7 ms·

The Myth of the War of the Worlds Panic

95 points by tcoppi 13y ago

orblivion 13y ago
For what it's worth, here's Orson apologizing and/or answering for the broadcast, as I understand the very next day. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuEGiruAFSw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuEGiruAFSw If this is an irrelevant story that is overblown, it must have been overblown immediately.
- PhasmaFelis 13y ago
  If a few dozen or hundred people were fooled and called in to complain, that would be worth an on-air answer. It's still a long, long way from the "over a million" that was claimed.
marcosdumay 13y ago
I like the idea of the newpapers of manufacturing a huge lie that proves that they can be trusted.
mtdewcmu 13y ago
More people were listening to a radio ventriloquist. lol
- csours 13y ago
  Yup. I love the thought that absurdity and irony was just as alive and well then as it is now.
- huxley 13y ago
  For the Chase and Sandborn Hour, Edgar Bergen was actually just doing multiple voices (being a radio ventriloquist was just a humorous hook). You can hear some episodes here: https://archive.org/details/BerganMccarthy https://archive.org/details/BerganMccarthy Mel Blanc (of Looney Tunes voice acting fame) did much the same thing for the Jack Benny radio shows and also had his own half-hour long radio show, which you can hear here: https://archive.org/details/OTRR_Mel_Blanc_Singles https://archive.org/details/OTRR_Mel_Blanc_Singles
PaulAJ 13y ago
For another perspective on this story, see http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03f86lh http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03f86lh You probably can't listen to it unless you are in the UK, but it seems that there were panics, just localised ones. There have also been repeats of this event when similar programs were broadcast in other countries. For instance, see here: http://www.war-ofthe-worlds.co.uk/war_worlds_quito.htm http://www.war-ofthe-worlds.co.uk/war_worlds_quito.htm
Scramblejams 13y ago
Meh, it's a question of scale. In the 1980s, there was a TV program on in the US (I think it was Countdown to Looking Glass) which depicted what a hypothetical escalation between the US and USSR might have looked like, culminating in a nuclear exchange. It was complete with actors as news anchors, Newt Gingrich apparently played himself (don't remember that part), etc. My poor grandmother, who was staying with us for a few days, started watching in the middle of it, unaware that it was fiction. A little later she walked grimly into my room to announce that we'd just traded nukes with the Soviets in the Middle East. So, yeah, I'm sure a number of people were fooled by War of the Worlds and its descendants. Whether it rose quite to the legend doesn't strike me as a particularly interesting question.
- PhasmaFelis 13y ago
  Really? You don't see a notable distinction between "over a million people panicked by fictional news" and "one grandma panicked by fictional news"?
  - Scramblejams 13y ago
    That's not the distinction drawn by the article. The problem with this article, which isn't completely the fault of the authors, is that it's unsatisfying. They're saying, "Hey, we have a strong case here that it wasn't anything like a million people," but then they don't go lay it on the line and make a firm case for it having panicked X people. And that's probably the best they can do, given the lack of historical data, but it's not enough to deliver the kind of hard-hitting, conclusive punchline that's frequently necessary to kill off widespread myths. (Assuming, of course, that they really are myths. Some historical facts derided as myths have come back to haunt their doubters.)
- huxley 13y ago
  I don't remember hearing about "Countdown to Looking Glass", but the TV movie I remember causing a lot of public reaction was "The Day After": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_After http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_After
addedlovely 13y ago
Side note: I found that top fixed bar so distracting on the mobile / iPhone view I stopped reading. Just me of bad ui?
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
nextstep 13y ago
There are thousands of these stories which are so commonly repeated that most people refuse to accept them as myths. See also JFK's famous "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech, which is often (falsely) claimed to be German for "I'm a Jelly Donut". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ich_bin_ein_Berliner#Jelly_doughnut_misconception http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ich_bin_ein_Berliner#Jelly_doug...
- PaulAJ 13y ago
  Not really. Its like he went to Hamburg and said "I'm a Hamburger".
- Scramblejams 13y ago
  Some years ago I had a native German explain to me that what JFK said really did mean "I'm a jelly donut," and he should have said "Ich bin Berliner." So YMMV.
  - nextstep 13y ago
    Did you look at the link above from Wikipedia? They mention that supposed grammatical error: >>"Ich bin ein Berliner" was not only correct, but the only way to express what the President wanted to say.
