic ensued, with people across the Northeastern United States and Canada fleeing their homes. Some people called CBS, newspapers or the police in confusion over the realism of the news bulletins.[6][7]

Future Tonight Show host Jack Paar had announcing duties that night for Cleveland CBS affiliate WGAR. As panicked listeners called the studio, Paar attempted to calm them on the phone and on air by saying, "The world is not coming to an end. Trust me. When have I ever lied to you?" When the listeners started charging Paar with "covering up the truth", he called WGAR's station manager for help. Oblivious to the situation, the manager advised Paar to calm down, saying it was "all a tempest in a teapot."[8]

In Concrete, Washington, phone lines and electricity went out due to a short-circuit at the Superior Portland Cement Company's substation. Residents were unable to call neighbors, family or friends to calm their fears. Reporters who heard of the coincidental blackout sent the story over the news-wire, and soon Concrete was known worldwide.[9]

Within one month, newspapers had published 12,500 articles about the broadcast and its impact. Adolf Hitler cited the panic, as Richard J. Hand writes, as "evidence of the decadence and corrupt condition of democracy."[10]

Causes [edit]

Radio Digest reprinted the script of The War of the Worlds — "as a commentary on the nervous state of our nation after the Pact of Munich" — prefaced by an editorial cartoon by Les Callan of The Toronto Star (February 1939)

Later studies indicate that many missed the repeated notices about the broadcast being fictional, partly because The Mercury Theatre on the Air, an unsponsored cultural program with a relatively small audience, ran at the same time as the NBC Red Network's popular Chase and Sanborn Hour. About 15 minutes into Chase and Sanborn, the first comic sketch ended and a musical number began, and many listeners began tuning around the dial at that point. According to the American Experience program The Battle Over Citizen Kane, Welles knew the schedule of Chase and Sanborn and scheduled the first report from Grover's Mill at the 12-minute mark to heighten the audience's confusion. As a result, some listeners happened upon the CBS broadcast at the point the Martians emerge from their spacecraft. Because the broadcast was unsponsored, Welles and company could schedule breaks at will rather than structuring them around necessary advertisements. As a result, the only notices that the broadcast was fictional came at the start of the broadcast and about 40 and 55 minutes into it.

A study by the Radio Project discovered that some who panicked presumed that Germans, not Martians, had invaded.[11]

"The shadow of war was constantly in and on the air. People were on edge", wrote Welles biographer Frank Brady:

For the entire month prior to The War of the Worlds, radio had kept the American public alert to the ominous happenings throughout the world. The Munich crisis was at its height. Adolf Hitler, in his address to the annual Nazi party congress at Nuremberg in September, called for the autonomy of the Sudetenland, an area on the Czech border regions populated by three million Sudeten Germans, as they were called. Hitler ranted and lied over German radio … For the first time in history, the public could tune into their radios every night and hear, boot by boot, accusation by accusation, threat by threat, the rumblings that seemed inevitably leading to a world war.[12]

Extent [edit]

Later studies suggested the panic was less widespread than newspapers had indicated at the time. During this period, many newspaper publishers were concerned that radio, a new medium, would render them obsolete. In that time of yellow journalism, print journalists took the opportunity to suggest that radio was dangerous by embellishing the story of the panic that ensued.[13]

Hand cites studies by unnamed historians who "calculate[d] that some 6 million heard the CBS broadcast; 1.7 million believed it to be true, and 1.2 million were 'genuinely frightened'". NBC's audience, by contrast, was an estimated 30 million.[10]

Robert E. Bartholomew grants that hundreds of thousands were frightened but calls evidence of people taking action based on their fear "scant" and "anecdotal".[14] Indeed, contemporary news articles indicate that police were swamped with hundreds of calls in numerous locations, but stories of people doing anything more than calling authorities mostly involve only small groups. Such stories were often reported by people who were panicking themselves.[11]

Aftermath [edit]

In the aftermath of the reported panic, CBS responded to public outcry by pointing to reminders throughout the broadcast that it was a performance. Welles and Mercury Theatre escaped punishment but not censure; CBS is believed to have had to promise never again to use "we interrupt this program" for dramatic effect.[citation needed] However, many radio commercials to this day do start with the phrase "We interrupt this program". The notoriety of the broadcast led the Campbell Soup Company to sponsor the show; The Mercury Theatre on the Air was renamed The Campbell Playhouse.

