Question:
Have you ever wished you could write a story so compelling that it would affect people for generations?
Please time travel with me to an eerie event that begins with Justin and Miranda. They’re fictional, but the narrative is based on a real incident.
How would you feel if this happened to you?
The Story
8:02:37 October 30, 1938
A retired American couple in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, tries to relax after supper.
The world is experiencing an economic depression. Global tensions are high with rumors of impending war in Europe. Winston Churchill has asked the USA and Western Europe to gear up for battle against Adolf Hitler. Many people worry that the conflict could spread to North America.
Justin appraises the jack-o’-lantern perched in the window. “Good job, dear. Looks almost as scary as der Führer.” He picks up the most recent Portsmouth Herald and sinks into his favorite chair.
Miranda sits on the sofa, knitting yet another scarf. It’s the fifth since the beginning of the month, but October weather is always brisk and cold. She mumbles, “Busy fingers, less time to worry.”
“What’s that, dear?”
She smiles at her husband of fifty-two years. “Nothing important. Would you please turn on the radio?”
“Sure.” Justin lays down his newspaper, switches on the radio, and adjusts the volume. “How’s that?”
“Music? Excellent! I’m tired of listening to depressing news reports.”
8:03:42 p.m.
Miranda frowns. “Why are they interrupting the orchestra?”
“Just listen, dear. How will you ever know if you talk while the announcer is speaking?”
She tsk-tsks but lays her knitting in her lap and listens.
“At twenty minutes before eight Central Time, Professor Farrell of the Mount Jennings Observatory, Chicago, Illinois, reports observing several explosions of incandescent gas, occurring at regular intervals on the planet Mars. The spectroscope indicates the gas to be hydrogen and moving towards the Earth with enormous velocity. Professor Pierson of the Observatory at Princeton confirms Farrell’s observation, and describes the phenomenon as (quote) like a jet of blue flame shot from a gun (unquote). We now return you to the music of Ramón Raquello, playing for you in the Meridian Room of the Park Plaza Hotel, situated in downtown New York.”
The music continues. However, it’s repeatedly interrupted by various announcers breaking in with reports of objects landing on Earth, seismic shocks, flashes in the sky, and strange creatures — Martians! — killing people with heat rays and poison gas.
Justin reaches for the phone.
“Who are you calling?”
He firms his chin. “I’m going to volunteer. To fight against the Martians.”
Miranda wags a finger at him. “You’re too old. They’d never take you.”
He hangs his head. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
With thoughts of newspaper and knitting cast aside, they stare at the radio, lips compressed.
Live interviews cut in and break off. Radio feeds of bomber pilots report unsuccessful attempts to kill the aliens.
Justin and Miranda become paler with every minute.
8:39:35 p.m.
Miranda swoons, and Justin tries to revive her.
8:39:50 p.m.
“2X2L calling CQ … 2X2L calling CQ … 2X2L calling CQ … New York. Isn’t there anyone on the air? Isn’t there anyone on the air? Isn’t there anyone … 2X2L”
The announcer cuts in:
“You are listening to a CBS presentation of Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre on the Air in an original dramatization of The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells. The performance will continue after a brief intermission. This is the Columbia Broadcasting System.”
Miranda comes to, and Justin explains that it was all a mistake. “Fake news, dear. We’ve been duped. Tricked. Hoodwinked. In the morning I intend to complain to the head of CBS. This is inexcusable.”
However, their compulsion to listen defeats their disgust. They remain in their seats, leaning toward the radio, absorbing every word.
8:57:35 p.m.
“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: The Mercury Theatre’s own radio version of dressing up in a sheet and jumping out of a bush and saying Boo! Starting now, we couldn’t soap all your windows and steal all your garden gates by tomorrow night … so we did the best next thing. We annihilated the world before your very ears, and utterly destroyed the CBS. You will be relieved, I hope, to learn that we didn’t mean it, and that both institutions are still open for business. So goodbye everybody, and remember the terrible lesson you learned tonight. That grinning, glowing, globular invader of your living room is an inhabitant of the pumpkin patch, and if your doorbell rings and nobody’s there, that was no Martian … it’s Halloween.”
