Shortly after 8 o’clock on Sunday evening, October 30, 1938, many Americans became anxious or panic-stricken after listening to a realistic live one-hour radio play depicting a fictitious Martian landing at the Wilmuth farm in the tiny hamlet of Grovers Mill, New Jersey. Those living in the immediate vicinity of the bogus invasion appeared to have been most frightened, although the broadcast could be heard in all regions of the continental United States and no one particular location was immune. The play included references to real places, buildings, highways, and streets. The broadcast also contained prestigious speakers, convincing sound effects, and realistic special bulletins. The drama was produced by a 23-year-old theatrical prodigy named George Orson Welles (1915-1985), who was accompanied by a small group of actors and musicians in a New York City studio of the Columbia Broadcasting System’s Mercury Theater. The actual broadcast script was written by Howard Koch, who loosely based it on the 1898 book The War of the Worlds by acclaimed science fiction writer Herbert George (H.G.) Wells (1866-1946). In the original Wells novel, the Martians had landed in nineteenth century Woking, England. Sixty years after the 1938 event, it remains arguably the most widely known delusion in United States, and perhaps world history, and many radio stations around the world continue to broadcast the original play each Halloween eve.
(http://www.csicop.org/si/show/the_martian_panic_sixty_years_later_what_have_we_learned/)
Why did some one million people believe this broadcast?
Before the era of T.V., people sat in front of their radios and listened to music, news reports, plays and various other programs for entertainment. In 1938, the most popular radio program was the "Chase and Sanborn Hour" which aired on Sunday evenings at The star of the show was ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his dummy Charlie McCarthy.
Unfortunately for the Mercury group, headed by dramatist Orson Welles, their show, "Mercury Theatre on the Air," aired on another station at the very same time as the popular "Chase and Sanborn Hour." Welles, of course, tried to think of ways to increase his audience, hoping to take away listeners from the "Chase and Sanborn Hour."
For the Mercury group's Halloween show that was to air on October 30, 1938 , Welles decided to adapt H. G. Wells's well-known novel, War of the Worlds, to radio. Radio adaptations and plays up to this point had often seemed rudimentary and awkward. Instead of lots of pages as in a book or through visual and auditory presentations as in a play, radio programs could only be heard (not seen) and were limited to a short period of time (often an hour, including commercials).
Thus, Orson Welles had one of his writers, Howard Koch, rewrite the story of War of the Worlds. With multiple revisions by Welles, the script transformed the novel into a radio play. Besides shortening the story, they also updated it by changing the location and time from Victorian England to present day New England . These changes reinvigorated the story, making it more personal for the listeners.
Tuning in Late
Orson Welles and his team had previously dramatized novels such as The Count of Monte Cristo and Dracula. The introduction to War of the Worlds broadcast on CBS Radio emphasized that it was based on the H.G. Wells novel. But many people didn't hear that introduction. They were tuned into a rival network airing the popular Chase and Sanborn Hour program featuring the ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his dummy Charlie McCarthy.
Ten minutes into that show, at a time when its star took a break, many listeners dialed into War of the Worlds instead. Having missed the introduction, they found themselves listening to "the music of Ramon Raquello and his Orchestra," live from New York Hotel Park Plaza
Then a news bulletin reported that a "huge flaming object" had struck a farm near Grovers Mill, New Jersey
(http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/06/0617_050617_warworlds_2.html)
Power of Imagination
There is no doubt that radio held a unique power over its audience. For rural audiences, in particular, it was the primary point of contact with the outside world, providing news, entertainment, and companionship, McLeod noted.
Orson Welles knew how to use radio's imaginative possibilities, and he was a master at blurring the lines between fiction and reality.
"No movie special effects … could have conjured up enormous aliens striding across the Hudson River towards the CBS studios 'as if it were a child's wading pool' [in Welles's words] as convincingly as the listeners' imaginations could," Hilmes said.
