And that's to have us leave elt on a bottle with its famous bear on pottery and the tomes turn the bottle further with its quaint customs fishmonger with his toe rag altie fish and butchers row the complicated card game of you cursed belt u.c.h. R.-e. The fire resisting k. a Mineral called balls and of those Wessex helicopters of the 22nd search and rescue squadron of. Next week the done away team visit Ullapool in north west Scotland I hope to join us to learn the best. And that was of course the magnificent Brian Johnston down your way for 982 was produced by Anthony Smith and much as I hate to contradict him in fact we won't be in Scotland next week instead he will be joining us nip in the Forest of Dean. B.b.c. Radio 4 Angus. It's 3 o'clock Hello welcome along to Radio 4 extra at the weekend when next we remember the most notorious broadcast in radio history one which ensured that all swells became a household name and how the impact of technology has changed from the dawn of language by the curse of the cassette to the age of virtual reality hardware software anywhere with Nick Bacon is available now on this is. Now as you may well know this weekend a new adaptation of h.g. Wells' is Saif I classic The War Of The Worlds begins on b.b.c. One. So we thought we'd turn the clock back for today's archive on 4 and take a long hard look at the notorious radio production of the same story in America back in 1938 it was of course the one which caused widespread panic across America with people around the nation reportedly fleeing their homes in a desperate attempt to escape an imminent alien invasion or did it present to Christopher Frayling examines the truth behind the legend now in Austin wells and the War Of The Worlds myth or legend 1st broadcast in 2013. Our guest today a giant among men in every possible way an actor director producer or 3rd designer a cartoonist a magician a columnist a wit and a bone disease on Mr Orson Welles' David tonight's other story. We had a kind of ham radio you know amateur radio voice that would was describing the arrival of the Martians that I'm a nerd I think I had ever heard of. God I am reading every word trying to point out the 20 I was right and this dead silence the real trick we did was to hold a dead silence on a phone network with no sound at all and then you'd hear the microphone drop. And more silence and then this one little voice at the end that you're already saying this is such such Is there anybody on the. Is there any. More so she said and that's I guess when they put the towels on their heads and ran out I. I don't know why they put towels on their heads but they did today really really I don't know what that was going to do. We believed in God. But this was beyond God this was coming from another world. All same die will be bad said Mr Brandis Mr doesn't move a Sam dice or Gaulish Nam I'm going after my shotgun and we're all loaded he. Says shotgun was a cure for everything. On the night before Halloween 930 and he's a 23 year old Fitz and radio producer brought the story of invasion life to America . Had recently annexed Austria and stories of invasion were in the air but this one was from the skies and from much further afield. It's been said that Olson wells his radio Gold Coast of the War Of The Worlds panicked the nation some headed for the hills some stayed the days of the scrub shotgun so I hid in churches or contemplated suicide it was even rumored that there were 40 or more deaths as a result of the panic was I looked at displaced I said to myself wonder fall over get back here again I wonder if maybe some park illogical society will come and look at this and say well this people left because the Martians rising up out of the crowd was back but even. So I can take a position that I would be right back in a minute I think I was more frightened and then I was sitting on a Rhine River guarding a bridge during the 2nd World War and afraid of German prior troopers Lanigan slitting my troth it was brought out in a program that they were invincible on and on a world that's it. There were pockets of people who may have been panic stricken but their numbers no respect reaches nationwide dimension. The fear that night has been dramatically overstated and after all that makes for a good story doesn't it some such as Professor w. Joseph Campbell and now wondering if this panic really did sweep the whole nation this radio play aired on the eve of Halloween and Americans and 75 years ago perhaps just to cater to were only more media savvy as they are today you know bought the story hook line and sinker and the country is plunged into panic in hysteria and it's a great yard to great story. Never had a friend in my life who wanted to see a magic trick you know I don't know anybody wants to see a magic trick so I do it professionally it's the only way I get to perform in Wells was never content for telling stories in straightforward ways he saw himself as a kind of comes around with words and images and performances here he is on less than the guy he's b.b.c. a Rena program from 1900 Didn't you play King Lear at the age of 9 you know so I played Mary the Mother of Jesus at the age of 13 even better yes very good and dry but no. Such King Lear until later on how much of this the whole business of the child prodigies the musical part of it is true I was one of those above the little creatures you know with a baton and I played the violin and I played the piano and that all the other stuff about being studied as a child prodigy Yes I was sort of yes I was because everybody told me from the moment I was able to hear that I was absolutely marvelous. Never heard a discouraging word for a year which is I don't know what was ahead of the. I paid to they said nobody's ever seen such great big you know I played nobody's ever played like that and there seemed to me no limit to what I could do who. By the age of 2 he was said to be speaking in complete sentences and amazing those around him his mother bitterest an accomplished pianist an advocate of women's rights encouraged his early interest in all the arts and taught him to reach before formal schooling she was also a keen practical joker as a teenager Olson Wells adapted Shakespeare's history plays into a single evening's entertainment and in Harlem New York at the age of 20 he staged Macbeth with an old black cost transposed from Scotland to Haiti