Transcript of Panic in the Streets: The War of the Worlds Radio Broadcast

Sure, it's about an alien invasion. That's fun. But what if it's not exciting enough? It needs something. Then he gets an idea. What if they format the show like a news broadcast? They can even use sound effects to make it seem as though real aliens are right there in people's living rooms. Like they're really invading Earth. That would be exciting. He and his crew get right to work, and on the night before Halloween, their version of War of the Worlds airs.

According to legend, something goes horribly wrong. The broadcast is so realistic that people believe it. Millions of Americans take to the streets panicking. As far as they know, Martians are about to kill them all. When the accidental hoax is revealed to be just a radio play, the newspapers detail the aftermath. Allegedly, people were so scared that some died from heart attacks.

Orson and his team are convinced that they're murderers. The paper journalists likely agree, lamenting Orson and the entire medium of radio. They say it has a responsibility to be honest, not trick the public into believing a lie. And that's the thing. They're right. The media shouldn't fool anyone. But it turns out that Orson Welles may not actually have been the deceitful one.

Contemporary reports suggest that the real hoax was the panic itself. The infamous chaos may have actually been invented as part of a conspiracy. One that sought to bring down radio, orchestrated by the institution we should be able to trust the most. The News. Welcome to Conspiracy Theories, a Spotify podcast.

I'm Carter Roy. New episodes come out every Wednesday. It's October, and that means for the next month we'll be investigating the truth behind four of the eeriest conspiracies out there. We would love to hear from you. So if you're listening on the Spotify app, swipe up and give us your thoughts. Or check us out on Instagram at TheConspiracyPod. This episode contains discussions of suicide and death. Consider this when deciding how and when you listen. If you or someone you know is struggling emotionally or feeling hopeless, visit spotify.com/resources.

Stay with us.

A radio has recently become the main source of entertainment for many Americans. It's often the centerpiece of their living rooms. It hears soap operas, comedy and game shows, and of course, music. Tonight, CBS is recording live from Hotel Park Plaza in New York. An orchestra plays a lovely instrumental Spanish ballad until the broadcast is interrupted by an urgent news report. A news anchor describes gas explosions on Mars.

According to their sources at Princeton University, the gas is heading toward Earth. It's alarming, but there's not too much cause for concern yet. The broadcast cuts back to the concert as normal until it's interrupted again by more breaking news. An earthquake has rattled New Jersey, perhaps caused by a meteorite. After a brief explanation, CBS goes back to the concert. Oh, wait, no, not that fast. Another report comes in.

In the small town of Grover's Mill, New Jersey, a metal cylinder is found in a crater. As police arrive at the scene, the metal object opens. The reporter describes a being similar to a gray snake slithering out of the ship. It's a Martian, large as a bear, with black gleaming eyes. It then launches a jet of flame. People scream as the aliens ignite the trees and cars around them. The flames approach the news anchor, who screams in terrified agony before the urgent report cuts off.

Those people likely didn't stick around for the big reveal that this alien invasion is all a piece of fiction. Specifically, a retelling of H.G. Wells' novel, The War of the Worlds, performed by The Mercury Theater on the Air. The Mercury Theater is a radio show turning classic stories into radio plays. Its ringleader is Orson Welles. No relation to H.G. In 1938, Orson is in his early 20s, and his career is essentially just starting out.

This is before Orson's prolific Hollywood career, before he directs 1941's Citizen Kane, thought by many to be the best film of all time. Over the radio, Orson's iconic theatrical voice sends the invasion, calling it The Mercury Theater's own radio version of dressing up in a sheet and jumping out of a bush and saying, "Boo." It airs the day before Halloween, after all. Yet, as evident by the mass hysteria it caused, the trick was not a treat.

The next day's newspapers report a deadly aftermath, reportedly to the tune of 12,500 articles. Thanks to them, we know that the broadcast allegedly triggers heart attacks. People check into the hospital for nervous shock. A woman in Pittsburgh reportedly attempts to drink poison, thinking it's a better fate than being vaporized by aliens. There are even some reports of people dying by suicide.

