The War Of The Worlds Essay

At a time when America was recovering from The Great Depression and facing the introduction of World War II, chaos could break out at any minute. The day before Halloween in 1938, a simple broadcast of entertainment launched the country into panic(History.com Staff 1). By announcing that Martians were invading Earth on the air, The War of the Worlds, radio adaptation by Orson Wells’ that seemed “too realistic to be fake,” would be the cause of this havoc in the north eastern region of the United States. H.G. Wells’ book, The War of the Worlds, was written in 1898, and later transformed into a radio broadcast in 1938 (Fetzer 193 ). “In 1938, his famous Halloween radio production of H.G. Wells’ novel, The War of the World's, frightened many listeners by convincing them that the Martians had actually invaded New Jersey”(Fetzer 193). It was not actually intended to be a public hoax, or a scare, just a broadcast for Halloween from the CBS studio(History.com Staff
1). “Orson Welles was only twenty three, when his Mercury Theater Company decided to update H.G. Wells’ 19th century science fiction novel War of the Worlds, for national radio” (History.com Staff 1). No one in the studio would be aware of the panic they would cause by airing The War of the World's.
The War of the Worlds broadcast was a scripted to be a theatrical performance on the air(History.com Staff, 1). The show began with the introduction of the play, then would go into music, the music would be interrupted by an announcement, and this would continue on through the play like so:
“Welles introduced his radio play with a spoken introduction, followed by an announcer reading a weather report. Then, seemingly abandoning the storyline, the announcer took listeners to “the Meridian Room in the Hotel Park Plaza in downtown New York, where you will be entertained by the music of Ramon Raquello and his orchestra.” Putrid dance music played for some time, and then the scare began. An announcer broke in to report that “Professor Farrell of the Mount Jenning Observatory” has detected explosions on the planet Mars. Then the dance music came back on, followed by another interruption in which listeners were informed that a large meteor had crashed into a farmer’s field in Grovers Mills, New Jersey” (History.com Staff 2).
Almost everyone in the 1930’s had a radio to keep connected to the outside world (Schwartz 1). A married couple, John and Estelle Paultz had a radio and described what they felt, and heard while the broadcast was on air (Schwartz 2). They said: “The CBS announcer read bulletin after bulletin describing some kind of armed invasion of the Eastern Seaboard” (Schwartz 2). They continue describing what they heard, enemy aircrafts landing in New Jersey, war machines seeping across the state, and that the army could do nothing to stop them (Schwartz 2). The announcer started describing that the Martians would walk out of the shadows like a grey snake, and that they had tentacles(History.com Staff 3). At this point, New Jersey civilians were terrified and tried to flee the state for safety(History.com Staff 3). “In New Jersey, terrified civilians jammed highways seeking to excape the alien marauders” (History.com Staff 3).
However, the married couple stayed tuned to the radio listening to the report continue through. ““A new broadcast, surely,” he replied. It wounded so real, it couldn’t possibly be anything else. Realizing that their city might be under siege at any moment, Estella felt as though her blood were coagulating in her veins” (Schwartz 2). Estella and John Paultz would also rush later into the city and find no alien invader(Schwartz 2).
The broadcast wasn’t over yet though, the announcer also told of poisonous gas being told by the alien invaders(History.com Staff 2). “But before the airmen could release their bombs, the invaders sprayed the planes with some kind of death ray bringing them all down in flames” (Schwartz 2). This made some civilians go out and ask the police for gasmask, and even made people beg that their electricity get shut off so the Martians can’t see their lights on in their homes(History.com Staff 1).”One woman ran into an Indianapolis church where evening services were being held and yelled, “New York has been destroyed! It’s the end of the world! Go home and prepare to die””(History.com Staff 3-4)! Rumors even came around that people began to jump out windows and commit suicide because of the fear, but they were never confirmed(History.com Staff).
The news came back to the CBS studio, Orson had to make an announcement to try to calm the people he caused to erupt into panic(History.com Staff 4).
“When the news of the real-life panic leaked into the CBS studio, Welles went on the air as himself to remind listeners that it is just fiction” (History.com Staff 4). Orson feared the consequences of the production by scaring an estimated two million people alone in the the North Eastern region(History.com Staff 4)(Heyer 1). The broadcast was even investigated by the FCC to see if any crimes were committed, but they didn’t find any crime to be broken, but the CBS studio agreed to be more careful about how they would broadcast (History.com Staff 4). Little did Orson know that his broadcast would actually help him gain publicity. “In fact, the publicity helped land him a contract with a Hollywood studio and in 1941 he directed, wrote, produced a starred in “Citizen Kane” - a movie that many have called the greatest American film ever made” (History.com Staff
5).
The news of the broadcast spread and went out all over America and made the headlines of the following newspapers: “Atlanta Constitution,” “Baltimore Sun,” “Boston Evening Transcript,” “Chicago Daily News,” “Chicago Tribune,” “Christian Science Monitor,” “Dallas Morning News,” “Denver Post,” “Detroit News,” “Kansas City Star,” “Los Angeles Times,” “New Orleans Times-Picayune,” “New York Times,” “St. Louis Globe Democrat,” “St. Louis Post Dispatch,” “San Francisco Chronicle”, and “Washington Post” (Wolfe 1).