0
SPEAKER_01
Guess what, Will?
0
SPEAKER_01
What s up, Mango?
0
SPEAKER_01
I ve been trying to write a promo for our podcast, Part-Time Genius, but even though we ve done over 250 episodes, we don t really talk about murders or cults.
0
SPEAKER_01
I mean, we did just cover the Illuminati of cheese, so I feel like that makes us pretty edgy.
0
SPEAKER_01
We also solve mysteries like how Chinese is your Chinese food and how do dollar stores make money?
0
SPEAKER_01
And then, of course, can you game a dog show?
0
SPEAKER_01
So what you re saying is everyone should be listening.
0
SPEAKER_01
Listen to Part-Time Genius on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
0
SPEAKER_00
Last season, millions tuned into the Betrayal podcast to hear a shocking story of deception.
0
SPEAKER_00
I m Andrea Gunning, and now we re sharing an all-new story of betrayal.
0
SPEAKER_00
Justin Rutherford.
0
SPEAKER_00
Doctor, father, family man.
0
SPEAKER_00
It was the perfect cover to hide behind.
0
SPEAKER_05
Detective Weaver said, I m sure you know why we re here.
0
SPEAKER_05
I was like, what in the world is going on?
0
SPEAKER_00
Listen to Betrayal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
0
SPEAKER_03
Hi there, everyone.
0
SPEAKER_03
It s me, Josh.
0
SPEAKER_03
And for this week s Select, I ve chosen our episode on the War of the Worlds myth from November 2020.
0
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One of the great myths of the 20th century is that Orson Welles  1938 War of the Worlds broadcast set off a mass panic in the United States as rubes from all corners of the country grabbed their shotguns and ran senselessly through the streets and prayed death would be swift.
0
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Well, it turns out America s less gullible than that.
0
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Instead, we re gullible about the idea that we re gullible.
0
SPEAKER_03
Think about that one as you enjoy this episode.
0
SPEAKER_04
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
0
SPEAKER_03
Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
0
SPEAKER_03
I m Josh Clark.
0
SPEAKER_03
There s Charles W. Chuck Bryan over there.
0
SPEAKER_03
It s just the two of us batching it up without cheering.
0
SPEAKER_02
Oh man, I think Jerry s inclusion, we re still batching it up.
0
SPEAKER_02
How do you mean?
0
SPEAKER_02
I mean, does she really ruin the batch scene for us?
0
SPEAKER_02
Sure.
0
SPEAKER_03
She s very maternal and judgy.
0
SPEAKER_02
That s true.
0
SPEAKER_02
Oh, yeah.
0
SPEAKER_02
You were headed down a kind road for a second.
0
SPEAKER_03
I was.
0
SPEAKER_03
With Jerry?
0
SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
0
SPEAKER_03
That doesn t sound like me.
0
SPEAKER_03
So for all of you who are just tuning into the first time, welcome.
0
SPEAKER_03
This is Stuff You Should Know.
0
SPEAKER_03
To everybody else who s tuning in for the multiple time, welcome.
0
SPEAKER_03
This is Stuff You Should Know.
0
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, we never do that.
0
SPEAKER_02
Some shows do that.
0
SPEAKER_02
What, they welcome new listeners?
0
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, and kind of say what they do.
0
SPEAKER_02
And I mean, we ve literally never done that.
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SPEAKER_03
That s fine.
0
SPEAKER_03
That s lame.
0
SPEAKER_03
Who does that?
0
SPEAKER_02
Any friends of ours?
0
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
0
SPEAKER_02
I mean, the guys on the Flophouse, they ve been podcasting as long as we have.
0
SPEAKER_02
And every single episode, they say who they are and what they do.
0
SPEAKER_03
No, okay.
0
SPEAKER_03
Well, do you want to do that this one time?
0
SPEAKER_02
Well, I m Chuck Bryant, and this is Josh Clark, and this is a podcast where we explain things in a lighthearted and fun and sometimes even funny way.
0
SPEAKER_03
I disagree with all of that.
0
SPEAKER_03
Oh, boy.
0
SPEAKER_03
So what we re going to talk about today, because I think we need to talk about this one in a slightly somber tone, Chuck.
0
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It s a blemish in the history of America, really, if you think about it.
0
SPEAKER_02
Well, yeah, and you know what?
0
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I ve never actually had listened to it until this week.
0
SPEAKER_02
Same here.
0
SPEAKER_02
And it was, it s a lot of fun to actually listen to.
0
SPEAKER_02
I would recommend it.
0
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, especially in a dark room where that s all you re concentrating on, not like a second screen kind of thing, like where you re really listening to this radio play.
