Panic in America - The War of the Worlds!

Nick Hennegan celebrates the birthday of Orson Wells with part one of ‘The War of The Worlds.’

“The War of the Worlds“ was an episode of the radio series The Mercury Theatre on the Air which was broadcast live at 8 pm on October 30, 1938 over the CBS Radio Network. The episode was directed and narrated by Orson Welles as an adaptation of H. G. Wells‘ novel The War of the Worlds and is infamous for inciting a panic by convincing some members of the listening audience that a Martian invasion was actually taking place.

The first half of the program was delivered in a realistic “breaking news” format. Since the Mercury Theatre on the Airhad few commercial interruptions, the first break came after fictional reporters had described a devastating alien invasion and the fall of New York City. This apparently caused some confusion and fear among its listeners, though the scale of the panic is disputed.

Welles apologized at a hastily called news conference the next morning, and no punitive action was taken. The broadcast and subsequent publicity brought the 23-year-old Welles to the attention of the general public and gave him the reputation of an innovative storyteller and “trickster”

Here is part one of the broadcast  www.BohemianBritain.com