Orson Welles: The 'alien invasion' that fooled America - BBC News

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.

But Welles claimed it had some unforeseen side effects, per exclusive BBC archive.

In the years since, there has been much debate about whether the level of panic the broadcast actually caused has been overstated.

Regardless, it remains a landmark moment in broadcast history and a testament to the power of storytelling to capture the imagination of an audience.



#BBCNews #History #Halloween

[luzcannon]

How insightful. If only we would use his approach to the radio(in not believing whatever is fed to us) to the internet nowadays.

[joermnyc]

“Anything that came from that new machine was believed” sadly that’s still true.

[markfrench]

I never knew there were people hiding out some 5 weeks after the event,

[titteryenot]

This immortal quote from _The Third Man_ may not be necessarily historically true, but it’s still brilliant: “In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace – and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”

[godlike]

wow, this is deep
favorite part: "some hymn of praise to the American cornfields"
That man certainly knew how to tell a story

[DanielDeSaintMalo]

Not just the United States were affected. The United States is the most known case of panic howeven in Ecuador some people really believe it and they made other portions of the society believe them.

[mrdando]

I have this event on cd. Very believable

[public.public]

The Martians landed in Iraq looking for weapons of mass destruction.

[julianaylor]

Orson Welles was not to blame, only the same sort of fools, who still believe everything they read or hear. He nails it here.

[damanimcclain]

And spawned some of the greatest movies ever thanks wells

[GrandpaVince]

Those pesky aliens met their match when good old mulder and skully investigated them

[mariospacagna]

Americans think that H G Wells was American

[kodiakbear]

SpaceX and Tesla. By the way, I have difficulty communicating because I had a stroke in Broca’s area, the part of the brain that controls speech. 2/8/2021 but I lived again. (My wife helped me compose this.)

[fabiolamadonna]

ORSON WELLS E A INVENÇÃO DE ALIENS 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂... SERES HUMANOS ADORAM O SOBRENATURAL.

[savethecoconutgroveplayhou]

Why did Orson suddenly grow a British accent? Why do many celebrities do so?

[DemiurgeRulesOK]

"...exactly what would have happened if the world had been invaded..."
(What would have happened if aliens specifically domiciled on Mars had built warring craft and had flown them towards the Earth, then breached the hostile atmosphere and landed softly on the face of the planet to wage war, that is) 😁
I wonder if Orson Wells had been having a quiet laugh to himself when he uttered those words.
Still, what he said regarding the "magic box" (or the radio box) was profound.
Another well known person around that era but across the Atlantic was George Orwell (Eric Blair) who would often strenuously allude to the power of progressively newer technology as a propaganda mechanism or as a weapon of mass influence.
He used it (radio) effectively himself to assert a concept and (almost surreptitiously) provide some insight in relation to political influences and how easily people can be taken in simply by powerfully backed or powerful words.

[thembill]

The impact of this was greatly exaggerated as propaganda by newspapers who were against the implementation and widespread of radio. Nobody tried to kill themselves.

They also announced the very clearly more than once during the show that it was a presentation of the story, and It didn't even have that good of listener numbers in the first place compared to basically every other show that was on at the time.

[NoWindNoSunNoPower]

Few in the UK is fooled by the current alien invasion.

[TheDane_BurnAllCopies]

It is still a bad thing to say, that it is this radio show that stop’s disclosure..🙄

[Bungle-UK]

Britain is currently experiencing an alien invasion.