- A wave of mass hysteria seized thousands
of radio listeners between 8:15 and 9:30 o'clock last night when a broadcast
of a dramatization of H. G. Wells's fantasy, "The War of the Worlds,"
led thousands to believe that an interplanetary conflict had started with
invading Martians spreading wide death and destruction in New Jersey and
New York.
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- The broadcast, which disrupted households,
interrupted religious services, created traffic jams and clogged communications
systems, was made by Orson Welles, who as the radio character, "The
Shadow," used to give "the creeps" to countless child listeners.
This time at least a score of adults required medical treatment for shock
and hysteria.
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- In Newark, in a single block at Heddon
Terrace and Hawthorne Avenue, more than twenty families rushed out of their
houses with wet handkerchiefs and towels over their faces to flee from
what they believed was to be a gas raid. Some began moving household furniture.
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- Throughout New York families left their
homes, some to flee to near-by parks. Thousands of persons called the police,
newspapers and radio stations here and in other cities of the United States
and Canada seeking advice on protective measures against the raids.
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- The program was produced by Mr. Welles
and the Mercury Theatre on the Air over station WABC and the Columbia Broadcasting
System's coast-to-coast network, from 8 to 9 o'clock.
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- The radio play, as presented, was to
simulate a regular radio program with a "break-in" for the material
of the play. The radio listeners, apparently, missed or did not listen
to the introduction, which was: "The Columbia Broadcasting System
and its affiliated stations present Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre
on the Air in `The War of the Worlds' by H. G. Wells."
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- They also failed to associate the program
with the newspaper listening of the program, announced as "Today:
8:00-9:00--Play: H. G. Wells's `War of the Worlds'--WABC." They ignored
three additional announcements made during the broadcast emphasizing its
fictional nature.
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- Mr. Welles opened the program with a
description of the series of which it is a part. The simulated program
began. A weather report was given, prosaically. an announcer remoarked
that the program would be continued from a hotel, with dance music. for
a few moments a dance program was given in the usual manner. Then there
was a "break-in" with a "flash" about a professor at
an observatory noting a series of gas explosions on the planet Mars.
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- News bulletins and scene broadcasts followed,
reporting, with the technique in which the radio had reported actual events,
the landing of a "meteor" near Princeton N. J., "killing"
1,500 persons, the discovery that the "meteor" was a "metal
cylinder" containing strange creatures from Mars armed with "death
rays" to open hostilities against the inhabitants of the earth.
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- Despite the fantastic nature of the reported
"occurrences," the program, coming after the recent war scare
in Europe and a period in which the radio frequently had interrupted regularly
scheduled programs to report developments in the Czechosolvak situation,
caused fright and panic throughout the area of the broadcast.
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- Telephone lines were tied up with calls
from listeners or persons who had heard of the broadcasts. Many sought
first to verify the reports. But large numbers, obviously in a state of
terror, asked how they could follow the broadcast's advice and flee from
the city, whether they would be safer in the "gas raid" in the
cellar or on the roof, how they could safeguard their children, and many
of the questions which had been worrying residents of London and Paris
during the tense days before the Munich agreement.
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- So many calls came to newspapers and
so many newspapers found it advisable to check on the reports despite their
fantastic content that The Associated Press sent out the following at 8:48
P. M.:
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- "Note to Editors: Queries to newspapers
from radio listeners throughout the United States tonight, regarding a
reported meteor fall which killed a number of New Jerseyites, are the result
of a studio dramatization. The A. P."
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- Similarly police teletype systems carried
notices to all stationhouses, and police short-wave radio stations notified
police radio cars that the event was imaginary.
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- Message From the Police
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- The New York police sent out the following:
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- "To all receivers: Station WABC
informs us that the broadcast just concluded over that station was a dramatization
of a play. No cause for alarm."
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- The New Jersey State Police teletyped
the following:
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- "Note to all receivers--WABC broadcast
as drama re this section being attacked by residents of Mars. Imaginary
affair."
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- From one New York theatre a manager reported
that a throng of playgoers had rushed from his theatre as a result of the
broadcast. He said that the wives of two men in the audience, having heard
the broadcast, called the theatre and insisted that their husbands be paged.
This spread the "news" to others in the audience.
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- The switchboard of The New York Times
was overwhelmed by the calls. A total of 875 were received. One man who
called from Dayton, Ohio, asked, "What time will it be the end of
the world?" A caller from the suburbs said he had had a houseful of
guests and all had rushed out to the yard for safety.
