| Original caption: “Dramatist Orson Welles probably had his first and last taste of the life of a war correspondent Sunday night when he described a fictitious invasion of New Jersey by “men from Mars.” He’s shown yesterday (seated, light suit), shaken and worried, being interviewed by reporters upon his return from “the front.” His realistic rendition of H. G. Wells’ forty-year-old “The War of the Worlds”” – changed to American locale – threw thousands all over the United States into panic. Original caption: “Panic that spread from coast to coast as a result of the broadcast from New York of a play which described an imaginary invasion of the United States by men from Mars had its repercussions Oct. 31. Orson Welles, who described the fictitious attack over the air, is shown here (center) as he explained to newspaper reporters all about it. He and broadcast officials had no idea that the play, conceived as a novel years before by author H. G. Wells, would create such furor, he said.” Those listening on October 30, 1938, were not particularly overwhelmed with scintillating programming. At 1500 Hours, Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace (October 7, 1888 – November 18, 1965), with General Hugh S. Johnson (August 5, 1882 – April 15, 1942) and Professor Lyman L. Bryson (July 11, 1888 – November 24, 1959), discussed what this country should do with its farm surpluses. The radio public for the most part planned to listen to Edgar Bergen (February 16, 1903 – September 30, 1978) and Charlie McCarthy from 2000 Hours to 2100 Hours and then, at 2200 Hours, tune in to a blow-by-blow description of the Welterweight Championship of the World between titleholder Henry Armstrong (December 12, 1912 – October 22, 1988) and his contender, Cerefino Garcia (August 26, 1906 – January 1, 1981), direct from Madison Square Garden. At 1958 Hours that Sunday, after 8 hours of rehearsals, Welles finally mounted a large, platformlike podium in the center of the studio and gave announcer Dan Seymour (June 28, 1914 – July 27, 1982) a signal to start the show, precisely as the clock’s 2nd hand indicated 2000 Hours “The Columbia Broadcasting System and its affiliated stations presents Orson Welles and ‘The Mercury Theatre on the Air’ in “The War of the Worlds” by H. G. Wells (September 21, 1866 – August 13, 1946)” said Seymour in his perfectly modulated and estimably robust voice. Then Bernard Herrmann’s (June 29, 1911 – December 24, 1975) orchestra played an introductory 20 seconds of the show’s theme music, Pyotr I. Tchaikovsky’s (May 7, 1840 – November 6, 1893) Piano Concerto Number 1 in B-flat minor (1875), followed by Seymour’s introduction of “the Director of the Mercury Theatre and star of these broadcasts, Mr. Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985).” Welles slowly, somberly delivered the prologue, similar to H. G. Wells’s, except for a few word and phrase changes. His voice was deep and scholarly, the tone expressing the fear of impending invasion: We know now that in the early years of the 20th century this world was being watched closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own. After Welles’s last words to the prologue drifted off, an announcer’s voice came on with a routine weather report. After a few moments of music, a “news” bulletin interrupted the music to announce that a Professor Farrell of Mount Jennings Observatory in Chicago had noted a series of gas explosions from the planet Mars. A remote pickup was then broadcast from the Princeton Observatory where a Professor Pierson (played by Welles) described the activity on Mars that he was witnessing through his telescope. While discussing with the interviewer details of the possibility of life on Mars, Pierson was suddenly handed a message: a nearby seismograph had registered a shock “of almost earthquake intensity” within a radius of 20 miles of Princeton. Pierson assumes that the reaction is from the crash of a meteorite of unusual size, but that it probably has no connection with the disturbance on Mars. Within a few minutes, the object’s location has been identified as Grover’s Mill, New Jersey, 22 miles from Trenton, and eyewitnesses report it to have been a “huge, flaming object.” A special mobile unit is dispatched to the scene, and further reports are promised. In the meantime, the program is switched to “the Hotel Martinet in Brooklyn, where Bobby Millette and his orchestra are offering a program of dance music.” At this point, 11 minutes and 10 seconds had elapsed from the beginning of the show. Although the broadcast was highly realistic, with its constant switching back and forth to dance music and the interruption of news bulletins, it seemed highly unlikely that any listeners would believe that what they were hearing was real. An announcement had been made at the beginning of the show that it was a performance