On 30 October 85 years ago, the population of the US was – according to Orson Welles – overwhelmed by mass panic, terrified by the all-too-real broadcast of his alien-invasion drama The War of the Worlds. The director recounts his version of events in an interview from the BBC archive.
It's an incident that has been much referenced in popular culture – the broadcast, 85 years ago today, of Orson Welles's radio drama about a Martian invasion of Earth was so realistic, it is said, that it triggered widespread panic in the US. Indeed, the story of mass hysteria has become so ingrained in media folklore that for decades it wasn’t really challenged.
Welles was only 23 years old at the time, and regarded by many as a prodigy – this was his most ambitious project yet, an update of The War of the Worlds, The effect was compelling, and terrified listeners. The drama's documentary style and naturalistic dialogue meant some even mistook it for a real news broadcast. Newspapers later reported that anxious listeners, believing that the end of the world was imminent, tried to flee their homes, while others gathered weapons and prepared to defend themselves against the aliens.
Soon, the police turned up at the CBS studio where the drama was being performed, and a struggle broke out between the cops and radio executives, who were desperately trying to prevent them bursting in and stopping the show. In the immediate aftermath, Welles and his team faced an intense backlash from the media and the government. The broadcast dominated the next day's newspaper headlines, with many journalists extrapolating from anecdotal accounts to make sweeping claims of panic-stricken Americans. This helpedIn History is a series which uses the BBC's unique audio and video archive to explore historical events that still resonate today.
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