0
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, and try and put yourself there a little bit, like what it must have been like in, well, not 1898.
0
SPEAKER_02
That s when the book came out.
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SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
0
SPEAKER_03
But in 1938, I mean, what, 40 years later, just in that 40-year stretch, I mean, think about the difference between 1980 and 2020.
0
SPEAKER_03
Not ridiculously different periods.
0
SPEAKER_03
It s just gotten crappier.
0
1898?
0
SPEAKER_03
Exactly.
0
SPEAKER_03
Oh, yeah, it s gone downhill.
0
SPEAKER_03
And don t think that had nothing to do with Reagan s election in 1980.
0
SPEAKER_03
But the difference between 1898 and 1938 are, it s just like two different worlds, man.
0
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Two different worlds, comma, war of the.
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SPEAKER_02
So I guess we should start with the book written by the great H.G.
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Wells.
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It was the very first alien invasion story to hit the bookshelves.
0
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And that s a pretty remarkable thing.
0
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It was a serialized thing at first in magazines and Pearsons in the U.K.
0
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and then Cosmo here in the U.S.
0
SPEAKER_02
And then they finally slapped all those serialized versions together into a book and it sold pretty well.
0
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, it s never been out of print since that first edition in 1898.
0
SPEAKER_03
That s pretty respectable.
0
SPEAKER_03
I expect as much for our book as well.
0
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, I m sure it ll be still being published in 40 years.
0
SPEAKER_03
Or 100 years.
0
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, 140 years.
0
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, well, let s hope.
0
SPEAKER_03
So in this book, and like you said, first alien invasion story ever published, which is, you know, just the fact that this is a completely new premise, new conceit, made it, you know, kind of scary.
0
SPEAKER_03
But in the book, H.G.
0
SPEAKER_03
Wells describes like this alien invasion.
0
SPEAKER_03
Part of the thing that was so scary about it, at least at the time, from what I can gather, is that it was about, like, the breakdown of society.
0
SPEAKER_03
And we re talking, like, Victorian-era England society, where, like, rigid social rules and customs and mores and guidance for all behavior at all times was, like, the norm.
0
SPEAKER_03
So the idea of that breaking down was scary in and of itself.
0
SPEAKER_03
I think that made the book kind of scary to contemporary readers.
0
SPEAKER_03
Would that be right, readers back then?
0
SPEAKER_03
And that was one big theme that Wells explored.
0
SPEAKER_03
Another one that he explored in that, at least I think whoever wrote the Encyclopedia Britannica article on it, said that the main point of this, the main subtext was learning how humans  dominion over animals can be
0
SPEAKER_03
you know, cruel and thoughtless because all of a sudden with these alien invaders who were just wiping us off the map, we were the, we were like, you know, domesticated animals to them.
0
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
0
SPEAKER_02
So the, the shoe was on the other hoof and, uh, sure it caused, um, or at least it was intended to cause people to take kind of a hard look at, uh, pre animal farm.
0
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to make sort of a social statement about how he treated animals.
0
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And so that was in 1898.
0
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If you flash forward to Orson Welles in his Mercury Theater version, he, this is, you know, like you said, we re right in the middle, or we re in the Great Depression.
0
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And we re headed towards war.
0
SPEAKER_02
And it s sort of an uneasy feeling in the United States as a whole.
0
SPEAKER_02
So he thought, perfect time to go in there.
0
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put a fresh coat of paint on this thing and scare the bejeebus out of the American public by doing something that they had never heard before, which was sort of a Verite-style production.
0
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, and I mean, it s easy to overlook today, but radio was still rather new at the time in 1938.
0
SPEAKER_03
It was like, you know, cutting edge technological medium, and it was not fully defined.
0
SPEAKER_03
So the idea of creating this, I guess, hoax broadcast is the best you can call it.
0
SPEAKER_03
this fictionalized version that was, what would you call it, man?
0
SPEAKER_02
I hate that word so much.
0
SPEAKER_02
I know, it s really taken on a bad tang here lately.
0
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, I mean, it s verite.
0
SPEAKER_02
It s, you know, a faux documentary style thing that no one had ever heard.
0
SPEAKER_02
Like, there s no way
0
SPEAKER_02
When people heard this, they would think, oh, this is, you know, I know Christopher Guest.
0
SPEAKER_02
This is sort of a scary version.
0
SPEAKER_02
I ve seen Blair Witch.
0
SPEAKER_02
I know what s going on here.
0
SPEAKER_03
I recognize Lenny from Laverne and Shirley anywhere.
0
SPEAKER_03
I know it s not real.
0
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, so they weren t prepared for this in 1938 when Orson Welles, who was already a big name in radio as the voice of The Shadow, which was a big hit, and his Mercury Theater was pretty well respected at the time.
