Could a War of the Worlds panic occur today?

With the release of the new Tom Cruise movie, I began to contemplate the broadcast of the 1938 mischief night Orson Wells broadcast of H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds. No matter how successful the re-release of the movie is, it will not have the impact of the original broadcast when listeners believed it to be actual news bulletains.

Do you think a similar scenario is possible today with all the forms of media that exist? (9/11 conspiracy people please don't comment on this)
I think it would be something very interesting to re-inact to see if people react any differently than they did nearly 60 years ago.

I guess it would be interesting, but I doubt many people listen to the radio in this day and age. Doing on the TV imitating a news broadcast would be a tad dodgy as well, especially with the 9/11 paranoia. So no, I dont reckon it will happen, everyones way too paranoid and the goverment wont let anyone have any fun these days.

It was tried right here on ATS last Oct. Maybe one of the Mod's could point the way? It was a good one.

Roper

It could still happen people will believe anything at least Americans that is. Btw wait for it on dvd i went and saw it wednesday very disappointing but ok to rent it's worth 3 or 4 dollars not 8 bucks a ticket.

Originally posted by DiRtYDeViL
It could still happen people will believe anything at least Americans that is. Btw wait for it on dvd i went and saw it wednesday very disappointing but ok to rent it's worth 3 or 4 dollars not 8 bucks a ticket.

Are you kidding? It had a couple slow mements admittedly but it was amazing none the less! I think we are so wowed with special effects and filming techniques these days it's harder to impress.
A lot of the film is very realisitic down to the effects, acting and filming techniques, it's pretty much as good as it can get.

The realism can#t really be made better, like the 747 crashed in the neighbourhood scene, I watched a 'how they made the movie' program when I got home and they actually bought a 747 and built houses and stuff and blew everything up and cut the plane up, etc, it was all real!!
When they are dodging cars flyign through windows, they actually were throwing cars through windows with people dodging them, though the background of the street was a green screen effect, but none the less!!

I admit that I kind of wanted more, but when I thought about it it's not possible, we have practically reached the limit on what can be achieved without it being actually real in my opinion and to be fair.
You've got to ask yourself, what more can they do?

Originally posted by carlwfbird
With the release of the new Tom Cruise movie, I began to contemplate the broadcast of the 1938 mischief night Orson Wells broadcast of H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds. No matter how successful the re-release of the movie is, it will not have the impact of the original broadcast when listeners believed it to be actual news bulletains.

No that is true, I think that especially since 9/11 (and I'm english, so one would assume it might have less impact on me) nothing has seemed that scary anymore because reality has now overtaken it really. When ever I watch 9/11 scenes or the Firemans video it makes me sick and sends chills down my spine like no movie ever can.

The scariest thing I found about WOTW wasn't the aliens, it was the realistic way in which they portrayed people's reactions when panic sets in and everyone is willing to lose their humanity for self preservation. How a normal good person will kill another normal good person because they have to just to survive.

I just wanted it to focus more on what was going on around the world and less on trying to make it into a drama by using Tom's awesome acting talent is all. It was more like signs when it should have been more like Independance Day.

An "aliens are invading" panic would not happen today unless:
There was smoke and fire on every horizon, all internet, TV and Power got turned off, and people saw waves of refugees fleeing into their neighborhoods on foot carrying the news of such an invasion.

If the TV was still on, every channel would have to cover the alien invasion with different images of the same scenes from different angles to make it look real.

If the internet was still up and running, people around the globe would just instant message
their friends and family in the supposed affected areas and then report all over the web
that its a hoax in a matter of minutes.

I'm surprised some of you people think that 9/11 is the most horrifying thing you've seen.
Nothing scared me more, in my adult life, than the Iraq war, it solified the fact
that my government had lost all sense of reason and was willing to murder anyone
based on lies and to pamper corporations.

Yeah thats all we need, a great end of the world HOAX from the media to get everyone out there looting and killing.