According to the official story, Orson and his actors don't even know about the chaos they're causing until the very end of their broadcast. That's when the police arrive at the studio to put an end to the madness. The company is shocked at the news. According to one Mercury Theater member, they worry that they're now terrorists. Now, it's easy to call the panicking audience gullible. I mean, if they were so convinced that aliens were invading America, didn't they think it was odd when they ran outside to find no aliens?

But to give them some credit, we need to keep a few things in mind. Radio, as a medium, is relatively new in 1938. The first piece of music was broadcast along radio waves about 30 years prior to that. And the first commercial radio station only started airing in 1920. By the time The War of the Worlds airs, it's an integral part of many people's homes and an incredibly trusted source for the news and current events.

This is likely in no small part due to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Recognizing radio's growing popularity, he uses it to host his fireside chats. These are radio addresses beaming directly into people's living rooms. In them, FDR drops the formal, authoritative tone you'd expect from a president and speaks casually and informally about his ideals and America's future. These broadcasts are said to give Americans a source of hope and security, all through the radio.

Alongside FDR's chats, radio news is becoming increasingly popular and, more importantly, timely. You see, starting a month before Orson's war, news broadcasters start regularly interrupting radio programs with urgent reports. These are often updates on Hitler's advances across Europe. It's these interruptions that provide the perfect setup for Orson and The Mercury Theater's alien invasion.

Orson Welles's radio career begins in 1937, adapting Victor Hugo's novel Les Misérables into a seven-episode radio play. At just 22, Orson is already something of a storytelling pioneer. He writes, directs, and stars in the series, and its success likely helps him sell his new program to CBS, 1938's Mercury Theater on the Air. Early in its run, The War of the Worlds novel lands on the desk of Orson and his writer, Howard Koch.

The 1898 novel is said to be the first published story about aliens invading Earth. Even so, Orson reportedly thinks it's dull. It's a popular book at the time, so he thinks, why would people tune in to hear it? They already know the story. Now, as I mentioned earlier, Mercury Theater's whole premise is adapting old stories. So why is Orson concerned about this adaptation not working? Well, perhaps he thinks listeners will grow tired of hearing the classics.

Or maybe he's concerned that people won't tune in to an alien invasion because it's too fantastical, too sci-fi, too fake. Then Orson gets an idea. Allegedly, Orson wants to trick listeners from the very start. He sees how trusted the radio is, how it's thought to be a voice of heaven. And he, quote, wants to destroy that trust as dramatically as possible. So he and Howard get to work, making the most convincing-sounding alien invasion possible.

And they do an amazing job, thanks to some realistic sound effects. But there are some other reasons why people don't immediately recognize the story from the popular H.G. Wells book. They only use the novel as a jumping-off point. According to Howard, their broadcast is similar to the book in name and general plot only. H.G.'s version is set in England and documents two brothers surviving the invasion over a few weeks. Orson and Howard set their story in Jersey over a couple of days.

And of course, the novel isn't formatted like a news broadcast. Critics felt this approach was what made Orson's version so misleading.

Orson's time slot also plays into the confusion. The Mercury Theater and its War of the Worlds episode airs at 8:00 p.m. However, remember earlier when I mentioned people tuning into the show a little after 8:00? That's another key factor to the panic. Before War of the Worlds, a different channel is airing an immensely popular comedy show. It ends around 8:12 p.m. So when people change the channel to Orson's show, they completely miss the beginning, which includes a pretty important clue that what they're about to hear is a work of fiction.

And there's some legit confirmation backing this up. According to an official letter by New Jersey's city manager addressed to the FCC, 2,000 people call the Garden State's police during the show. They're worried their family members were killed in the invasion. The letter calls for the FCC to take action and prevent something like this from ever happening again. And likely due to other complaints like this, the FCC does investigate Orson and The Mercury Theater.

But airing a realistic radio play, well, isn't exactly a crime. No laws were broken. Still, Orson holds a press conference to publicly apologize for the chaos he caused.

No people cocking their guns. No deaths. So where does the infamous legend of Orson's broadcast come from? Well, contemporary reports suggest that it wasn't The War of the Worlds that was lying to the public. But maybe it was the newspapers. In 1938, the night before Halloween, CBS Radio airs Orson Welles's The War of the Worlds.