writers and actors going to be affairs out of the cultural development of the community the Negro Theater unit of the federal theatre project produced a highly successful version of Shakespeare's a model tragedy Macbeth but far exceeded its scheduled run in New York I wanted to give the black actors a chance to play classics without it being funny or for even exotic just there it is and I directed big Beth without ever giving them a reading and none of them had ever seen a Shakespearean through a man a seed that. Would be fun to Dunsinane I would. Be. Old enough. We had some marvelous effects it of course was a big production when we had I think almost 200 people on the stage we had. To do drummers and witch doctors from the west coast of Africa. Real real was yes. When the play ended there was so many curtain calls that finally they left the curtain open the audience came up on the stage to. Us it was magic. Olsen Wells was determined to be different to make and effect and like him or not the critics especially in New York were beginning to take notice and often well become to be the most famous name of our time in American drama that's got your magazine going to 3 year old or Wales through a bombshell in the Broadway Robert Bentley right the New Yorker 2nd of American life they've just about the Crime Magazine declares the brightest moon that is written over Broadway and you well should feel at home in the sky but the guy is the only limit which is ambition recognized as well as theater the young Orson Welles' had radio in his sights already the main medium of home entertainment in America and increasingly the way people consume the Daily News Jon Gosselin author of waging the war of the Worlds started that broadcast of 938 as has Susan Douglas of the University of Michigan Well right you know it's becoming a family intimate part of people's lives at this time we're talking about $32000000.00 households in the United States and about time 140 year looking at an estimated 27000000 radios in use really big media events fireside chats Joe Louis boxing matches some of the most popular shows on radio and you know radio comedy they would have 40000000 listeners you know when nameless and the Andy debuted in the late 1920 s. It became so popular that hotels had to pipe the show into their lobbies there were movie theaters that would stop showing the movie so that people could hear the latest installment toilets were not flushed a thing that 15 minute period radio was really. Planting newspapers has that as the predominant form of of news information and opinion as well people who really trusted radio they believed that this was if anything went wrong that's where they should go the 1st thing they should do is turn on the radio and he what people are saying. Join a book author of fear a cultural history or 2938 was a very anxious time for a lot of Americans 5 months have gone by and since I last spoke to the people of the name about the state of the nation Roosevelt just a few months earlier had broadcast this great famous speech where he say's the program that we have for economic and social revival has failed in this decision I have been strengthened by the thought that by speaking tonight there may be greater peace of mind. Or to reach a point we must sail sail not lie at anchor. Sail not grim grim. It was $938.00 a banking crisis in the deep economic recession we're still shaking America's confidence overseas there was daily news of fresh dictatorships in Italy and Germany but Americans said the president had nothing to fear but fear itself Don't worry we can sort it out the worst thing is to be afraid listening to that speech of course a lot of people suddenly became aware that actually they ought to be afraid. Unemployment was around 19 percent and there was a lot of anxiety about the economy and in addition there was a lot of anxiety about whether there was going to be another world war if I had ever let me get all of. Our. People are beginning to realize that there is a war coming. People could hear by shortwave transmission Hitler's creasing Li inflammatory speech in. Theatre of the programme about your music festival to bring you a transatlantic 2 way conversation between project and New York. Is great insight supported by his associate producer John Houseman was to exploit this anxiety rather than sing about it by making an old story seem as if it was in the headlines again. A. Building. Where. The. Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater on the air in the War of the world by the West . People believe anything they heard on the radio and said let's do something impossible and make them believe it and then. Show on the only radio. That was what started. They didn't. Start of the broadcast or said well we know now that in the early years of the 20th century. This world was being watched closely by intelligence is greater than man. Yet as modelers as old. You know now that it's human beings visit themselves about their various The 22 year old Orson Welles had founded the Mochrie theater group in New York City with John Houseman c.b.s. Radio wanted to enhance their programming with live drama as well as the standard variety shows so they offered well says Mercury Theater a series of their own the group proceeded to dramatize classic novels and stories in new ways while Welles dashed between studio and theater and back again John Gosling 'd Wells was not heavily involved in a lot of these radio shows he always had a lot of balls in the air so he was kept busy at the end of the day so what he tended to do was rely on this team and it was you know an extraordinary bunch of people that you gathered around him both actors and technicians you know Agnes Morehead Joseph Cotten and of course he had Housman and he had cultures as these because he's key right here on these projects Here's John Houseman speaking to the b.b.c. Back in 1908 for the radio documentary entitled We interrupt this program of the series was awesome series since I was his partner I have acted as a certain producer with him and editor and for a while I wrote them there was a time when I never got out of bed and have had time to get out of bed so I would lie in bed and write the radio shows centric sad no time. They had a week to prepare for each show and producer John Houseman together with script writer Howard Koch who later go on to co-write Casablanca