The 1938 War Of The Worlds Broadcast
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CBS's War Of The Worlds broadcast on October 30, 1938 is probably the most famous fictional radio broadcast in history. Nearly two million of the six million listeners believed that Earth was being invaded by hostile Martians armed with ray guns capable of instantaneously burning a human to a crisp . The broadcast remained controversial for many years, but also helped cement Orson Welles's place in American popular culture.
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The Mercury Theater began as a collaboration between Orson Welles and John Houseman on Broadway. After staging several successful plays, they were approached by CBS and offered a radio time slot Though Houseman was reluctant, Welles was insistent. They had two weeks to select, write, cast, rehearse, and perform a script. They selected Treasure Island, but a week into the work Welles told Houseman that Treasure Island was being bumped a week, and that they were doing Dracula instead. The production of Dracula included a legendary 17 hour work session in a local restaurant, and three days later Mercury Theater was on the air with an opener of what would become a legendary series.
Welles and Houseman found a formula that worked, and soon they were putting on many literary classics, including The Count of Monte Cristo, Julius Caesar, Jane Eyre, Sherlock Holmes, and Oliver Twist. In 1938 Howard Koch approached The Mercury Theater and asked for a writing job. Houseman was delighted with the idea of turning over the screenplay writing to someone else. Koch's first script was Hell on Ice, a contemporary account of George W. De Long's disastrous attempt at reaching the North Pole. Two shows later and Halloween was approaching.
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It was Welles who decided upon the then 40-year-old H.G. Wells classic War of The Worlds for their Halloween show. Other members of the company felt the story was too dated, that it would be impossible to make the story exciting for their generation. Nevertheless, Wells insisted, and Koch was assigned the task of producing the script, to be aired only six days later. In deciding where the Martians would land, Koch picked up a map of New Jersey on his way back from visiting his parents, and let a pencil drop randomly onto it with his eyes closed. The point struck a village called Grovers Mill. An area surrounded by farmland, Koch felt this was the perfect place, as it had "an authentic ring" to it.
By Tuesday of that week Koch had decided that there was no way to make the rest of the show feel authentic. He telephoned Houseman, who reluctantly agreed to work with Koch on the script. He arrived at Koch's home at 2 A.M., finding him in a better mood. As it turned out, Koch was having fun "laying waste to the state of New Jersey," as well as CBS, where it was planned to have the last survivor calling for other survivors at the 40-minute break. Houseman and Koch worked for about sixteen hours, producing a script for the rehearsal the following day. When the crew listened to the recording of the rehearsal, they were sure that Koch had been right, the show was dull and would be a dismal failure. Another rewrite was essential. To make the show feel more authentic, the rewrites focused on adapting the story to the modern-day style of radio reporting that was just starting to come into its own. Radio announcers would cut to on-the-scene reporters, who would bring the description of the Martians "live" directly to the listener. Houseman and Koch wrote and rewrote until they simply ran out of time. By Friday the current script, such as it was, was in the hands of Orson Welles and the CBS censor. The CBS sensor did feel that the writers had gone a little too far in their efforts at creating authenticity. A few real places were replaced with fictional names. The Hotel Biltmore in New York was changed to the fictional Meridian Room of the Hotel Park Plaza, and references to CBS were changed to "Broadcast Building." Other than those few things, the Censor did not express any concerns about the broadcast creating fear and panic in the populace. Houseman and Koch, somewhat exhausted, went home and went to sleep.
Sunday morning was the first time that Welles, who had been busy with another production, saw the script. His presence on the set changed the atmosphere of the rehearsals already in progress, changed it into a what can only be described as an Orson Wellesian atmosphere. Frank Readick, who played the soon-to-be incinerated newsman, wanted to portray the horror of the scene as accurately as possible. He sat and listened to the transcription records of Herb Morrison's reporting of the Hindenburg disaster from the year before, where Morrison, in one of the most dramatic events ever captured live, broke down crying. Readick would try to emulate that authentic performance.
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Welles, meanwhile set about making final changes to the script. He put back in early moments of tedium: dance music, a weather report that Houseman had cut earlier. Wells felt that this would add authenticity to the events that would happen later, when the pace of the show would increase to an incredible pace. At 8:00, Welles was behind the podium on stage and the cast and crew were ready to begin their live performance.
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This first clip is the opening of the show. As you'll hear, Dan Seymour clearly announces that The Mercury Theater on the Air is presenting the Orson Welles production of The War of The Worlds, by H.G. Wells. Then Wells himself gives a short prologue, placing the setting in the near future. Then those "tedious" moments begin that helped create that authentic feel: the weather report, a broadcast of live ballroom music from a New York hotel, actually performed by Bernard Herrmann's orchestra right there next to the stage.
 