Despite it being a retelling of the popular novel, Orson's radio play convinces millions of people that aliens are really invading Earth. Chaos ensues. Some are reportedly so afraid that they die by suicide or from heart attacks. It's a notorious moment in media history. A cautionary tale about the responsibility of the media and the power it holds over the public. The newspapers at the time record the aftermath. How the show fooled the majority of its 12 million listeners.

Articles with headlines like "US terrorized by radio's men from Mars" and "Radio listeners terror-stricken by interplanetary war" detail every death supposedly caused by the broadcast. The fallout leads Orson and the actors behind The War of the Worlds to worry that their fun Halloween tale accidentally made them murderers. But more contemporary reports suggest a different story. The legend of The War of the Worlds panic may be just that.

A legend. Or maybe more accurately, a conspiracy by the newspapers to discredit radio. We've mentioned before how in 1938, radio is still the new kid on the media landscape's block. And it quickly becomes many Americans' main source of news. Even advertisers see where the tide is going and start putting more money into radio ads than newspapers. This is also a couple of years after the press-radio war.

A bitter dispute between the papers and radio companies over radio's right to report the news. The Associated Press even stopped giving radio stations news stories to preserve newspapers' hold on the industry. Eventually, the rivaling mediums came to a compromise. Now the newspapers sell their stories to radio stations. However, even with that working relationship in place, conspiracy theorists believe the newspaper industry is still threatened by radio.

Then War of the Worlds airs. Police stations in New Jersey are bombarded with calls. Perhaps the newspapers hear about this. It proves that at least some listeners are tricked by the realistic broadcast. Overall, the newspapers see an opportunity to get one over on their rival. They can point to the broadcast and go, "Look how irresponsible the radio is. They air fiction like it's news. They can't be trusted."

It's a good story. Everybody loves a clash between rivals. But how accurate can it be? I mean, The War of the Worlds panic is a literal history lesson in media and journalism classes. It's taught in universities. You can even get a whole lesson plan about it directly from the U.S. Department of Education. Can it really all be a piece of fake news? Well, let's take a look at the facts. It's said that 12 million people tune into War of the Worlds.

However, it turns out that the show's real ratings pale in comparison to the legend. They were practically abysmal. Apparently, Orson only captures 2% of the radio audience that night. And these ratings weren't done like they are today. This happens nearly 15 years before we have the largely anonymous Nielsen rating system. In 1938, the rating service talks to listeners directly. 5,000 houses, to be exact.

They asked what they're listening to, and the 2% that do say they're listening to Orson's show give a revealing answer. They say they're listening to a radio play, the Orson Welles program, or something else indicating that they know they're listening to a fictional show. It doesn't seem like the rating service talks to anyone who thought the program was a real attack. CBS executive Frank Stanton is even quoted as saying, "Most people didn't hear it, but those who did hear it looked at it as a prank."

In his memoir, New York Daily News editor Ben Gross writes about driving through Manhattan as War of the Worlds describes it being destroyed. He notes that the streets are deserted. There's no panic throughout the city. However, hours later, the Daily News still runs the cover story, "Fake radio war stirs terror through US." To give the newspapers a little bit of credit, these dramatic headlines could have been an honest mistake at first.

War of the Worlds airs at 8:00 p.m. when the majority of newspaper journalists are already done with the workday. The only reporters around are part of the Associated Press Wire Service. They collect news stories across the country and distribute them to a variety of newspapers. As War of the Worlds airs, the Associated Press receives a few stories of people being tricked. An exact number isn't available, but it's likely a small handful of stories. Relatively inconsequential things like someone being angry about the broadcast.

But what they don't hear is any stories about widespread panic. And some believe it's these anecdotes of angry listeners that the newspapers extrapolate into big terrified mobs. As journalist Guy Walters puts it in a documentary about War of the Worlds, they quote, "Put two and two together and made five." The story is simple. Orson Welles caused a mass hysteria and made millions panic.