    - Scramblejams 13y ago
      Yes. And it's nice for a sterile Wikipedia page to offer the idea that there was only one way for JFK to say it, and that he did it correctly. However! What I supplied was (one anecdote of) the reaction of a native German speaker who heard the line themselves. Their reaction was in line with the supposed myth. So no matter how smugly people today might denounce that as a myth, there were those in the intended audience whose reactions were exactly in line with the supposed myth. Which, of course, makes it not so much of a myth.
- bruceb 13y ago
  This is covered in the Cracked podcast titled Flashbulb Memories https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-cracked-podcast/id689900475 https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-cracked-podcast/id68... I just discovered them last week. Worth a listen
samatman 13y ago
>The legend of the panic, however, grew exponentially over the following years. In 1940, an esteemed academic solidified the myth in the public mind. Relying heavily on a skewed report compiled six weeks after the broadcast by the American Institute of Public Opinion American Institute of Public Opinion, huh? Considering this is the artist who brought us Citizen Kane, I suspect a submarine job: http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
- DanBC 13y ago
  AIPO is a pre-runner to the Gallup polling organisation. (http://www.trumanlibrary.org/hstpaper/amerinst.htm http://www.trumanlibrary.org/hstpaper/amerinst.htm) > The American Institute of Public Opinion was founded by Dr. George Gallup in 1935. The stated purpose of this organization was "impartially to measure and report public opinion on political and social issues of the day without regard to the rightness or wisdom of the views expressed." > The institute conducted "Gallup polls" on a wide variety of issues. The results of these national surveys were then distributed to subscribing newspapers in the form of press releases.
mhb 13y ago
Radiolab War of the Worlds episode: http://www.radiolab.org/story/91622-war-of-the-worlds/ http://www.radiolab.org/story/91622-war-of-the-worlds/
- drivers99 13y ago
  I caught this on the radio this weekend, and couldn't stop listening. It included a story about a radio station re-doing War of the Worlds in Quito, Ecuador, only they really tried to fool people. I don't want to give away the result, but it's worth a listen. The Slate article doesn't mention it.
kmfrk 13y ago
If stories like this one intrigue you, you should check out Joseph Campbell's myth-busting at http://mediamythalert.wordpress.com http://mediamythalert.wordpress.com and buy his book: http://academic2.american.edu/~wjc/mythsbook/ http://academic2.american.edu/~wjc/mythsbook/.
- huxley 13y ago
  Someone named Joseph Campbell doing myth-busting is actually kinda funny ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Campbell http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Campbell
singold 13y ago
Single page link: http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/history/2013/10/orson_welles_war_of_the_worlds_panic_myth_the_infamous_radio_broadcast_did.single.html http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/history/2013/10/orson_wel...
andyjohnson0 13y ago
For context, the Mercury Theatre on the Air site has a full recording of Orson Welles's staging of The War of the Worlds available at [1][mp3]. It doesn't sound to me like the cast were trying to make it particularly realistic. Commercial radio broadcasting was still relatively novel in 1938, but its hard to understand now how anyone thought it was real. The site [2] also has a brief recording of a conversation [3][mp3] between Orson Welles and H. G. Wells (which I haven't listened to). I hadn't realised that their adult lives overlapped. [1] http://sounds.mercurytheatre.info/mercury/381030.mp3 http://sounds.mercurytheatre.info/mercury/381030.mp3 [2] http://www.mercurytheatre.info/ http://www.mercurytheatre.info/ [3] http://sounds.mercurytheatre.info/mercury/401028.mp3 http://sounds.mercurytheatre.info/mercury/401028.mp3
- orblivion 13y ago
  The explanation I read was that this show was not very popular, at least at the time. Most people were listening to another station. Then, when it went to commercial, they switched to Mercury Theatre. This means they missed Orson's introduction, which says explicitly that it is just a drama. So the first thing they heard was the series of fake news flashes.
  - evan_ 13y ago
    That's specifically addressed in the article.
    - orblivion 13y ago
      I noticed that later, though it seemed to be in response to the amount of people who were listening, not the fact that they missed the intro.
MrZongle2 13y ago
This just in: media hypes influence of media, turns out to be full of itself, film at 11. EDIT: Downvoted, really? Why are we pretending that the media doesn't love to cover itself?
- TallGuyShort 13y ago
  I don't think anyone's disagreeing with you, they perhaps just don't like the sarcastic, snarky tone of your otherwise empty comment. Personally, I enjoyed it, but I suspect many in the community would not have.

