An observation of welles's "war of the world" broadcast

This story has never set well with me. The day before halloween in 1938 orson welles did the infamous war of the worlds broadcast. Rather than signing onto the air and saying "and later this evening orson welles will be performing his story of galactic warfare and the struggle to maintain our existance, tune in, etc etc" they actually began the broadcast by repeatedly interupting dance music as if there were an actual emergency being addressed. We all know what resulted of this. It boggles me that no one concidered the ramifications of doing such a thing like interupting dance music with the story and portraying it as actual events, but then I thought to myself, what if that was the intent. What if this incident was a test to see how the public would react to a hostile invasion. Shortly after, the first reports of UFO's over american skies began. 1942 was the year of the battle of LA. A few years later we have the foo fighters, then Roswell. Does it seem like the government is using media to test our reactions, or possibly prepare us for invasion?

Originally posted by dez
This story has never set well with me. The day before halloween in 1938 orson welles did the infamous war of the worlds broadcast. Rather than signing onto the air and saying "and later this evening orson welles will be performing his story of galactic warfare and the struggle to maintain our existance, tune in, etc etc" they actually began the broadcast by repeatedly interupting dance music as if there were an actual emergency being addressed. We all know what resulted of this. It boggles me that no one concidered the ramifications of doing such a thing like interupting dance music with the story and portraying it as actual events, but then I thought to myself, what if that was the intent. What if this incident was a test to see how the public would react to a hostile invasion. Shortly after, the first reports of UFO's over american skies began. 1942 was the year of the battle of LA. A few years later we have the foo fighters, then Roswell. Does it seem like the government is using media to test our reactions, or possibly prepare us for invasion?

Actually, if you listen to the entire broadcast Welles gives the usual introduction to the Mercury players and states, specifically, that they were doing *War of the Worlds* as a halloween treat. This was done at the very beginning of the performance. He was not being deceptive (though some modern copies of the broadcast do not include Welles' opening credits for 'scare factor' reasons).

People were 'tricked' because, essentially, his show was something like the number two or three show on the air. In a twist of fate, at the same time that the Wotw performance began the #1 show at the time put on some really boring pianist. The audience, bored, started to switch around and came upon the already begun WOTW broadcast.

This was not a case of a hoax. It was the first incident of people getting confused by channel surfing.

I see, that makes a little more sense. In the articles I had read it simply stated that they began the story by interupting dance music repeatedly with fake news alerts. Perhaps is was the battle of LA that was meant to be the test then

edit: Oh, I should also note I had heard a broadcast but it must have been edited to start with the story and didn't include welles's introduction.

[edit on 21-6-2005 by dez]

I remembering hearing that the broadcast was even being announced in the paper...but I may be wrong.

There are also a couple of sound bites during the broadcast whee the players again reminded the audience that this was not real news broadcast that it was only a play.

After reading this thread I logged off and began to re-read some newspaper clips from the day after... and...

One of the things that added to the panic was the fact that, just before the first Martian landed in the story, there was a strange rolling blackout that hit New Jersey. Oddly EVEN RADIO SIGNALS were affected (was this a solar storm?). This seems like one of the reasons why people believed the reports, even though they were being told it was fake.

To put things in perspective: let's say it's 6:30pm and you're sitting down to hear the evening programs. Suddenly your lights go out for a second and, when power does come back on, your radio is making all sorts of screwy noises. After a while it returns to normal... so you put on your favorite show. It has a boring musician so you flip stations... to CBS. They, also, have a musician playing, but, before you can flip yet again, a news report of an alien attack comes in. After a while you look out your windows to see clogged streets and people running in panic...

So what are you going to think after:
1. Power blackout
2.Radio interference
3.Report of attacking martians
4.Evidence of panic and traffic jams on the street outside your window?

Good stuff here but one vital point has been missed.

While what happened was far, far beyond what was expected, this was intentional. Wells and Co wanted to make a point. They felt (as many do today about TV) that people were far too inclined to believe whatever they heard on 'the box'. So they wanted to shake things up.

But the events listed in previous replies conspired against them to cause the huge panic. This is a classic case of be careful of what you wish for, you may get it!

Those BTW are Well's own words, not direct quotes, but it is his explaination of what they were doing.


Dez,

How exactly could anyone have created The Battle of LA. What could have floated in the air during that barrage? Perhaps the AAA shells were some sort of blank? Well if they were they certainly had quite a pop to them. If they were blanks what did we have then that could withstand even those?

I know I have said this in other places but I believe that TBOLA was the start of the modern UFO saga. We have one picture but does anyone honestly believe that more were not taken? Those pictures ended up in the hands of the government. I know from experience that the single photo that remains is enough to convince most people of the existance of UFOs and I can only assume that if we had a dozen or so different shots the matter would be settled for even the harshest of skeptics.


A.T
(-)

Yes, there were normal newspaper ads for the presentation, and yes, every so often they reminded listeners it was all a play.

However, they were clever about it. They started it when another popular radio show was just wrapping up, so people switching over would have heard the dance music, and then the news interruption.

Personally, I own the whole play on tape, and I'd seriously recommend getting it, then closing your eyes and listening to it, imagining what it must have been like to hear this on the radio. It's quite illuminating.

The play was absolute genius.....