were constantly working against the clock and the writer Howard Cotch and John Houseman were terrified about this play h.g. Wells had said it in England it was a 40 year old story they thought the audience was going to die of boredom they kept rewriting it and rewriting it and they just kept thinking it was a complete and utter failure and so they kept working at working at and came upon the device of having news broadcast news bulletins interrupt the initial programming which was Ramon Raquel and his orchestra. Ladies and gentlemen we have dropped our program of dance music to bring you a special bulletin from the other top not already on you nobody had done this before and will time but that's a foul up amount Jennings observatory SAGAL Illinois reports observing several explosions events and death and that's occurring at regular intervals on the planet Mars you conducted the shores as if he was conducting an orchestra he could conduct a sound effect in the acting in the new Every movement to deploy something to bring something to bring some music up. The beginning of the show is very boring supposed to be that was the whole trick but often emphasize that notion carried that a step much further than we would have had in the nerve to do anybody we did you know to Grover's mill New Jersey and early decision was to shift the story of the War Of The Worlds from the Home Counties not to a big city but to Grover's mill New Jersey scriptwriter Howard Koch I didn't have much time and I spread the map on the top of the death and close my eyes put the pencil down. As well the 1st Martian machine was to let everything government. Again out of the well with farm dollars military. Affairs and I felt great 11 miles and in 10 minutes. I do know I did. Real work very well and I thought something out of the moderator night and I just got that excessive but around that the fact is that by about 13 minutes into the show something had to happen because the show was so boring that it was not possible that the showed and then very slowly it started to accelerate very it must knock on its way down but I can be of the opposition now doesn't look very much like a major race got the leaders I've stayed at a bar like that you still and as the diameter of. It was so scary and the weight was put on and landed Grovers Mills that's where we always when I skating and how it's a great big thing like the colors they wanted it to really seem like a breaking news story where they are naming actual places and Grovers Mills was a real place and so all of those details also added a great deal of for some to read a drop in your backyard I stepped out to play they didn't gentleman Mr Welch. When I was sitting on the radios and louder please louder please yes. I was into the radio and kind of drowsy at the present but I was talking about Mars but I was happy to have yet to grab it and then one. Thing or the taste of the bad Bhargavi did good program you know its branches prevent the change from man born are. Not of . The War Of The Worlds was airing on the c.b.s. Channel on the other major channel n.b.c. Winter the Crist a good Bergen and his dummy Charlie McCarthy. Well hosting the chase and Sanborn complaints by the actor don't Amaechi much more popular than Wilson's high brow offerings on the of the sun from Nelson at a dog in a more I going to out of a guy the Robert I'm trying to McCarthy was a dummy and Bergen was a ventriloquist the ventriloquist sister on his voice ends up being a hugely popular radio show and so that was the big blockbuster show that was airing opposite 4 of the worlds are we now now now if not the green now it will don't try to do we all have the same amount of I want to come along and it looks like just as big if I were a comic. Simply enough to sleep. Very nicely 2. People in one or different boredom a little to dial they tended to treat a little more often and when someone was singing a song. About 11 minutes into the show fun for the whole came on and sang what must be said is a fan dream every song. That is. A large number of people twiddle by a dial at this moment and the misfortune was they landed right in the middle of the assault on Grover's male as you can just imagine somebody shooting into this and having absolutely no idea what's going on they could've thought it was Germans they could have thought it was anything but they certainly would have thought this really does sound real. To. Someone telling us something like it's safe and out of that cycle wholesome just the ISIS might see a space might be. Something like out of the shadow like a gray sky. Now it's another one of the another one another one that looks like tentacles to me that I actually think body now project was the bare. Bones like wet weather but hey that is the sentiment in the scuttlebutt honey forced myself to keep looking at it awful that I supply actually leave a certain amount is kind of the shapeless alive tripping from its limits what percent of those critters pulsate monster or whatever it is entirely moving way down but possibly gravity or something or things rising up down the crowd falls back to the party that forces time takes place because they're like they're fine words of well polished microphone with these I talk of abstract descriptions so I can take a new position hold on repeat I'll be right back in a minute. For some of those listening to their radios in New Jersey I thought how do we know if the experience was terrifying. And made a call it was nice music while I was doing my homework Grover's mill resident digs dives and all of a sudden it broke in with this interruption we interrupt this program because of we are bringing you an eyewitness account of what's happening on the Wilmot farm Grover's bill New Jersey and then the marshes of land and then Aaron growers mills that merely unplugged the radio this is up over the tavern. I took it downstairs put it on a bar plug it in necessary but he'd be quiet really immediately dropped our cards Grover's Milliken Hank since we were down to growers mill with him I said at the most 3540 seconds I mean we flew down there I didn't have my own baby to get on base got to hear I am back with stone Roberts joins us well it's gotten him here I got a suite at the post saying I give you everything fair as long as I can talk a lot as I just stated the former start listen I can name half of probably all Sam Di Hildebrand