95 points by tcoppi 13y ago

For what it's worth, here's Orson apologizing and/or answering for the broadcast, as I understand the very next day. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuEGiruAFSw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuEGiruAFSw If this is an irrelevant story that is overblown, it must have been overblown immediately.

PhasmaFelis 13y ago
If a few dozen or hundred people were fooled and called in to complain, that would be worth an on-air answer. It's still a long, long way from the "over a million" that was claimed.

marcosdumay 13y ago

I like the idea of the newpapers of manufacturing a huge lie that proves that they can be trusted.

mtdewcmu 13y ago

More people were listening to a radio ventriloquist. lol

csours 13y ago
Yup. I love the thought that absurdity and irony was just as alive and well then as it is now.
huxley 13y ago
For the Chase and Sandborn Hour, Edgar Bergen was actually just doing multiple voices (being a radio ventriloquist was just a humorous hook). You can hear some episodes here: https://archive.org/details/BerganMccarthy https://archive.org/details/BerganMccarthy Mel Blanc (of Looney Tunes voice acting fame) did much the same thing for the Jack Benny radio shows and also had his own half-hour long radio show, which you can hear here: https://archive.org/details/OTRR_Mel_Blanc_Singles https://archive.org/details/OTRR_Mel_Blanc_Singles

PaulAJ 13y ago

For another perspective on this story, see http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03f86lh http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03f86lh You probably can't listen to it unless you are in the UK, but it seems that there were panics, just localised ones. There have also been repeats of this event when similar programs were broadcast in other countries. For instance, see here: http://www.war-ofthe-worlds.co.uk/war_worlds_quito.htm http://www.war-ofthe-worlds.co.uk/war_worlds_quito.htm

Scramblejams 13y ago

Meh, it's a question of scale. In the 1980s, there was a TV program on in the US (I think it was Countdown to Looking Glass) which depicted what a hypothetical escalation between the US and USSR might have looked like, culminating in a nuclear exchange. It was complete with actors as news anchors, Newt Gingrich apparently played himself (don't remember that part), etc. My poor grandmother, who was staying with us for a few days, started watching in the middle of it, unaware that it was fiction. A little later she walked grimly into my room to announce that we'd just traded nukes with the Soviets in the Middle East. So, yeah, I'm sure a number of people were fooled by War of the Worlds and its descendants. Whether it rose quite to the legend doesn't strike me as a particularly interesting question.

PhasmaFelis 13y ago
Really? You don't see a notable distinction between "over a million people panicked by fictional news" and "one grandma panicked by fictional news"?
- Scramblejams 13y ago
  That's not the distinction drawn by the article. The problem with this article, which isn't completely the fault of the authors, is that it's unsatisfying. They're saying, "Hey, we have a strong case here that it wasn't anything like a million people," but then they don't go lay it on the line and make a firm case for it having panicked X people. And that's probably the best they can do, given the lack of historical data, but it's not enough to deliver the kind of hard-hitting, conclusive punchline that's frequently necessary to kill off widespread myths. (Assuming, of course, that they really are myths. Some historical facts derided as myths have come back to haunt their doubters.)
huxley 13y ago
I don't remember hearing about "Countdown to Looking Glass", but the TV movie I remember causing a lot of public reaction was "The Day After": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_After http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_After

addedlovely 13y ago

Side note: I found that top fixed bar so distracting on the mobile / iPhone view I stopped reading. Just me of bad ui?

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

nextstep 13y ago

There are thousands of these stories which are so commonly repeated that most people refuse to accept them as myths. See also JFK's famous "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech, which is often (falsely) claimed to be German for "I'm a Jelly Donut". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ich_bin_ein_Berliner#Jelly_doughnut_misconception http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ich_bin_ein_Berliner#Jelly_doug...