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- Warren Dean, a member of the American
Legion living in Manhattan, who telephoned to verify the "reports,"
expressed indignation which was typical of that of many callers.
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- "I've heard a lot of radio programs,
but I've never heard anything as rotten as that," Mr. Dean said. "It
was too realistic for comfort. They broke into a dance program with a news
flash. Everybody in my house was agitated by the news. It went on just
like press radio news."
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- At 9 o'clock a woman walked into the
West Forty-seventh Street police station dragging two children, all carrying
extra clothing. She said she was ready to leave the city. Police persuaded
her to stay.
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- A garbled version of the reports reached
the Dixie Bus terminal, causing officials there to prepare to change their
schedule on confirmation of "news" of an accident at Princeton
on their New Jersey route. Miss Dorothy Brown at the terminal sought verification,
however, when the caller refused to talk with the dispatcher, explaining
to here that "the world is coming to an end and I have a lot to do."
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- Harlem Shaken By the "News"
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- Harlem was shaken by the "news."
Thirty men and women rushed into the West 123d Street police station and
twelve into the West 135th Street station saying they had their household
goods packed and were all ready to leave Harlem if the police would tell
them where to go to be "evacuated." One man insisted he had heard
"the President's voice" over the radio advising all citizens
to leave the cities.
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- The parlor churches in the Negro district,
congregations of the smaller sects meeting on the ground floors of brownstone
houses, took the "news" in stride as less faithful parishioners
rushed in with it, seeking spiritual consolation. Evening services became
"end of the world" prayer meetings in some.
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- One man ran into the Wadsworth Avenue
Police Station in Washington Heights, white with terror, crossing the Hudson
River and asking what he should do. A man came in to the West 152d Street
Station, seeking traffic directions. The broadcast became a rumor that
spread through the district and many persons stood on street corners hoping
for a sight of the "battle" in the skies.
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- In Queens the principal question asked
of the switchboard operators at Police Headquarters was whether "the
wave of poison gas will reach as far as Queens." Many said they were
all packed up and ready to leave Queens when told to do so.
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- Samuel Tishman of 100 Riverside Drive
was one of the multitude that fled into the street after hearing part of
the program. He declared that hundreds of persons evacuated their homes
fearing that the "city was being bombed."
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- "I came home at 9:15 P.M. just in
time to receive a telephone call from my nephew who was frantic with fear.
He told me the city was about to be bombed from the air and advised me
to get out of the building at once. I turned on the radio and heard the
bradcast which coroborated what my nephew had said, grabbed my hat and
coat and a few personal belongings and ran to the elevator. When I got
to the street there were hundreds of people milling around in panic. Most
of us ran toward Broadway and it was not until we stopped taxi drivers
who had heard the entire broadcast on their radios that we knew what it
was all about. It was the most asinine stunt I ever heard of."
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- "I heard that broadcast and almost
had a heart attack," said Louis Winkler of 1,322 Clay Avenue, the
Bronx. "I didn't tune it in until the program was half over, but when
I heard the names and titles of Federal, State and municipal officials
and when the `Secretary of the Interior' was introduced, I was convinced
it was the McCoy. I ran out into the street with scores of others, and
found people running in all directions. The whole thing came over as a
news broadcast and in my mind it was a pretty crummy thing to do."
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- The Telegraph Bureau switchboard at police
headquarters in Manhattan, operated by thirteen men, was so swamped with
calls from apprehensive citizens inquiring about the broadcast that police
business was seriously interfered with.
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- Headquarters, unable to reach the radio
station by telephone, sent a radio patrol car there to ascertain the reason
for the reaction to the program. When the explanation was given, a police
message was sent to all precincts in the five boroughs advising the commands
of the cause.
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- "They're Bombing New Jersey!"
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- Patrolman John Morrison was on duty at
the switchboard in the Bronx Police Headquarters when, as he afterward
expressed it, all the lines became busy at once. Among the first who answered
was a man who informed him:
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- "They're bombing New Jersey!"
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- "How do you know?" Patrolman
Morrison inquired.
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- "I heard it on the radio,"
the voice at the other end of the wire replied. "Then I went to the
roof and I could see the smoke from the bombs, drifting over toward New
York. What shall I do?"
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- The patrolman calmed the caller as well
as he could, then asnwered other inquiries from persons who wanted to know
whether the reports of a bombardment were true, and if so where they should
take refuge.