said Mr Brandish and Mr Benson for states reason I write that drawing up a card in it for the 1st. 30 of them so immediately Sam dice Well gosh damn I'm going after my shotgun only to push the crowd back now they're going to if they're going to scrap and fighting with someone like Beetle and now everybody's getting a shotgun they're coming back and now we're going to growers mills. And I had a young 13 your I also have a shotgun I'm going to I say it's ours the White House I do appalled by just to see those creatures know what that means but anything. Happening. Rising. At a small beam of light. Each. Of the ways. That the men. From the don't want to tell you to blame the 2 reading every word coming up right out of the party on the right. Then all the sudden all hell broke loose they all had their so-called weapon in their car and are going well some grabbed their shotguns others fled and when the transmission went dead the most frightening moment of the broadcast the highways became jammed with cars heading from New Jersey to New York and Pennsylvania light is a gentleman due to circumstances beyond our control we are all able to continue the broadcast from Grover's mill Evidently there are some difficulty with our field Grover's mill resident Dix dives I don't know if they cause a 13 for us but I jumped in a one I believe was also. And we were all loaded he. Says shotgun was a cure for everything. He was very clever it was very magic to the use of interrupting a program with urgent news about far distant events it was was not unknown to Americans at the time in fact becoming fairly familiar with this kind of technique and he did so quite deliberately to to lend a sense of what could be called Heredia very today in the sense of this is this is how radio really sounded. In May 19th 37 the previous year radio reporter Herbert Morrison that set up his recording equipment on a landing field in New Jersey to chronicle the arrival of the German passenger ship the Indian book back to her. People. And of life. I might get there gotta get it got it right had it right if running about being in a plane and of running on a morning bad lot of parts but we had it been terrible but the one of the what good bad we did the well at that time rep a great lady but the bulk of it right now. Very hard for people I can hardly grade I'm going to happen by bright. And I feared 35 people died when the Hindu book caught fire and exploded before his very eyes they're going to describe it like a hobby horse of a good looking at it. Rising up out in a crowd far back that way but even. In the War of the world skull Phillips the fictional reporter played by Frank Reddick modeled his delivery on the trickle of additional I'm going to be right back in a moment such use of the conventions of news broadcasting to add credibility and live n'est to radio dramas that actually been heard before here in Britain join a book 12 years before this panic because we had one in Britain we had broadcasting from the barricades. The Savoy Hotel has now been blown up by the crowd that noise which you heard just now was the a Savoy Hotel being blown up by the crowd I'd be instigation of Mr Popple better 2nd 126 father Ronald Knox then a well known scholar broadcaster and expert on Sherlock Holmes interrupted a b.b.c. Radio talk on 18th century literature where the reports that Big Ben had been toppled the Savoy Hotel torched and a government minister lynched by a panic stricken mob this very very influential board constant father not a popular broadcaster who basically goes on and tells a story about the unemployed sort of massing in Trafalgar Square and have this huge riot the actual broadcast is lost to history but in 2005 a Radio 4 programme the riots that never was reconstructed it using the original script Admiralty Arch is being poured through by a crowd lately collected in Trafalgar Square and the back of the government buildings in Whitehall is being approached in a threatening manner and people really did believe that near the end of that broadcast we hear the morgue going into the Savoy Hotel and destroying it people who hang up the Savoy Hotel. Well you know she would cancel our bookings what's happening this is very very real panic Evening Standard the b.b.c. Is unintentionally been responsible for the biggest scare known in Britain since the advent of broad coast in the country over the weekend it's been flooded with rumors of a great up evil in London and all because Faldo Ronald milks broadcaster makes tracks from an imaginary news bulletin sounds a bit stilted but could that broadcast of influence Tilson Wells jungles knowing I think it unlikely he was 10 years old at the time John Houseman who was educated in England had already moved to the states the story was mentioned in the New York Times and rather embarrassingly for the times they actually stated such a thing could never ever happen in the United States of course it could well 0 Housman of read that could Housman have received a letter from home telling him about it possibly but I think if you're looking for something that could have influence wells and that's a show called and read well but now we've got a group. Now that was done for the Columbia workshop which was a rival show a very similar sort of sustaining short it was similar I took the idea of presenting an attack on a fictional town in the style of a news broadcast with somebody reporting on it not to the same intensity that Wells engineered It's also notable that Wells lent one of his act just about show so well as could have almost certainly heard it maybe read the script the haps had something fed back from his act or so I think that's a much more like twins who want to see. Her. Play by Play the body we can hear the influence of air rage in the rear of the wounds as Lifton and evoked leads a squadron of fungible most bravely take. The notion that he did I suspect is like I'm a failed and I'm a tripod machines now in sight ramparts by 3 machines from Mars found some under 6 altogether one by safe isolate crippled leave step by Shell from Ami got in watch on botany and start their silence. I have a black fog close to the earth of experience that's of a stager on on. Our side of a grade. And I made out sense is crossing Passaic River and of the jersey much as others battle the pilasters highway. 