These moments that cleverly mimicked a typical evening broadcast of music would then be interrupted occasionally by news bulletins, seemingly innocuous at first, but then growing ever more alarming. This clip is the first interruption. It comes at about 3:20 into the Mercury Theater broadcast.
 
The band then returned to playing La Cumparsita, finished it to applause, then started "that popular tune" Stardust. A few moments later, the second bulletin was issued. Clip 3 is that bulletin. It comes at 4:50 into the Mercury Theater broadcast. Following the bulletin, they returned to the band.
At 5:40 into the broadcast, they cut to reporter Carl Phillips at the Princeton Observatory in Princeton, who would conduct an interview with "noted astronomer Professor Richard Pierson, played by Welles. Phillips begins by describing the observatory for the listeners, and Professor Pierson looking through the lens of the observatory's telescope.
He makes it clear that Pierson could be interrupted by at any time during the interview by important phone calls, thereby adding to the feel of authenticity. Then he begins asking questions. This clip comes at 6:35 into the Mercury Theater broadcast.
After a few more questions, Professor Pierson is passed an important message. Pierson reads it and hand it to Phillips, who then reads it on the air. It is a message from a colleague of the Professor's, saying that a shock wave of near earthquake proportions was registered by seismographic equipment about twenty miles from Princeton. The message requests that Pierson investigate. Pierson believes it to be a meteorite. The broadcast again returns to music.
An international news bulletin breaks in, reporting international confirmation of three explosions seen on Mars, and that a flaming object fell on Grovers Mills, some 22 miles from Trenton, New Jersey. Reporter Carl Phillips is on his way from Princeton. In the meantime, it's back to the music. This clip comes at 9:06 into the Mercury Theater broadcast.
The scene soon shifts to Grovers Mills New Jersey. Phillips reports that he and Professor Pierson made the eleven mile journey in 10 minutes, though it has only been about two minutes. He begins by describing the scene. The object is buried in a vast pit, but part of it is still sticking out, shaped like a cylinder, with a diameter of 30 yards and made of a mysterious, smooth metal. Phillips then interviews the owner of the farm about what he saw. By this time, according to Phillips, hundreds of cars have arrived, and the pit is illuminated by spotlights.
Then the object starts to make a "curious humming sound." A moment later and the top of the cylinder opens. The Martians have arrived! They leave Phillips for a moment while he takes up a new position and briefly return to the music, thereby heightening the suspense. A moment later and they are back, just in time for the attack. Nearly six seconds of silence, followed by a "we are experiencing technical difficulties" kind of announcement also add to the authenticity. This clip comes at 13:30 into the Mercury Theater broadcast.
Following the technical difficulties announcement, the broadcast returns to the music. By this time those listeners who thought the broadcast must have been frantic with worry, wondering what was going on at Grovers Mill. A minute later they got their answer. The announcer tells the audience that information received from the town by phone was that more than forty people had been killed, burned and distorted. Then the army comes on at the request of New Jersey's governor to declare martial law and announce evacuation plans. More details from Grovers Mill start to come in, including an eyewitness report from Professor Pierson, who gives a braniac explanation of the heat ray. The announcer tell us that the charred body of Carl Phillips has been identified in a morgue. Then it is announced that the radio station is being turned over to the State Militia.
The military tries to downplay the situation, but then, 24 minutes into the broadcast, the announcer makes plain the meaning of these events.
Soon it is announced that these same cylinders are falling all over the country, and the enemy is on the attack in New York City, where another on-the-spot reporter meets his demise on the air. Meanwhile, back on the stage, Davidson Taylor was called away from the studio. The telephone had been ringing. When he returned he was noticeably concerned. Reports had come in about panic in New Jersey, by people who believed the broadcast to be authentic news. The panic was spreading north and west. In Newark, traffic ran wild through the streets. People wrapped their faces in wet towels and roared past puzzled traffic cops in their haste to get out of town. One Newark hospital treated twenty patients for shock. A woman in Pittsburgh was saved by her husband as she tried to commit suicide by poison. A coincidental power outage in a small Midwestern town at the peak of the show sent people screaming into the streets. At a college campus in North Carolina student fought over the few available phones. In Boston, people imagined they could see the glow of the destruction of New York City. All this while the drama on-stage continued to unfold at a terrific pace: More fictional casualties, reported suicides, mob violence. Taylor returned to the stage with orders from the studio executives to interrupt the broadcast announce that this was all a work of fiction. Taylor returned just as the traditional forty minute break arrived. Dan Seymour stepped to the microphone to make the announcement. This was followed by twenty more minutes of straight drama. Within that time the Martians were destroyed by their one weakness, no resistance to simple earth bacteria.
54 minutes into the broadcast, Welles concluded the show with these words.
Back in his New York apartment, Howard Koch, unaware of the havoc he had just helped create, turned off his radio and went to sleep, satisfied that he had done his best to make the play seem authentic. Back in the studio, police swarmed in to the studio just as the orchestra was finishing the final theme. They confiscated scripts and took the cast backstage, where they were segregated and questioned.
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Then they were turned over the press, who had gathered in mass numbers. The questions from the press suggested to Houseman and Welles that the broadcast had generated mass numbers of deaths and suicides. In fact there were no deaths. There were a few injuries and lawsuits against CBS, and about 1.2 frightened listeners of the 1.7 million who believed the broadcast was authentic. The psychological study conducted in 1940 by Princeton also concluded that the Munich crisis in Europe was a contributing factor. People were already nervous about war, and had grown accustomed to newsmen breaking in to broadcast to report breaking news.
Timing also seemed to have something to do with it. NBC was broadcasting Edgar Bergen at the same time CBS started Mercury Theater. After the Charlie McCarthy monologue Bergen introduced a music number, and many listeners then tuned to NBC to hear what was playing there. They would have tuned in just as Carl Phillips was beginning his broadcast from Grovers Mill.
 
