There have been a handful of truly pivotal broadcasts in the history of radio, since public broadcasting began around 1920 (Baudino & Kittross, 1977). These momentous programs and speeches were delivered by some of the most influential people of history, including Winston Churchill’s “We Will Fight on the Beaches” address, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, and Albert Einstein explaining his relativity theory (Frater, 2007). A few years after the Hindenburg Disaster (another pivotal radio broadcast), Orson Welles delivered a radio program that shook the United States, and eventually the rest of the globe; The War of the Worlds, based on H.G. Wells 1898 novel, was a radio drama that implemented a news bulletin format to describe a Martian invasion of Earth in 1938 (Gosling, 2009, p. 1). With unique and revolutionary techniques used throughout its delivery, War of the Worlds and its subsequent public reaction changed radio forever and helped to progress other modes of communication at the time of the broadcast.
George Orson Welles was born on May 6, 1915 in Kenosha, Wisconsin, but was moved to Chicago, Illinois shortly after (Gosling, 2009, p. 20). He was called a ‘genius’ from his earliest days; it is said that, “by the age of three [Welles] was already speaking like an adult” (p. 21). According to Gosling, Welles was drawn to theater and performance from childhood, and displayed a prodigious knack for it (p. 23). He was able to go on several trips abroad, seeing places like Jamaica, Ireland, and Hong Kong before he was even 18 years old (Gosling, 2009, 22). In 1933, he was given the role of Tybalt, a minor character in Romeo and Juliet on Broadway. Gosling discussed how Welles felt cheated and that he deserved more of a prominent role, and in turn acted on stage with a passion and ferocity that did not go unnoticed (p. 25). John Houseman, an aspiring theater producer and writer from London, attended one of the shows and was captivated by Welles’ performance. Eventually the two became partners, and created plays together for several years (Gosling, 2009, p. 27). In the summer of 1937, the two men founded The Mercury Theatre, with a starting budget of $100 (Pierce, 2008).
The following year was a busy one for the two men, especially Welles, according to Gosling (2009). The Mercury Theatre put on a very successful and slightly controversial rendition of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar on Broadway, set in fascist Italy (Pierce, 2008). With New York City as the heart of the radio broadcasting industry at the time, and Welles’ powerfully distinctive voice, he soon became quite sought after by radio shows. Gosling quoted Welles as saying, “Soon I was doing so many [radio shows] I didn’t even rehearse. I’d come to a bad end in some tearjerker on the seventh floor of CBS and rush up to the ninth, where just as the [on-air] light was going on, somebody’d hand me a script…and I’d go off again” (p.28). His vocal abilities were earning him upwards of $1500 per week at the time (Gosling, 2009, p. 28), which would equate to about $24,000 per week in the present day. Shortly thereafter, CBS offered Welles and his team their own radio show, a one-hour weekly special called Mercury Theatre on Air, that would present an adaption of classic works of literature such as Dracula, Treasure Island, A Tale of Two Cities, and more (Pierce, 2008). According to Gosling, for the seventeenth episode of the show, set to air on October 30, 1398, the Mercury Theatre on Air was planning to present Lorna Doone, a tale of 17th century romance (p. 32). However, with just over a week until the broadcast, Welles decided to switch the program to War of the Worlds, a decision that would change the world of radio for years to come (p.33). The frenzied public reaction paired with the overzealous media coverage of the broadcast created a response that had never been seen before, and hasn’t been duplicated since.