of the Mercury Theatre, and a quick check of the program listings of any Sunday newspaper would reveal that the CBS offering at that time was a broadcast of “The War of the Worlds”. The New York Times, for example, listed the show in its regular program table and again, in a special radio section titled “Leading Events of the Week,” included in fairly large type a further mention of the show: “Tonight-Play: H. G. Wells’ The War Of The Worlds.’” On another page of the Times that day was a large photo of Welles, Agnes Moorehead (December 6, 1900 – April 30, 1974), and other Mercury players, with a caption that stated “Tonight’s Show is H. G. Wells’ ‘The War of the Worlds.’” Many people, however, must have missed the announcement in the newspaper, and the initial announcement of the Mercury broadcast was fleeting: the 1st bogus bulletin and weather report occurred within 2 minutes of the show’s inception, and it is highly probable that many people turning their dials from station to station might have missed the initial qualifications. Had they begun listening to “The War of the Worlds” right after the 1st 2 minutes, there would not have been any way, other than their own critical ability, to tell if what was happening was real, since the next disclaimer, during a brief intermission, did not occur until after 40 minutes: “You are listening to a CBS presentation of Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre on the Air’ in an original dramatization of “The War of the Worlds” by H. G. Wells.” As a result of a weekly survey by the Hooper rating company, it was estimated that the Charlie McCarthy show normally commanded 34.7 percent of the total radio audience as opposed to 3.6 for the “Mercury Theatre on the Air.” At exactly 2012 Hours, Bergen and McCarthy had finished their 1st act with their usual comedic banter. This was followed by a light opera piece sung by Nelson Eddy (June 29, 1901 – March 6, 1967). Although Nelson Eddy was an enormously popular star of both radio and films, and his pleasant songs usually demanded little effort on the part of the listeners, apparently a large segment of the radio audience that night did not care to wait until he finished his rendition of “Neapolitan Love Song.” It was a normal practice, especially in those early days of push-button or “airplane” dial turning, to switch from station to station when a predictable and unwanted sequence would come on the air; the listener would wait out the song or sketch he wanted to avoid and then in a few minutes tune back into the show he was tuned into originally — unless of course, the temporary, substitute show caught and held his attention. After Eddy’s song, Madeleine Carroll (February 26, 1906 – October 2, 1987) was scheduled to do a dramatic interpretation and later in the program Dorothy Lamour was going to sing several popular songs. As the Charlie McCarthy listeners switched their dials looking for something more entertaining until the Nelson Eddy song concluded, they found very little programming of a light nature on the air at that exact moment. In the New York metropolitan area, the dial-turner might have paused in tuning, momentarily, at WOR, where a Bach cantata was being offered; on WMCA there was a symposium on judiciary amendments; the Calvary Baptist Church’s Choir was singing gospel hymns on WHN; on WEVD and WJZ, symphonic orchestral pieces were being offered; Professor Ralph Linton of Columbia University was lecturing on “How Civilizations Grow” on WQXR. Hooper later concluded that some 12 percent of the Charlie McCarthy audience about 4,000,000 people-stopped at the CBS network’s offering of the Martian broadcast at that very moment. They would have heard, amidst crowd noises and police sirens, the concerned and authentic-sounding voice of a “newscaster,” direct from Wilmuth Farm in Grovers Mill, New Jersey, painting a word picture of the strange scene of the projectile half-buried in a huge hole. As the purported pickup continued from Grovers Mill, the announcer began describing the object more carefully, including a curious humming sound that seemed to be coming from inside of it. Suddenly, the top of the object began to unscrew and something emerged, a creature that sent out rays that could instantly cause automobiles, barns, and people to burst into flames. The reporter, with great dramatic sincerity, continued to describe what he saw then, his voice rising in terror as he screamed into the microphone that the whole field had burst into fire. Then, mysteriously the eyewitness description suddenly stopped, “due to circumstances beyond our control.” At this moment in the broadcast, with as many as 6,000,000 people listening, a real story more bizarre than the science fiction tale being aired was beginning. The control room of the CBS studio received a telephone call from the local police precinct asking what was happening. The station house had started to receive phone calls from concerned citizens trying to determine whether the broadcast was real or just a dramatization. “Of course it isn’t real,” said someone in the control booth who then had to hang up quickly to continue with the business of the show. The calls kept flooding the police station switchboard, however, and finally a squad car with 2 officers was dispatched to the CBS building. 