The War of the Worlds (1938 radio drama)

For other uses, see The War of the Worlds.

The War of the Worlds, a radio adaptation by Orson Welles based upon H. G. Wells' classic novel, was performed by Mercury Theatre on the Air as a Halloween special on October 30, 1938. The live broadcast reportedly frightened many listeners into believing that an actual Martian invasion was in progress.

Welles' adaptation is possibly the most successful radio dramatic production in history. It was one of the Radio Project's first studies.

Broadcast

Monument commemorating where the Martians landed in Van Ness Park.

H. G. Wells' novel is about a Martian invasion of Earth at the end of the 19th century, as related by a narrator seeing the events unfolding in England. The story was adapted by and written primarily by Howard Koch, with input from Welles and the staff of CBS's Mercury Theatre On The Air. The action was transferred to contemporary Grover's Mill, a section of West Windsor Township, New Jersey, and the radio program's format was meant to simulate a live newscast. To this end, Welles even played recordings of the radio reports of the famous Hindenburg disaster to the cast to demonstrate the mood he wanted.

Approximately one-half of the 50-minute play was a contemporary retelling of the events of the novel, presented as a series of news bulletins in documentary style. This approach to radio drama had never been done before (at least not with as much continued verisimilitude), and the innovative format has been cited as a key factor in the confusion that would follow.

The program started with an introduction and a short introduction to the intentions of the aliens and then continued as an apparently ordinary music show, only occasionally interrupted by news flashes. Initially, the news is of strange explosions sighted on Mars. The news reports grew more frequent and increasingly ominous after a "meteorite"--later revealed as a Martian rocket capsule--lands in New Jersey. A crowd gathers at the landing site, and the events are related by reporter "Carl Philips" up until the Martians incinerate curious onlookers with their "heat rays". (Later surveys indicate that many listeners heard only this portion of the show before contacting neighbors or family, who often contacted others, in turn; leading to rumours and later confusion.)

More Martian ships land, and then proceed to wreak havoc throughout the United States, destroying bridges and railroads, and spraying a poison gas into the air. An unnamed Secretary of the Interior advises the nation on the growing conflict. (The "Secretary" was originally intended to be a portrayal of then-President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, but CBS insisted this detail, among others, be changed. The "Secretary" did, however, end up sounding very much like Roosevelt as the result of directions given to actor Kenny Delmar by Welles.)

Military forces attack the Martians, but are unable to fight them off. People flee or gather in churches to pray as the Martians' machines head towards New York City, spraying poison gas in the air.

This section ends famously: a news reporter atop a large building narrates as events unfold, then he too collapses from the poison gas, and a radio operator is heard desperately calling out "2X2L calling CQ… Isn't there anyone on the air? Isn't there anyone on the air? Isn't there… anyone?"

The less famous last portion of the broadcast was a monologue and dialogue featuring Welles, portraying "noted astronomer" Professor Richard Peirson, who had earlier commented on the strange Martian explosions. The story ends as does the novel, with the Martians falling victim to earthly germs and bacteria. Following the conclusion of the play, Welles breaks character to remind listeners that the play was only a Halloween concoction, the equivalent of dressing up in a sheet and saying "Boo" like a ghost; reportedly, this "disclaimer" was added to the broadcast at the insistence of CBS executives as they became aware of the panic ensuing during the program.

Public reaction

Many people missed or ignored the opening credits of the program, and in the atmosphere of growing tension and anxiety in the days leading up to World War II, took it to be an actual news broadcast. Contemporary newspapers reported panic ensued, with people fleeing the area, and others thinking they could smell the poison gas or could see the flashes of the fighting in the distance. Later studies suggested this "panic" was far less widespread than newspaper accounts suggested.

Later studies also indicated that many listeners missed these warnings because the Mercury Theatre (an unsponsored "cultural" program with a relatively small audience) ran opposite the very popular Edgar Bergen show. About twelve minutes into Bergen's program an Opera number began, and many listeners presumably began tuning around the dial. Some listeners happened upon the CBS broadcast at the point the Martians emerge from their spacecraft. Many of these listeners were apparently confused and in some Northeastern cities went outside to ask neighbors what was happening (many homes still did not have telephones at this time). As the story was repeated by word of mouth, rumors began and these rumors caused some limited panic. Contemporary accounts spawned urban legends, many of which persist and have come to be accepted through repetition as fact: Several people reportedly rushed to the "scene" of the events in New Jersey to see if they could catch a glimpse of the unfolding events, including a few astronomers from Princeton University who went looking for the "meteorite" that had supposedly fallen near their school. Some people, who had brought firearms, reportedly mistook a local farmer's water tower for an alien spaceship and shot the tower.

Initially Grover's Mill was deserted, but later crowds developed as people rushed to the area. Eventually police were sent to the area to help control the crowds. To people arriving later in the evening, the scene really did look like the events being narrated on the radio broadcast, with panicked crowds and flashing police lights streaming across the masses.

Some people called CBS, newspapers or the police in confusion over the realism of the simulated news bulletins. There were instances of panic scattered throughout the US as a result of the broadcast, especially in New York and New Jersey.

Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, who were broadcasting at the same time on NBC, are often credited with "saving the world." It is said many startled listeners were reassured by hearing their familiar tones on a neighboring channel.

Aftermath

In the aftermath of the reported "panic," a public outcry arose, but CBS informed officials that listeners were reminded throughout the broadcast that it was only a performance. Welles and the Mercury Theatre escaped punishment, but not censure, and CBS had to promise never again to use the "we interrupt this program" device for dramatic purposes.

A study by the Radio Project discovered that most of the people who panicked assumed Germans - not Martians - had invaded. Other studies have suggested that the extent of the panic was exaggerated by contemporary media.