Many listeners sued the network for "mental anguish" and "personal injury". All suits were dismissed, except for a claim for a pair of black men's shoes (size 9B) by a Massachusetts man, who spent his shoe money to escape the Martians. Welles insisted the man be paid.[15]

A meeting between H.G. Wells and Orson Welles was broadcast on Radio KTSA San Antonio, a CBS affiliate, on October 28, 1940. Wells expressed a lack of understanding of the apparent panic and suggested it may have been only pretense, like the American version of Halloween, for fun. The two men and their radio interviewer joked with embarrassment about the matter.

Legacy [edit]

Title page of the original typescript for The War of the Worlds, on the cover of the Sotheby's auction catalog (December 14, 1988)

On December 14, 1988, the original radio script for The War of the Worlds was sold at auction at Sotheby's in New York by author Howard Koch. The typescript bears the handwritten deletions and additions of Orson Welles and producer John Houseman. It was thought to have been the only copy of the script known to survive.

"The police came in after the broadcast and seized whatever copies they could find as evidence, I suppose", Koch told The New York Times. "There was a question that we had done something that might have criminal implications." Expected to bring between $25,000 and $35,000,[16] the script sold for $143,000 — setting a record for an article of entertainment memorabilia.[17] "I had a private offer of $60,000", Koch said after selling the 46-page script, which had been in his file cabinet for years. "They advised me to take the gamble. I guess it was the right gamble."[18]

A second surviving War of the Worlds radio script — Welles's own directorial copy, given to an associate for safekeeping — was auctioned June 2, 1994, at Christie's in New York. Estimated to bring $15,000 to $20,000, the script was sold for $32,200.[19] The successful bidder was filmmaker Steven Spielberg, whose collection also includes one of the three balsa "Rosebud" sleds from Citizen Kane. Spielberg adapted The War of the Worlds for a feature film in 2005.[20][21]

The New Jersey Township of West Windsor, where Grover's Mill is located, commemorated the 50th anniversary of the broadcast in 1988 with four days of festivities including art and planetarium shows, a panel discussion, a parade, burial of a time capsule, a dinner dance, film festivals devoted to H. G. Wells and Orson Welles, and the dedication of a bronze monument to the fictional Martian landings. Howard Koch, an author of the original radio script, attended the 49th anniversary celebration as an honored guest.[22]

Awards [edit]

On January 27, 2003, the Mercury Theatre broadcast of The War of the Worlds was made part of the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress.[23]

Re-airings and adaptations [edit]

 This article is in a list format that may be better presented using prose. You can help by converting this article to prose, if appropriate. Editing help is available. (October 2011)

Since the original Mercury Theatre broadcast, there have been many re-airings, remakes, reenactments and new dramatizations of the original. Many American radio stations, particularly those that regularly air old time radio programs, re-air the original program as a Halloween tradition.

