For many, memories of Halloween involve
elaborate costumes, trick-or-treating, a party with family or a scary movie
with friends. For me, those memories
involve leaving the trick-or-treating, the party, or forgoing the movie. They mean locking myself into the family car,
turning the ignition and scrolling through the AM spectrum, searching for “it.” Knowing that somewhere out there amid the
static and noise, a station was playing Orson Welles’ and the Mercury Theatre’s
broadcast of “War of the Worlds”. I’d
fine tune that knob until it came in, surrounding me with the story of invading
Martians advancing on New York with death ray’s blazing. Alone, out underneath the stars on Halloween
night, with only Orson’s deep baratone voice keeping me company.
And every year, it scared me out of my mind,
like so many that were frightened by the original broadcast of 1939. But why?
Why did that broadcast cause such a widespread panic from people who
believed it to be true? Why have newer,
updated versions of the story (despite overwhelming advertising of it being “just
a dramatic play”) continued the trend?
Why has this story endured? Is it
the timelessness of the tale? Or the
delivery system? Is radio such a
powerful force it can tap into the psyche of someone like myself, born in the
70’s, long after the Golden Age was over?
Or is it a more basic human need—to believe the fantastic, no matter how
implausible?
War
of the Worlds was originally published as a nine part serial in 1887. It was an immediate commercial and critical
success, and has been continuously in print for over 100 years. The story has been told in novels, in comic
books, in a musical, in movies and television.
It’s been the source inspiration for some and a subject of parody for
others. But none of these formats compares
to the power of Radio and the Panic Broadcast.
Orson
Welles, working from a scripted adaptation by Howard Koch, staged the invasion
through a series of news broadcasts that interrupted the so-called “regular”
programming. The key to the success of
the broadcast was that initially, no-one listened. Most of the radio audience was tuned to “the
Chase and Sanborn Hour” the top program of the time, on another network when
“War Of The Worlds” started. But, when
they broke for a musical interlude at 12 minutes past 8pm—in what may be the
first mass instance of Channel Surfing—an estimated 12 million listeners switched
stations to see what else was on. What
they heard, was this:
That
description captivated the audience, and they stuck around to hear Martian war
machines advance on and proceed to destroy New York. And people, who relied on Radio to bring them
the news, believed it. Estimates run as
high as over 1,000,000 people panicked over the invasion, and while that number
and severity of what ensued on October 30th, 1939 differ among
historians one thing is certain: There
was a response, not just in New York, but across the country.
After
the fallout from the broadcast, you’d think people would have learned their
lesson. But on November 12, 1944, six
years after the scare, a radio station in Santiago Chile broadcast their own
adaptation of Koch’s script. Updated to
include references to the Red Cross and the Minister of the Interior, the show
caused widespread panic, and had one Provincial Governor mobilize troops to
repel the invaders.
A
little over four years later on February 12, 1949, a group in Quito, Ecuador broadcast
their own version of an invasion from Mars story, but unlike before, it was
decided NOT to tell anyone that it was a play.
Thousands were roused from their homes and fled into the streets. By the time the station employees realized
what they had done, it was too late.
They announced the story was a hoax, and the panicked mob became an
angry mob, and tossed lit newspapers soaked with gasoline into the
building. The police and military were
called out to quell the riot, but they were already on their way to the neighboring
town of Cotocallao to attack the Martians.
Ultimately the building burned to the ground and final counts list 20
people dead, the first casualties of the war with Mars.
October
31st, 1968. In honor of the
thirty anniversary of the Orson Welles broadcast, station WKBW in Buffalo New
York plans to broadcast its own, updated version of “The War Of The Worlds.” Despite massive preparation by the station, 28 days of advertising every hour on the hour, and press releases sent to anyone who MIGHT be affected, over 4000 residents of Buffalo panicked and called authorities to warn them of the martian invasion of Buffalo.
So
how is it that long after television rises to become the preferred method for
disseminating information that a lone Radio station was still able to
unintentionally dupe thousands of people?
Human beings, despite our
technological advances, are primitives.
We really aren’t all that far removed from our savage ancestors. We’re quick to dismiss things we don’t
understand and superstitious of things we can’t. We need there to be order in the chaos—just
look at organized religion. Any
religion, at its core deals with a concept or story so fantastic any rational
man would dismiss it out of hand entirely.
And yet, people are so ardent in their beliefs wars have been fought
over a matter of faith. We are paranoid
creatures, H.G. Wells knew this when he wrote the book, you have only to flip
through its pages to see how scathing his opinion was of humanity. And most of all, we are afraid. We are afraid of the thing that man has been
afraid of since the invention of fire.
We’re afraid of the dark, and the
things that might be in it.
War of the Worlds preys upon that
ultimate fear: Space. A place so vast we can’t comprehend its size,
a place so alien from our warm fragile orb we can’t wrap our minds around it, a
place so dark, it only comes out at night.
And now things come out of that fathomless black dark of space, and they
have come to our home and they mean us harm.
So which is it? The story; the power of Radio; or the human
condition? Which of these is to blame
for the panic unleashed that night in 1938 and in all the ones since? Ultimately, I think the reason is
some combination of all three. Time
after time, despite the fact that it’s “just a play”, War Of The Worlds manages
to get inside our heads with its excitement and paranoia. Even I, who know the nuances of this
broadcast nearly inside and out, can still close my eyes and be transported to
the scene of the alien invasion. And
perhaps that’s the true power of Radio:
To wield the mighty paintbrush of
imagination within the human mind. I believe Orson Welles knew this.
If you'd like to take part, this Halloween night TriBODS presents the original War Of The Worlds broadcast, on campus at Washburn University, Henderson Hall, Room 100 at 8pm.