War of the Worlds also revealed how the power of mass communications could be used to create theatrical illusions and manipulate the public. Some people say the broadcast contributed to diminishing the trustworthiness of the media.
According to the New York Times, Welles expressed profound regret that his dramatic efforts could cause consternation. "I don't think we will choose anything like this again," he said. He hesitated about presenting it, Welles said, because "it was our thought that perhaps people might be bored or annoyed at hearing a tale so improbab
(http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/06/0617_050617_warworlds_2.html)
What techniques were used in this radio broadcast that made this “news” so convincing?
Which techniques would have most affected your perception of this “news” (assume you were one of the millions who were recipients of this news) AND why?
If the year 1938 proved anything with regard to radio, it proved absolutely that this means of expression plays a very much greater part in the lives of Americans than even its most enthusiastic followers had suspected. For the first time in history it was possible to report the hour-by-hour developments of the world crisis which found at least a temporary resolution at Munich. The public interest in this is indicative of the high esteem in which all kinds of news and special events programs are currently held. For the first time it was discovered in America (although once before in England and once in Switzerland similar happenings had occurred) that the technique of news reporting applied to a dramatic program could terrify thousands of people into believing that some dreadful event was occurring
The year 1938 saw Maestro Toscanini complete his first season of broadcasting and the first half of his second season. It saw concerts of an increasing number of symphony orchestras presented by broadcasters, including, of course, the long-standing and beloved New York Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra concerts of the Columbia Broadcasting System every Sunday afternoon, as well as a wide variety of chamber music and vocal ensembles. The performances of the Metropolitan Opera Company were broadcast as usual, and, as usual, were received with great appreciation throughout the continent.
In the field of the serious drama, much was accomplished in 1938. Whereas the commercially sponsored dramatic program has to proceed cautiously so as to hold the wide audience it must command, in the sustaining field broadcasters experimented in many directions. The Columbia Experimental Workshop offered a number of most interesting plays carrying on the tradition established early in its career. The Columbia Broadcasting System also found an appreciative audience for Orson Welles' series of broadcasts which he conducted under the title of 'First Person Singular.' The National Broadcasting Company presented the greater number of plays which had won the Pulitzer Prize, including three by Eugene O'Neill, in specially prepared radio versions
The ability to confuse audiences en masse may have first become obvious as a result of one of the most infamous mistakes in history. It happened when millions of Americans tuned in to a popular radio program that featured plays directed by, and often starring, Orson Welles. The performance that evening was an adaptation of the science fiction novel "The War of the Worlds," about a Martian invasion of the earth. But in adapting the book for a radio play, Welles made an important change: under his direction the play was written and performed so it would sound like a news broadcast about an invasion from Mars, a technique that, presumably, was intended to heighten the dramatic effect. As the play unfolded, dance music was interrupted a number of times by fake news bulletins reporting that a "huge flaming object" had dropped on a farm near Grovers Mill, New Jersey.
As members of the audience sat on the edge of their collective seats, actors playing news announcers, officials and other roles one would expect to hear in a news report, described the landing of an invasion force from Mars and the destruction of the United States. The broadcast also contained a number of explanations that it was all a radio play, but if members of the audience missed a brief explanation at the beginning, the next one didn't arrive until 40 minutes into the program
At one point in the broadcast, an actor in a studio, playing a newscaster in the field, described the emergence of one of the aliens from its spacecraft.
"Good heavens, something's wriggling out of the shadow like a gray snake," he said, in an appropriately dramatic tone of voice. "Now it's another one, and another. They look like tentacles to me. There, I can see the thing's body. It's large as a bear and it glistens like wet leather. But that face. It... it's indescribable. I can hardly force myself to keep looking at it. The eyes are black and gleam like a serpent. The mouth is V-shaped with saliva dripping from its rimless lips that seem to quiver and pulsate... The thing is raising up. The crowd falls back. They've seen enough. This is the most extraordinary experience. I can't find words. I'm pulling this microphone with me as I talk. I'll have to stop the description until I've taken a new position. Hold on, will you please, I'll be back in a minute."