1215 minutes into the program the phone started ringing. In the 1st one I picked up . The historical person said the Martians are invading What do we do what do we do and I said they're not invading it's a radio show with Torchwood well in the Mercury Theater calm down you know it's just a radio program at c.b.s. The immediate extent of the panic was brought home to howl Davis who was manning the phones that night Meanwhile the founder of c.b.s. William s. Paley had his evening ruined when listening to it. With a home playing cards and remember it very well I was annoyed by thing because I got told I was a telephone calls about something to tell him Go see coming and. They wouldn't say what they wanted but they would want to talk to Mr paleo who was president of c.b.s. That said these people calling up to make some complaints I get this all the time I'm sick and tired and until finally got a call from the office saying Oh Mr pay a terrible thing is. And there was a whole country was bursting wide open. There were people who went into bars and started screaming that the world was coming to an end and the bartenders would turn on c.b.s. And sure enough here were the Martians coming professors Douglas a people began calling police stations to find out what was going on and there were people around the metropolitan area of New York where people did get damp towels to put over their faces to protect themselves from gas and jumped in their cars and started heading out of town join a book author of fear a cultural history people would look out the window and if they didn't see anyone outside the window they would think oh goodness people are gassed on neighbors have been gassed of course if they looked outside the window and did see people outside the window they thought our neighbors also frightening in a panicking so they sort of interpret all have a dense to fit a preconceived ideas I was in the control room sitting next to the c.b.s. Supervisor and he got a call and suddenly got up and left the percipient and then he came back about 3 minutes later white as a sheet said We gotta stop the show and you got to stop the show you got to stop it and I interposed my body between him and us and said No no never no you can't ruin the show but by then I'd had calls in the control room from governors of states and saying what is if that this is a joke we're coming down and we're going to punch you in the nose the segment of the show is totally uncontroversial it's pureed she will and it's the 2 last survivors on the earth after the bye x. And they've survived then as soon as we finish the show David Oh somebody went up to us and said look you've got to make an explanation because this is hell has broken toes and I can tell you what it just make of it for me so he made his speech which is all about how. Oh you i was our little hello you joke and so and so this is our wealth ladies and gentlemen. Out of character to assure you that the War of the word has no further significance as a holiday offering it was intended to be the mercury said his own radio version of dressing up in a sheet and jumping out of a bush and saying boo starting now we couldn't cope on your windows and steal all your god and gates by tomorrow night so we did the best next thing we annihilated the world before your very ears and so they destroyed the c.b.s. . You will be relieved I hope that we didn't. Still open for business John Houseman then when it was over. Dozens of police into the studio they snatched all the scripts and they. Enter some room some backroom and they kept for about then the press was released. Radio Radio had just placed them as the prime news media so they made the most of it they would do things like. Heard about the family that was killed on the New Jersey highway. Around the country so that we believed for the next 2 or 3 that we were mass murder. Terror at the time you were giving this more when you were the terror was going on around the nation all. Right but when I left the broadcast last night I went in to dress rehearsal for a play the filming in 2 days and I had me and I left the thing you have to read the papers. Never believe in the radio but you don't know that they're listening or not you have no idea how many people think. That the people with the right didn't they would be enough. I guess. I don't know what the legislation would be. I know that almost everybody in radio would do anything to avert the kind of thing that is happening myself included but radio was new and we are learning about the effect it has on. John Houseman. We didn't mean. We didn't. We didn't mean. Anything over. The morning don't you know that 2 years after the broadcast in 140 or some wells and h.g. Wells met a San Antonio radio station recorded the systolic encounter. And then his work before he made peace since ational Hello Spring Are you sure there's that you're panicking America wasn't it you and Ilene found Mr Headman a good deal of the sport of it you know I actually spoke of it in the great Munich speech you know and they were close and that is a very happy I was to say to you but. I thought it both to show the corrupt condition and. State of affairs in democracies that the War of the world went over the world. And out of course about it and people say you never. The American when everybody pretended to speak ghost. We're all the it was excitement cause I really can't be a little of the amount that was because I think that people from all over very quickly don't want to kind of exactly. Sometimes it's estimated that 1000000 people were panic stricken or pitched into hysteria that is a complete exaggeration Professor Joseph Campbell believes that such stories have been vastly exaggerated pretty clear that most listeners recognized the show for what it was good radio entertainment the rough estimate is that about 6000000 people heard the show about 1700000 believed to be authentic and about 1200000 were frightened there were something on the order of 20 people treated for shock just in one of the New York hospitals so the impact was enormous in the 1st 3 weeks after War of the Worlds newspapers around the country ran almost 13000 stories about its impact I've examined u.s. Newspapers and metropolitan areas 36 of them in the in the days and weeks afterwards and the story was quickly out of the paper there may have been a prince of a 1000000 people or so who were frightened or disturbed upset by what they heard but that is