Wikipedia. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Industry milestones! The War of the Worlds (radio drama). It was performed as a Halloween episode of the series on Sunday, October 3.
Columbia Broadcasting System radio network. Directed and narrated by actor and future filmmaker Orson Welles, the episode was an adaptation of H. Wells' novel The War of the Worlds (1. It became famous for allegedly causing mass panic, although the reality of the panic is disputed as the program had relatively few listeners. The illusion of realism was furthered because the Mercury Theatre on the Air was a sustaining show without commercial interruptions, and the first break in the program came almost 3. Popular legend holds that some of the radio audience may have been listening to Edgar Bergen and tuned in to . When talking about alien related stories, Dulce Papers have it all including greys, reptilians, alien/human hybrids, abductions, cattle mutilations, mind. Sputnik is a major new media brand with modern multimedia centers in dozens of countries. Sputnik is uniquely positioned as a provider of alternative news content and. 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. Wells's original novel tells the story of an alien invasion of Earth. The novel was adapted by Howard E. Koch for the 1. 7th episode of the CBS Radio series The Mercury Theatre on the Air, broadcast at 8 pm ET on Sunday, October 3. The setting was switched from 1. England to contemporary Grover's Mill, an unincorporated village in West Windsor Township, New Jersey, in the United States. The first two- thirds of the hour- long play is a contemporary retelling of events of the novel, presented as news bulletins interrupting another program. Kaltenborn providing historical commentary throughout the story. They considered adapting M. Shiel's The Purple Cloud and Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World before purchasing the radio rights to The War of the Worlds. Houseman later wrote that he suspected Welles had never read it. Koch said he could not make The War of the Worlds interesting or credible as a radio play, a conviction echoed by his secretary Anne Froelick, a typist and aspiring writer whom Houseman had hired to assist him. With only his own abandoned script for Lorna Doone to fall back on, Houseman told Koch to continue adapting the Wells fantasy. He joined Koch and Froelick and they worked on the script throughout the night. On Wednesday night, the first draft was finished on schedule. That afternoon, Stewart made an acetate recording, with no music or sound effects. Welles, immersed in rehearsing the Mercury stage production of Danton's Death scheduled to open the following week, played the record at an editorial meeting that night in his suite at the St. He stressed the importance of inserting news flashes and eyewitness accounts into the script to create a sense of urgency and excitement. Friday afternoon, the script was sent to Davidson Taylor, executive producer for CBS, and the network legal department. Their response was that the script was 'too' credible and its realism had to be toned down. As using the names of actual institutions could be actionable, CBS insisted upon some 2. That piano was the neatest trick of the show. And millions of people accepted it. Harry Mc. Donald, vice president in charge of radio operations . The announcer introduces Orson Welles: We know now that in the early years of the 2. We know now that as human beings busied themselves about their various concerns, they were scrutinized and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinize the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacence, people went to and fro over the earth about their little affairs, serene in the assurance of their dominion over this small spinning fragment of solar driftwood which by chance or design man has inherited out of the dark mystery of Time and Space. Yet across an immense ethereal gulf, minds that are to our minds as ours are to the beasts in the jungle, intellects vast, cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. In the 3. 9th year of the 2. It was near the end of October. The war scare was over. More men were back at work. Sales were picking up. On this particular evening, October 3. Crossley service estimated that 3. An interview is arranged with reporter Carl Phillips and Princeton- based Professor of Astronomy Richard Pierson, who dismisses speculation about life on Mars. The news grows more frequent and increasingly ominous as a cylindrical meteorite lands in Grover's Mill, New Jersey. A crowd gathers at the site, where Phillips and Pierson relate the events. The cylinder unscrews, and onlookers catch a glimpse of a tentacled, pulsating, barely mobile Martian inside before it incinerates the crowd with heat- rays. Phillips's shouts about incoming flames are cut off mid- sentence. Regular programming breaks down as the studio struggles with casualty and fire- fighting updates. A shaken Pierson speculates about Martian technology. The New Jersey state militia declares martial law and attacks the