WAR OF THE WORLDS (10/31/38)

which it is a part. The simulated program began. A weather report was given prosaically. An announcer remarked that the program would be continued from a hotel, with dance music. For a few moments a dance program was given in the usual manner. Then there was a “break-in” with a “flash” about a professor at an observatory noting a series of gas explosions on the planet Mars.

News bulletins and scene broadcasts followed, reporting , with the technique in which the radio had reported actual events, the landing of a “meteor” near Princeton, N. J. “killing” 1,500 persons, the discovery that the “meteor” was a “metal cylinder” containing strange creatures from Mars armed with “death rays” to open hostilities against the inhabitants of the earth.

Despite the fantastic nature of the reported “occurrences,” the program, coming after the recent war scare in Europe and a period in which the radio frequently had interrupted regularly scheduled programs to report developments in the Czechoslovak situation, caused fright and panic throughout the area of the broadcast.

Telephone lines were tied up with calls from listeners or persons who had heard of the broadcasts. Many sought first to verify the reports. But large numbers, obviously in a state of terror, asked how they could follow the broadcast’s advice and flee from the city, whether they would be safer in the “gas raid” in the cellar or on the roof, how they could safeguard their children, and many of the questions which had been worrying residents of London and Paris during the tense days before the Munich agreement.

So many calls came to newspapers and so many newspapers found it advisable to check on the reports despite their fantastic content that The Associated Press sent out the following at 8:18 P. M.

“Note to Editors: Queries to newspapers from radio listeners throughout the United States tonight regarding a reported meteor fall which killed a number of New Jerseyites, are the result of a studio dramatization. The A. P.”

Similarly police teletype systems carried notices to all station houses and police short-wave radio stations notified police radio cars that the event was imaginary.

“To all receivers: Station WARC informs us that the broadcast just concluded over that station was a dramatization of a play. No cause for alarm.”

“Note to all receivers – WABC broadcast as drama re this section being attacked by residents of Mars. Imaginary affair.”

From one New York theatre a manager reported that a throng of playgoers had rushed from his theater as a result of the broadcast. He said that the wives of two men in the audience, having heard the broadcast, called the theatre and insisted that their husbands be paged. This spread the “news” to others in the audience.

The switchboard of THE NEW YORK TIMES was overwhelmed by the calls. A total of 875 were received. One man who called from Dayton, Ohio asked, “What time will it be the end of the world?” A caller from the suburbs said he had had a houseful of guests and all had rushed out to the yard for safety.

Warren Dean, a member of the American Legion living in Manhattan, who telephoned to verify the “reports,” expressed indignation which was typical of that of many callers.

“I’ve heard a lot of radio programs, but I’ve never heard anything as rotten as that,” Mr. Dean said. “It was too realistic for comfort. They broke into a dance program with a news flash. Everybody in my house was agitated by the news. It went on just like the press radio news.”

At 9 o’clock a woman walked into the West Forty-seventh Street police station dragging two children, all carrying extra clothing,. She said she was ready to leave the city. Police persuaded her to stay.

A garbled version of the reports reached the Dixie Bus Terminal, causing officials there to prepare to change their schedule on confirmation of “news” of an accident at Princeton on their New Jersey route. Miss Dorothy Brown at the terminal sought verification, however, when the caller refused to talk with the dispatcher, explaining to her that “the world is coming to an end and I have a lot to do.”

Harlem was shaken by the “news.” Thirty men and women rushed into the West 123d Street police station and twelve into the West 135th Street station saying they had their household goods packed and were all ready to leave Harlem if the police would tell them where to go to be “evacuated.” One man insisted he had heard “the President’s voice” over the radio advising all citizens to leave the cities.

The parlor churches in the Negro district, congregations of the smaller sects meeting on the ground floors of brownstone houses, took the “news” in stride as less faithful parishioners rushed in with it seeking spiritual consolation. Evening services became “end of the world” prayer meetings in some.

