On this day in 1938, a now-famous radio broadcast stopped America in its tracks.
Orson Welles went on the air to perform the classic novel “War Of The Worlds” by H.G. Wells.
The broadcast started at 8 pm on CBS in primetime, millions of Americans were listening to the broadcast of ventriloquist Edgar Bergen on NBC.
Bergen’s performance lasted until 8:15, causing people to tune into CBS during Mr. Welles' epic performance.
The late tuners never heard the message at the beginning of the radio play, resulting in them thinking that the broadcast coming over the airwaves was fact and not fiction.
During the broadcast, there was a scene about a reporter on the scene of a Martian space probe landing on a farmer’s field in Grover Mills, New Jersey, where the radio all of a sudden falls silent before a news anchor comes back on air saying that there were some technical difficulties with the connection to the reporter.
This scene, along with other graphic images of aliens invading the east coast, caused Americans to believe that the Martians had really invaded.
In New Jersey, millions of people hopped in their cars in a desperate attempt to escape the “alien invasion”. People were begging authorities for gas masks, and demanding that their power be turned off so the aliens couldn’t see their lights.
The frightening broadcast even caused a woman in Indianapolis to burst into a church service declaring “New York has been destroyed! It’s the end of the world! Go home and prepare to die!”
The news of the widespread panic made its way back to the CBS studios resulting in Welles interrupting the play to relay that the information being relayed on the radio was indeed fiction.
There are rumours that the broadcast caused several suicides, but none were ever confirmed.
This event inspired networks to be more cautious with what they broadcast.
Orson Welles’ performance of the H.G. Wells sci-fi thriller would forever go down in radio history.