At 8 p.m. on October 30, 1938, Orson Welles began presenting War of the Worlds from the 20th floor of the CBS Studio in New York City (Gosling, 2009, p. 43). The show was presented as a series of interrupting news flashes between music by the fictional orchestra of Ramon Raquello. The first news flash merely stated that a professor in Chicago observed “ several explosions of incandescent gas, occurring at regular intervals on the planet Mars” (Koch, 1938, p. 194). These breaking news bulletins became more and more frequent and frightening as the show went on. By using real places in the story, such as Princeton University and the small town of Grover’s Mill, New Jersey, listeners who tuned in late became panic-stricken. In his retelling of the event, Gosling included a quote by CBS night news manager Hal Davies: “About 10 or 15 minutes into the broadcast and the phones started ringing. And I began to get hysterical calls, saying, ‘Where are the invaders?’ and ‘What’s happening?’” (p. 46). Davidson Taylor, the executive producer of the show, attempted to order Welles to cut short the broadcast, but Houseman physically blocked him from entering the studio. The show continued, and so did the pandemonium among listeners, as the news flashes became increasingly morbid and intense, first describing the Martian landing in Grover’s Mill, New Jersey, and how they killed everyone in the vicinity, including the news reporter on the scene. The Martians then headed toward New York City, leaving death and destruction in their wake. This was followed by perhaps the most controversial bulletin: Kenny Delmar portraying the Secretary of the Interior, broadcasting from Washington, D.C. to the public. Delmar began his speech with the line, “Citizens of the nation: I shall not try to conceal the gravity of this situation that confronts the country,” and went on to close with “…we may confront this destructive adversary with a nation united, courageous, and consecrated to the preservation of human supremacy on this earth” (Koch, 1938, p. 205). After the show, Welles told his frightened and confused listeners that it was all an act and had no real significance, calling it “The Mercury Theatre’s own radio version of dressing up in a sheet and jumping out of a bush and saying Boo!” (Gosling, 2009, p. 47). However, the studio phone continued ringing off the hook. While the final theme music was playing, Welles took a call in the control room from a man claiming to be mayor of an unidentified Midwestern city. In his book, Gosling used Houseman’s description of the call: “Choking with fury, [the mayor] reports mobs in the streets of his city, women and children huddled in churches, violence and looting. If, as he now learns, the whole thing is nothing but a crummy joke—then he, personally, is coming up to New York to punch the author of it on his nose!” (p. 47). Later that evening, around midnight, Welles and several others walked to the famous Times Square in New York and watched the ticker scroll the words “ORSON WELLES CAUSES PANIC” (p. 48). Some thought Welles’ career was finished, but as the horrific reports of nationwide panic and hysteria were eventually proven to be exaggerated, Welles became more famous and powerful than he could have ever imagined.
Hadley Cantril, author of The Invasion From Mars: A Study in the Psychology of Panic, performed extensive research on the War of the Worlds broadcast and its aftermath. Cantril estimated, by compiling the results of surveys by C.E. Hooper, Inc. and the American Institute of Public Opinion given six weeks after the broadcast, that roughly six million listeners were tuned into the Mercury Theatre on Air on the evening of October 30, 1938 (p. 56). Further, it was estimated that 1.7 million listeners thought the broadcast was a news bulletin and 1.2 million were excited and/or frightened by it (Cantril, 2005, p. 58). Perhaps the most incredible statistic stemming from the broadcast was the massive increase in telephone use that it produced. Cantril reported on information secured by the American Telephone Company, stating there was a 39 percent increase in telephone use in metropolitan northern New Jersey during the show—where the invasion was said to have happened—as compared to the usual volume of that hour of the evening (p. 60). There were 92 radio stations that carried the broadcast, and afterward the managers were asked about their telephone volume during and after the show. Fifty-two managers replied, and 50 of them reported an increase in volume. Thirty-seven of them reported increases in telephone use of 500 percent or more (Cantril, 2005, p. 60). Three quarters of the managers also reported that the volume of mail they received following the show increased by 100 percent or more (p. 60). Newspapers across the country covered the story relentlessly, with at least 12,500 articles and clippings published by newspapers including the Seattle Daily Times, the Washington Post, and The New York Times in the three weeks following the broadcast (p. 61).
