The War of the Worlds (radio drama)

In 1938, Orson Welles produced a radio version of the 1898 book The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells. Wells only produced one episode of the American radio drama anthology series The Mercury Theatre on the Air. This episode was produced as the Halloween episode. It was broadcast on Sunday, October 30, 1938. It became famous for allegedly causing mass panic, although the scale of the panic is disputed as the program had relatively few listeners.

The first two-thirds of the one-hour broadcast was presented as a series of simulated news bulletins. The first news update interrupted a program of dance music to report that a series of odd explosions had been spotted on Mars, which was followed soon thereafter by a seemingly unrelated report of an unusual object falling on a farm in Grover's Mill, New Jersey. Martians emerged from the object and attacked using a heat ray during the next interruption, which was followed by a rapid series of news reports describing a devastating alien invasion taking place across the United States and the world. The illusion of realism was increased because the Mercury Theatre on the Air was a sustaining show without commercial interruptions, and the first break in the program came almost 30 minutes into the broadcast. Popular legend holds that all of the radio audience may have been listening to Edgar Bergen and tuned in to "The War of the Worlds" during a musical interlude, thereby missing the clear introduction that the show was a drama, but research beginning in the 2010s suggests this only happened in rare instances.In the days following the adaptation, widespread outrage was expressed in the media. The program's news-bulletin format was described as deceptive by some newspapers and public figures, leading to an outcry against the perpetrators of the broadcast and calls for regulation by the Federal Communications Commission. The episode secured Welles' fame as a dramatist.

The War Of The Worlds (radio Drama) Media

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  After "The War of the Worlds" broadcast, photographers lay in wait for Welles at the all-night rehearsal for Danton's Death at the Mercury Theatre (October 31, 1938)

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  Welles takes questions from reporters at a press conference the day after the broadcast, on October 31, 1938

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  Radio Digest reprinted the script of "The War of the Worlds" "as a commentary on the nervous state of our nation after the Pact of Munich" – prefaced by an editorial cartoon by Les Callan of The Toronto Star (February 1939)

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  Letter of complaint about the broadcast from the city manager of Trenton, New Jersey, to the Federal Communications Commission (October 31, 1938)

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  Publicity photo of Welles distributed after the radio scare (1938)

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  Plaque commemorating the radio broadcast in Township of West Windsor

• Welles often invokes "The War of the Worlds" as host of Who's Out There? (1975), an award-winning NASA documentary short film by Robert Drew about the likelihood of life on other planets