The Truth About How An Ominous Radio Message Reportedly Sent Thousands Fleeing From Their Homes
It’s fall 1938, and all around America, families are sitting in front of their radios, ready for some entertainment. All of a sudden, the show they’ve been waiting for is interrupted. A news flash tells the listeners that there’s been an invasion. Panic grips the audience, and many of them apparently run out into the street. But there's actually much more to this story.
Chilling tones
In chilling tones, a narrator’s telling the listening public, “I can make out a small beam of light against a mirror. What’s that? There’s a jet of flame springing from the mirror, and it leaps right at the advancing men. It strikes them head on! Good Lord, they’re turning into flame!” Terrifying stuff.
Thousands panic
No wonder the audience was scared — and, apparently, thousands panicked and went out into the streets. The shock was reportedly enormous. Everyone says that Orson Welles’ famous broadcast caused terror, but when people have taken a closer look at the facts, it seems that the real picture is far more complicated.
A tale often told
The story’s well known now, with the tale of how the Mercury Theatre radio show caused a hysterical reaction being shared again and again over the decades. But at the turn of the century, some experts started to look more closely at the story. And a professor named W. Joseph Campbell has since claimed that those reports had little if any grounding in reality.
Way back then
The broadcast we’re going to look at happened in 1938. Back then, FDR was president of the United States, and men who’d fought in the Civil War still lived and remembered. Superman was just beginning his life in Action Comics, and Joe Louis had recently KO’d Max Schmeling in round one.