The War of the Worlds broadcast displayed radio’s emerging dominance over newspapers as Americans’ trusted source of news. According to Cantril, in a poll conducted by Fortune magazine that asked “Which of the two—radio or newspaper—gives you news freer from prejudice?”, 17 percent of respondents answered “newspaper,” 50 percent answered “radio,” and the rest were undecided (p.69). These statistics help to explain why there was so much panic surrounding the broadcast. One listener explained it by saying, “We have so much faith in broadcasting. In a crisis it has to reach all people. That’s what radio is here for” (Cantril, 2005, p. 70). Another reason for the widespread panic, according to a different listener, was that “it didn’t sound like a play the way it interrupted the music when it started” (p. 70). Tuning in late was an additional reason for alarm. Cantril cited a survey by CBS to show that 63 percent of listeners that tuned in after the beginning of the show took it to be a news story, while only 20 percent of those who listened from the beginning thought it was news (p.78). A similar study was done by the American Institute of Public Opinion and displayed comparable results. These studies revealed that about 50 percent of the listening audience tuned in late, largely because the Mercury Theatre on Air was competing with the most popular radio show at the time, The Chase and Sanborn Hour, with Edgar Bergen and his ventriloquist dummy, Charlie McCarthy (p. 82). Many listeners turned the dial when the musical portion of The Chase and Sanborn Hour started, and that’s when they stumbled upon Welles’ dramatic broadcast. Many listeners (21 percent of those asked by the American Institute of Public Opinion) also tuned in late because someone had called them on the telephone and told them to listen to the news (p. 83).
The United States wasn’t the only place to panic as a result of the War of the Worlds broadcast. The radio show made its way overseas in the following years, and it produced similar, if not more shocking, results as Welles’ original. On November 12, 1944, another rendition of War of the Worlds was performed in Santiago, Chile. As Gosling noted in his book, the producers of the Santiago show used similar tactics as the Mercury Theatre on Air including the use of “breaking news” bulletins and familiar places for the invasion—the landing site was Puente Alto, a sleepy little town 15 miles south of Santiago (p.100). Despite giving a one-week on-air notice about the show, an advertisement in the newspaper, and three reports during the show that it was all staged, the public reaction in Chile was even worse than in the United States. According to Gosling, “The telephone systems collapsed under the strain of numerous calls… and there were reports of minor injuries received as people fled their homes” (p. 101). Gosling also alluded to a Newsweek article from the time claiming that a man named Jose Villarroel actually got so frightened during the radio show that he died of a heart attack. This was important because, according to Gosling, “the unfortunate Villarroel seems to have earned the dubious honor of becoming the first person on Earth to be killed in an alien invasion, something that even Welles’ Martians conspicuously failed to do” (p.102). However, he would not be the last.
On February 12, 1949, another version of War of the Worlds was broadcast in Quito, Ecuador, and again the listening public reacted in a frenzied panic. After the radio station admitted that it was all a play and asked for everyone to remain calm, a crowd of roughly 300 people marched on the station and burned it to the ground. By the end of the rioting, six people were confirmed dead and many more were injured (Gosling, 2009, p. 107). Then, on November 22, 1954, a similar incident occurred in Caratinga, Brazil, when a telegraph operator sent a Morse telegraph about Martin invaders to a friend as a joke. His friend believed the story, and panic ensued throughout the city. According to Gosling, “As the telephone system in Caratinga imploded under the strain, the city was effectively cut off from the rest of the country for several hours” (p. 115). Obviously, the telephone outage did nothing to help the frenzy. The Esso Reporter, one of the most popular radio stations in Brazil, began broadcasting regular updates about the invasion, and spread the story as far as Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. The Brazilian military even got involved in the situation, sending planes on reconnaissance missions around Caratinga, before the hoax was eventually realized. The Martian craze continued to circle the globe, and on June 25, 1958, Radio Renascenca, located outside of Lisbon, Portugal, did another War of the Worlds radio show that stirred up yet another panic (Gosling, 2009, p. 120). Matos Maia, one of the most famous broadcasters in Portuguese history, was the voice behind the broadcast, and was actually arrested for his participation. During the show, Maia was pulled aside twice to answer telephone calls from a man claiming to be a captain of the Public Security Police, who was ordering the broadcast to be ended or Maia would be imprisoned. “But Maia and his colleagues were not sure the caller was genuine, so they decided to call his bluff. This would prove to be a grave mistake” (Gosling, 2009, p. 126). The broadcast was terminated abruptly, 90 minutes ahead of schedule, when a commanding officer and three others armed with guns came to the station and detained Maia, and he spent about three hours in jail.