CBS was unsure whether to treat Houseman and Welles as heroes or villains. They settled on the former, and Welles became a legend, and with a sponsorship offer from Campbell's Soup, the show moved up to first class. Much later, Welles expressed amusement about the whole experience, and surprise at how gullible people could be.
 
[Video Clip 1: Orson Welles Apologizes (October 31, 1938]
 

Sample Associated Press Headlines:

Woman Tries Sucide
Pittsburgh--A man returned home in the midst of the broadcast and found his wife, a bottle of poison in her hand, screaming: "I'd rather die this way than like that."

Man Wants to Fight Mars
San Francisco--An offer to volunteer in stopping an invasion from Mars came among hundreds of telephone inquiries to police and newspapers during the radio dramatization of H.G. Wells' story. One excited man called Oakland Police and shouted: "My God! Where can I volunteer my services? We've go to stop this awful thing!"

Church Lets Out
Indianapolis--A woman ran into a church screaming: "New York destroyed; it's the end of the world. You might as well go home to die. I just heard it on the radio." Services were dismissed immediately.

College Boys Faint
Brevard, N.C.--Five Brevard College students fainted and panic gripped the campus for a half hour with many students fighting for telephones to inform their parents to come and get them.

It's a Massacre
Providence, R.I.--Weeping and hysterical women swamped the switchboard of the Providence Journal for details of the "massacre." The electric company received scores of calls urging it to turn off all lights so that the city would be safe from the "enemy."

She Sees "the Fire"
Boston.--One woman declared she could "see the fire" and told the Boston Globe she and many others in her neighborhood were "getting out of here.'

"Where Is It Safe?"
Kansas City.--One telephone informant said he had loaded all his children into his car, had filled it with gasoline, and was going somewhere. "Where is is safe?" he wanted to know. The Associated Press bureau received queries on the "meteors" from Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, Beaumont, Tex., and St. Joseph, Mo.

Prayers in Richmond
Richmond, Va.--The Times-Dispatch reported some of its telephone calls came from persons who said they were praying.

Atlanta's "Monsters"
Atlanta--Listeners throughout the Southeast called newspapers reporting that "a planet struck in New Jersey, 40 to 7,000 people were killed." Editors said responsible persons, known to them, were among the anxious information seekers.

Rushes Home From Reno
Reno.--Marian Leslie Thorgaard, here for a divorce from Hilsce Robert Thorgaard, of New York, collapsed, fearing her mother and children in New York had been killed. One man immediately started East in hoping of aiding the wife he was here to divorce.
 
 

Sources:

Dunning, John. On The Air: The Encyclopedia of Old Time Radio. Oxford University Press, New York, 1998.

"Orson Welles' War Of The Worlds: The Actual Broadcast by The Mercury Theatre on the Air as heard over the Columbia Broadcasting System, October 30, 1938." Murray Hill Records S44217.