A precocious genius, an alien invasion that isn’t, and panic in the USA
“Good heavens. Something’s wriggling out of the shadow like a grey snake. Now here’s another, and another one and another one.
“They look like tentacles to me…I can see the thing’s body now. It’s large; large as a bear. It glistens like wet leather. But that face, it… ladies and gentlemen, it’s indescribable.”
Those were the panicked words of the announcer on CBS Radio, broadcast across the United States on the evening before Halloween, 1938.
It sparked hysteria, with reports of the public grabbing gas masks and cowering in the dark, fearful for their lives, convinced Earth was under attack from a Martian invasion.
Seemingly, many listeners had missed the announcement around half an hour earlier, at 8pm, when an introduction announced the adaptation of HG Wells’ novel, The War Of The Worlds, was a work of fiction.
A 23-year-old Orson Welles, already a veteran of radio, was behind the format and also took part, playing the role of the narrator and also of Professor Richard Pierson.
Written to sound like a light entertainment show that was being repeatedly interrupted by breaking news of an alien invasion, it hooked many of the listeners and caused a backlash that took Welles and the radio station by surprise.
There was orchestral dance music being played from New York when the first interruption came, as a newsreader announced an observatory’s professor had detected signs of life on Mars. The broadcast returned to the live music but another news bulletin broke through, this time to report a large meteor had crashed in a farmer’s field in New Jersey.
By the time the announcer cut back in minutes later with his eye-witness report of the hideous Martian creature with its many tentacles, listeners were falling for the ruse hook, line and sinker.
Aided by some very convincing performances and sophisticated sound effects, the panic rippled across the country as a relaxing Sunday evening by the radio turned to terror.
This was in spite of the fact the radio station made an announcement on four separate occasions that the show was a work of fiction.
Theories suggest it was a word-of-mouth panic precipitated by worry over an impending war.
Paul White, head of CBS News, recalled being summoned to the office in the aftermath, where “bedlam reigned”.
He later wrote: “The telephone switchboard, a vast sea of light, could handle only a fraction of incoming calls. The haggard
Welles sat alone and despondent. ‘I’m through,’ he lamented, ‘washed up’.”
Welles was forced to front a press conference the following morning, his contrition obvious as he answered questions and offered an apology.
Despite his fears, Welles’ career was far from over and within three years he would star in, co-write, direct and produce Citizen Kane, regarded as one of the greatest films ever made.
Within three weeks of the broadcast, newspapers across the country had printed 12,500 articles about the show. In the years since, it has been theorised that much of the supposed panic from the US public had been created by the under-threat press, who were desperate to show that radio could not be trusted.