There are several reasons that these broadcasts were so effective and caused such strong reactions from the audience. In the case of the original broadcast in 1938 by Orson Welles, the United States was in a very turbulent state. The Great Depression had been going on for nearly ten years and a Second World War was looming ahead. These types of hardships can easily cause a population to become excitable. As for the broadcast itself, Welles implemented techniques such as “dead air, microphone testing, sloppy eyewitness interviews, and many other remarkable devices…for the sake of realism” (Heyer, 2003). These techniques were revolutionary in the art of radio drama, and created the illusion of authenticity among the audience. According to Heyer, “Never before had the creative possibilities of radio been so effectively used, or abused” (2003). The ‘panic’ caused by the show spread by the earliest forms of immediate social networking. As mentioned before, telephones were ringing off the hook across the United States during and following the broadcast, with some radio stations reporting a 500 percent increase in telephone volume over a usual Sunday night (Hayes & Battles, 2001, p. 59). Since the original broadcast, social media has become much less interpersonal. In the present day, if a similar situation were to occur, everyone would instinctively check the Internet; Twitter, Facebook, and other social media sites would be swamped with traffic. The people of the time were simply using the communication outlets available to them in order to make sense of what was happening. Since that time period required more interpersonal communication—rather than staring at a computer or cell phone screen—this social networking to gather information may have caused the ‘panic’ to become a bit exaggerated over the following weeks, months, and years.
The War of the Worlds also portrayed to the listeners how valuable radio and other forms of communication are throughout its story. In the drama, as the Martians are marching on New York City, the announcer notes, “They stop to uproot power lines, bridges, and railroad tracks. Their apparent objective is to crush resistance, paralyze communication, and disorganize human society” (Koch, 1938, p. 206). As the broadcast progressed, the function of radio in the story became increasingly a two-way form of communication. At the beginning, the news bulletins were being presented directly at the listener, but after the Martians invaded, there were portrayals of conversations between military executives and pilots, and then eventually just an anonymous operator simply calling out to anyone left on the air, with the famous closing line: “Isn’t there anyone on the air? Isn’t there anyone […]” (Koch, 1938, p. 211). This transformation could have been a metaphor for the evolution of radio in late-1930s society (Hayes & Battles, 2011). Up until the War of the Worlds, radio was a fairly one-sided mode of communication; there was minimal listener involvement. However, as evidenced by the staggering amount of feedback and reception that the broadcast received, radio had clearly made the jump into a two-way communication model, and has remained so to this day.
Orson Welles and the other War of the Worlds broadcasters around the globe may not have meant for such chaotic responses to their shows, but the reactions helped to establish radio’s ascendancy and power in the world of communication. In his later years, Welles did admit to some sensationalism around the broadcast in an interview he had with Peter Bogdanovich. When asked about his intentions in doing the War of the Worlds broadcast, Welles stated, “The kind of response, yes—that was merrily anticipated by all of us. The size of it, of course, was flabbergasting” (Heyer, 2003). Having recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, the infamous broadcast remains relevant as a major event in radio history, and promises to be remembered for many more years to come.
References
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Cantril, H. (2005). The invasion from Mars: A study in the psychology of panic (2nd ed.). New Brunswick, N.J: Transaction Publishers.
Frater, J. (2007, July). Top 10 Historic Radio Broadcasts - Listverse. Retrieved from http://listverse.com/2007/07/19/top-10-historic-radio-broadcasts/
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Heyer, P. (2003). America under attack I: A reassessment of Orson Welles' 1938 war of the worlds broadcast. Canadian Journal of Communication, 28(2), 149-165. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.aut.ac.nz/docview/219597501/A8EC6F45D7EA4A50PQ/1?accountid=8440
Hayes, J.E., & Battles, K. (2011), ‘Exchange and interconnection in US network
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Journal – International Studies in Broadcast and Audio Media 9: 1, pp. 51–62.
Koch, H. (n.d.). Appendix: The War of the Worlds original script by Howard Koch. In Waging the War of the Worlds: A history of the 1938 radio broadcast and resulting panic (pp. 193-218). Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co.
Pierce, A. (2008). Mercury Theatre History. Retrieved from http://www.mercurytheatre.info/history
Wyman, L. (n.d.). The History of the Radio. Retrieved from http://www.personal.psu.edu/jtk187/art2/radio.htm
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