Orson Welles' "War of the Worlds"
By Joe Chrostek
Presented on October 30, 1938 on CBS Radio's Mercury Theater broadcast.
Updating H. G. Wells' Novel "War of the Worlds"
They had the idea to bring the classic novel to a radio broadcast. Narrated by Orson Welles who was only 23 at the time.
The Country tunes in.
The broadcast began at 8pm on sunday night which was primetime. Most of the country was listening to a popular show on NBC till 8:12 when the show ended.
Presented as a Radio Broadcast.
Orson Welles presented the show as if it was really a news report of aliens being detected and landing in New Jersey.
Millions of Americans believed the broadcast was real.
People React.
People jammed highways, boarded up windows and told the electric company to turn off their electricity to hide from the Martians.
CBS gets news of people.
Once CBS found out that people thought his broadcast was real, Welles went on air and reminded them that it was fiction.
Works Cited
history.com/this-day-in-history/welles-scares-nation
transparencynow.com/welles.htm