a far cry from being pitched into panic and engaging in massive Styria jungles Ling more than any deaths no definitely not what I mean during maybe the organs sprained ankle it was mainly I think bruised egos at the end of the day people have to was just embarrassed to admit they'd been taken in by this extraordinary show most people would have recognized and most of them did I believe that events on this show and balls program were moving far too fast to be realistic you know within 30 minutes the Martians blasted off from Mars traveled millions of miles across space landed on earth set up their deadly heat rays and began to annihilate elements of the u.s. Army and then marched on to New York City I mean things were just moving far too quickly and that alone was one of the to. To radio listeners a good show but you know it's not real well of course there was some exaggeration there were a lot of factors at play some for the print press had an axe to grind some of the stories sent out were repeated on verified and the bottom from the news was so there's no guarantee you know all these stories were entirely true but equally are I dispute the idea that it was excessively exaggerated I think the problem arises when you start using phrases like mass panic to describe this and it wasn't a mass panic in fact it's fairly certain that there probably never has been a mass panic in history though I think the media was quivering backwards and forwards and it quivered awfully close to mass panic but it never quite got there I think and there was a degree of exaggeration about people's responses partly because it makes it much better story to talk about your people jumping into cars and throwing their Your loved possessions and indeed loved ones in behind them I do think anyone is really did saying that there wasn't a panic that people were very very anxious and upset they may have interpret it in a different ways to the way newspaper editors and journalists wish to to new rate but certainly a lot of people would they have a fright and. A lot of the blame for stories of nationwide panic is perhaps to be laid at the door of newspapers getting their revenge on the medium of radio newspaper editorials in the days immediately after the program were vigorous if not vicious in condemning Radio 4 for this program. Professor w. Joseph Campbell and William Randolph Hearst New York Journal an American claim there were hundreds of thousands of people into the streets so the newspaper editorials the leaders in newspapers in this country were in my view partly responsible for embedding this. During the years that of. Gone by since then I've heard a number of stories about things that happened some of them may seem hard to believe but they're all verified you'll find them in a very scholarly book which Princeton University got out on the subject of mass hysteria a few years on from the broadcast a 940 some research was carried out by a Princeton University psychologist called Hadley can true it was published under the title the invasion from Mars a study in the psychology of panic had the country. Presented his research on into the topic and really established a baseline for for the notion that there was widespread panic and massive Styria that night an audience size of an estimated 6000000 and perhaps 1000000 or or so who were frightened and disturbed to come from have a country book and his research how he developed that number is not entirely clear it's a very soft and squishy number in any case and then he included interviews with with maybe 3 dozen people who with whom he had spoken and I never had my radio so closely as I did last night I held a crucifix in my hand and prayed while looking out of my open window for falling meteors I also wanted to get a faint whiff of the gas that I would know when to close my window and hermetically seal my womb with water proof cement or anything else I could get hold of my plan was to stay in the room and hope that I would not suffocate or the gas blow away. And the monsters were waiting across the Hudson River and coming into New York I wanted to run up to my roof to see what they look like but I could not leave my radio what it was telling me of their whereabouts suddenly the announcer was gassed the station went dead so we tried another station but nothing would come home and then we went to a gas station and filled up our tank in preparation for just writing as far as we could gas station and didn't know anything about it and then one friend decided he would call up the Newark evening news. We listen to fresh play and then play. Archon cylinders are falling all over the country. Run outside of Buffalo by Mr Fargo. They've lost. In the big time space. Other 1st pretty major star. And one looking over the city. He'll college headed even with a guy scrapers. Waits for the others. To rise like a lion of New York towers on the city's west side. Now they're lifting their metal handles. This is the end now of the. Vocal about the black. Thing over the city. People in the street sit down. There running for the river thousands of them. Dropping it like rats. The other sock spreading faster in times where. People are trying to run away from it but it's no use their. Appalling like why. Are they talking about this 67 year old. Little. 100 yards away. It. Was immediately after our show went off the air that Walter Winchell was on a rival network and had heard about how all the telephone lines had been jammed and all excitement and joy and said Mr and Mrs America there is no cause for alarm I'm back I had not fallen I repeat America has not fallen of course that was really enough for that network and by that time there wasn't a phone you could get to really anywhere in the States the highways were jammed with crimes going one way or another those people who were in the cities were going to the hills and those people who were in the hills were coming into the cities if you think this is an exaggeration so only a little while ago that I again ran into some workers some some some welfare workers Quakers and Red Cross people would been up in the Black Hills of Dakota some 5 or 6 weeks after this broadcast persuading the people to leave the mountains and go back home because Martians really hadn't come years later he seem to delight in saying just how much. Fear and panic had been spread that night and how people were you know tearing