0
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, it s like a live stage theater.
0
SPEAKER_03
So they d only had this show for a few months by the time October 1938 rolled around.
0
SPEAKER_03
But their whole jam was, they were on CBS, and CBS had them do hour-long radio adaptations of classic novels, like Treasure Island, they did Around the World in 80 Days.
0
SPEAKER_03
And so since it was October, they wanted to do something spooky around Halloween.
0
SPEAKER_03
Something not boring.
0
SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
0
SPEAKER_03
So they were like, well, what s the most boring, scary book there is?
0
SPEAKER_03
And they said H.G.
0
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Wells War of the Worlds.
0
SPEAKER_03
So they decided to adapt it.
0
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
0
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So they got together.
0
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They re rehearsing.
0
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We ll talk a little bit more about that in a sec.
0
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But there wasn t a strong feeling among
1
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the cast and crew and the production group that thought it was going to be awesome because I think probably because they had never done anything like this.
1
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They had never heard anything like this.
1
SPEAKER_04
And they thought, is this even going to be any good?
1
SPEAKER_04
And a couple of different sources in the production went to a radio critic ahead of time.
1
SPEAKER_04
It s like, thanks a lot.
1
SPEAKER_04
And they said, by the way, this is going to be a real stinker.
1
SPEAKER_07
They said, apparently, two different people in the production said that this will put everyone to sleep.
1
SPEAKER_07
And I don t have the impression that it s strictly because they didn t have any frame of reference to judge it against because no one had done this before.
1
SPEAKER_07
From what I can gather, originally, it was going to be really bad and really terrible.
1
SPEAKER_07
And the production and the cast and crew knew this.
1
SPEAKER_07
They knew that they were marching toward
1
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embarrassment with the early versions of the script.
1
SPEAKER_04
Yeah, so Orson, he s sort of distracted.
1
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He s got a stage production going on.
1
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He s got his partner in his group, the great John Houseman, who you all know from The Paper Chase, kind of a legendary actor.
1
SPEAKER_04
He was one of his original partners.
1
SPEAKER_04
And he got together with Howard, is it Koch?
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SPEAKER_04
I never know if it s going to be a Koch or a Koch.
1
SPEAKER_04
Doesn t matter.
1
SPEAKER_04
All right, K-O-C-H.
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SPEAKER_04
And he was the writer who was adapting the novel.
1
SPEAKER_04
And they were like, we got to make this thing better.
1
SPEAKER_04
And one thing I think we can do, this was Hausman talking.
1
SPEAKER_04
I m not going to do a John Hausman, but everyone knows how he sounds.
1
SPEAKER_07
Right when I came across John Hausman being involved, I was like, I can t wait.
1
SPEAKER_04
I don t even remember.
1
SPEAKER_04
I mean, he was just very serious and sort of all I can think of his paper chase.
1
SPEAKER_04
And what was the TV commercial?
1
SPEAKER_04
Was it?
1
SPEAKER_07
I want to say it was like Schwab or Merrill Lynch.
1
SPEAKER_04
I think it might have been Merrill Lynch, maybe.
1
SPEAKER_04
I don t know.
1
SPEAKER_04
But one of those finance firms he did, he voiced for.
1
SPEAKER_07
Well, yeah, he was very famous for having a very high-pitched, squeaky, falsetto voice.
1
SPEAKER_07
And he talked very, very fast.
1
SPEAKER_07
And actually, I know who it was.
1
SPEAKER_07
It was FedEx and Dunkin  Donuts that he was well-known for.
1
SPEAKER_07
That s right.
1
SPEAKER_04
He was the time to make the donuts guy.
1
SPEAKER_04
Right, with the mustache.
1
SPEAKER_04
So Haussmann and Koch, Koch went in there and he said one of the things we should do probably to make this a little more scary and a little more believable that it s an actual broadcast is, you know, time passes in the book and we can t do that here.
1
SPEAKER_04
So let s just get rid of all that stuff.
1
SPEAKER_04
So it gives the appearance that it s going down right now.
1
SPEAKER_07
Yeah, that was enormously, a huge change.
1
SPEAKER_07
And I don t know if he did that to help the pacing move a little faster or what, but that would pan out to be a really important difference in the original script that Howard Kaye turned in.
1
SPEAKER_07
and the one that they ended up doing.
1
SPEAKER_07
And then even beyond that, some of the other changes came just hours before broadcast, because apparently if you worked with Orson Welles, you should be on the lookout for him to come in at the last minute and be like,
1
SPEAKER_07
All the stuff we ve been practicing for a week or two, forget all of that.