As it listened to this simulation of a news broadcast, created with voice acting and sound effects, a portion of the audience concluded that it was hearing an actual news account of an invasion from Mars. People packed the roads, hid in cellars, loaded guns, even wrapped their heads in wet towels as protection from Martian poison gas, in an attempt to defend themselves against aliens, oblivious to the fact that they were acting out the role of the panic-stricken public that actually belonged in a radio play. Not unlike Stanislaw Lem's deluded populace, people were stuck in a kind of virtual world in which fiction was confused for fact
The 60 minute program ran without commercial breaks and the “news-bulletin” format purportedly caused mass hysteria and panic.
Thousands of people, believing they were under attack by Martians, flooded newspaper offices and radio and police stations with calls, asking how to flee their city or how they should protect themselves from "gas raids." Scores of adults reportedly required medical treatment for shock and hysteria.
The hoax worked, historians say, because the broadcast authentically simulated how radio worked in an emergency.
"Audiences heard their regularly scheduled broadcast interrupted by breaking news," said Michele Hilmes, a communications professor at University of Wisconsin
How did the media and the government react to the broadcast?
The general public, the mass media, and many government officials believe that the use of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) will inevitably lead to mass panic and/or mass hysteria. However, studies of disasters and wars show that disorganized flight in the presence of a real or perceived danger (i.e., mass panic) is rare. On the other hand, in a real or perceived WMD scenario, outbreaks of multiple unexplained symptoms (i.e., mass psychogenic illness, mass sociogenic illness, mass hysteria, or epidemic hysteria) may be prevalent.
The mass media and many government planners seem to think that mass panic will be the predominant behavior in a WMD scenario. Most disaster movies have a scene of a "wildly excited crowd behaving in an impulsive, completely disorganized fashion, each person abandoning all social values in a desperate effort to save himself."1 Prior to World War II, the British government assumed that German bombing raids would produce this effect as did U.S. Civil Defense planners in the 1950s. However, an extensive literature review of bombing raids on England, Germany, and Japan found little evidence of mass panic incidents.1 Studies of civilian disasters also found little evidence of mass panic.2 In fact, mass panic is a rare response to disaster and, typically, occurs only in situations characterized by obvious physical danger and limited escape routes. Such conditions are found in only a limited number of situations like inside burning buildings, aboard sinking ships, in mine fires or explosions, and on battlefields. The first use of chlorine gas during World War I produced panic, but subsequent attacks in 1915 did not. Only four other examples of gas panic were reported during World War I, two of which involved poor training and drill in use of the gas mask..
At least part of the confusion regarding mass panic may be the indiscriminate use of the term. A good definition of mass panic is "an acute fear reaction marked by loss of self-control which is followed by nonsocial and nonrational flight.However, the media and others tend to refer to mass anxiety situations as panics. Perhaps the most famous incident of "mass panic" was Orson Welles' 1938 Halloween broadcast of "The War of the Worlds" when "Long before the broadcast had ended, people all over the U.S. were praying, crying, fleeing frantically to escape death from the Martians... At least six million people heard the broadcast. At least a million of them were frightened or disturbed. However, there were very few press reports of mass panic, and Cantril's limited study revealed no cases involving mass panic. The one million frightened or disturbed (not panicked) people were extrapolated from 99 interviews. The power of the mass media to create or magnify mass anxiety has been demonstrated by numerous incidents including the Phantom Anesthetist of Mattoon, Ghost Rockets in Sweden, the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, and the Alar-poisoned apple scare.