their hair out or ripping their clothes because they were so frightened they didn't know what to do he had already been on the cover of Time magazine one of the leading news weeklies in the United States and he was destined for even greater fame with the famous motion picture Citizen Kane scriptwriter Howard Koch Orson was coming out of an up stairs balcony or something and Housman was coming in from below. And Orson made this sun It was a sign of we're in and I was made the sun back now that doesn't mean that they were overjoyed that there was a panic. But it did mean. To accomplish something which was going to be very profitable to the show and to. Careers and so on. Their own a surprising number of repeats you would imagine one slowness of happened it wouldn't happen again but it did in November 9044 an adaptation of the play caused a similar panic when it was broadcast in Santiago Chile and if the 9 it once again stirred up a hornet's nest but it was performed by a radio station in Quito Ecuador jungles Ling and it resulted in a really quite ran this loss of life it was a very similar production highly localized saw using place names that people would recognize from the McCalla tea as the broadcast went on panic erupted in the streets this was as described much closer to a real mass panic people were running about in their night shirts priests were giving final absolution to impromptu congregations on street corners after a while as it became apparent to people in the studio that site was going on horribly wrong they put out a disclaimer and most people I imagine quite sheepishly went home except for a furious mob of 3 or 400 people who marched on the station intent on revenge the radio station was in the local newspaper offices on one of the top floors and this mob turned up set fire to newspapers and tossed them into the basement of the chemical stored there the printing presses went up and was still they barricaded the door so no one could escape so the only option those trapped inside had was to either try and form human chains from their flaws which of course broken people plummeted to the ground or equally perilous that an attempt in a skip across these rickety old rooftops of tiles crawl. Going on before falling left right and center of sorties would be the terrible options the cost crew a newspaper staff faced one broadcast The stayed behind and he was the last person on the air that night a man called Luis belt from the American radio program Radio Lab spoke to his daughter Maria about what happened to him when the radio station was stormed Well at that point when he realized the magnitude of the situation he was back on the air and began pleading for help pleading for assistance from the police and the fire department but no help came because the police were going to fight the Martian and eventually he was the last one left and he jumped out the window I guess from the way that the 3rd or 4th floor onto a 2nd floor balcony to break the fall he grabbed onto the railing of that balcony and he was completely engulfed in flames at that point and the skin on his hands just remained on the balcony it was like a barbecue grill on from there he jumped to the ground but before he jumped he was pleading to the crowd to I guess catch him but they didn't he landed on cement. Rigged everything and compounded by the very very serious burns that he had all over his body so he landed at the feet of an angry mob what to do and angry mob and he he recalls that as he's losing consciousness he just heard somebody say just just let him die in peace. Although some of the articles that I read they tried to throw him back into the building really someone grabbed him and put him in a jeep to take him to the hospital just a bystander and you know he had so many spars As children my brother and I would would play with his scars he would trace them with our finger and ask them what happened you know how we got the scars and he would tell us about the fire and when the dust had settled the death toll was was set at 6 persons but to death in this radio station the gentleman who had done this by the name of Leonardo p. Has for years afterwards when it was soley vilified but I've spoken to his daughter and it's quite clear from the evident she's been able to provide to me that he was in Norway responsible for this apart from the fact that he made the whole 2 common mistake of assuming that this sort of thing could simply never happen again it happened in Brazil it happened in Portugal and in September 2030 in a radio station cause panic commander the humans are anxious for another message from you when a series of innocuous advocates about a bogus alien invasion cost residents of a rural Alabama community to believe their local schools are about to be attacked which just goes to show the enduring power of radio they are impatient yes to crying out loud what more do we know about these predictions. The owner of the Los is being called the most important radio broadcast in history would it be possible to present a war of the Worlds today when we're so much more sophisticated about radio and cinema very tired and so much more aware of media manipulation. Is a form a channel for commissioner a now runs story things a company which experiments with new narratives for the digital age radio and t.v. The products of an era of distribution in which we all. Culture at exactly the same time and pretty much were isolated in our experience of it there might be people in the room with us our family our friends etc but it was difficult to share the experience of listening to a broadcaster watching a broadcast outside of that very small group of people nowadays culture is something that we consume adds to and share every day where it's just retreating a link to something posting a video on Facebook culture it Chief scale nowadays not just for distribution but also for circulation you know if lots and lots of people all care about something enough to share it at the same time it's going to get big so how you tell stories in a world of circulation is by trying to hit those little red button points that we all have that make it share something that might be because a story shocking it might be because it's funny it might be because it's nostalgic it might be because it's relevant to an interest of mine in a way also Miles did that by transposing h.g. Wells' a story to you