  • In February 1949, Leonardo Paez and Eduardo Alcaraz produced a Spanish-language version of Welles's 1938 script for Radio Quito in Quito, Ecuador. The broadcast set off panic in the city. Police and fire brigades rushed out of town to engage the supposed alien invasion force. After it was revealed that the broadcast was fiction, the panic transformed into a riot. Hundreds attacked Radio Quito and El Comercio, a local newspaper that had participated in the hoax by publishing false reports of unidentified objects in the skies above Ecuador in the days preceding the broadcast. The riot resulted in at least seven deaths, including those of Paez's girlfriend and nephew. Paez moved to Venezuela after the incident.[14][24][25]
  • [KHOW, Denver / WBIG, Washington, D.C.] Two different remakes created by writer/producer Bob Karson aired ten years apart, both on Halloween night. The first, "War of the Worlds 1987", on KHOW in Denver, ended with a 10-minute mostly ad-libbed monologue by Charlie Martin (the acerbic half of the Hal and Charlie morning show), in the station's bomb shelter, as the last man on earth. Karson's "War of the Worlds 1997" on Washington, D.C. station WBIG-FM treated the nation's capitol to a Martian invasion. In addition to a speech from Bill Clinton above the mayhem in Air Force One, this version has a scene in which Mayor Marion Barry tries to communicate with one of the capsules and is zapped. (Both were played by actors.)
  • In 1975 the ABC Television Network broadcast a telemovie docudrama about the 1938 broadcast called The Night That Panicked America, starring Vic Morrow, Meredith Baxter and Paul Shenar as Orson Welles.
  • Northwest Missouri State University aired a TV version of the original show for their 2006 Halloween special, supplemented by fake footage of an interview with an astronomy professor, the aliens landing outside of Maryville, Missouri, and people running through the streets in terror.
  • In March 2011, Toronto's Art of Time Ensemble staged a show about the presentation of the radio drama featuring Marc Bendavid, Nicholas Campbell and Don McKellar, sound effects artist John Gzowski, and ten musicians performing a newly commissioned medley of Bernard Herrmann film scores.[31]
  • In October 2012 Lock Haven University's Radio club did a special version of the broadcast, with the script adjusted so most of the events happened in Lock Haven.
  • In October 2012, students at the University of Connecticut and members of the Windham Theatre Guild performed an adaptation of the script on WHUS, with the first half of the story occurring in Eastern Connecticut, and incorporating the events of Hurricane Sandy.[32]

Influence [edit]

Monument in Van Nest Park, Grover's Mill, New Jersey, memorializing the fictional Martian landing site (October 1988)

It is sometimes said the news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was received with skepticism by the American public, as a consequence of the radio performance.[33] In the 1943 film Air Force, when the attack is reported on the radio a character asks if they have Orson Welles tuned in.[34]

The plot of the 1994 TV movie Without Warning centers around Earth being hit by three meteor fragments. The filmmakers acknowledged their debt to The War of the Worlds, and the film was first broadcast on CBS TV on the 56th anniversary of the radio broadcast. It was broadcast with a disclaimer identifying it as fictional, as the 1983 TV movie Special Bulletin had been. NBC placed disclaimers in an October 1999 TV movie dramatizing possible effects of the Y2K bug though it was unlikely to be confused with reality.

In 2005, Danish radio station P2 announced a plan to broadcast a remake of The War of the Worlds on September 3 of that year. As the broadcast was about to start, an announcer interrupted the show to report a fake story about a biological terrorist attack on Copenhagen.[citation needed]

References in fiction [edit]

