”No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns, they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency, men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurances of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. No one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources of human danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable. It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most, terrestrial men fancied there might be other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise. Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded the Earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us.”
Those were the opening lines to the 1897 science fiction classic, “The War Of The Worlds” by H. G. Wells..
In the original story, the location for the invasion was England. In the radio drama that spooked millions of people on this side of the Atlantic, the invasion took place on the eastern coast of the United States. You have to remember something about the times. Americans were somewhat anxious with fears about war. When Orson Welles and the staff of CBS’s Mercury Theatre On The Airdecided to put together a radio adaption of the classic story, little did they realize the response from their jittery American radio audience. The radio-play was adapted by Howard Koch with contributions by Welles and the staff.
What made the play so convincing to so many people? It was written to simulate a live news broadcast that would follow events as they occurred, breaking into the broadcast of a supposed live music show. Of course, the interruptions became more frequent, until it was apparent that the United States was under an invasion. One can just imagine how a similar broadcast today could unnerve a whole country, considering the times we live in. At the time, many listeners missed the opening of the broadcast and tuned in after the invasion was fully underway. The New York Times on October 31st, 1938, stated, “Radio Listeners in Panic, Taking War Drama As Fact. Many Flee Homes to Escape ‘Gas Raid From Mars’-Phone Calls Swamp Police…” Figures suggested that six million Americans heard the broadcast with 1.7 million believing it to be real. 1.2 million were “genuinely frightened.” There were some who convinced themselves they could actually smell the poison gas and see lightning flashes off in the distance.
The program was broadcast from radio studios on the 20th floor at 485 Madison Avenue in New York City. The cast included actors who would go on to become popular in the movies and on television. Actors Joseph Cotten, John Houseman, who later starred in “Paper Chase,” and, of course, Orson Welles, who, much later in his career, reminded us, “There would be no wine before it’s time..”
At the beginning of the broadcast, Grover’s Mill was deserted, but crowds soon began to gather. The police were sent in to control the throng of curious onlookers. With the flashing police lights across the crowds, the scene quickly began to resemble what was being heard on the radio.
There is an urban legend that suggests that the “disclaimer” at the end of the program by Welles himself was facilitated to try to ease the growing panic. He said that the program was nothing more than the equivalent of dressing up in a sheet and saying, “Boo!” It’s only a legend, of course, because his comments were a part of the original radio script.
The date was October 30th, 1938, when the Mercury Theatre On The Air convinced us the Martians were real. Tom Cruise in the Spielberg film adaption recently made us believers again.
There are quite a few sites on the internet for those interested in learning more about the broadcast and the conspiracy theory that the broadcast was actually a psychological warfare experiment to study panic.
In my series of programs leading up to Hallowe’en this year, I tried on the same costume. My intent was never to frighten, but to get into the character of the season. I hope you enjoyed the atmosphere I tried to create during my rendition of some classic writings. I’ve always been a fan of old-time radio broadcasts, when the listener had to create the images in his own mind. The right background music, a few sound effects, a convincing script and the right actors, could create an incredible landscape for the mind to get lost in. It was a time when families would gather around the radio set ready to be entertained. The budgets certainly pale in comparison to those set aside for television programs and movies today. With today’s visual medium, we need spectacular computer-generated, special effects in order to convince us to suspend our disbelief. During radio’s “Golden Age,” very little was needed to make us believe. It’s the same sort of idea I try to employ during Lovers and Other Strangers, nightly between 9 and 11pm.
And before you think that all of this is pure fiction, consider the fact that we are occasionally bombarded by Martian meteorites. One very famous one, found in Antarctica, was being studied to see if there might once have been life on the Red Planet.
As Carl Sagan said in his PBS tv series, Cosmos, and its companion volume published in 1980 by Random House, “If the planet is ever terraformed, it will be done by human beings whose permanent residence and planetary affiliation is Mars. The Martians will be us.”
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Don Jackson
