On October 30, 1938, millions of New Yorkers supposedly had the shock of their lives, while listening to Orson Welles' The War of the Worlds broadcast where he announced that the U.S. was being invaded by aliens.
One frightened listener tried to sue CBS for $50,000, claiming the network caused her “nervous shock” with the broadcast. Her lawsuit was quickly dismissed. Only one claim was ever successful, for a pair of black men's shoes (size 9B) by a Massachusetts man who said he had spent the money he had saved to buy shoes on a train ticket to escape the Martians. Welles reportedly paid for the man's shoes.
Possibly the myth also persists because it so perfectly captures our unease with the media's power over our lives. we retell the story because we need a cautionary tale about the power of media. And that need has hardly abated: Just as radio was the new medium of the 1930s, opening up exciting new channels of communication, today the Internet provides us with both the promise of a dynamic communicative future and dystopian fears of a new form of mind control; lost privacy; and attacks from scary, mysterious forces. This is the fear that animates our fantasy of panicked hordes—both then and now.
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| image: Public Domain |
Hysteria swept America and made thousands of people flee their homes, take to arms, flood the streets to catch a glimpse of a real space battle, or simply die of heart attacks, suicides and whatnots.
Well, though it's extremely tempting to argue how foolish and even stupid humans can be, the story is (sadly) nothing but a myth.
Let's start from the beginning:
- New York City hospitals in December had no record of any cases brought in specifically on account of the broadcast.
- The claim that there were thousands of terrified callers to the station is also a myth. Police records for New Jersey did show an increase in calls on the night of the show. However, some people called to find out where they could go to donate blood. Some callers were simply angry that such a realistic show was allowed on the air, while others called CBS to congratulate Mercury Theatre for the exciting Halloween programme.
- The claim that millions of people had the shock of their lives while listening to the programme is not just a gross exaggeration, but a complete falsehood, because the majority of them listened to another show that was being aired at the same time, which leaves us with the figure of 2%.
So, how did the myth of mass panic take hold?
The answer is quite simple - the newspapers. Radio had siphoned off advertising revenue from print during the Depression, badly damaging the newspaper industry. So the papers seized the opportunity presented by Welles’ program to discredit radio as a source of news. The newspaper industry sensationalised the panic to prove to advertisers, and regulators, that radio management was irresponsible and not to be trusted.
Let's take a look at some of the headlines:
Let's take a look at some of the headlines:
Radio Listeners in Panic, Taking War Drama as Fact'
'Radio Fake Scares Nation'
'US Terrorised By Radio's Men From Mars' said the San Francisco Chronicle
'Radio Fake Scares Nation'
'US Terrorised By Radio's Men From Mars' said the San Francisco Chronicle
Were there any legal repercussions?
One frightened listener tried to sue CBS for $50,000, claiming the network caused her “nervous shock” with the broadcast. Her lawsuit was quickly dismissed. Only one claim was ever successful, for a pair of black men's shoes (size 9B) by a Massachusetts man who said he had spent the money he had saved to buy shoes on a train ticket to escape the Martians. Welles reportedly paid for the man's shoes.
And, this wasn't the first radio hoax!
England actually beat America to that trick, because the first radio hoax was broadcast on 16 January 1926, on the BBC. A talk on 18th-century British literature was interrupted by a 12-minute series of fictitious news bulletins about a riot in London, in which Big Ben was blown up by mortars, the Savoy Hotel burnt down and a politician lynched on a tramway post. The show, curiously, was written by Father Ronald Knox, a Catholic priest.
And what about the myth itself?
Possibly the myth also persists because it so perfectly captures our unease with the media's power over our lives. we retell the story because we need a cautionary tale about the power of media. And that need has hardly abated: Just as radio was the new medium of the 1930s, opening up exciting new channels of communication, today the Internet provides us with both the promise of a dynamic communicative future and dystopian fears of a new form of mind control; lost privacy; and attacks from scary, mysterious forces. This is the fear that animates our fantasy of panicked hordes—both then and now.