1 of the policeman kept peering through a window that gave him a view of Welles and the other members of the cast; he attempted to enter the studio to get more information. He was pushed away by an actor. By now the CBS switchboard was receiving more calls than it could handle, and they were coming from all over the country. Davidson “Dave” Taylor (February 26, 1907 – July 27, 1979) was informed of the problem, and he gestured to announcer Dan Seymour to come out of the studio. Once he heard what was going on, Seymour made the announcement-42 minutes after the show began-that what was being broadcast was in fact, a dramatization. It was a bit too late. Already, thousands of people, believing that Martian poison gas was spreading death and destruction over the East Coast, began to leave their houses to speed to what they believed might be safety. Many fled to churches to pray; people gathered together in groups; some began to arm themselves to fight the invading Martians, described over the broadcast as having tentacles and a body as large as a bear; it glistened like wet leather, eyes black and gleaming like a serpent, a V-shaped mouth with saliva dripping from rimless lips that quivered and pulsated. People all over the country were calling newspapers, sheriff’s offices, radio stations explaining that the invasion was not real: “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., 2048 Hours.” In the Trenton area where people believed it would only be a few moments before the Martians arrived at their houses, the panic was the worst. The highways became clogged as cars raced toward Philadelphia or New York hoping to evade the pursuers from outer space. Some people dug out old gas masks that they had been keeping since World War I. Others wrapped their heads and covered their faces with wet towels as a possible aid against the poisonous gas. The East Orange, New Jersey, police headquarters received more than 200 calls from persons who wanted to know what to do to escape the gas. More than 100 calls were received at the Maplewood, New Jersey, headquarters; 2 families from Manhattan also came to the station to inquire how they were to get back home now that the Pulaski Skyway had been blown up. Other outbreaks of panic occurred in different parts of the country. In Indianapolis, a lady ran into a church where a service was being held and screamed that the world was coming to an end: she had heard it on the radio. Hundreds of parishioners fled. In New York City, 2 women who had heard the program called a movie theater and demanded that their husbands be paged. This spread the news to the other people in the audience, and within minutes the entire theater was empty. Also in New York, a woman walked into the 47th Street police station dragging 2 children, all carrying extra clothes. She said she was ready to leave the city. The police convinced her to stay. According to a Rhode Island daily paper, “weeping and hysterical women swamped the switchboard of the Providence Journal for 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.” A number of students at Brevard College in North Carolina were so gripped by the panic that fighting occurred when they attempted to use the few telephones available on campus to ask their parents to come and get them. From Pittsburgh came the story that a man who returned home in the midst of the broadcast found his wife in the bathroom with a bottle of poison in her hand, screaming: “I’d rather die this way than like that.” In a small town named Concrete, in the state of Washington, a sudden power failure convinced the populace that the Martians were near at hand. The hysteria became so pronounced that many people, especially those who lived within sight of the Hudson River, where the Martians were supposedly crossing, reported that they actually had seen the invading hordes. And a woman as far away as Boston declared that she could “see the fire.” Terror-ridden responses did not only come from the gullible. The usually sophisticated and worldly photographers at the New York Herald Tribune began donning gas masks in preparation for going into the streets to snap pictures of the advancing legions of Martians. More policemen began to arrive at the CBS studios, and before the show ended, Welles was aware that he had created a sensation, although he had no idea just how emotionally shattering the program had been. As the show ended, Welles read