Originally posted by ihatescifi
Yeah thats all we need, a great end of the world HOAX from the media to get everyone out there looting and killing.

Agreed, for some it would be the perfect excuse (barring actual invasion) to loot and kill.

Originally posted by Roper
It was tried right here on ATS last Oct. Maybe one of the Mod's could point the way? It was a good one.

Roper

Yes we did that here. Even though we tried to make it very obvious what was going on, some of our members were taken in and started to believe it. In the end those members were in some cases very angry and you will see that in the following discussion thread, also click the links to see how the event unfolded... It is good reading...

War of the Worlds reenactment on AboveTopSecret.com: Halloween, 2004.

This is SkepticOverlord, ladies and gentlemen, to assure you that "The War of The Worlds" has no further significance than as the holiday offering it was intended to be. AboveTopSecret.com's own digital version of dressing up in a sheet and jumping out of a bush and saying Boo!

Starting now, we couldn't soap all your windows and steal all your garden gates by tonight... so we did the best next thing. We launched the annihilation the world before your very eyes. You will be relieved, I hope, to learn that we didn't mean it, and that effected areas are open for business...

Originally posted by DiRtYDeViL
I just wanted it to focus more on what was going on around the world and less on trying to make it into a drama by using Tom's awesome acting talent is all. It was more like signs when it should have been more like Independance Day.

I know what your saying, but I tihnk the whole point was to to make it not like ID4, as it wasn't that popular for one(apparantly, I liked it anyway).

Also with ID4, even though it was all jolly exciting, it wasn't very personal and made it less realistic in a way. Also I read somewhere that movies try to steer clear of landmark destroying scenes sicne 9/11 for a variety of reasons, including casuing distress, it's just not 'cool' anymore, gives terrorist's ideas, etc.

Personally, I was to be honest, almost disappointed when I first heard it was going to be filmed in this manner concentrating solely on the perspective from the family, however after thinking about it and eventually seeing it I came round to the idea that it was a good way to portray it, as it makes it feel more like something happening to you. This is as much as a film can do anyway.
It also helped to make the scenes which drive home how survival instincts and panic set in even more creepy and realistic.

I also think the girl is an amazing actress especially when she is only 11!, She was really good in Spielberg's series 'Taken'. The best thing is that when you see her in real life she still acts like a normal kid, unlike that Culkin freak used to.

Originally posted by UM_Gazz
Yes we did that here. Even though we tried to make it very obvious what was going on, some of our members were taken in and started to believe it. In the end those members were in some cases very angry and you will see that in the following discussion thread, also click the links to see how the event unfolded... It is good reading...

Yeah nice one, I must admit I missed that somehow, thankfully.
Maybe we should be more lenient on hoaxers that come on the board in the future, after all their only having a bit of fun, huh..?

Says it all really:

mrmonsoon - posted on 31-10-2004 at 12:01 Post Number: 914913
It just clearly shows the administration of this board fail to follow their own rulles.

SO made it clear most mods feel being refered to as an authority figure verged on an insult. Well, just like our real world authority figures-cops and government-this boards authority figures make rules for others to follow, but do not follow them themselves.

I guess what worries me the most is that even though I take most things on here with a pinch of salt, a lot of member's lives revolve around ATS (This has been said before, even in the announcement U2U about Council elections). A lot of people take these things seriously, especially when coming from long established members and forum staff. These sort of things whcih can be fun, can be very damaging to the more vulnerable people who blindly trust those who they respect and know, regardless of what they are saying. I don't think this trust should be abused for anyone's amusement.

Me, personally, this is the internet.. I trust no one..



[edit on 2-7-2005 by AgentSmith]

Originally posted by Legalizer
An "aliens are invading" panic would not happen today unless:
There was smoke and fire on every horizon, all internet, TV and Power got turned off, and people saw waves of refugees fleeing into their neighborhoods on foot carrying the news of such an invasion.

