Orson Welles
andThe War of the Worlds
Orson Welles and Friend
Just a Radio Drama
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A number of popular informational references state that the reports of so-called "national panic" caused by the radio broadcast of Orson Welles's dramatization of The War of the Words by H. G. Wells on October 30, 1938, were overblown. The usual telling is that Orson had adapted the novel as if it was a music program that was interrupted by a news flash that Martians had landed in New Jersey. But the listeners took the broadcast as a bonafide news report and the country panicked.
But years later one of the most well-known scholars of myths and legends studied the reports and concluded that the reports of the panic were overhyped if not utter balderdash and poppycock. Stories of panicked Americans fleeing into the streets while expecting their total destruction from the Aliens from Outer Space were anecdotal and without credible documentation. The widespread national panic didn't happen.
On the other hand historians tell us that contemporary accounts are usually the most accurate. And the day after the broadcast newspapers reported how thousands of people had indeed taken the program for an authentic news broadcast. Even before the live broadcast ended, police and reporters showed up the station wondering what was going on. When the show was over Orson and the rest of the cast had to struggle just to get out of the building.
The next day Orson met with reporters and he stated that they had no idea that anyone would take the broadcast as on-the-spot breaking news. After all the program was a regularly scheduled broadcast of the Mercury Theater of the Air. It was a popular program that aired every week.
Besides there was plenty in the script - which was actually written by Howard Koch - to indicate it was just a radio play. First of all the show started off with an announcement that the station was bringing the listeners an adaptation of H. G. Wells's War of the Worlds. Certainly a plot that was the old science fiction chestnut of Men from Mars invading the Earth should have tipped everyone off. It was also announced four times during the 60 minute broadcast, that the listeners were hearing a dramatization. Finally in the script the date of the "invasion" was given as occurring in the following year, 1939. An invasion that happened a year from the broadcast could scarcely be contemporary news.
On the other hand, people could have been fooled even with the multiple announcements saying that they were listening to a radio play. With scheduled live broadcasts if you want to catch the whole program you have to tune in at the right time. For some shows tuning in after the show started might not be a problem. For instance, if you were listening to the Tommy Dorsey Show and tuned in late you might miss "I'm Getting Sentimental Over Your" but you could start off listening to "Once in a While" without thinking anything was amiss.
But if you tuned in late to the Mercury Theater of the Air on October 30, 1938, the first thing you might have heard was a broadcaster announcing:
Ladies and gentlemen, I have a grave announcement to make. Incredible as it may seem, both the observations of science and the evidence of our eyes lead to the inescapable assumption that those strange beings who landed in the Jersey farmlands tonight are the vanguard of an invading army from the planet Mars.
The battle which took place tonight at Grovers Mill has ended in one of the most startling defeats ever suffered by any army in modern times; seven thousand men armed with rifles and machine guns pitted against a single fighting machine of the invaders from Mars.
Orson's explanations notwithstanding, fallout from the program was immediate. The next day the Federal Communications Commission said they would launch an investigation. Some politicians wagged their admonitory fingers that radio scripts needed to be pre-approved by the government. Orson himself said they would never do such a broadcast again, and even H. G. Wells, alive and living in England, was firm that he had never given any approval for an adaptation of his novel as live new stories.
So what's the scoop? Was there a national panic due to a radio broadcast?
Well, as Humpty Dumpty said, words mean just what we choose them to mean, neither more nor less. Which is to be master, that's all.
So if by "national panic" you mean that the majority of Americans fled into the streets causing mayhem and riots, then no. That certainly didn't happen.
On the other hand news headlines somewhat contradictorily puffed up the idea of a panic and yet belied it being widespread. One headline blared how "scores" of people were terrorized. Strictly speaking that's at least 40. But the story then clarified the number and mentioned the people who panicked were "thousands".
Here a little mature reflection is helpful. If the common estimates are correct and 6,000,000 people listened to the broadcast (a bit less than 5 % of the US population), then if only 1% of the listeners were fooled into thinking the show was real, you're still talking about 60,000 people. Enough to justify saying "scores" and "thousands" of people were panicked.
So if by a "national panic" you mean thousands of Americans - possibly tens of thousands - thought that nation was being invaded by Martians or at least some belligerent force, then yes, possibly. True they may not have filled the streets as a milling horde, but some people certainly did panic and run out into the streets. There were reports of people disrupting meetings and church services. There were even a couple of cases of people running about, taking spills, and injuring themselves, although the worst injuries seems to be have been a broken arm. You can bet that some listeners phoned into the radio or police stations and called up their friends and family and asking it they knew what was going on.
But whatever panic there was was short lived. The next day everyone knew that the War of the Worlds didn't really happen and the Federal Communications Commission investigated and found Orson and CBS did not bear responsibility. In any case, Orson later went on and did pretty well for himself.
References
"Did the 1938 Radio Broadcast of 'War of the Worlds' Cause a Nationwide Panic?" David Emery, Snopes, October 27, 2016 (Updated: October 30,2023).
"Radio Listeners Terror-Stricken By 'Interplanetary War'", The Deseret News, October 31, 1938, p. 1.
"Inquiry Launched In Program That Terrorized Scores", Imperial Valley Press, November 1, 1938, p. 11.
"U. S. Probes 'War' Broadcast That Panicked Radio Audience", The Washington Daily News, October 31, 1938, p. 1.
"Radio Expected to Suffer as War Story Result", The Washington Daily News, November 1, 1938, p. 11.
"Frightened with False Fire" David Emery, The Washington Daily News, November 1, 1938, p. 18.
"I Won’t Do It Again", The Washington Daily News, November 1, 1938, p. 3.