a prepared statement: “This is Orson Welles, ladies and gentlemen, out of character to assure you that “The War of the Worlds” has no further significance than as the holiday offering it was intended to be. The Mercury Theatre’s own radio version of dressing up in a sheet and jumping out of a bush and saying Boo! Starting now, we couldn’t soap all your windows and steal all your garden gates, by tomorrow night… so we did the next best thing. We annihilated the world before your very ears, and utterly destroyed the CBS. You will be relieved, I hope, to learn that we didn’t mear it, and that both institutions are still open for business. So good-bye everybody, and remember, please, for the next day or so, the terrible lesson you learned tonight. That grinning, glowing, globular invader of your living room is an inhabitant of the pumpkin patch, and if your doorbell rings and nobody’s there, that was no Martian…it’s Halloween.” At the conclusion of the broadcast, with telephones still ringing, policemen standing in the halls, and newspaper reporters and photographers milling about, Welles left the studio together with most of the cast. Because of the crowd, he was forced to leave by the back entrance. He went to the Mercury Theatre to continue a previously scheduled all-night rehearsal of Danton’s Death. He was aware of the apparent sensation he had caused with “The War of the Worlds” but at that point not quite clear of its extent. At 2100 Hours, Walter Winchell’s (April 7, 1897 – February 20, 1972) highly popular commentary show came on the air on another network, and he announced with excitement in his voice to several 1,000,000 listeners: “Mr. and Mrs. America, there’s no cause for alarm. America has not fallen; I repeat; America has not fallen.” Although this announcement did not fan the flames of the panic, it did incite additional concern and curiosity in millions of listeners who might not have heard anything about the broadcast. Shortly after midnight, after several hours of rehearsing “Danton’s Death,” somebody in the cast who had arrived late told Welles that news of the program was being flashed in the lighted bulletin that circled the Times building in nearby Times Square. Welles and a few others immediately left the theater and walked to the southeast corner of Broadway and 42nd Street to see if the story was true. It was: “Orson Welles Causes Panic,” the lights read. Back at the theater, Welles continued the rehearsal, finally breaking shortly after dawn, and returned to his suite at the Saint Regis Hotel for some sleep. When he awoke 3 hours later, he was an international celebrity. Virtually every morning newspaper, not only in this country but abroad as well, told of the bogus invasion from Mars, the panic that resulted, and the man who caused it. “I had no idea that I had suddenly become a national event,” said Welles in retrospect. Right in the middle of the front page of The New York Times a headline proclaimed: “Radio Listeners in Panic, Taking War Drama as Fact,” and the New York Daily News covered half of its front page with bold black headlines that stated: “Fake Radio ‘War’ Stirs Terror Through United States” The New York Herald Tribune blared on its front page: “Not since the Spanish ‘fleet’ sailed to bombard the New England coast in 1898, has so much hysteria, panic and sudden conversion to religion been reported to the press of the United States as when radio listeners heard about an invasion from Mars.” Welles was called to CBS to give a press conference! He walked into the interview room unshaven, his eyes somewhat red from insufficient sleep, and read the following statement, which appeared in papers all over the country: “Despite my deep regret over any misapprehension which our broadcast last night created among some listeners, I am even the more bewildered over this misunderstanding in the light of an analysis of the broadcast itself.” “It seems to me that there are four factors which should have in any event maintained the illusion of fiction in the broadcast.” “The first was that the broadcast was performed as if occurring in the future and as if it were then related by a survivor of a past occurrence. The date of the fanciful invasion of this planet by Martians was clearly given as 1939 and was so announced at the outset of the broadcast.” “The second element was the fact that the broadcast took place at our regular weekly Mercury Theatre period and had been so announced in all the papers. For seventeen consecutive weeks we have been broadcasting radio drama. Sixteen of these seventeen broadcasts have been fiction and have been presented as such. Only one in the series was a true story, the broadcast of “Hell on Ice” by Commander Elsberg, and was identified as a true story within the framework of radio drama.” “The third element was the fact that at the very outset of the