When a meeting between H. G. Wells and Orson Welles was broadcast on Radio KTSA San Antonio on October 28 1940 the former expressed a lack of understanding of the apparent panic and suggested that it was, perhaps, only pretense put on, like the American version of Halloween, for fun. The two men and their radio interviewer joked politely about the matter, though clearly with some embarrassment. KTSA, as a CBS affiliate, had carried the original broadcast.

Popularity

The Los Angeles CBS affiliate radio station, KNX (1070 AM), re-broadcasts the radio program every year on Halloween.

A 1975 television film for ABC, The Night That Panicked America, dramatizes the public's panicked reaction to the broadcast, but comes across as a fairly standard disaster movie (albeit one in which the disaster is assumed rather than actual).

The script was also updated and broadcast by PBS on the 50th anniversary of the original radio play in 1988. It starred Jason Robards, Steve Allen, Douglas Edwards, Scott Simon and Terry Gross and was nominated for a Grammy Award.

Recordings of the broadcast are still available (see old-time radio).

Recently, radio show host Glenn Beck did a live version as well in honor of the drama on Halloween.

Influence

It is sometimes said that the news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was first received in skepticism by the American public, as a consequence of the radio performance.

Amazingly enough, the drama has been rewritten to apply to other locations and rebroadcast, with similar results.

A 1944 broadcast in Santiago, Chile caused panic, including mobilization of troops by the governor.

A February 12 1949 broadcast in Quito, Ecuador panicked tens of thousands [1]. Some listeners, enraged at the deception, set fire to the radio station and the offices of El Comercio, the capital's leading newspaper, killing twenty people. The property damage was estimated at $350,000. Three officials charged with responsibility for the broadcast were arrested.

Because of the panic in the 1930s and 1940s associated with this radio play, TV networks have deemed it necessary to post bulletins to their viewing audience to inform them some TV stories were in fact fictional drama, and not really happening. Disclaimers of this sort were shown during broadcasts of the 1983 television movie Special Bulletin and again during the 1994 telefilm, Without Warning, both of which were dramas disguised as realistic news broadcasts (Without Warning, presenting an alien attack on Earth, acknowledged that it was a tribute to War of the Worlds and was broadcast on CBS TV on the 56th anniversary of the radio broadcast). NBC placed disclaimers in an October 1999 TV movie dramatizing the possible disastrous effects of the Y2K bug even though it was obviously drama and was unlikely to be confused with reality.

The radio play's success in updating the story proved so impressionable that many adaptations of The War of the Worlds have done likewise.

Possible influence on Welles

A 2005 BBC report suggested that Welles' idea and style may have been influenced by an earlier 1926 hoax broadcast by Ronald Knox on BBC radio. Knox's broadcast also mixes breathless reporting of a revolution sweeping across London with dance music and sound effects of destruction. Moreover, Knox's broadcast also caused a minor panic among listeners who did not know that the program was fictional.

References in fiction

Michael Crichton's Sphere cites the Orson Welles broadcast as an example of why, in the event of an actual alien arrival, it would be more prudent to anticipate mass panic on the part of humanity than wonder and awe.

In the 1984 movie The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, the plot hinges around an alien race of Red Lectroids whose arrival on earth in Grover's Mill, New Jersey instigates Orson Welles' The War of the Worlds radio broadcast, with the aliens hypnotizing Welles and causing him to pass the broadcast off as a drama, when it was indeed factual. Their later cover is that of employees of a fictional defense contracting company called Yoyodyne.

The War of the Worlds TV series also incorporated a similar premise. In an episode taking place in Grover's Mill during the 50th anniversary, it is revealed that Orson Welles was hired by the government to orchestrate the broadcast in order to cover up what was a reconnaissance mission by the same aliens who would launch an all-out war 15 years later.

The episode is briefly referred to in the film Radio Days by Woody Allen.

In the 1990 film Spaced Invaders, a crew of rather 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 and get stranded, setting up the plot of the film.

The X-Files episode "War of the Coprophages" parodied the 1938 panic as a small town called "Miller's Grove" (a reference to the Welles program's "Grover's Mill") is seized by fear of an invading horde of tiny robot cockroaches.

A Doctor Who audio drama entitled "Invaders from Mars" is set in New York City at the time of the broadcast, with unusual events occurring in the city's underworld which mirror the radio story.

The 1992 BBC TV Halloween special Ghostwatch was similar in its shocking displays of a haunted house in North London.

A similar realistic-looking "hoax" was a 1977 British science fiction movie entitled Alternative 3 which was presented as a science documentary, though the credits showed a production date of April Fool's Day. To this day, there are many who contend the events documented in Alternative 3 were at least partly factual.

A comic book story that crosses over the War of the Worlds story with Superman was published. However, instead of taking place in the period as in the novel, the story is set in 1938.

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.

In the video game Metal Gear Solid 3, supporting character Para-Medic from Snake's radio frequency gives an amusing retelling of her parents' panic during the radio play.

See also

• false document
• hoax
• The War of the Worlds
• Tripods

External links

• Orson Welles: War of the Worlds, and the Invasion from Mars
• The Martian Invasion describes instances of panic, outcry over the panic and the responses by the FCC and CBS
• The imagination, prognostications, and politics of H. G. Wells
• The Martian Panic Sixty Years Later from CSICOP
• The Mercury Theatre Online With downloadable MP3 of the 1938 broadcast.
• National Geographic
• Radio Listeners in Panic, Taking War Drama as Fact
• "The War of the Worlds" script
• "The War Of The Worlds broadcast in detail"
• Classroom activity: fill in the blanks
• Once Upon a Time, When Radio Was King... Orson Welles’ Broadcast of War of the Worlds, by Emanuel Levy
• BBC report on the 1926 Knox riot hoax