One man ran into the Wadsworth Avenue Police Station in Washington Heights, white with terror shouting that enemy planes were crossing the Hudson River and asking what he should do. A man came in to the West 152d Street Station, seeking traffic directions. The broadcast became a rumor that spread through the district and many persons stood on street corners hoping for a sight of the “battle” in the skies.

In Queens the principal question asked of the switchboard operators at Police Headquarters was whether “the wave of poison as will reach as far as Queens.” Many said they were all packed up and ready to leave Queens when told to do so.

Samuel Tishman of 700 Riverside Drive was one of the multitude that fled into the street after hearing part of the program. He declared that hundreds of persons evacuated their homes fearing that the “city was being bombed.”

“I came home at 9:15 P. M. just in time to receive a telephone call from my nephew who was frantic with fear. He told me the city was about to be bombed from the air and advised me to get out of the building at once. I turned on the radio and heard the broadcast which corroborated what my nephew had said, grabbed my hat and coat and a few personal belongings and ran to the elevator. When I got to the street there were hundreds of people milling around in panic. Most of us ran toward Broadway and it was not until we stopped taxi drivers who had heard the entire broadcast on their radios that we knew what it was all about. It was the most asinine stunt I ever hear of.”

“I heard that broadcast and almost had a heart attack,” said Louis Winkler of 1,322 Clay Avenue, the Bronx. “I didn’t tune it in until the program was half over, but when I heard the names and titles of the Federal, State and municipal officials and when the ‘Secretary of the Interior’ was introduced, I was convinced that it was the McCoy. I ran out into the street with scores of others, and found people running in all directions. The whole thing came over as a news broadcast and in my mind it was a pretty crummy thing to do.”

The Telegraph Bureau switchboard at police headquarters in Manhattan, operated by thirteen men, was so swamped with calls from apprehensive citizens inquiring about the broadcast that police business was seriously interfered with.

Headquarters, unable to reach the radio station by telephone, sent a radio patrol car there to ascertain the reason for the reaction to the program. When the explanation was given, a police message was sent to all precincts in the five boroughs advising the commands of the cause.

Patrolman John Morrison was on duty at the switchboard in the Bronx Police Headquarters when, as he afterward expressed it, all the lines became busy at once. Among the first who answered was a man who informed him:

“I heard it on the radio,” the voice at the other end of the wire replied. “Then I went to the roof and I could see the smoke from the bomb, drifting over toward New York. What shall I do?”

The patrolman calmed the caller as well as he could, then answered other inquiries from persons who wanted to know whether the reports of a bombardment were true, and if so where they should take refuge.

At Brooklyn police headquarters, eight men assigned to the monitor switchboard estimated that they had answered more than 300 inquiries from persons who had been alarmed by the broadcast. A number of these, the police said, came from motorists who had heard the program over their car radios and were alarmed both for themselves and for persons at their homes. Also, the Brooklyn police reported, a preponderance of the calls seemed to come from women.

The National Broadcasting Company reported that men stationed at the WJZ transmitting station at Pound Brook, N. J., had received dozens of calls from residents of that area. The transmitting station communicated with New York and passed the information that there was no cause for alarm to the persons who inquired later.

Meanwhile the New York telephone operators of the company found their switchboards swamped with incoming demands for information, although the NBC system had no part in the program.

The State, county, parkway and local police in Westchester County were swamped also with calls from terrified residents. Of the local police departments, Mount Vernon, White Plains, Mount Klaco, Yonkers and Tarrytown received most of the inquiries. At first the authorities thought they were being made the victims of a practical joke, but when the calls persisted and increased in volume they began to make inquiries. The New York Telephone Company reported that it had never handled so many calls in one hour in years in Westchester.

One man called the mount Vernon Police Headquarters to find out “where the forty policemen were killed”; another said his brother was ill in bed listening to the broadcast and when he heard the reports he got into an automobile and “disappeared.” “I’m nearly crazy,” the caller exclaimed.

Because some of the inmates took the catastrophic reports seriously as they came over the radio some of the hospitals and the county penitentiary ordered that the radios be turned off.

