Bobb999
Paranormal Novice
The April 18/10 show talked about Welles' famous 1938 Broadcast of a dramatization of H.G. Welles' novel. Everyone on the Paracast round table who commented seemed to accept the commonly held belief that the broadcast caused widespread panic in the streets of America, with people in fear that Martians were attacking!
But I'm skeptical the mass panic ever occurred. I read an investigative article some years back that concluded the "mass panic" story was in fact an invention of some mischievous journalists. Of course, the story got picked up and printed far & wide, and repeated.
There are many reasons why it doesn't add up. The broadcast was on a Friday night, and was a regular weekly broadcast. There had already been weeks in a series of weekly Friday Welles' Mercury Theatre 1-hour broadcasts of dramatizations of famous novels. Listeners were used to hearing Welles each Friday introduce that weeks' dramatization & then hear him play a part in it as an actor. There was no surprise that particular Friday.
So, most people hearing the show heard the intro at the beginning, with Welles' familiar voice, that that week's drama was the novel The War of the Worlds, , and they also heard Welles' recognizable voice as a main actor in the drama.
It's true the early part of the show sounds almost like a real-time unfoldment of events - but not for long - because very soon listeners are hit by jumps in time that can only happen in fiction!
For instance, a reporter is heard reporting that a Martian death-ray machine has risen up and has just begun firing at people...But the next second has a time-jump and you hear a reporter reporting on the total tally of dead (100s) after the mayhem had ended, and they've already had time to evaluate the carnage! The last half+ of the show does not even have any real-time unfoldment effect, & sounds like a fictional story being told. And anyway, Welles' distinctive actor's voice (he plays a professor) is heard during the part of the show that briefly sounds "real-time".
That in itself was a dead giveaway it was radio fiction, not fact!
If you listen to the show (available at You Tube), there's no evidence Welles' ever intended to fool anyone, or that many, if any, could have been fooled.
I never saw or heard a first hand report from a citizen who claimed to have actually witnessed spontaneous militias gathered in the streets that Friday night, wielding shotguns & pitchforks to use against attacking Martians! Sure, there may have been a few senile folks who called the police, but widespread panic? Only in the fertile imaginations of a few mischievous reporters, perhaps! Maybe Welles`even went along with the tall tale about the "panic", because it was great publicity for him! So why deny it?
---------- Post added at 08:23 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:11 PM ----------
oops...typo...I should have spelled H.G.'s surname "Wells", not "Welles", like Orson's!
But I'm skeptical the mass panic ever occurred. I read an investigative article some years back that concluded the "mass panic" story was in fact an invention of some mischievous journalists. Of course, the story got picked up and printed far & wide, and repeated.
There are many reasons why it doesn't add up. The broadcast was on a Friday night, and was a regular weekly broadcast. There had already been weeks in a series of weekly Friday Welles' Mercury Theatre 1-hour broadcasts of dramatizations of famous novels. Listeners were used to hearing Welles each Friday introduce that weeks' dramatization & then hear him play a part in it as an actor. There was no surprise that particular Friday.
So, most people hearing the show heard the intro at the beginning, with Welles' familiar voice, that that week's drama was the novel The War of the Worlds, , and they also heard Welles' recognizable voice as a main actor in the drama.
It's true the early part of the show sounds almost like a real-time unfoldment of events - but not for long - because very soon listeners are hit by jumps in time that can only happen in fiction!
For instance, a reporter is heard reporting that a Martian death-ray machine has risen up and has just begun firing at people...But the next second has a time-jump and you hear a reporter reporting on the total tally of dead (100s) after the mayhem had ended, and they've already had time to evaluate the carnage! The last half+ of the show does not even have any real-time unfoldment effect, & sounds like a fictional story being told. And anyway, Welles' distinctive actor's voice (he plays a professor) is heard during the part of the show that briefly sounds "real-time".
That in itself was a dead giveaway it was radio fiction, not fact!
If you listen to the show (available at You Tube), there's no evidence Welles' ever intended to fool anyone, or that many, if any, could have been fooled.
I never saw or heard a first hand report from a citizen who claimed to have actually witnessed spontaneous militias gathered in the streets that Friday night, wielding shotguns & pitchforks to use against attacking Martians! Sure, there may have been a few senile folks who called the police, but widespread panic? Only in the fertile imaginations of a few mischievous reporters, perhaps! Maybe Welles`even went along with the tall tale about the "panic", because it was great publicity for him! So why deny it?
---------- Post added at 08:23 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:11 PM ----------
oops...typo...I should have spelled H.G.'s surname "Wells", not "Welles", like Orson's!