1
SPEAKER_07
We re doing this instead.
1
SPEAKER_07
And part of that, from what I can tell, is that he was trying to shake up the actors, shake them out of whatever complacency they d worked themselves into with rehearsal, and to get this rawer,
1
SPEAKER_07
more terrified performance.
1
SPEAKER_07
And apparently it worked.
1
SPEAKER_07
I mean, I can t imagine I didn t hear any rehearsals or anything like that.
1
SPEAKER_07
I would have loved to have compared, you know, the week before to, you know, the actual broadcast.
1
SPEAKER_07
But everyone delivered these really great, really great performances.
1
SPEAKER_07
And they really nailed by Showtime the realism in a lot of ways, not just in the performances,
1
SPEAKER_07
But also in just little details, like they, you know, they were they were doing a mock radio program, which we ll talk about a little more in detail in a second.
1
SPEAKER_07
But they were they were pretending to have news bulletins break.
1
SPEAKER_07
And so they were they were doing the things that news bulletins did.
1
SPEAKER_07
One of the things that stuck out to me was
1
SPEAKER_07
One of the eyewitnesses, so it s an actor, but one of the eyewitnesses is like being interviewed by a news reporter on the scene, and they start to talk, and the news reporter goes, can you speak more loudly and move into the microphone, please?
1
SPEAKER_07
And I think the actor actually says, how s that?
1
SPEAKER_07
And the guy repeats himself.
1
SPEAKER_07
And then the actor has to repeat himself what he was originally saying.
1
SPEAKER_07
So it has that veneer of,
1
SPEAKER_07
you know, authenticity, just from little details like that, that, you know, really, it stood out to me when I was listening for him.
1
SPEAKER_07
But if you re, if you re not listening for him, you just, it makes you buy into the whole thing that much more.
1
SPEAKER_04
Yeah, and the other big change that Wells brought along was stretching out the first two halves of the thing such that it went past – it went 40 minutes.
1
SPEAKER_04
And radio at the time, every 30 minutes, like on the half hour, they would check in with a station ID check.
1
SPEAKER_04
And listeners, even though radio was new, were well honed to this station break every 30 minutes.
1
SPEAKER_04
And so when 10 minutes passed, the half hour go by, and there ain t no station break, that really makes people kind of buy in to what they re listening to is possibly real.
1
SPEAKER_04
And then you add to the fact that there were no sponsors for this show.
1
SPEAKER_04
So they weren t cutting to Casper or
1
SPEAKER_04
or MeUndies ads, all of a sudden I couldn t remember any sponsor.
1
SPEAKER_04
Can you imagine John Hausman saying, made with Modal?
1
SPEAKER_07
No, I thought it d be, made with Modal.
1
SPEAKER_07
That s right.
1
SPEAKER_07
That s a much better Hausman.
1
SPEAKER_07
I had something in my throat.
1
SPEAKER_04
So yeah, there were no sponsors.
1
SPEAKER_04
So basically it really came across as something that was super, super realistic sounding.
1
SPEAKER_04
Right.
1
SPEAKER_07
So all that is to say that they had really, by the time this broadcast aired at 8 p.m.
1
SPEAKER_07
on Sunday, October 30th, 1938, they were not going to be the laughing stock, and this is not going to be embarrassing.
1
SPEAKER_07
It was going to be pretty awesome, actually.
1
SPEAKER_04
Should we take a break?
1
SPEAKER_07
I think so, Chuck, and then we ll come back and we will reveal the broadcast after this.
1
SPEAKER_05
Guess what, Mango?
1
SPEAKER_05
What s that, Will?
1
SPEAKER_05
So iHeart is giving us a whole minute to promote our podcast, Part-Time Genius.
1
SPEAKER_06
I know, that s why I spent my whole week composing a haiku for the occasion.
1
SPEAKER_06
It s about my emotional journey in podcasting over the last seven years, and it s called Earthquake House.
1
SPEAKER_05
Mango, I m going to cut you off right there.
1
SPEAKER_05
Why don t we just tell people about our show instead?
1
SPEAKER_06
Yeah, that s a better idea.
1
SPEAKER_06
So every week on Part-Time Genius, we feed our curiosity by answering the world s most important questions.
1
SPEAKER_06
Things like, when did America start dialing 911?
1
SPEAKER_06
is William Shatner s best acting work in Esperanto.
1
SPEAKER_06
Also, what happened to Esperanto?
1
SPEAKER_05
Plus, we cover questions like how Chinese is your Chinese food?
1
SPEAKER_05
How do dollar stores stay in business?
1
SPEAKER_05
And of course, is there an Illuminati of cheese?
1
SPEAKER_05
There absolutely is.