Thousands of calls came in to Newark Police Headquarters. These were not only from the terror-stricken. Hundreds of physicians and nurses believing the reports to be true, called to volunteer their services to aid the “injured.” City officials also called in to make “emergency” arrangements for the population. Radio cars were stopped by the panicky throughout that city.

Jersey City police headquarters received similar calls. One woman asked Detective Timothy Grooty, on duty there, “Shall I close my windows?” A man asked, “Have the police any extra gas masks?” Many of the callers, on being assured the reports were fiction, queried again and again, uncertain in whom to believe.

Scores of persons in lower Newark Avenue, Jersey City, left their homes and stood fearfully in the street, looking with apprehension toward the sky. A radio car was dispatched there to reassure them.

The incident at Hedden Terrace and Hawthorne Avenue, in Newark, one of the most dramatic in the area, caused a tie-up in traffic for blocks around. The more than twenty families there apparently believed the “gas attack” had started, and so reported to the police. An ambulance, three radio cars and a police emergency squad of eight men were sent to the scene with full inhalator apparatus.

They found the families with wet cloths on faces contorted with hysteria. The police clamed them, halted those who were attempting to move their furniture on their cars and after a time were able to clear the traffic snarl.

At St. Michael’s Hospital, High Street and Central Avenue, in the heart of the Newark industrial district, fifteen men and women were treated for shock and hysteria. In some cases it was necessary to give sedatives, and nurses and physicians sat down and talked with the more seriously affected.

While this was going on, three persons with children under treatment in the institution telephoned that they were taking them out and leaving the city, but their fears were clamed when hospital authorities explained what had happened.

A flickering of electric lights in Bergen County from about 6:15 to 6:30 last evening provided a build-up for the terror that was to ensue when the radio broadcast started.

Without going out entirely, the lights dimmed and brightened alternately and radio reception was also affected. The Public Service Gas and Electric Company was mystified by the behavior of the lights, declaring there was nothing wrong at their power plants or in their distributing system. A spokesman for the service department said a call was made to Newark and the same situation was reported. He believed, he said, that the condition was general throughout the State.

The New Jersey Bell Telephone Company reported that every central office in the State was flooded with calls for more than an hour and the company did not have time to summon emergency operators to relieve the congestion. Hardest hit was the Trenton toll office, which handled calls from all over the East.

One of the radio reports, the statement about the mobilization of 7,000 national guardsmen in New Jersey, caused the armories of the Sussex and Essex troops to be swamped with calls from officers and men seeking information about the mobilization place.

In Caldwell, N. J., an excited parishioner ran into the First Baptist Church during evening services and shouted that a meteor had fallen, showering death and destruction, and that North Jersey was threatened. The Rev. Thomas Thomas, the pastor, quieted the congregation and all prayed for deliverance from the “catastrophe.”

East Orange police headquarters received more than 200 calls from persons who wanted to know what to do to escape the “gas.” Unaware of the broadcast, the switchboard operator tried to telephone Newark, but was unable to get the call through because the switchboard at Newark headquarters was tied up. The mystery was not cleared up until a teletype explanation had been received from Trenton.

More than 100 calls were received at Maplewood police headquarters and during the excitement two families of motorists, residents of New York City, arrived at the station to inquire how they were to get back to their homes now that the Pulaski Skyway had been blown up.

The women and children were crying and it took some time for the police to convince them that the catastrophe was fictitious. Many persons who called Maplewood said their neighbors were packing their possessions and preparing to leave for the country.

In Orange, N. J., and unidentified man rushed into the lobby of the Lido Theatre, a neighborhood motion picture house, with the intention of “warning” the audience that a meteor had fallen on Raymond Boulevard, Newark, and was spreading poisonous gasses. Skeptical, Al Hochberg, manager of the theatre, prevented the man from entering the auditorium of the theatre and then called the police. He was informed that the radio broadcast was responsible for the man’s alarm.

Emanuel Priola, bartender of a tavern at 442 Valley Road, West Orange, closed the place, sending away six customers in the middle of the broadcast to “rescue” his wife and two children.