broadcast and twice during its enactment listeners were told that this was a play, that it was an adaptation of an old novel by H. G. Wells. Furthermore, at the conclusion a detailed statement to this effect was made.” “The fourth factor seems to me to have been the most pertinent of all. That is the familiarity of the fable, within the American idiom of Mars and Martians.” “For many decades “The Man from Mars” has been almost a synonym for fantasy …this fantasy, as such, has been used in radio programs many times. In these broadcasts, conflict between citizens of Mars and other planets has been a familiarly accepted fairy-tale. The same make-believe is familiar to newspaper readers through a comic strip that uses the same device.” Questions from the assembled newsmen followed immediately and Welles, “looking like an early Christian saint,” as he described his attempt to appear innocent, answered them as clearly as he could: Question: “Were you aware of the terror such a broadcast would stir up?” Welles: “Definitely not. The technique I used was not original with me. It was not even new. I anticipated nothing unusual.” Question: “Would you do the show over again?” Welles: “I won’t say that I won’t follow this technique again, as it is a legitimate dramatic form. Question: When were you first aware of the trouble caused?” Welles: “Immediately after the broadcast was finished when people told me of the large number of phone calls received.” Question: “Should you have toned down the language of the drama?” Welles: “No, you don’t play murder in soft words.” Question: “Why was the story changed to put in names of American cities and government officers?” Welles: “H. G. Wells used real cities in Europe, and to make the play more acceptable to American listeners we used real cities in America. Of course, I’m terribly sorry now.” During further questioning, Welles said that at 2038 Hours, Davidson “Dave” Taylor had asked him to direct himself and the other actors less facetiously; Welles and everyone else, therefore read their lines with more vigor from then on. It was at the point in the show that the Martians and their poisonous gas had begun to spread eastward over the island of Manhattan and a radio announcer, supposedly broadcasting from atop a tall New York City skyscraper, fatalistically and with great somberness, reported what he saw in 1 of the most gripping scenes from the play: “Now the first Martian reaches the shore. He stands watching, looking over the city. His steel, cowlish head is even with the skyscrapers. He waits for the others. They rise like a line of new towers on the city’s west side… Now they’re lifting their metal hands. This is the end now. Smoke comes out…black smoke, drifting over the city. People in the streets see it now. They’re running towards the East River…thousands of them, dropping in like rats.” Welles went on to say that he was “deeply shocked and deeply regretful” about the results of the broadcast. It seemed that the 23-year-old hoaxer was genuinely concerned over the consequences that might accrue from the havoc he had wrought. There were immediate rumors of criminal charges; Welles might have also feared being barred from radio forever. In 1978, however, on the 40th anniversary of the broadcast when Welles was asked on the “Today” show, “Did you get a laugh out of it, Orson?” he admitted, “Huge, huge, yes, a huge laugh. I never thought it was anything but funny.” However, the Columbia Broadcasting System and other interested parties or victims did not think it was humorous. In a press release CBS issued its own apology to the nation: “Naturally, it was neither Columbia’s nor the Mercury Theatre’s intention to mislead anyone, and when it became evident that a part of the audience had been disturbed by the performance, five announcements were read over the network in the evening to reassure those listeners. In order that this may not happen again, the program department hereafter will not use the technique of a simulated news broadcast within a dramatization when the circumstances of the broadcast could cause immediate alarm to numbers of listeners.” The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) requested a copy of the script and a recording of the broadcast to study, and Frank McNinch (April 27, 1873 – April 2, 1950), chairman of the commission, called the program “regrettable.” No official action was taken against CBS or Welles, however, because, according to the FCC, “steps sufficient to protect the public interest” had been taken. The venerable H. G. Wells, then in his seventies, was outraged that his material was changed and demanded a retraction from CBS. After conferring with Wells by telephone, Jacques Chambrun (April 24, 1906 – September 8, 1976), his spokesman in New York, stated: “In the name of Mr. H. G. Wells, I granted the Columbia Broadcasting System the