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Mars Attacked, 65 Years Ago Today

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the american-classic dept.

Jodrell writes "Forget solar flares, and the upcoming Halloween festivities - tonight marks the 65th anniversary of the broadcast of Orson Welles' radioplay version on The War Of The Worlds."

6 of 294 comments (clear)

  1. Errm. by mihalis · · Score: 0, Insightful

    It would have been better expressed as "Earth Attacked by Mars, 65 years ago". Maybe I'm just picky.

  2. I doubt it by MonkeyCookie · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I've heard parts of the original Orson Welles broadcast. With all the media we're exposed to, there is absolutely no way we'd be fooled by it today.

    Even with good editing and falsified television footage, I still doubt such a thing would fool us. We've seen way too many alien movies and such to be fooled. Something more believable and fear-inducing, such as falsified terrorist threats and terrorist attacks might do it.

    I would also point out that it would make it even more difficult to pull such a hoax now due to the fact that we have so many more media sources now. Back then there were only a few radio stations. Now we have the Internet, radio, television, etc. It would certainly look strange if one channel/station was covering it and everyone else seemed oblivious to it.

    1. Re:I doubt it by Razor+Blades+are+Not · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I thought 9/11 was a special effect the first time I saw it.

      We're so used to the medias ability to lie with ease, I expect we'd probably need to be hit by the Heat-Ray before we'd accept such a thing these days.
      Some people still believe we've never landed on the Moon, after all.

  3. It happens today too by Stiletto · · Score: 4, Insightful


    Instead today, the public is often manipulated not by what they see/hear through the media, but what they are kept from seeing/hearing. Through censorship or spin, you are told what you need to be told so that your opinions and beliefs about what is "true" match what the teller has in mind, and you are not told things that will counter those goal beliefs.

    ONe has only to compare the major U.S. news outlets with news reporting throughout the world to see examples. Not that news reporting in other countries is any less censored/spun to advance THEIR goals.....

  4. Re:Golden Age of Sci Fi by Trurl's+Machine · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Idealism and dreams lead to greatness.

    The problem with dreams and idealism is that the idealists often dream of gulags or gas chambers.

  5. Nonsense! by akahige · · Score: 2, Insightful

    They didn't issue a "warning" because it didn't occur to anyone that it might be taken seriously. "War of the Worlds" wasn't intended to be a hoax, and anyone willing to intellectually engage even slightly with the show would have been able to tell that it wasn't true.

    The originating news service is fake, the prestigious hotel in New York from which the show was supposedly broadcast didn't exist, the famous band leader at said hotel was also fictitious. There are many references to non-existent broadcasting services and locations, and as the show continues, and they're describing the swathe of destruction left by the aliens as they advance on New York City (with 20 minutes left in the show) ... anyone actually in New York could simply look out at the sky and see if it was glowing. According to the broadcast within the broadcast, 3 million people had left the City, thousands were jumping into the Hudson River, and the location of the advancing fires were very specifically described.

    So for a one hour show, the first 40 minutes are concerned with the initial "attack" and the fake documentary; even if that confused some people, there is absolutely NO WAY that anyone could mistake the last 20 minutes for anything other than radio drama. Orson Welles describing the actions of his character travelling through a wasteland of destruction and death, meeting a National Guardsman in hiding and engaging him in conversation and great inspirational speechifying.

    "War of the Worlds" was the 17th broadcast episode of the Mercury Theatre. It aired weekly on CBS, in the same time slot, and with the same cast. The thing that REALLY makes you wonder about the American populace, is that Orson Welles was a constant fixture on the radio -- he was the original voice of The Shadow -- on multiple networks, and he appears prominently in the show. It's not like you'd mistake that voice for someone else.

    Welles was on the radio as The Shadow from September 1937 until September '38. The Mercury Theatre on the Air began in July 1938. Considering the length of the broadcast day, and the lack of dense programming, that means that everyone knew who Orson Welles was.

    Oh well. As H.L. Mencken is often misquoted as saying, "No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people."