“At first I thought it was a lot of Buck Rogers stuff, but when a friend telephoned me that general orders had been issued to evacuate every one from the metropolitan area I put the customers out, closed the place and started to drive home,” he said.

William H. Decker of 20 Aubrey Road, Montclair, N. J., denounced the broadcast as “a disgrace” and “an outrage,” which he said had frightened hundreds of residents in his community, including children. He said he knew of one woman who ran into the street with her two children and asked for the help of neighbors in saving them.

“We were sitting in the living room casually listening to the radio,” he said, “when we heard reports of a meteor falling near New Brunswick and reports that gas was spreading. Then there was an announcement of the Secretary of Interior from Washington who spoke of the happening as a major disaster. It was the worst thing I ever heard over the air.”

The Columbia Broadcasting System issued a statement saying that the adaptation of Mr. Wells’s novel which was broadcast “followed the original closely, but to make the imaginary details more interesting to American listeners the adapter, Orson Welles, substituted an American locale for the English scenes of the story.”

Pointing out that the fictional character of the broadcast had been announced four times and had been previously publicized, it continued:

“Nevertheless, the program apparently was produced with such vividness that some listeners who may have heard only fragments thought the broadcast was fact, not fiction. Hundreds of telephone calls reaching CBS stations, city authorities, newspaper offices and police headquarters in various cities testified to the mistaken belief.

“Naturally, it was neither Columbia’s nor the Mercury Theatre’s intention to mislead any one, and when it became evident that a part of the audience had been disturbed by the performance five announcement were read over the network later in the evening to reassure those listeners.”

Expressing profound regret that his dramatic efforts should cause such consternation, Mr. Welles said: “I don’t think we will choose anything like this again.” He hesitated about presenting it, he disclosed, because “it was our thought that perhaps people might be bored or annoyed at hearing a tale so improbable.”

Last night’s radio “war scare” shocked thousands of men, women and children in the big cities throughout the country. Newspaper offices, police stations and radio stations were besieged with calls from anxious relative of New Jersey residents, and in some places anxious groups discussed the impending menace of a disastrous war.

Most of the listeners who sought more information were widely confused over the reports they had heard, and many were indignant when they learned that fiction was the cause of their alarm.

In San Francisco the general impression of listeners seemed to be that an overwhelming force had invaded the United States from the air, was in the process of destroying New York and threatening to move westward. “My God,” roared one inquirer into a telephone, “where can I volunteer my services? We’ve go to stop this awful thing.”

Newspaper offices and radio stations in Chicago were swamped with telephone calls about the “meteor” that had fallen in New Jersey. Some said they had relatives in the “stricken area” and asked if the casualty list was available.

In parts of St. Louis men and women clustered in the streets in residential areas to discuss what they should do in the face of the sudden war. One suburban resident drove fifteen miles to a newspaper office to verify the radio “report.”

In New Orleans a general impression prevailed that New Jersey had been devastated by the “invaders,” but fewer inquiries were received than in other cities.

In Baltimore a woman engaged passage on an airliner for New York, where her daughter is in school.

The Associated Press gathered the following reports of reaction to the broadcast:

At Fayetteville, N. C. people with relatives in the section of New Jersey where the mythical visitation had its locale went to a newspaper office in tears, seeking information.

A message from Providence, R. I., said: “Weeping and hysterical women swamped the switchboard of The Providence Journal for the details of the massacre and destruction at New York, and officials of the electric company received scores of calls urging them to turn off all lights so that the city would be safe from the enemy.”

Mass hysteria mounted so high in some cases that people told the police and newspapers they “saw” the invasion.

The Boston Globe told of one woman who claimed she could “see the fire,” and said she and many others in her neighborhood were “getting out of here.”

Minneapolis and St. Paul police switchboards were deluged with calls from frightened people.

The Times-Dispatch, in Richmond, Va., reported some of their telephone calls came from people who said they were “praying.”

The Kansas City bureau of The Associated Press received inquiries on the “meteors” from Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, Beaumont, Texas, and St. Joseph, Mo., in addition to having its local switchboards flooded with calls. One telephone informant said he had loaded all his children into his car, had filled it with gasoline, and was going somewhere. “Where is it safe?” he wanted to know.

