WAR OF THE WORLDS

Today marks the 75th anniversary of the most famous radio play in the history of American broadcasting.

Orson Welles wrote and produced a radio adaptation of the classic H.G. Wells novel, The War of the Worlds for his Mercury Theatre group.  It was performed as a Halloween episode of the series on October 30, 1938, and aired over the CBS radio network. Directed and narrated by actor and future filmmaker Welles,  the  first two thirds of the 60-minute broadcast were presented as a series of simulated news bulletins,  which suggested to many listeners that an actual Martian alien invasion  was currently in progress. Compounding the issue was the fact that the Mercury Theatre on the Air was a show which ran without commercial breaks, adding to the program's realism. Although there were sensationalist accounts in the press about a supposed panic in response to the broadcast, the precise extent of listener response has been debated over the decades.

In the days following the adaptation, however, there was widespread outrage and panic by certain listeners, who had believed the events described in the program were real. The program's news-bulletin format  was described as cruelly deceptive by some newspapers and public figures, leading to an outcry against the perpetrators of the broadcast. Despite these complaints—or perhaps in part because of them—the episode secured Welles' fame as a dramatist.

Welles used the most modern technology of 1938, and transformed it into a complex fictional illusion which fooled many in the general public. The idea of the power of technology such as radio could mold, control, create fear or panic a community would later be adapted by German propaganda leaders in pre-World War II Europe.

It is not debatable that the Welles broadcast had lasting impact on American culture and in broadcasting. Today, we are surrounded by modern telecommunications and instant access to news and events. We would think it would be hard to fool us by such a Welles broadcast. But that would still be as naive as those radio listeners in 1938.

Radio came into people's homes with a purpose to inform and entertain. It's news format led listeners to believe in what the news reporters were telling them was true, as this was merely an electronic version of their daily newspapers and their motto of truth and accuracy in journalism. It was the exploitation of the familiar format that led to Welles genius to create a believable illusion in reality