The expression in 19th century social thought, another moment of intense research and experimentation into panic was spurred on by the population's literal interpretation of and frightened reaction to the 1938 broadcast of H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds. On the eve of World War II, a particular interest lay in developing techniques to help recognize and induce collective terror. Another wave of activity in the postwar period pertained to fears about public mass hysteria in reaction to the tense atmosphere of the Cold War and the threat of nuclear disaster. During the Second World War, the treatment of traumatized soldiers eventually led to the dominance of individualised biopsychiatric conceptions of panic and its corresponding psychopharmacology. Panic disorder was first identified in the late 1950s as a result of pharmaceutical effects on institutionalised mental patients suffering from "episodic anxiety" and "panic attacks" .
The following day, after the broadcast aired, The New York Times and the United Press, reported: "The federal communications commission investigated a radio program which caused thousands of persons in every part of the country to believe that the eastern United States had been invaded by creatures from the planet Mars in the first engagement of a 'war of the world.'" Many newspapers called the broadcast devious and deceptive, despite the disclaimers at the beginning and the end of the radio drama. Although some media critics have disputed how much panic the radio program actually caused, most critics agree that the news-bulletin spoofs added a level of realism that had been unprecedented in any dramatic radio show. Orson Welles not only caused a sensational reaction amongst listeners, but he evoked an emotional response that made the listener an active participant in his “experimental” documentary-style broadcast. Welles’ experiment brought the common fears of the American public to the surface. At the time, threats of a Communist takeover known as the Red Scare and the communist witch-hunt of McCarthyism were in their inception. Americans greatest fears revolved around a sense of insecurity and of being overcome by a force more powerful than the United States, and the “War of the Worlds” broadcast exposed those fears with its mock alien invasion (http://truthseekers.cultureunplugged.com/truth_seekers/2009/09/the-disaster-film-a-cultural-phenomenon.html)
Would you believe the “news”of an alien invasion if you heard it or saw it reported in today’s mass media? Could a social phenomenon similar to the “War of the Worlds” radio broadcast happen today?
It was this new style of story, that would bring about and create this brand new, exciting and often educational form of literature. It is The War Of The Worlds that really epitomises what science fiction is and what it should be. The enchanting but gruesome tale of Martian invasion became the beginning of the modern science fiction story and was the first ever story about life on other planets attacking the human race (a now very popular theme). Although this exclusive, appreciated and amusing style of writing was graced with instant success in its current form, it too, like any other style of writing changed with the times. Unfortunately the new variation was a change for the worse.
For many people nowadays science fiction or Sci-Fi as the media miscall it means movies. It means Star Wars and E.T. For others it signifies television shows or radio series, constantly broadcast in people's homes perpetuating this common misconception. What many do not realise however is that science fiction as a genre of literature is an ancient art, one which is in mass quantity but lacking in the calibre of it predecessors.
http://www.oppapers.com/essays/Hgwells-War-World-Retrospect-Science-Fiction/27387
If you listen to some people out there, apparently there are hordes of aliens from far off distant worlds that are hell bent on taking over our planet. They have infiltrated every level of our society and are just laying in wait for the day to come when they will call for their armada of flying saucers to come down and claim their piece of our little earth. Some say they want our water. Some say it’s our atmosphere. A lot of people say they want our women. Actually, most say that they want our women. When it comes down to it, the idea of an alien invasion from outer space is rooted from the same faulty logic that had ancient peoples convinced that everyone from Zeus to Yahweh wanted their goat or their virgin daughter as a sacrifice. You are assuming that they value whatever it is that you find value in. If you like double stuff chocolate cookies then you assume so does God and if God does then surely Zarnot from Planet X does too. The fact of the matter is, the chances of us having something that they don’t have or that they couldn’t make themselves is laughable. We believe in alien invasions because it’s just an extension of our insistence that we are the most important “center of the universe “and not only do we know it, but everyone in the universe knows it, and that is why they want it, whatever that “it” is.Notice I didn’t say that I don’t believe that there are aliens out there or that they have even visited us, I just question whether or not they are really coming to enslave us and turn us into their pets.
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