Atlanta reported that listeners throughout the Southeast “had it that a planet struck in New Jersey with monsters and almost everything and anywhere from 40 to 7,000 people reported killed.” Editors said responsible persons, known to them, were among the anxious information seekers.

In Birmingham, Ala., people gathered in groups and prayed, and Memphis had its full quota of weeping women calling in to learn the facts.

In 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.

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

A man in Pittsburgh said he returned home in the midst of the broadcast and found his wife in the bathroom a bottle of poison in her hand, and screaming: “I’d rather die this way than like that.”

He calmed her, listened to the broadcast and then rushed to a telephone to get an explanation.

Officials of Station CFRB, Toronto, said they never had had so many inquiries regarding a single broadcast, the Canadian Press reported.

The usual practice of the commission is not to investigate broadcasts unless formal demands for an inquiry are made, but the commission has the power, officials pointed out, to initiate proceedings where the public interest seems to warrant official action.

The funny thing is when I listened to the original radio broadcast I noticed that I would not have been one of those who paniced. The current media makes me sceptical and definately cynical of what they produce. I would have listened long enough to catch one of the jumps in time that would make it clear that it was not a real time event.

Now if only the host of Punk’d would come out and let us know who the real presidential candidates are I could get off that rollercoaster too.

The funny thing is when I listened to the original radio broadcast I noticed that I would not have been one of those who paniced.

I got the impression from the Times coverage that most of those who joined the mass hysteria had heard it second- or third-hand. I don't see how anyone could be fooled if they listened to more than 10 minutes uninterrupted. Especially towards the end. About the last quarter of the show was sort of a narrated diary of a lone survivor. It is hard to comprehend that so many people suspended disbelief when told that Martians had landed in New Jersey and we're all going to die. People must have been really jumpy about the state of the world.

It will be slow for the next week or so. Just as well. With our looming election people will be concentrating on the future and not much interested in the last century. Too bad. The 0bamites might benefit from seeing what happens when you raise to power those who value fairness and the esteem of your enemies above national security. I have a small story of trivial interest to post on 11/3 and then we shall see how the California-USC and Navy-Notre Dame games come out on 11/6, which is either Thursday or Sunday, depending on which Real Time you choose.

DON’T FORGET TO VOTE!

On November 1 a nonentity, Dr. Hacha, was elected to the vacant Presidency of the remnants of Czechoslovakia. A new Government took office in Prague. "Conditions in Europe and the world in general," said the Foreign Minister of this forlorn Administration, "are not such that we should hope for a period of calm in the near future." Hitler thought so too. A formal division of the spoils was made by Germany at the beginning of November. Poland was not disturbed in her occupation of Teschen. The Slovaks, who had been used as a pawn by Germany, obtained a precarious autonomy. Hungary received a piece of flesh at the expense of Slovakia. When these consequences of Munich were raised in the House of Commons Mr. Chamberlain explained that the French and British offer of an international guarantee to Czechoslovakia which had been given after the Munich Pact did not affect the existing frontiers of that State, but referred only to the hypothetical question of unprovoked aggression. "What we are doing now," he said, with much detachment, "is witnessing the readjustment of frontiers laid down in the Treaty of Versailles. I do not know whether the people who were responsible for those frontiers thought they would remain permanently as they were laid down. I doubt very much whether they did. They probably expected that from time to time the frontiers would have to be adjusted. It is impossible to conceive that those people would be such supermen as to be able to see what would be the right frontiers for all time. The question is not whether those frontiers should be readjusted from time to time, but whether they should be readjusted by negotiation and discussion or be readjusted by war. Readjustment is going on, and in the case of the Hungarian frontier arbitration by Germany and Italy has been accepted by Czechoslovakia and Hungary for the final determination of the frontier between them. I think I have said enough about Czechoslovakia. . . ." There was, however, to be a later occasion.

Winston S. Churchill, The Gathering Storm, p. 298

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