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- At Brooklyn police headquarters, eight
men assigned to the monitor switchboard estimated that they had answered
more than 800 inquiries from persons who had been alarmed by the broadcast.
A number of these, the police said, came from motorists who had heard the
program over their car radios and were alarmed both for themselves and
for persons at their homes. Also, the Brooklyn police reported, a preponderance
of the calls seemed to come from women.
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- The National Broadcasting Company reported
that men stationed at the WJZ transmitting station at Bound Brook, N. J.,
had received dozens of calls from residents of that area. The transmitting
station communicated with New York an passed the information that there
was no cuase for alarm to the persons who inquired later.
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- Meanwhile the New York telephone operators
of the company found their switchboards swamped with incoming demands for
information, although the NBC system had no part in the program.
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- Record Westchester Calls
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- The State, county, parkway and local
police in Westchester Counter were swamped also with calls from terrified
residents. Of the local police departments, Mount Vernon, White Plains,
Mount Kisco, Yonkers and Tarrytown received most of the inquiries. At first
the authorities thought they were being made the victims of a practical
joke, but hwen the calls persisted an dincreased in volume they began to
make inquiries. The New York Telephone Company reported that it had never
handled so many calls in one hour in years in Westchester.
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- One man called the Mount Vernon Police
Headquarters to find out "where the forty policement were killed";
another said he brother was ill in bed listening to the broadcast and when
he heard the reports he got into an automobile and "disappeared."
"I'm nearly crazy!" the caller exclaimed.
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- Because some of the inmates took the
catastrophic reports seriously as they came over the radio, some of the
hospitals and the county penitentiary ordered that the radios be turned
off.
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- Thousands of calls came in to Newark
Police Headquarters. These were not only from the terrorstricken. Hundreds
of physicians and nurses, believing the reports to be true, called to volunteer
their services to aid the "injured." City ofifcials also claled
in to make "emergency" arrangements for the population. Radio
cars were stopped by the panicky throughout that city.
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- Jersey City police headquarters received
similiar clals. One woman asked detective Timothy Grooty, on duty there,
"Shall I close my windows?" A man asked, "Have the police
any extra gas masks?" Many of the callers, on being assured the reports
were fiction, queried again and again, uncertain in whom to believe.
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- Scores of persons in lower Newark Avenue,
Jersey City, left their homes and stood fearfully in the street, looking
with apprehension toward the sky. A radio car was dispatched there to reassure
them.
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- The incident at Hedden Terrace and Hawthorne
Avenue, in Newark, one of the most dramatic in the area, caused a tie-up
in traffic for blocks around. the more than twenty families there apparently
believed the "gas attack" had started, and so reported to the
police. An ambulance, three radio cars and a police emergency squad of
eight men were sent to the scene with full inhalator apparatus.
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- They found the families with wet cloths
on faces contorted with hysteria. The police calmed them, halted the those
who were attempting to move thier furniture on their cars and after a time
were able to clear the traffic snarl.
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- At St. Michael's Hospital, High Street
and Central Avenue, in the heart of the Newark industrial district, fifteen
men and women were treated for shock and hysteria. In some cases it was
necessary to give sedatives, and nurses and physicians sat down and talked
with the more seriously affected.
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- While this was going on, three persons
with children under treatment in the institution telephoned that they were
taking them out and leaving the city, but their fears were calmed when
hospital authorities explained what had happened.
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- A flickering of electric lights in Bergen
County from about 6:15 to 6:30 last evening provided a build-up for the
terror that was to ensue when the radio broadcast started.
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- Without going out entirely, the lights
dimmed and brightened alternately and radio reception was also affected.
The Public Service Gas and Electric Company was mystified by the behavior
of the lights, declaring there was nothing wrong at their power plants
or in their distributing system. A spokesman for the service department
said a call was made to Newark and the same situation was reported. He
believed, he said, that the condition was general throughout the State.
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- The New Jersey Bell Telephone Company
reported that every central office in the State was flooded with calls
for more than an hour and the company did not have time to summon emergency
operators to relieve the congestion. Hardest hit was the Trenton toll office,
which handled calls from all over the East.
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- One of the radio reports, the statement
about the mobilization of 7,000 national guardsmen in New Jersey, caused
the armories of the Sussex and Essex troops to be swamped with calls from
officers and men seeking information about the mobilization place.