1
SPEAKER_06
And we are risking our lives by talking about it.
1
SPEAKER_06
But if you love mind blowing facts, incredible history and really bad jokes, make your brains happy and tune in to Part Time Genius.
1
SPEAKER_05
Listen to Part Time Genius on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
1
SPEAKER_03
Last season, millions tuned into the Betrayal podcast to hear a shocking story of deception.
1
SPEAKER_03
I m Andrea Gunning, and now we re sharing an all-new story of betrayal.
1
SPEAKER_03
Stacey thought she had the perfect husband.
1
SPEAKER_03
Doctor, father, family man.
1
SPEAKER_03
It was the perfect cover for Justin Rutherford to hide behind.
1
SPEAKER_02
They led me into the house, and I mean, it was like a movie.
1
SPEAKER_02
He was sitting at our kitchen table.
1
SPEAKER_02
The cops were guarding him.
1
SPEAKER_02
Stacey learned how far her husband would go to save himself.
1
SPEAKER_02
I slept with a loaded gun next to my bed.
1
SPEAKER_00
He did not just say, I wish he was dead.
1
SPEAKER_00
He actually gave details and explained different scenarios on how to kill him.
1
SPEAKER_02
He, to me, is scarier than Jeffrey Dahmer.
1
SPEAKER_03
Listen to Betrayal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
1
SPEAKER_01
A new season of Bridgerton is here.
1
SPEAKER_01
And with it, a new season of Bridgerton, the official podcast.
1
SPEAKER_01
I m your host, Gabrielle Collins.
1
SPEAKER_01
And this season, we are bringing fans even deeper into the ton.
1
SPEAKER_01
Colin Bridgerton has returned from his travels abroad.
1
SPEAKER_01
Is Betrothal written in the stars for the eligible bachelor?
1
SPEAKER_01
Meanwhile, the ton is reverberating with speculation of who holds Lady Whistledown s pen.
1
SPEAKER_01
We re discussing it all.
1
SPEAKER_01
I sit down with Nicola Coughlin, Luke Newton, Shonda Rhimes, and more to offer an exclusive peek behind the scenes of each episode of the new season.
1
SPEAKER_01
Watch season three of the Shondaland series on Netflix.
1
SPEAKER_01
Then, fall in love all over again by listening to Bridgerton, the official podcast on the I Heart
2
SPEAKER_01
radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
2
SPEAKER_01
Subscribe to catch a new episode every Thursday.
2
SPEAKER_00
Okay, so we ve reached showtime, airtime, 8 p.m.
2
SPEAKER_00
Sunday, October 30th, 1938.
2
SPEAKER_00
Mercury Theater on the Air began broadcasting its adaptation of H.G.
2
SPEAKER_00
Wells  War of the Worlds, and at the very beginning, it s introduced as much.
2
SPEAKER_00
There s an announcer who says that.
2
SPEAKER_01
I think that s lost probably to time somewhat, because everyone probably thinks that they just tried to trick everyone, but no, they actually introduced it as what they re doing.
2
SPEAKER_01
And, you know, this is a radio play set one year in the future.
2
SPEAKER_00
Right, right.
2
SPEAKER_00
And yeah, Orson Welles.
2
SPEAKER_00
So it s introduced by an announcer.
2
SPEAKER_00
Orson Welles comes in, does the introductory essay.
2
SPEAKER_00
And then they did something really smart and interesting, especially for the time.
2
SPEAKER_00
They went to a musical program that was supposedly being broadcast from the Meridian Room in the Hotel Park Plaza.
2
SPEAKER_00
So if you were just tuning in right then, you would have no idea that this was Mercury Theater on the air.
2
SPEAKER_00
You d have no idea that this was a teleplay.
2
SPEAKER_00
You would think that you were listening to something that was pretty regularly broadcast, which was live music at some like ballroom in a hotel somewhere in New York that they set up like a radio transmitter to transmit out over the radio.
2
SPEAKER_00
That was pretty frequent.
2
SPEAKER_00
But this was part of the show.
2
SPEAKER_01
Like if you hadn t paused it, that is, right?
2
SPEAKER_00
Right, exactly.
2
SPEAKER_00
So, but that was a huge part of the show because that lulled listeners into kind of complacency and listeners who tuned in late and missed that introduction thought that this is what they were listening to.
2
SPEAKER_00
And then the first news bulletin hits.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
And that s where things start to get really interesting.
2
SPEAKER_01
They break in, you know, one of these interrupt your previously scheduled programs kind of things.
2
SPEAKER_00
Right, right.
2
SPEAKER_01
And they come in with these bulletins, but they re not super long at first because they treat it kind of how it would be in real life.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s just sort of a breaking story.