 This article may contain minor, trivial or unrelated fictional references. Trivia or references unimportant to the overall plot of a work of fiction should be edited to explain their importance or deleted. (August 2012)
  • In the 1940 Mickey Mouse cartoon Tugboat Mickey, Mickey,Goofy,and Donald destroy a tugboat after hearing a SOS on the boat's radio.It is later revealed that it was just a radio show.Thus, the three attack and drown the radio.
  • In the 1946 Looney Tunes cartoon short Kitty Kornered, a group of house-cats which includes a Sylvester look alike get revenge on Porky Pig for putting them outside for the night by disguising themselves as aliens and waking him with a fake radio alert about "men from Mars".
  • In Woody Allen's 1987 film Radio Days, the broadcast prompts a female character's date to abandon her in the car and run away in panic, making her have to walk six miles home. The next day, the date calls her but she refuses a further invitation by claiming she has "married a Martian".
  • The 1968 novel Sideslip by Ted White and Dave Van Arnam takes place in an alternative history, where aliens took advantage of the confusion following the broadcast to carry out an actual invasion.
  • In the 1990 film Spaced Invaders, a crew of dimwitted Martians intercepts radio signals from a rebroadcast of the performance and believes the entire Martian invasion fleet is moving in, leading them to land on Earth.
  • In a Halloween episode of Hey Arnold!, Arnold and Gerald conduct a radio broadcast in an attempt to scare the residents of Arnold's boarding house. The broadcast is inadvertently picked up by a paranormal investigator, who mistakes it as legitimate and re-broadcasts it across the city as a real news bulletin.[35]
  • The Doctor Who audio drama Invaders from Mars is set in New York City at the time of the broadcast. Unusual events occurring in the city's underworld mirror the radio story.
  • "Battle for the Planet", an Animaniacs segment starring Pinky and the Brain, features the Brain's plan to recreate the broadcast and take over the world during the panic he believes (wrongly) will ensue. Instead, the much more sophisticated viewing audience finds the obvious hoax hilarious.
  • The TaleSpin episode "War of the Weirds" centers around several characters' competing and escalating hoaxes about travel to Mars and Martian invasions.
  • In an episode of The Flintstones, a radio broadcaster sparks panic in Bedrock by warning of an imminent invasion by the "Way-Outs", which is really just a music group resembling The Beatles wearing odd costumes.
  • In an episode of the short-lived animated series adaptation of Dennis the Menace, Dennis and his cohorts visit a radio station studio to record a radio play for a school project. Their play is accidentally broadcast, which deprives invading Martians of the element of surprise and leads to their defeat by the townspeople.
  • In the 1987 Newhart episode "Take Me to Your Loudon", local TV programmer Michael Harris tries to duplicate Welles' feat, and succeeds, by airing the 1953 movie version of War of the Worlds and sending the entire town into panic.
  • Touched by an Angel features parts of the original broadcast in a 1996 Halloween episode titled "The Sky is Falling", where an old man had to deal with the trauma he endured during the nationwide panic, including the death of his father due to a misfire by a paranoid citizen.
  • The November 4, 2007, episode of Cold Case deals with a fictional murder, that took place during the panic surrounding the original 1938 radio broadcast.
  • In "Panic", a 1997 episode of HBO's Perversions of Science, alien invaders disguised as humans mistakenly believe, that a War of the Worlds -style broadcast is announcing an unexpected invasion of Earth by their people.
  • The Simpsons has alluded to the broadcast several times. In "Radio Bart", Homer buys Bart a microphone, that can be used to broadcast on nearby radios. Bart tricks Homer into believing a Martian has eaten the President of the United States. Marge mentions the broadcast in passing during the introduction to "Treehouse of Horror IV". And "Treehouse of Horror XVII" features a segment titled "The Day the Earth Looked Stupid", in which a hoax broadcast inspires a brief panic in Springfield circa 1938. Aliens then destroy Springfield after no one believes they are really aliens.
  • In the Futurama episode "Lrrreconcilable Ndndifferences", the head of Welles (voiced by Maurice LaMarche) is recruited to re-perform his famous broadcast to make an alien ruler's wife believe he had actually conquered Earth.
  • An Adventures in Odyssey episode, "Terror From the Skies", is based on and makes many references to The War of the Worlds. Like Orson Welles' broadcast, it features a dramatized radio broadcast, that tells about an alien invasion of Earth.
  • EC Comics did a story in Weird Science, where a TV network decides to a televise a remake of the broadcast. To avoid confusion, they publicize the event weeks ahead of time. A real invasion occurs the same night, and as the station breaks into the hoax report with a real report, no one believes it.
  • In Superman #62 (January/February 1950) published by DC Comics, Welles learns of an imminent Martian invasion. Everyone except Superman dismisses Welles's radio warnings as another hoax.
  • Crimson Glory's song "March to Glory", an introduction to their album Astronomica, contains clips from The War of the Worlds other 20th-century radio broadcasts. The next song on the album is entitled "War of the Worlds", and is about an alien invasion.
  • Pinback's song "Boo" from the album Blue Screen Life uses sound bites from the broadcast, including the infamous "2X2L calling CQ" line, at the beginning. The sound bites correlate to the lyrics of the song, which describe a sinking submarine.
  • In both the 1955 film version and 2011 stage version of The Ladykillers, Mrs. Wilberforce mentions, that one of her neighbors had reported a suspected alien invasion, but that it had turned out, that she had fallen asleep in front of the radio and woken up whilst a sci-fi series was being played.
  • In the Arthur episode "D.W. Aims High", the character of D.W. Read shows fear of aliens. Her father explains, that it's okay to be afraid by telling D.W. about Orson Welles's radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds.
  • In the Wingin' It episode "Announce of Prevention", first aired in 2012, protagonist Carl Montclaire recreates the radio play on the advice of Drama teacher Mrs Lennox. The premise of the episode is, that Carl is placed in charge of the school's tannoy announcements to help Principal Malone pass his evaluation by promoting studying. With the help of his guardian angel Porter Jackson, Carl convinces the entire school, that an alien invasion is taking place, and that the only way to defend against the attackers is to study science and find their weaknesses. Carl later follows this up with a fake zombie invasion.
  • In a segment of Taz-Mania entitled The Man from M.A.R.S. Taz listens to a spoof of The War of the Worlds and is convinced, that Earth was being invaded by Martians after seeing Marvin the Martian arriving for a R&R vacation at Tazmania and disrupts his vacation thinking, that Marvin the Martian was going to invade earth.