know the small Grover's mill the small town at Princeton he sort of domesticated the story so people could identify you know that more and in a way the reaction to the broadcast where people told other people who hadn't heard it even the up and the people who hadn't heard it panicked Well that is exactly what happens in digital culture now we share stuff not just because we find it interesting but because we think there's an opportunity or fret to our micro community you know the small group of people that we care passionately about so if you were doing the War Of The Worlds today in the digital era how would you make it work I think the biggest differences is obviously Orson Welles was approaching about a distribution in which he told a story out but he couldn't be challenged immediately by the audience whereas nowadays we live in a world of call and response is much closer to you know being a musical overwriting artist than it is to being involved in t.v. Or radio you tell stories reiteration you know you tell a bit of a story and then you hear the response from the audience and then you tell a bit more of a story so if you were doing War Of The Worlds now you would need to be able to keep up the pretense to keep up the illusion over a longer period of time do you think we're we're more or less gullible as a result. This year than when we would have been in I don't think gullibility levels go down the tour I think you know there are people being food all over the web and lots of interesting why and that makes it sometimes easier to fool people because you can create what are called some puppets and you can mimic kind of a conversation and have fake voices in a conversation that actually to influence people but it also makes it harder because you are you have to constantly be performing. And then there was always traffic cops it was Sunday night. And all these guys out in Jersey on their motorbikes and the people in the cars driving had the radio but the top student. And suddenly everybody started driving in 125 miles you know that for no good you actually think that that that sensation I mean if you wanted to terrify people today I would just. I don't you know I didn't want to them now because I was going to suggest that if that's if somebody wanted to terrify people today have should they do it. Well. Although they kill. Their way to our calling they kill. You Well I'm going to take you and me are. There any one out here. That anyone on here. There anyone. Who I can go out. Still pretty creepy stuff even after all these years also in wells and the War of the world Smith or Legend was presented by Christopher Frayling and the producer was Nick a free in Jenn's and it was a hidden flak production 1st broadcast in October 23rd teen Well hopefully the new t.v. Adaptation of that famous life I throw one throw the nation into panic it's on Sunday evenings at 9 on b.b.c. One next time we all suffer from it many of us work hard to avoid it and some of us love to talk about his Darwin believed it's what makes us human the writer Lynne Truss prepares to cringe through an archive of blunders blushes and bashfulness in next week's archive and for embarrassment now if swaps Leith's are right up your straits then you'll be happy to hear the pull temple is back for another investigation on b.b.c. Radio 4 extra aged Of course by his wife Steve this time his task is to solve the murder of an American college student his parents he meets on a flight over from the states. You remember an old friend of yours call read headers Yes of course but I'd hardly call him an old friend when you did him a favor big favor member of yours that was a long time ago I provided the evidence that proved he was innocent that's all but why mention raid Harris Well he spent 3 days in Oxford this week he was there the night young focus it was murder. Starring Peter Cook this 8 part crime thriller series Paul Temple and the Jonathan mystery starts on Wednesday at one and again in the evening at 8 am on b.b.c. Radio 4 extra. This weekend in the 7th by mentioning Radio 4 extras home of Saif Ali horror and fantasy a tale of 3 young children and their electric grandmother Algernon isn't it I said . Oh. Agatha Timothy. Town us let me look at you home for the last look at you. Come on Agatha she won't buy I care I wish Well I don't I think she's a lovely. Ray Bradbury's tales of the bizarre process to matrimony ventures into a mysterious African kingdom in each writer Haggard's She joins me down most of the some of the mention this Saturday and Sunday at 6 pm and midnight on b.b.c. Radio 4 extra. This is b.b.c. Radio 4 extra. Hello this is join a panic at 4 o'clock our drama next is a witty tale by Dorothy Baker described as an overlooked 20th century American literary classic hold on tight to fascinators for Cassandra at the wedding and then the writer Nick Cohn takes us to New Orleans a place he's loved ever since he stumbled across a book containing photos of the city of dreams as a light reimagining the city is half past 5. First then it's time to meet Cassandra a clever popular and attractive grad student and one of 2 identical twin sisters but when she discovers that twin Judith is about to get married she speedily heads home to the family ranch with just one thing on her mind sabotage this is Dorothy because Cassandra at the wedding. I'm very Mercer I'm in Atalissa here in the Bay Area I've been seeing Cassandra for around 6 months and was making some good progress I thought when late one morning without an appointment she turned up at my practice it wasn't the only time Cassie had turned up unexpectedly either at my practice or my home but this time she lay on the couch and didn't speak I think she'd forgotten I was in the room because Hanjour. Oh. Sure so they're expect me home tomorrow for the wedding tomorrow yes. But everything's gone better than expected and all the papers corrected and graded by last night I feel so restless. So only a 5 hour drive to the ranch if you move along if you don't stop or aren't used every 50 miles the way we used to or at bars after we learned a password to anyone but you sometimes chose not to push it along you and Judy. We had to work up slowly to home life to the 3 part welcome from our grandmother and our Father and Our mother of course when she was still alive Jane died too young I'm not sure she thought so. But anyway having died.