In 1938, aliens attacked. Well, that’s at least what Americans heard over the radio. Orson Welles and a group of actors interrupted a radio broadcast to warn the public that the planet had been invaded by aliens – really, they were just reading a script based off the novel, The War of the Worlds, by H.G. Wells. Unlike successful real-life alien hoaxes, this ’38 fake news story spiraled the entire country into mass hysteria… Or did it? WATCH
17 Comments on The Story Behind War of the Worlds
Comments are closed.
Greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American public. Until the 2020 election.
What kind of “ethnic” food do Martians make?
(Asking for the boomers.)
HG Welles had a good imagination. The book is a good read.
I have a record (real 33 1/3 rpm) of this. It tends to break down on timelines if you listen all the way through, knowing hat we do now, but I could imagine someone jining in on the radio once it was underway. There weren’t 300 cable channels with 24 hour news deeds and internet.
I still like the 1953 or so movie with Gene Bary. Tom Cruise version was pretty good and even had Gene and his costar do cameos as grandparents.
Spaced Invaders was a fun movie from around 1990. Some Martians tune into a commemorative rebroadcast of the Orion Wells broadcast and take it as an actual invasion with them joining in. So stupid that it is funny.
https://youtu.be/pK9hWU_7DNk
Too bad the talking heads of network news don’t interrupt their own hoaxes with an announcement that what they are saying is pure fiction. Same goes for SNL.
There are still people today who believe Palin said she could see Russia from her porch. Few people know the real story of that “Hands up, don’t shoot” guy or George Floyd. They don’t know that RVW was a hoax perpetrated by phonies and liars telling whoppers. They believe American citizens tried to overthrow the gov’t on January 6, 2020. I could continue.
This is what we need: “Send Us Thine Asteroid, O Lord”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkTgYiMDRHY
…
A self-imprecatory hymn. That’s a first.
I’m waiting for a future tv show called “The American Left’s War against Americans”.
I highly recommend the rock opera, “Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of the Worlds.” I listened to this over and over when I was a kid. I thought it was the coolest and creepiest sometimes thing I had ever heard before.
Illustr8r:
Have always been particularly fond of the Justin Hayward track from Wayne’s WotW.
But then, I was always a Moody Blues guy anyway.
ANON
Saw the movie in ’53, as a kid it was very impressive. Read the book in ’57; love Wells(HG) – a real science genius (like Heinlein); predicted tanks about 12 years before they were real. Local radio station replayed the ’38 broadcast Halloween. Great. Not hard to understand why folk were in panic.
Lt. Tragg of “Perry Mason” was one of the actors on that broadcast!
You. Are. Fake. News.
“Orson Welles and a group of actors interrupted a radio broadcast…”
No they didn’t. It was a regular Mercury Theater Players broadcast. Listen to it. Only the first half is the story. The rest is Orson explaining that this is a radio show.
And…
In a few short years, Americans would support foreign rulers in Columbia, to support Bolshevism in The Soviet Union, to be sure the light of international communism, would not be extinguished from the world.
Who’da thunk it?
“What kind of “ethnic” food do Martians make?”
They invented the Martini, of course.
El Magnifico: “What kind of “ethnic” food do Martians make?”
They invented the Martini, of course.
I’ll drink to that !!!! Happy 4th