Current ownership [edit]

The estate of scriptwriter Howard Koch owns the rights to the radio broadcast.[36][37]

See also [edit]

References [edit]

  1. ^ a b Brinkley, Alan (2010). "Chapter 23 - The Great Depression". The Unfinished Nation. p. 615. ISBN 978-0-07-338552-5. 
  2. ^ Fielding, Raymond, The March of Time, 1935–1951. New York: Oxford University Press 1978 hardcover ISBN 0-19-502212-2 page 13
  3. ^ Welles, Orson, and Peter Bogdanovich, edited by Jonathan Rosenbaum, This is Orson Welles. New York: HarperCollins Publishers 1992 ISBN 0-06-016616-9 hardcover, pages 74, 333
  4. ^ In the intro, Welles says, "In the thirty-ninth year of the twentieth century came the great disillusionment."
  5. ^ Howard Koch, The Panic Broadcast, 1970.
  6. ^ "Radio Listeners in Panic, Taking War Drama as Fact" (reprint). New York Times. 1938-10-31. "In Newark, in a single block at Heddon Terrace and Hawthorne Avenue, more than twenty families rushed out of their houses with wet handkerchiefs and towels over their faces to flee from what they believed was to be a gas raid. Some began moving household furniture. Throughout New York families left their homes, some to flee to near-by parks. Thousands of persons called the police, newspapers and radio stations here and in other cities of the United States and Canada seeking advice on protective measures against the raids." 
  7. ^ Campbell, W. Joseph. (2010). Getting it wrong : ten of the greatest misreported stories in American Journalism. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 39. ISBN 978-0-520-26209-6. 
  8. ^ Bloomfield, Gary (2004). Duty, Honor, Applause: America's Entertainers in World War II, Part 810. Globe Pequot. ISBN 1-59228-550-3 978-1-59228-550-1 Check |isbn= value (help).  Page 37. Accessed 08-22-09.
  9. ^ KIRO listeners responsible for most famous War of the Worlds panic MyNorthwest.com. Accessed 10-31-11.
  10. ^ a b Hand, Richard J. (2006). Terror on the Air!: Horror Radio in America, 1931–1952. Jefferson, North Carolina: Macfarland & Company. p. 7. ISBN 0-7864-2367-6. 
  11. ^ a b Campbell, W. Joseph. (2010). Getting it wrong : ten of the greatest misreported stories in American Journalism. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 26–44. ISBN 978-0-520-26209-6. 
  12. ^ Brady, Frank, Citizen Welles: A Biography of Orson Welles. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1989 ISBN 0-385-26759-2 pp. 164–165
  13. ^ Mass Communication Theory: Foundations, Ferment, and Future, by Stanley J. Baran, Dennis K. Davis
  14. ^ a b Bartholomew, Robert E. (2001). Little Green Men, Meowing Nuns and Head-Hunting Panics: A Study of Mass Psychogenic Illness and Social Delusion. Jefferson, North Carolina: Macfarland & Company. pp. 217ff. ISBN 0-7864-0997-5. 
  15. ^ Schroeder, Andreas (2005). Scams!. True stories from the Edge (2nd ed.). Annick Press. p. 43. ISBN 1-55037-852-X. 
  16. ^ Reif, Rita, "Auctions"; The New York Times, October 21, 1988
  17. ^ Reif, Rita, "Antiques: Books Tell Tales of Art and Money"; The New York Times, July 2, 1989
  18. ^ Armstrong, Kiley, "War of the Worlds Script Fetches $143,000"; Associated Press, December 15, 1988
  19. ^ Sale 7565 / Lot 149, Orson Welles. Typescript radioplay The War of the Worlds. Christie's, June 2, 1994
