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Columbia Cham Program Presented So Realistically That Hysteria Resulted In U, S.NEW YORK, Oct. 31—(AP)—A horrible fantasy of war waged on tlie United States by fear some, space-conquering men from mars brought near panic to that part of the nation’s radio audience which was not tuned in last night on Charlie McCarthy's rival radio program.In the double-quick tempo of the news broadcasters, the fiction of a Columbia program became so realistic that hysteria prevailed among listeners throughout the United States and Canada.Demands for investigation and correction came apace today with the belated reports of almost fan-tasic panic.Bill May be Introduced Senator Clyde L. Herring (D-Ia) said he planned to introduce in congress a bill “controlling just such abuses as was heard over the radio last night. * * * Radio has no more right to present programs like that than someone has in knocking on your door and ecr earning,” he added.City Manager Paul Morton of Trenton, N. J., near the locale of the fictional invasion, said he would demand an investigation by the federal communications commission with the view of preventing recurrence of what happened.” .Some apartment houses in New York were emptied hurriedly by frantic listeners to the program— and by second and third hand accounts that multiplied the impending peril.A woman in Pittsburgh tried suicide, saying “I’d rather die this way than like that.”.Electricity Fails At a high point in the program the electric power tailed at Concrete, Wash., a'-town of 1000, and the lights went out in most of the homes. Many though the invasion had reached the west coast. Women fainted and men prepared to take their families to the mountains.Switchboards in newspaper offices and police stations everywhere were swamped with calls . from terrified people, many of them;.weeping; .. Some,-reported they could smell ; the g£c%ahd see the flames started by the attackers.People gathered in groups to pray for salvation.Ail over the metropolitan area, panicky persons jumped into their automobiles and headed for the . open spaces to escape tha hypb-■ theticai bombing of New York. Church services, here and elsewhere were broken up by intruders who screamed the world was coming to an end. . . .“Is it true? Were 40 killed in . New Jersey? Or 7,000 in New York? Are men from Mars at-- tacking New York with deadly other-worldly weapons and gas? Was the world coming to an end?”There wasn't a martian in sight and the hysteria subsided almost as quickly as it started. But listeners viewed the broadcast with mixed feelings, principally that ; they had beenoutwardly frighten-:. ed and duped.Written by II. G. Wells r . _ The broadcast was an adapta-- tion of H. G. Wells’ imaginative ; “war of the worlds,” furtherdramatized and enacted.by Orson : Welles, the 23-year-old Broadway ; theatrical prodigy. Welles Am-ericanized the locale and situa-tions.1 Four times during the program, r- CBC painted out,. the announcer stressed that the story was nothing hut ficionHusky Fleming Tackett, 34-year-old coal miner, and his 10-year-old bride, Rosie Columbus, pose for their wedding picture in the backhills of Kentucky near PaintsviSle. Married by the Rev. IV. G. Ratliff, a blacksmith, Tackett and his wife—the neighbors say she's just a baby”—have moved into a two-room log cabin with her parents, two brothers, a sister and some in-laws.”ports several explosions of ihe incandescent gas occurring at regular intervals on the plar.et Mars.”Landed on EarthThis was the buildup for a dramatization that eventually had the Martians landing in meteor cars with the shock of an earthquake in the vicinity of Grovers Mills (fictitious locale), New Jersey. . . A 30-second pause for studio music. . . The octopus-like Martians using the dread heat-ray” and then, by telephone from the scene, the report of 40 persons dead there. . . The Martians eventually succumbed to germs that we worldlings are imune to.The four cautionary announcements that it was fiction were lost and forgotten in the realism of the portrayal, in its faithful similarity to the style of the “newscasters,” and in the realistic manner of breaking into regular programs with broadcasts of hot news.Columbia declared afterward it had no intention of misleading listeners and when it became evident that part of the audience had been, disturbed by the performance, five announcements were made over the network later in the evening to reassure those listeners.”Mars, the scene of the fantasy switched to Princeton, where i.n astronomer undertook to “explain” the phenomena.Another meteor 'struck” at the professor, who rushed out nearby Grover’s Mill to interrupt with the announcer to investigate.It was a giant tube of metal, they reported, not a meteor at all.Just a minute,” the announcer called. “Something's happening: Ladies and gentlemen, this is terrific!“The end of the thing is beginning to come off. The top is beginning to rotate like a screw! The thing must be hollow.”_ There was a bable of voices as fictitious spectators grew alarmed.Look! Til#* 4ViiA1 Munsey, slate liquor in spec tor for Taney and Ston counties and a former residen of Jefferson City, who die Saturday afternoon of a heai attack at his home in Bransot Funeral services are to be hcl in Trenton, Mo., where he mad his home for many years.pie are dropping like flies, poison gas spreads. . .”Just as the continent was pling” into oblivion, the re nouncer cut in to explain that the audience had been ing to a dramatization of book.Flashes of Life
Newspaper Details
Jefferson City Post Tribune
Jefferson City, Missouri, US
Mon, Oct 31, 1938
Page 1
Full Page
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Little D.
MO, USA 09 Oct 2023
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