On October 20, 1938, Orson Welles unleashed a national panic with his radio broadcast of H.G. Wells’s “The War of the Worlds.” For context, the science fiction novel follows the landing of violent Martians who dispatch the British army with ease before succumbing to earthly diseases. Welles, with very little planning, delivered a national broadcast that transformed the novel into a real-time announcement of a Martian invasion of the planet.
The writer, Howard Koch, only got a week to turn the novel into a radio adaption.
Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, thousands of people took the invasion as real! The next day Welles’ face was emblazoned over the front pages across the country, asking a similar question: did he purposely create a national panic? Here’s the crazy story of the Orson Welles broadcast that rocked America.
Orson Welles is seen rehearsing his radio depiction of "The War of the Worlds." The broadcast, which claimed that aliens from Mars had invaded New Jersey, terrified thousands of Americans. Getty
The Conceit
In ‘38 Welles was just 23 but already a known radio personality, the most popular entertainment medium of the day. While working for CBS, he gained a cult following with his “Mercury Theatre on the Air” which performed adaptations of literary classics. On the eve of Halloween, Welles decided to mix it up by converting “War of the Worlds” into a fake bulletin of aliens invading New Jersey. As he told friends shortly after, “If I’d planned to wreck my career, I couldn’t have gone about it better.”
Actor Orson Welles being interviewed after his 'War of the Worlds' broadcast. (Photo by NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)
The Panic
As millions of people tuned in across the country expecting their usual literary diversions, many immediately believed the very realistic news bulletins of an alien onslaught. Thousands of calls inundated police departments across the country while reports of stampedes and suicides became the singular news story of the day.
Many thought Welles' career was over but he came back with Citizen Kane a few years later.
The Press Conference
The next day with nearly the entire country’s anger directed at him, Welles explained himself to the gathered media. “I had conceived the idea of doing a radio broadcast in such a manner that a crisis would actually seem to be happening,” he said, “and would be broadcast in such a dramatized form as to appear to be a real event taking place at that time, rather than a mere radio play.” Unfortunately, a number of mostly uncorrelated decisions led to the broadcast that shook America.
William Dock, 76, stands ready with his trusty shotgun to ward off the alien invasion. Bettmann
Poor Planning
Welles conceived the idea without really thinking about the novel or even working on the adaptation. He left that to producer John Houseman and writer Howard Koch before leaving to work on his stage adaptation of Georg Buchner’s “Danton’s Death”. Without any direction, Koch and Houseman struggled mightily to adapt the book. Back then science fiction was more often aimed at children than adults, which forced them to lean into the fake news bulletin format.
Before they knew it, nearly the entire show featured the alien invasion and the very real-sounding news bulletins rather than the clearly fake elements of the book. When Welles finally appeared in the 11th hour, he agreed and added even more realistic elements to the seeming end of the world.
Thousands truly believed aliens were on the way.
Why People Freaked Out
Besides the creatives erasing nearly every aspect that would clue listeners into the fake nature of the broadcast, a few other factors spurred the panic. First, most people were listening to the very popular ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his dummy “Charlie McCarthy” on NBC.
Many of those listeners turned over to “War of the World’s” just as Welles’ was screaming, “Good heavens, something's wriggling out of the shadow like a gray 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…” Those listeners missed the introductions and every other clue in the opening that would have relieved their fears.
Additionally, the broadcast skipped the very traditional commercial break that always came at the halfway point. So if you’re listening to a very realistic news broadcast of an alien offensive and they skip the commercials, of course, that’s only going to cement the fact that it’s really happening! In the end, people forgave Welles but learned a very valuable lesson of not believing everything you hear.