  20. ^ Millar, John, "Cruising for a Summer Hit; The Aliens Have Landed"; Sunday Mail (Scotland), June 26, 2005
  21. ^ "Orson Welles War of the Worlds script inspired Steven Spielberg's movie"; Wellesnet, The Orson Welles Web Resource, November 4, 2006
  22. ^ War of the Worlds – News Stories, Township of West Windsor, Mercer County, New Jersey; Delany, Don, "West Windsor Celebrates 'The War of the Worlds'" (PDF), Mercer Business, October 1988, pp. 14–17
  23. ^ The National Recording Registry 2002, National Recording Preservation Board (Library of Congress); retrieved June 17, 2012
  24. ^ "War of the Worlds". Radio Lab. Season 4. Episode 3. March 7, 2008. http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2008/03/07. "In 1949, when Radio Quito decided to translate the Orson Welles stunt for an Ecuadorian audience, no one knew that the result would be a riot that would burn down the radio station and kill at least 7 people."
  25. ^ "War Of The Worlds radio broadcast, Quito (1949)". Retrieved 2008-04-24. 
  26. ^ "Grammy Awards and Nominations for 1989". Tribune Company. 1989. Archived from the original on 2007-07-04. Retrieved 2007-07-31. 
  27. ^ "War of the Worlds & The Lost World". The Play's the Thing. 2009-08-31. http://www.scpr.org/programs/la-theatre-works/2009/10/31/war-of-the-worlds-the-lost-world/.
  28. ^ "XM to Host Live 'War of the Worlds' Re-Enactment With Glenn Beck on Oct. 30. - Free Online Library". Thefreelibrary.com. Retrieved 2012-11-07. 
  29. ^ "Világok harca". 2010-06-01. http://eper.elte.hu/eper.phtml?cim=vilagokharca.html.
  30. ^ Rawson, Christopher (2010-10-29). "Bricolage re-creates on-spot 'War of the Worlds' radio play". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. 
  31. ^ Terauds, John, "Ensemble aces Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds". Toronto Star, March 31, 2011
  32. ^ Martians, UConn. "Martians Invade UConn in ‘War of the Worlds’ on Campus Radio". Retrieved 8 November 2012. 
  33. ^ Rich, Frank (2005-06-19). "Two Top Guns Shoot Blanks". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-09-30. 
  34. ^ "Memorable quotes for Air Force (1943)". Imdb. 
  35. ^ "Hey Arnold!: "Arnold's Halloween"". IMDb. Retrieved 2007-11-10. 
  36. ^ "Science Fiction on Radio". Otr.com. Retrieved 2012-11-07. 
  37. ^ "Image View". Radiospirits.com. Retrieved 2012-11-07. 

Sources [edit]

  • Cantril, Handley; Koch, Howard; Gaudet, Hazel; Herzog, Herta; Wells, H. G. (1982 reprint) [1940]. The Invasion from Mars: A Study in the Psychology of Panic. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-09399-7. 
  • Hand, Richard J. (2006). Terror on the Air!: Horror Radio in America, 1931–1952. Jefferson, North Carolina: Macfarlane & Company. ISBN 0-7864-2367-6. 
  • Koch, Howard (1970). The Panic Broadcast: Portrait of an Event. Boston, Massachusetts: Little, Brown. ISBN 0-316-50060-7. 
  • Ruperto, Edward J. (2002 reprint) [1956]. The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects. Garden City, New York: Doubleday. ISBN 0-9665312-3-X. 

Further reading [edit]

External links [edit]
Martians
Radio
Films
Jeff Wayne
TV series
Sequels
Miscellaneous

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