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Mars Attacked, 65 Years Ago Today
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."
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I wonder what sort of panic would ensue if someone were to do a similar broadcast now?
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
You can find an MP3 version of the original broadcast at http://www.unknown.nu/mercury/. (Be nice -- the server is slow even when not being slashdotted.)
It reminds me of an april fools documentary which seemingly had evidence and proof that the moon landing was faked. It had all sorts of high profile people finally coming out and stating that it was faked. Even Buz Aldrin was in on it.
The documentary gets sillier and sillier until in the final credits, the interviewees start asking to see the script again etc. etc. Had me going for a while too.
From my grandfather, who worked at a gas station about 20 miles from the "landing site" He said of all the people that stopped at the station that night, half were leaving to get away from the aliens, and the other half were driving towards it!
I believe it was first broadcast on American radio on Sunday, October 30th just after 8pm EST. Interestingly, from the "It can't happen again" department, an adaptation of the show played in Quito, Ecuador in 1949 and caused riots. The radio station building was set on fire after citizens discovered it was a fraud. More recently, it cause problems in northen Portugal in 1988. For more details see this csicop page.
A fews years ago, a few friends and I decided to mark this occasion in what we thought was a pretty interesting manner. We, being native Jerseyites, took a trip out to the location where the "meteor" (sparking the invasion and spooking the local population) originally impacted - Browns Mills, NJ - and making some of our own "crop circles". We were drunk and not very skilled at this endeavor, but the end result turned out pretty nicely we thought. We kept at it while too and make them farily large and noticable. We did this in the dead of night, and whether or not the farmer in question caught the meaning of what we did, I'm fairly certain we gave him something to scratch his head over and ponder the next morning.
Quod scripsi, scripsi.
You could just order the CD online at Amazon. The CD is great.
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