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- Prayers for Deliverance
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- In Caldwell, N. J., an excited parishoner
ran into the First Baptist Church during evening services and shouted that
a meteor had fallen, showering death and destruction, and that North Jersey
was threatened. The Rev. Thomas Thomas, the pastor quieted the congregation
and all prayed for deliverance from the "catastrophe."
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- East Orange police headquarters received
more than 200 calls from persons who wanted to know what to do to escape
the "gas." Unaware of the broadcast, the switchboard operator
tried to telephone Newark, but was unable to get the call through because
the switchboard at Newark headquarters was tied up. The mystery was not
cleared up until a teletype explanation had been received from Trenton.
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- More than 100 calls were received at
Maplewood police headquarters and during the excitement two families of
motorists, residents of New York City, arrived at the station to inquire
how they were to get back to their homes now that the Pulaski Skyway had
been blown up.
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- The women and children were crying and
it took some time for the police to convince them that the catastrophe
was fictitious. Many persons who called Maplewood said their neighbors
were packing their possessions and preparing to leave for the country.
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- In Orange, N. J., an unidentified man
rushed into the lobby of the Lido Theatre, a neighborhood motion picture
house, with the intention of "warning" the audience that a meteor
had fallen on Raymond Boulevard, Newark, and was spreading poisonous gases.
Skeptical, Al Hochberg, manager of the theatre, prevented the man from
entering the auditorium of the theatre and then called the police. He was
informed that the radio broadcast was responsible for the man's alarm.
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- Emanuel Priola, bartender of a tavern
at 442 Valley Road, West Orange, closed the place, sending away six customers,
in the middle of the broadcast to "rescue" his wife and two children.
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- "At first I thought it was a lot
of Buck Rogers stuff, but when a friend telephoned me that general orders
had been issued to evacuate every one from the metropolitan area I put
the customers out, closed the place and started to drive home," he
said.
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- William H. Decker of 20 Aubrey Road,
Montclair, N. J., denounced the broadcast as "a disgrance" and
"an outrage," which he said had frightened hundreds of residents
in his community, including children. He said he knew of one woman who
ran into the street with her two children and asked for the help of neighbors
in saving them.
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- "We were sitting in the living room
casually listening to the radio," he said, "when we heard reports
of a meteor falling near New Brunswick and reports that gas was spreading.
Then there was an announcement of the Secretary of Interior from Washington
who spoke of the happening as a major disaster. It was the worst thing
I ever heard over the air."
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- Columbia Explains Broadcast
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- The Columbia Broadcasting System issued
a statement saying that the adaption of Mr. Wells's novel which was broadcast
"followed the original closely, but ot make the imaginary details
more interesting to American listeners the adapter, Orson Welles, substituted
an American locale for the English scenes of the story."
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- Pointing out that the fictional character
of the broadcast had been announced four times and had been previously
publicized, it continued:
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- "Nevertheless, the program apparently
was produced with such vividness that some listeners who may have heard
only fragments thought the broadcast was fact, not fiction. Hundreds of
telephone calls reaching CBS stations, city authorities, newspaper offices
and police headquarters in various cities testified to the mistaken belief.
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- "Naturally, it was neither Columbia's
nor the Mercury Theatre's intention to mislead any one, and when it became
evident that a part of the audience had been disturbed by th performance
five announcements were read over the network later in the evening to reassure
those listeners."
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- Expressing profound regret that his dramatic
efforts should cause such consternation, Mr. Welles said: "I don't
think we will choose anything like this again." He hesitated about
presenting it, he disclosed, because "it was our thought that perhaps
people might be bored or annoyed at hearing a tale so improbable."
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- SCARE IS NATIONWIDE
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- Broadcast Spreads Fear In New England,
the South and West
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- Last night's radio "war scare"
shocked thousands of men, women and children in the big cities throughout
the country. Newspaper offices, police stations and radio stations were
besieged with calls from anxious relatives of New Jersey residents, and
in some places anxious groups discussed the impending menace of a disastrous
war.
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- Most of the listeners who sought more
information were widely confused over the reports they had heard, and many
were indignant when they learned that fiction was the cause of their alarm.
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- In San Francisco the general impression
of listeners seemed to be that an overwhelming force had invaded the United
States from the air, was in the process of destroying New York and threatening
to move westward. "My God," roared one inquirer into a telephone,
"where can I volunteer my services? We've got to stop this awful thing."