2
SPEAKER_01
Something s going together.
2
SPEAKER_01
It was fairly obtuse.
2
SPEAKER_01
And they didn t, like, you know, say Martians are attacking us right now, everyone, from the get-go.
2
SPEAKER_01
You sort of left it up to the listener to kind of piece it together little by little.
2
SPEAKER_01
They would go back to the Meridian room for a bit.
2
SPEAKER_01
And it wasn t for very long, but because, you know, they couldn t waste too much time, but it was long enough.
2
SPEAKER_01
It wasn t for like 10 seconds.
2
SPEAKER_01
They did it for like a minute, minute and a half.
2
SPEAKER_00
Right.
2
SPEAKER_00
It made it seem right then like that was what you were listening to, that that was the program and the bulletin was in fact the bulletin rather than the opposite being true.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, so eventually you start to piece together what s going on, and you have this attack in New Jersey, of all places, and Princeton University, they had like a Princeton astronomer on, they have government officials, and they kind of dole it out little by little until about the 17 minute, 17 and a half minute mark.
2
SPEAKER_01
And then that s when it really kind of gets super scary and people really see the full picture of what s going on.
2
SPEAKER_00
So, Chuck, I feel like we should read a little bit of the script.
2
SPEAKER_00
There s this one part, starting about the 1730 minute mark, I think you said, where they, as I like to say, they tore the lid off the sucker.
2
SPEAKER_01
Do you want to be announcer or Phillips?
2
SPEAKER_00
I ll be the announcer.
2
SPEAKER_00
All right.
2
SPEAKER_00
OK.
2
SPEAKER_00
But I want you to do Phillips as Sammy Davis, Jr.
2
SPEAKER_01
So here s the announcer.
2
SPEAKER_01
Wait, hold on.
2
SPEAKER_01
I m getting on my tap shoes.
2
SPEAKER_01
OK.
2
SPEAKER_01
OK.
2
SPEAKER_01
You ready, Candyman?
2
SPEAKER_01
Uh-huh.
2
SPEAKER_01
Sure, babe.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m not going to do it that way.
2
SPEAKER_00
OK, all right.
2
SPEAKER_00
So let me give you a little bit of background real quick.
2
SPEAKER_00
So these news bulletins up to this point have basically said there s some weird thing that landed.
2
SPEAKER_00
They thought it was a meteorite at first that landed in Grover s Mill, New Jersey.
2
SPEAKER_00
And then later bulletins said that, oh, actually, there s some weird tentacle, like weird things emerging from this thing we thought was a meteorite.
2
SPEAKER_00
So now we re back at Grover s Mill.
2
SPEAKER_00
So I m the announcer.
2
SPEAKER_00
We are bringing you an eyewitness account of what s happening on the Wilmeth Farm, Grovers Mill, New Jersey.
2
SPEAKER_00
And that was kind of like they were breaking in to let you know that.
2
SPEAKER_00
And then they go back to more piano for some reason.
2
SPEAKER_00
And then we now return you to Carl Phillips at Grovers Mill.
2
SPEAKER_01
Ladies and gentlemen, am I on?
2
SPEAKER_01
Am I on?
2
SPEAKER_01
Ladies and gentlemen, here I am, back of a stone wall that adjoins Mr. Wilma s garden.
2
SPEAKER_01
From here, I get a sweep of the whole scene.
2
SPEAKER_01
I give you every detail as long as I can talk, as long as I can see.
2
SPEAKER_01
More state police have arrived.
2
SPEAKER_01
They re drawing up a cordon in front of the pit, about 30 of them.
2
SPEAKER_01
No need to push the crowd back now.
2
SPEAKER_01
They re willing to keep their distance.
2
SPEAKER_01
The captain is conferring with someone.
2
SPEAKER_01
We can t quite see who.
2
SPEAKER_01
Oh, yes, I believe it s a Professor Pearson.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yes, it is.
2
SPEAKER_01
Now they ve parted.
2
SPEAKER_01
The professor moves around one side, studying the object while the captain and two policemen advance with something in their hands.
2
SPEAKER_01
I can see it now.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s a white handkerchief tied to a pole, a flag of truce.
2
SPEAKER_01
If those creatures know what that means, what anything means, wait, something s happening.
2
SPEAKER_00
You can cut in any time.
2
SPEAKER_01
Who can take a rainbow?
2
SPEAKER_01
Oh wait, sorry.
2
SPEAKER_01
A hump shape is rising out of the pit.
2
SPEAKER_01
I can make out a small beam of light against a mirror.
2
SPEAKER_01
What s that?