Sensationalism at its finest. Then there are the reports of deaths. For example, the Washington Post publishes a story about a man who died of a heart attack. Naturally, it was because of the shock of Orson's show. However, that story was unverified. Author and ufologist Nick Pope was a longtime employee of the UK Ministry of Defense. He points out that, oh, maybe somebody did die of a heart attack around the time of the broadcast.

It happens all the time, sadly. But that doesn't mean Orson caused it. According to Nick, the newspapers purposely linked several deaths to the show, pushing their conspiracy even further without any real proof. We know how the news cycle goes. A single erroneous report can snowball. And that's what happens with these War of the Worlds articles. One newspaper says there was a panic. Another writes their own article based off that, and so on and so on.

As the old saying goes, when the legend becomes fact, print the legend. By the way, those 12,500 articles I mentioned, the figure is used in various reports and documentaries about the War of the Worlds. However, it's possible that's part of the legend too. According to more recent accounts, the newspapers only wrote about the fake panic for a couple of days. It could have actually been a fleeting story.

They wanted to take down the radio industry. They tried. The news cycle moved on. And yet, somehow, the story managed to go down in history. So how is this possibly fake panic not lost to time? Well, remember how I mentioned War of the Worlds is taught in universities? They may be partially to blame as well. Enter Princeton professor and future chairman of their psychology department, Hadley Cantrill.

One of Hadley's academic specialties is the effect of radio on public opinion, making him the perfect man to analyze Orson's War of the Worlds. He compiles his research into the 1940 book, The Invasion from Mars: A Study in the Psychology of Panic. The book becomes influential to the War of the Worlds infamy. Hadley states that the broadcast reached 6 million people.

He estimates that it frightens 1.2 million. He surveyed listeners and quotes their recollections of the event. How they informed neighbors about the end of the world. How they pleaded with God to save them. And how they may as well eat the leftovers in the fridge since they won't be here in the morning. But Hadley's research turns out to be extremely cherry-picked. For example, here's how he gets that figure of 1.2 million people.

He carries out interviews, but only with 135 New Jersey citizens. And then he analyzes other sources, including possibly those dubious newspaper articles. Some say that Hadley blatantly doesn't include the people who weren't scared by the broadcast. And the people who do say they were scared essentially only say that. The broadcast scared them, just like a horror movie scares you. However, if obsession scared you, you wouldn't say you were panicking in the streets over it.

Hadley could be misconstruing the data. And just like the newspapers sensationalizing the AP's Wire Service reports, Hadley takes these 100 scared listeners and says it's representative of a million. If anyone questions this, Hadley defends himself saying that it's because he surveyed people who aren't normally included in ratings numbers. How that justifies his extreme extrapolation is unclear.

Hadley's book solidifies the legend in media literature. What could have been a short-lived news story by bitter journalists becomes an academically legitimate case study. The whole thing is a bit ironic when you think about it. The institutions you're supposed to trust, the news and universities, are the ones lying about the trustworthiness of radio. It's an immense disservice to the audience who trust what these organizations say.

However, it is a great service to Orson, who relishes the controversy. We mentioned Orson apologizing at the press conference. Many reports about it say that he is clearly hamming up the apology, reveling in all the attention. He loves that he possibly fooled America. No press is bad press, especially since it propels his career to Hollywood. It lands him a contract with RKO Pictures in 1939.

They give him final cut for whatever he wants to make. This all leads to his legendary film career, including his opus, Citizen Kane. And it's all thanks to the War of the Worlds and the controversy that he may not have even caused. But if Orson didn't fool America, that doesn't mean there isn't a bit of truth to the panic story. Because years later, there's another War of the Worlds broadcast.

But that's not all. They set out to make it as believable as possible, even more than Orson's. You may have heard the official story of Orson's broadcast and not understood how people believed it. I mean, what? They didn't check the other radio stations? If they had, they would have realized nobody else was reporting on the world ending. Well, Radio Quito may have had the same thought because they arranged for other stations to air their War of the Worlds at the same time.

Even if Quito's citizens turn the dial, they'll still hear the invasion. While the American radio stations were supposedly at war with the newspapers, in Quito, they team up. Two days before the broadcast, Radio Quito has newspapers run fake stories about UFO sightings. It all serves to plant the seeds for the invasion to come. Then there are the actual voices involved. They hire actors to impersonate Quito's mayor.

