#The real war of the worlds series

In Providence, Rhode Island, hysterical callers begged the electric company to cut power to the city to keep it safe from the extraterrestrial invaders.įear and anxiety had become a way of life in the 1930s, and it took little to rattle jittery Americans. In New Jersey, ground zero for the fictitious invasion, national guardsmen wanted to know where they should report for duty, and the Trenton police department fielded 2,000 calls in under two hours. They besieged police departments, newspapers and CBS with phone calls. Although the program included a reminder at intermission that it was a dramatization, thousands of anxious and confused listeners believed it to be real.

The fright that Welles put into America, however, was much greater than he thought. The Mercury Theatre’s own radio version of dressing up in a sheet and jumping out of a bush and saying ‘boo!’”ġ4 Everyday Objects of Ancient Egypt The National Panic That Followed The War of the Worlds Human germs, rather than human armies, ultimately did in the mythical Martian invaders, and at the end of the hour the director wrapped up the radio drama by telling his audience, “This is Orson Welles, ladies and gentlemen, out of character to assure you that ‘The War of the Worlds’ has no further significance than as the holiday offering it was intended to be. Welles and the rest of the cast impersonated astronomers, state militia officials and even the Secretary of the Interior, who cannily sounded like President Franklin D. Breathless reporters detailed an extraterrestrial army of squid-like figures that killed thousands of earthlings with heat rays and black clouds of poison gas as they steamrolled into New York City.

#The real war of the worlds series

In quick succession came a series of increasingly alarming, suspense-building newsflashes that culminated with Martian spacecrafts crashing into a farm in Grovers Mill, New Jersey.įor the rest of the hour, terror crackled over the airwaves. The CBS program, penned by “Casablanca” screenwriter Howard Koch, opened serenely with the dulcet dance music of “Ramon Raquello and his orchestra.” Then, an actor portraying an announcer broke in with a fake news report that several explosions of incandescent gas had occurred on Mars.