2
SPEAKER_01
There s a jet flame springing from the mirror and it leaps right at the advancing men.
2
SPEAKER_01
It strikes them head on.
2
SPEAKER_01
Good Lord, they re turning into flame.
2
SPEAKER_01
Now the whole field s caught fire.
2
SPEAKER_01
The woods, the barns, the gas tanks of automobiles are spreading everywhere.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s coming this way, about 20 yards to my right.
2
SPEAKER_00
Very nice.
2
SPEAKER_00
And scene.
2
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
2
SPEAKER_00
That was great, Chuck.
2
SPEAKER_00
So you mentioned, or I should say, Phillips, the reporter on the scene mentioned Professor Pearson.
2
SPEAKER_00
And he ends up being the main character.
2
SPEAKER_00
And he s an astronomer that s interviewed earlier on.
2
SPEAKER_00
And he s on this scene as it happens.
2
SPEAKER_00
And the program just keeps going like that.
2
SPEAKER_00
There s a main announcer who I played, I thought, rather well.
2
SPEAKER_00
Great job.
2
SPEAKER_00
Thank you.
2
SPEAKER_00
Same to you, bravo.
2
SPEAKER_01
Quite a future as a Foley artist, if I may say so.
2
SPEAKER_00
Thank you very much.
2
SPEAKER_00
I ve been practicing.
2
SPEAKER_00
You want to hear my machine gun?
2
SPEAKER_00
I ve been doing that one since I was like six.
2
SPEAKER_01
All right, how about walking through the forest?
2
SPEAKER_01
All right, now how about a good punch to the face?
2
SPEAKER_01
Oh, wow.
2
SPEAKER_01
That was good.
2
SPEAKER_00
Thank you.
2
SPEAKER_00
I punched myself in the face.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m dedicated.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s how dedicated to the art of Foley.
2
SPEAKER_00
So the announcer just keeps bringing in more and more news as this thing goes on and unfolds of like, now these things aren t just in New Jersey.
2
SPEAKER_00
They re in Chicago.
2
SPEAKER_00
They re like out west.
2
SPEAKER_00
They re starting to invade everywhere.
2
SPEAKER_00
And they re killing people left and right.
2
SPEAKER_00
You said there was a government official that reads the statement.
2
SPEAKER_00
say that it s the Secretary of the Interior, which I thought was particularly genius because, I mean, probably not that many people were familiar with the Secretary of the Interior.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, totally.
2
SPEAKER_00
Harold Ickes.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
But they had him sound like FDR so that it would kind of play on everyone s, I guess, unconscious
2
SPEAKER_00
Or I m sure there were people who were like, that sounds just like FDR.
2
SPEAKER_00
But at the very least, it would kind of evoke that government authority, the reality of a government figure, you know?
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
So meanwhile, on the other stations, there s one that s running opposite, which is a really, really popular radio show at the time, probably the most popular, Chase and Sanborn Hour, which had the very, very famous ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his dummy Charlie McCarthy.
2
SPEAKER_00
And we talked about that on our ventriloquism episode.
2
SPEAKER_00
Remember that they started out on radio.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, which is hysterical.
2
SPEAKER_01
I don t even know.
2
SPEAKER_01
why they would even bother with the dummy part, just do two voices.
2
SPEAKER_00
You wouldn t even have to wear, that s what he did.
2
SPEAKER_00
You wouldn t even have to wear pants.
2
SPEAKER_00
No.
2
SPEAKER_00
You d be naked from the waist down.
2
SPEAKER_00
Just sit around in your spaghetti-stained undershirt, naked from the waist down, maybe some socks, doing a couple voices.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s right.
2
SPEAKER_00
There s your contract, Edgar Bergen.
2
SPEAKER_01
What do you think about that, Charlie?
2
SPEAKER_00
Oh, don t get me started.
2
SPEAKER_01
That s it.
2
SPEAKER_01
I could be a famous ventriloquist on the radio.
2
SPEAKER_00
You just did it.
2
SPEAKER_00
I think Hollywood s going to come and call.
2
SPEAKER_01
But the real sort of interesting factoid here, I think, is that people were channel surfing back then when you cut to commercial, just like we used to do when we didn t have pause buttons and fast forward buttons.
2
SPEAKER_00
What is this pause button you keep mentioning?
3
SPEAKER_03
I ve never heard of this.
3
SPEAKER_00
You ve never paused television?
3
SPEAKER_00
No.
3
SPEAKER_00
Wow, you need to catch up.
3
SPEAKER_03
I don t believe I ve ever paused anything in my life.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s funny, we were, Emily and I have been watching that German sci-fi series, Dark, which is very challenging to follow.
3
SPEAKER_00
And there s a lot of rewinding, like, wait, wait, who is that?