If the TV was still on, every channel would have to cover the alien invasion with different images of the same scenes from different angles to make it look real.

Even then, I don't think we'd get the response that Orson Wells' original radio broadcast got. There have been too many Independence Days and X-Files and such on TV and at the movie theater that many people would still think it was a hoax -- until they saw the invasion force with their own eyes.

I think it is harder for that kind of pannic to happen, but it's not impossible.

The ATS version of last year is proof that some people are waiting to believe in something, and we all know that some people panic with relatively small things, so I think its possible.

If I wanted to do something like that I would probably do it like it was happening in a place not easilly identified and when identified difficult to access.

As for the movie, I am going to see it when it comes here, so I could say bad things about it, but I only have to pay 2.1 Euros for that.

War of the worlds was one of the all time greatest hoaxes ever pulled. In my opinion it couldn't be duplicated the same way.

As Legalizer already stated, unless you could see the fires burning and every media source was showing the same scenerios being played out then I don't think it would play as well.

However, an entirely different hoax, although just as scary could be pulled off..........................

Most breaking news today comes from basically 2 or 3 sources, the A.P. and Reuter's, most TV and print as well as internet news sources get thier initial details from them.

A good hack of the A.P. and Reuter's news services could send a troubling story out all over the world simultaneously. A massive snowball effect as more and more news agencies scramble to "break the unfolding story".

A press release filed the day before and a phony website portraying a group of cult like doomsday scientists, bent on delivering an incurible virus to all corners of the world. A plan detailing the groups intentions to administer doses of the virus then board aircraft headed to all points on the globe.

The AP and Reuter's stories would have to detail the first wave of infected people in an obscure locale, but give scenerios out lightning quick infection and spread. Followed by a list of cities that aircraft have just landed or are about to.

A payoff of some 'less then ethical' foriegn journalists to feed details of mass panic and death via phone to CNN, BBC, FOX, Etc. would lend amazing credibility.

Timing and detail are the 2 keys to make something like this work.







OK, I have officailly lost my mind. This is the craziest thing I've ever posted. I definately should have saved it for the colaborative fiction forum.

[edit on 7/3/2005 by looking4truth]

I'd say that it's possible, if it were all real. People would probably be able to spot a hoax much easier now than in 1938. If the major news channels did a story on it, or if all communication was down, people would get panicked very fast, especially if a giant alien mech was knocking at their door. But that's very unlikely, so I guess we'd see if it happens.

It's possible, like looking4truth stated. But it would take time to plan and time everything just right. And even then there's a little under 50/50 chance of them actually believing it. Because like many of the other members in this thread has stated people need to see actual news video of explosions, mobs of scared people pleading with God in the streets, fires, sick/dead/injured people, and maybe people looting/killing (of course that would be the fall out of the said hoax). Now this won't be such an easy task to pull off, manly because if you do this all in CG, most of it'll look fake and computered....

Even if someone's good at making movie quality CG, it's still not going to be believable, mainly because there would be a lot more people living in the place that the attack/end of the world was said to be happening in now then there was back when the War of the worlds made its radio debut. People would call in immediately after this 'video' aired on TV and/or the 'articles' ran on the net saying that nothing was happening in their neck of the woods and that would be the end of the hoax. Besides even if the hoax said that the attack was happening in the middle of nowhere with a population of like less then 50 people, the majority of people wouldn't believe it them or they just wouldn't care because it wasn't 'happening' in the major cities like DC, LA, NY, ETC.

Frankly, the TV, Internet, and possibly 9/11, have ruined any such hoaxes. When the only entertainment AND news source was the radio, it was hard to tell the difference between fact and fiction, but now, it's easier to tell (or so it seems) seeing as how we have different outlets for such things and channels dedicated for news and others for entertainment, and people have been conditioned to believe only the stuff they hear from the news is true. Besides....I don't think that people would be gullible anymore.....at least I hope they're not.