(Mercury Theatre theme music.)
“Tonight the Columbia Broadcasting System and its affiliated stations coast-to-coast have brought you The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells, the seventeenth in its weekly series of dramatic broadcasts featuring Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre on the Air. Next week we present a dramatization of three famous short stories. This is the Columbia Broadcasting System.”
The Headlines
Millions of people listened to the Mercury Theatre broadcast, and many who tuned in late panicked. The following day, newspaper headlines such as the following appeared.
The New York Times: “Radio Listeners in Panic, Taking War Drama as Fact”
Chicago Herald and Examiner: “RADIO FAKE SCARES NATION”
Wisconsin State Journal: “Hysteria Sweeps Country as Radio Hoax Describes ‘Invasion’ by Mars Giants”
San Francisco Chronicle: “PANIC SWEEPS U. S. AS RADIO STAGES MARS RAID”
The Boston Daily Globe: “RADIO PLAY TERRIFIES NATION”
The Winnipeg Tribune: “U.S. Panic Stricken by Radio ‘Invasion’”
Australian Associated Press: “COULD HAPPEN ONLY IN AMERICA! Fantastic Details Of Mass Hysteria”
The Broadcast Is Still Available for Your Listening Pleasure
Or you might want to call it your listening trauma.
Archive.org’s Wayback Machine hosts a dozen copies of the one-hour broadcast in multiple bitrates and formats:
The War of the Worlds 1938 Radio Broadcast
Save your chosen recording and fast forward to the 03:42 mark. Pretend you’re nervous because of world events, and that you don’t have a clue about the backstory.
At first, you’ll probably feel shivers run down your spine. You may reach a point where you pooh-pooh what you hear, but during the initial listening phase, you’ll share an eerie experience with the ghosts of decades past.
More Information and Resources
Herbert George Wells was born during the Victorian era, and he wrote The War of the Worlds while Queen Victoria was still monarch of England. Yet his story has entertained readers for more than a century.
In addition to the radio broadcast, The War of the Worlds has been the basis for multiple TV series and movies.
More versions of the radio broadcast are available at YouTube.
And free audio versions of the book are available at Librivox.
You can also download free e-reader versions from:
(As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.)
Find additional books by H. G. Wells at Gutenberg.org (multiple formats).
Learn more about H. G. Wells and his numerous books at Britannica.com and Biography.com.
P.S.
On October 27, 1940, Orson Welles and H. G. Wells met for the first time the day before an interview on Radio KTSA San Antonio.
Find the interview on YouTube by searching for HG Wells Orson Welles 1940 radio broadcast.
P.P.S.
I leave you with a few quotes by Mr. Wells.
“No passion in the world is equal to the passion to alter someone else’s draft.”
“After people have repeated a phrase a great number of times, they begin to realize it has meaning and may even be true.”
“Advertising is legalized lying.”
“The path of least resistance is the path of the loser.”
“Adapt or perish, now as ever, is nature’s inexorable imperative.”
“Our true nationality is mankind.”
“The past is the beginning of the beginning, and all that is and has been is but the twilight of the dawn.”
“Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.”
“It is not reasonable that those who gamble with men’s lives should not pay with their own.”
“A time will come when a politician who has willfully made war and promoted international dissension will be as sure of the dock and much surer of the noose than a private homicide. It is not reasonable that those who gamble with men’s lives should not stake their own.”
“Leaders should lead as far as they can and then vanish. Their ashes should not choke the fire they have lit.”
“If we don’t end war, war will end us.”
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H. G. Wells was brilliant. I would like to have known such a humanitarian. This was a great story.
I was thrilled to listen to the radio production and then to hear the author’s voice in the subsequent interview.
From the tone of his writing, I didn’t expect a male version of Queen Elizabeth’s voice. I’ve listened to the broadcast three times during road trips. The first time was the most moving, as I vicariously experienced the emotions of the people who heard it in 1938. The next two listens made me realize small facts I had missed or misheard.
Like you said, Jackie, Herbert George was a great humanitarian. And an unforgettable writer.