The station's anchor, Leonardo Paez, Quito's most trusted broadcaster, plays himself. And once the aliens invade Quito's airwaves on February 12, 1949, listeners can hear Leonardo's screams as he's vaporized. And the people listening buy it. They run to their neighbors, panicking about how they just heard the great Leonardo die. As far as they know, the world really is coming to an end. Soon, the streets really do flood with citizens trying to escape Quito.

But they're not alone. Military trucks, police cruisers, even the Red Cross are heading north where the alien craft supposedly landed. They are prepared to fight for Quito, for all mankind, for Earth. And those who stay in Quito head for the churches, confessing their sins in their 11th hour. And once the broadcast ends about an hour later, and it's revealed to be a hoax, all hell breaks loose. Hundreds of angry Quito citizens surround the radio station.

They throw rocks through the windows. They break in to destroy their printing presses. They even set fire to the building. Employees try to flee as the building goes up in flames. Reporters for the podcast Radio Lab talk to a woman named Maria Beltrán Testagrosa. She describes how her father is working at the news station at the time. He tries to save people from the fire. Once he helps get others out, he stands on one of the top floors, surveying the angry mob below.

His only way to survive the fire is to jump out of the building. He calls down to the mob, hoping that they'll catch him. He launches himself into the air. On his way down, he grabs onto the second floor balcony. Remember, the building is on fire. Maria says grabbing the balcony is like grabbing a barbecue grill. Her father's hand singes. His whole body is covered in flames. He falls to the concrete below, and the angry mob doesn't catch him.

He lands hard, breaking his ribs and each limb. As he's on the ground, Maria says that reportedly some people want to throw him back into the burning building. Others tell those around them to let him die in peace. Fortunately, someone does pick him up and bring him to the hospital. He miraculously survives. He's counted in the 15 injured survivors. Tragically, six employees weren't so lucky and died in the riot.

Leonardo is indicted for the hoax and reportedly flees Ecuador for three months. He returns once he's exonerated. According to his daughter, the news station puts much of the blame on him to cover their own involvement. Which brings me to another conspiracy baked into the War of the Worlds legacy. Perhaps fooling America and Ecuador isn't Orson or Leonardo's plan. Perhaps there's a bigger organization pulling the strings.

Bigger than the news and radio stations who cover their tracks. Maybe it's all a master plan of the new world order. Those of you who heard our recent predictive programming episode may see where I'm going with this. There are those who believe Orson's broadcast is part of a larger plot by either the US government or a secret worldwide shadow government. In either case, the elite may know that aliens are going to invade us eventually.

Some would say that they have been coordinating the invasion with the aliens directly. Perhaps the government instructed Orson to do the broadcast to prepare us for the inevitable. The thought behind it is, if radio shows and movies about aliens introduce the idea to us, we won't be surprised when they finally arrive. Ultimately, we won't know if War of the Worlds prepared us for a real alien invasion until a mothership shows up.

But it did perhaps prepare us for something else. Radio Lab host Robert Krulwich draws a comparison to it and to today's news practices. News stations use fear to grab our eyes with teases and clickbait. And sort of like the radio was new in the 1920s and 30s, today social media is such a new part of our landscape that it too might be used in the same way. And on that thought, that clickbait article, that convincingly fake AI video, the alien invasion on the radio, and the newspapers' reports of a nationwide panic could all be a ruse.

Thank you for listening to Conspiracy Theories. We're here with a new episode every Wednesday. Be sure to check us out on Instagram at The Conspiracy Pod. If you're watching on Spotify, swipe up and give us your thoughts. Our sources for today's episode include the History's Greatest Hoaxes episode, The War of the Worlds, the Slate article, The Myth of the War of the Worlds Panic by Jefferson Pooley and Michael J. Sokolow, and Radio Lab's episode titled War of the Worlds.

Until next time, remember, the truth isn't always the best story. And the official story isn't always the truth. This episode was written and researched by Brandon Rizzuto, edited by Mickey Taylor, fact-checked by Sophie Kemp, and engineered, video edited, and sound designed by Alex Button. I'm your host, Carter Roy.