cylinder; a captain from their field headquarters lectures about the overwhelming force of properly equipped infantry and the helplessness of the Martians, until a tripod rises from the pit. The tripod obliterates the militia, and the studio returns, now describing the Martians as an invading army. Emergency response bulletins give way to damage and evacuation reports as thousands of refugees clog the roads. Three Martian tripods from the cylinder destroy power stations and uproot bridges and railroads, reinforced by three others from a second cylinder that landed in the Great Swamp near Morristown, as gas explosions continue. The Secretary of the Interior addresses the nation. A live connection is established to a field artillery battery in the Watchung Mountains. Its gun crew damages a machine, resulting in a release of black smoke, before fading into the sound of coughing. The lead plane of a wing of bombers from Langham Field broadcasts its approach and remains on the air as their engines are burned by the heat- ray and the plane dives on the invaders. Radio operators go active and fall silent . He reads a final bulletin stating that Martian cylinders have fallen all over the country, and is eventually killed by the smoke. Finally, a ham radio operator is heard calling, . Isn't there anyone on the air? Isn't there anyone on the air? The performance will continue after a brief intermission. The last third of the program is a monologue and dialogue. Professor Pierson, having survived the attack on Grover's Mill, attempts to make contact with other humans. In Newark, he encounters an opportunistic militiaman who holds fascist ideals in regards to man's relationship with the Martians, and intends to use Martian weaponry to take control of both species. Declaring that he wants no part of . His journey takes him to the ruins of New York, where he discovers that the Martians have died . Life eventually returns to normal, and Pierson finishes writing his recollections of the invasion and its aftermath. After the play, Welles assumes his role as host and tells listeners that the broadcast was a Halloween concoction: the equivalent, he says, . In fact, at the station break network executive Davidson Taylor attempted to prevent Welles, who had added the speech at the last minute, from reading it on- air, because it could have opened the network up to legal liability, but Welles delivered it anyway. The New York Times for October 3. Wells's 'War of the Worlds'. Wells' 'War of the Worlds'. Wells's famous novel War of the Worlds, we are repeating the fact which was made clear four times on the program, that, while the names of some American cities were used, as in all novels and dramatizations, the entire story and all of its incidents were fictitious. ET, CBS supervisor Davidson Taylor received a telephone call in the control room. Creasing his lips, Taylor left the studio and returned four minutes later, . He had been ordered to interrupt . Soon, the room was full of policemen and a massive struggle was going on between the police, page boys, and CBS executives, who were trying to prevent the cops from busting in and stopping the show. It was a show to witness. Houseman picked it up and the furious caller announced he was mayor of a Midwestern town where mobs were in the streets. Houseman hung up quickly: . The building was suddenly full of people and dark- blue uniforms. Hustled out of the studio, we were locked into a small back office on another floor. Here we sat incommunicado while network employees were busily collecting, destroying, or locking up all scripts and records of the broadcast. Finally, the Press was let loose upon us, ravening for horror. How many deaths had we heard of? The haggard Welles sat alone and despondent. I was too busy writing explanations to put on the air, reassuring the audience that it was safe. I also answered my share of incessant telephone calls, many of them from as far away as the Pacific Coast. Aware of the sensation the broadcast had made, but not its extent, Welles went to the Mercury Theatre where an all- night rehearsal of Danton's Death was in progress. Shortly after midnight, one of the cast, a late arrival, told Welles that news about . They immediately left the theatre, and standing on the corner of Broadway and 4. Street, they read the lighted bulletin that circled the New York Times building: ORSON WELLES CAUSES PANIC. Many newspapers assumed that this large number of phone calls, and scattered reports of listeners rushing about or even fleeing their homes, proved the existence of a mass panic, though such behavior was never widespread. As panicked listeners called the studio, Paar attempted to calm them on the phone and on air by saying: . When have I ever lied to you? Oblivious to the situation, the manager advised Paar to calm down, saying it was . Residents were unable to call neighbors, family, or friends to calm their fears. Reporters who heard of the coincidental blackout sent the story over the news- wire, and soon Concrete was known worldwide.
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