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- Newspaper offices and radio stations
in Chicago were swamped with telephone calls about the "meteor"
that had fallen in New Jersey. Some said they had relatives in the "stricken
area" and asked if the casualty list was available.
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- In parts of St. Louis men and women clustered
in the streets in residential areas to discuss what they should do in the
face of the sudden war. One suburban resident drove fifteen miles to a
newspaper office to verify the radio "report."
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- In New Orleans a general impression prevailed
that New Jersey had been devastated by the "invaders," but fewer
inquiries were received than in other cities.
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- In Baltimore a woman engaged passage
on an airliner for New York, where her daughter is in school.
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- The Associated Press gathered the following
reports of reaction to the broadcast:
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- At Fayetteville, N. C., people with relatives
in the section of New Jersey where the mythical visitation had its locale
went to a newspaper office in tears, seeking information.
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- A message from Providence, R. I., said:
"Weeping and hysterical women swamped the switchboard of The Providence
Journal for details of the massacre and destruction at New York, and officials
of the electric company received scores of calls urging them to turn off
all lights so that the city would be safe from the enemy."
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- Mass hysteria mounted so high in some
cases that people told the police and newspapers they "saw" the
invasion.
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- The Boston Globe told of one woman who
claimed she could "see the fire," and said she and many others
in her neighborhood were "getting out of here."
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- Minneapolis and St. Paul police switchboards
were deluged with calls from frightened people.
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- The Times-Dispatch in Richmond, Va.,
reported some of their telephone calls from people people who said they
were "praying."
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- The Kansas City bureau of The Associated
Press received inquiries on the "meteors" from Los Angeles, Salt
Lake City, Beaumont, Texas, and St. Joseph, Mo., in addition to having
its local switchboards flooded with calls. One telephone informant said
he had loaded all his children into his car, had filled it with gasoline,
and was going somewhere. "Where is it safe?" he wanted to know.
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- Atlanta reported that listeners throughout
the Southeast "had it that a planet struck in New Jersey, with monsters
and almost everything and anywhere from 40 to 7,000 people reported killed."
Editors said responsible persons, known to them, were among the anxious
information seekers.
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- In Birmingham, Ala., people gathered
in groups and prayed, and Memphis had its full quota of weeping women calling
in to learn the facts.
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- In Indianapolis a woman ran into a church
screaming: "New York destroyed; it's the end of the world. You might
as well go home to die. I just heard it on the radio." Services were
dismissed immediately.
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- Five students at Brevard College, N.
C., fainted and panic gripped the campus for a half hour with many students
fighting for telephones to ask their parents to come and get them.
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- A man in Pittsburgh said he returned
home in the midst of the broadcast and found his wife in the bathroom,
a bottle of poison in her hand, and screaming: "I'd rather die this
way than like that."
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- He calmed her, listened to the broadcast
and then rushed to a telephone to get an explanation.
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- Officials of station CFRB, Toronto, said
they never had had so many inquiries regarding a single broadcast, the
Canadian Press reported.
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- WASHINGTON MAY ACT
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- Review of Broadcast by the Federal
Commission Possible
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- Special to The New York Times
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- WASHINGTON, Oct. 30.--Informed of the furore created tonight by the broadcasting
of Wells drama, "War of the Worlds," officials of the Federal
Communications Commission indicated that the commission might review the
broadcast.
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- The usual practice of the commission
is not to investigate broadcasts unless formal demands for an inquiry are
made, but the commission has the power, officials pointed out, to initiate
proceedings where the public interest seems to warrant official action.
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- Geologists at Princeton Hunt 'Meteor'
in Vain
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- Special to The New York Times
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- PRINCETON, N. J., Oct 30.--Scholastic calm deserted Princeton University
briefly tonight following widespread misunderstanding of the WABC radio
program announcing the arrival of Martians to subdue the earth.
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- Dr. Arthur F. Buddington, chairman of
the Department of Geology, and Dr. Harry Hess, Professor of Geology, received
the first alarming reports in a form indicating that a meteor had fallen
near Dutch Neck, some five miles away. They armed themselves with the necessary
equipment and set out to find a specimen. All they found was a group of
sightseers, searching like themselves for the meteor.
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- At least a dozen students received telephone
calls from their parents, alarmed by the broadcast. The Daily Princetonian,
campus newspaper, received numerous calls from students and alumni.
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