right to dramatize Mr. H. G. Wells’s novel “The War of the Worlds” for 1 performance over the radio. It was not explained to me that this dramatization would be made with a liberty that amounts to a complete rewriting of “The War of the Worlds” and renders it into an entirely different story. Mr. Wells and I consider that by so doing the Columbia Broadcasting System should make a full retraction. Mr. H. G. Wells personally is deeply concerned that any work of his should be used in a way, and with a totally unwarranted liberty, to cause deep distress and alarm throughout the United States.” When Chambrun’s statement was given to Welles, Orson expressed his admiration for the Wells classic and said that he doubted that there could be a ban or any action brought against CBS or him, since the program “constituted a legitimate dramatization of a published work.” The matter was quietly dropped Damage suits against Welles and CBS to the amount of $750,000 were filed by listeners who claimed to have suffered injuries— falling down stairs, breaking bones, and the like as a result of believing in the broadcast. Fortunately for Welles, his attorney, L. Arnold Weissberger (January 16, 1907 – February 27, 1981), had removed an indemnification clause from his contract with CBS that stated that Welles would pay for any legal action against CBS and instead had amended the clause to make Welles responsible only for libel and plagiarism. Therefore, CBS had to deal with each case, none of which ever went to court. Several 1,000 dollars in out-of-court settlements were eventually made, however, as CBS concluded that it would be less costly and time consuming to settle rather than to fight each case. There were some critics of the broadcast who believed that H. G. Wells was actually instrumental in having his The War of the Worlds modernized purposely to create a scandal for publicity. October 27, the day before the broadcast, was the publication date of his latest novel, Apropos of Dolores, and bookstores all over the country were displaying it for the 1st time. Charles Scribner’s Sons, the publisher, denied that there was any connection between the new book and the broadcast and affirmed that they were not even aware that “The War of the Worlds” was scheduled to be broadcast. Orson Welles in an interview with a reporter from The New York Times, also subsequently denied that he had planned the panic to promote his forthcoming production of “Danton’s Death,” scheduled to open on Tuesday, November 1, 2 days after “The War of the Worlds” broadcast. For weeks, editorials across the country raged about the terror that Welles had perpetrated on the listening audience, calling for more self-regulation or even possible further governmental restrictions. Unfortunately, not all of the outrage was altruistic. Newspapers were growing more resentful of the broadcasting industry’s successful attempt to capture additional advertising revenue. Total advertising revenue on radio had increased steadily since 1935, whereas newspaper advertising revenue was declining. Newspaper publishers eyed radio as a source of financial trouble and were delighted that “The War of the Worlds” gave them something to complain to advertisers about. The Washington Post, in addition to an editorial suggestion of censorship of the airwaves, capitalized on the effectiveness-or lack of it—of radio by publishing a full-page ad on November 15, 1938, in which they pointed out that although several announcements explaining the fictive basis of the story were made during “The War of the Worlds”’ broadcast, the public apparently failed to listen to them. “Who listened to him?” they asked rhetorically. “Who listens to what your announcer tells them about your product?” There were some people, however, who believed Welles had performed a great service to the country, as Dorothy Thompson (July 9, 1893 – January 30, 1961) stated in her influential column in the New York Herald Tribune. AS A RESULT of his Martian broadcast, and combined with his personality profile in The New Yorker, and the prestigious Time cover story, Orson Welles had become an international celebrity at the age of 23, his future a possible fairyland of theatrical triumphs. He was fearful, however, that the scandal of “The War of the Worlds” would force CBS to cancel “The Mercury Theatre on the Air.” | |
| Image Filename | wwii1812.jpg |
| Image Size | 847.83 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 4000 x 3200 |
| Photographer | |
| Photographer Title | |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | October 31, 1938 |
| Location | |
| City | New York |
| State or Province | New York |
| Country | United States |
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| Record Number | |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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