PaulAJ 13y ago
Not really. Its like he went to Hamburg and said "I'm a Hamburger".
Scramblejams 13y ago
Some years ago I had a native German explain to me that what JFK said really did mean "I'm a jelly donut," and he should have said "Ich bin Berliner." So YMMV.
- nextstep 13y ago
  Did you look at the link above from Wikipedia? They mention that supposed grammatical error: >>"Ich bin ein Berliner" was not only correct, but the only way to express what the President wanted to say.
  - Scramblejams 13y ago
    Yes. And it's nice for a sterile Wikipedia page to offer the idea that there was only one way for JFK to say it, and that he did it correctly. However! What I supplied was (one anecdote of) the reaction of a native German speaker who heard the line themselves. Their reaction was in line with the supposed myth. So no matter how smugly people today might denounce that as a myth, there were those in the intended audience whose reactions were exactly in line with the supposed myth. Which, of course, makes it not so much of a myth.
bruceb 13y ago
This is covered in the Cracked podcast titled Flashbulb Memories https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-cracked-podcast/id689900475 https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-cracked-podcast/id68... I just discovered them last week. Worth a listen

samatman 13y ago

>The legend of the panic, however, grew exponentially over the following years. In 1940, an esteemed academic solidified the myth in the public mind. Relying heavily on a skewed report compiled six weeks after the broadcast by the American Institute of Public Opinion American Institute of Public Opinion, huh? Considering this is the artist who brought us Citizen Kane, I suspect a submarine job: http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html

DanBC 13y ago
AIPO is a pre-runner to the Gallup polling organisation. (http://www.trumanlibrary.org/hstpaper/amerinst.htm http://www.trumanlibrary.org/hstpaper/amerinst.htm) > The American Institute of Public Opinion was founded by Dr. George Gallup in 1935. The stated purpose of this organization was "impartially to measure and report public opinion on political and social issues of the day without regard to the rightness or wisdom of the views expressed." > The institute conducted "Gallup polls" on a wide variety of issues. The results of these national surveys were then distributed to subscribing newspapers in the form of press releases.

mhb 13y ago

Radiolab War of the Worlds episode: http://www.radiolab.org/story/91622-war-of-the-worlds/ http://www.radiolab.org/story/91622-war-of-the-worlds/

drivers99 13y ago
I caught this on the radio this weekend, and couldn't stop listening. It included a story about a radio station re-doing War of the Worlds in Quito, Ecuador, only they really tried to fool people. I don't want to give away the result, but it's worth a listen. The Slate article doesn't mention it.

kmfrk 13y ago

If stories like this one intrigue you, you should check out Joseph Campbell's myth-busting at http://mediamythalert.wordpress.com http://mediamythalert.wordpress.com and buy his book: http://academic2.american.edu/~wjc/mythsbook/ http://academic2.american.edu/~wjc/mythsbook/.

huxley 13y ago
Someone named Joseph Campbell doing myth-busting is actually kinda funny ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Campbell http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Campbell

singold 13y ago

Single page link: http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/history/2013/10/orson_welles_war_of_the_worlds_panic_myth_the_infamous_radio_broadcast_did.single.html http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/history/2013/10/orson_wel...

andyjohnson0 13y ago

For context, the Mercury Theatre on the Air site has a full recording of Orson Welles's staging of The War of the Worlds available at [1][mp3]. It doesn't sound to me like the cast were trying to make it particularly realistic. Commercial radio broadcasting was still relatively novel in 1938, but its hard to understand now how anyone thought it was real. The site [2] also has a brief recording of a conversation [3][mp3] between Orson Welles and H. G. Wells (which I haven't listened to). I hadn't realised that their adult lives overlapped. [1] http://sounds.mercurytheatre.info/mercury/381030.mp3 http://sounds.mercurytheatre.info/mercury/381030.mp3 [2] http://www.mercurytheatre.info/ http://www.mercurytheatre.info/ [3] http://sounds.mercurytheatre.info/mercury/401028.mp3 http://sounds.mercurytheatre.info/mercury/401028.mp3

orblivion 13y ago
The explanation I read was that this show was not very popular, at least at the time. Most people were listening to another station. Then, when it went to commercial, they switched to Mercury Theatre. This means they missed Orson's introduction, which says explicitly that it is just a drama. So the first thing they heard was the series of fake news flashes.
- evan_ 13y ago
  That's specifically addressed in the article.
  - orblivion 13y ago
    I noticed that later, though it seemed to be in response to the amount of people who were listening, not the fact that they missed the intro.

MrZongle2 13y ago

This just in: media hypes influence of media, turns out to be full of itself, film at 11. EDIT: Downvoted, really? Why are we pretending that the media doesn't love to cover itself?

TallGuyShort 13y ago
I don't think anyone's disagreeing with you, they perhaps just don't like the sarcastic, snarky tone of your otherwise empty comment. Personally, I enjoyed it, but I suspect many in the community would not have.