3
SPEAKER_00
What did they just say?
3
SPEAKER_00
And we rewinded a bit and do that again.
3
SPEAKER_00
And, or, you know, of course I got to go to the bathroom.
3
SPEAKER_00
Let me just pause it.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I was thinking about how not too long ago,
3
SPEAKER_00
You just, if you missed something, you missed it.
3
SPEAKER_00
You just peed the couch.
3
SPEAKER_00
Or you peed yourself on the couch, yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
There was no clear, like, let me go back and clear this up.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s like, what did he say?
3
SPEAKER_00
I have no idea.
3
SPEAKER_00
Guess we ll never know.
3
SPEAKER_00
There s no internet to even look it up.
3
SPEAKER_03
I guess I should probably stop watching this show altogether.
3
SPEAKER_03
You go walk up to the VCR and press the jack.
3
SPEAKER_00
But at any rate, back then, let s say Charlie McCarthy goes to break, and they re all word from Mark Bonser, and they flip it over to War of the Worlds at this point in the broadcast, when the S is hitting the fan, and it s going to scare the pants off of people in 1938.
3
SPEAKER_03
Well, yeah, even more than I think that they would have dialed over even before that.
3
SPEAKER_03
So they might have caught like a news bulletin and then maybe some of that music from the Meridian Room.
3
SPEAKER_03
So it really would have caught them.
3
SPEAKER_03
And there were supposedly a substantial number of people who did dial over and were like, wait, wait, what?
3
SPEAKER_03
What is going on here?
3
SPEAKER_03
And now we come to the reaction, the response.
3
SPEAKER_03
Because if you picked up the paper the next day in America,
3
SPEAKER_03
Just about anywhere in any major city, you re going to find huge, blaring headlines like the one that the New York Daily News printed in tall, bold letters.
3
SPEAKER_03
Fake radio war stirs terror through the U.S.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, stories of shock and hysteria, stories of people taking their own life, stories of people dying from heart attacks.
3
SPEAKER_00
The AP said a man in Pittsburgh found his wife with poison in her hand and said, I d rather die this way than like that.
3
SPEAKER_00
And talking to Wells afterward, in the aftermath of this, he apologizes publicly, says they didn t intend to do this.
3
SPEAKER_00
Um, we had, we didn t know it was going to cause a panic.
3
SPEAKER_00
And then, you know, if you look over the years, more interviews, it sort of seems like Wells is a little more like, you know, we thought it would be pretty fun to scare people.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I didn t know if it was going to cause a panic, but we definitely intended it to have this effect on people.
3
SPEAKER_00
Uh, whereas Hausman and Koch were like, nah, we really didn t mean it.
3
SPEAKER_00
Um, so it was sort of conflicting reports from the production on what they thought was going to be the result.
3
SPEAKER_03
Right.
3
SPEAKER_03
And I read an interview with John Landis, the great director, who worked with Wells on a project that never got made toward the end of Wells  life.
3
SPEAKER_03
And he didn t say that Wells admitted to him that he meant to, but he got to know him enough that he was like, yes, if you want
3
SPEAKER_03
this initial press conference where he s apologizing because the whole country was ripped apart in chaos and were running wild in the streets and like nearly rioted because of his broadcast.
3
SPEAKER_03
He is not at all, he s just as happy as a lark that this all happened.
3
SPEAKER_03
Of course.
3
SPEAKER_03
Even though he s pretending to apologize.
3
SPEAKER_03
And he said that was just, that s his Orson Welles.
3
SPEAKER_03
Did you just say apologize?
3
SPEAKER_03
It s a new version I m testing out.
3
SPEAKER_03
I like it.
3
SPEAKER_03
It s kind of, yeah.
3
SPEAKER_03
It s at least as good as Apologize.
3
SPEAKER_00
So this was just a couple of days in the news cycle.
3
SPEAKER_00
It wasn t the biggest deal in the world, even though it was fairly sensational story writing for newspapers.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it might have just gone that way had it not been for a Princeton University social psychologist a couple of years later named
3
SPEAKER_00
Hadley Cantrell, and Cantrell released a book on the real effects of this thing, and basically said that people were praying, crying, they were frantically trying to escape death from the Martians.
3
SPEAKER_00
Six million people listened to this thing, and at least one-sixth of them were frightened or disturbed, and I have the evidence right here
3
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, the evidence that he had was based on a series of interviews with 135 people.
3
SPEAKER_03
Almost all of them were in New Jersey, which, remember, that s where the crux of the invasion and destruction being described took place, because Grovers Mill, New Jersey is actually a real town in Jersey.
3
SPEAKER_03
So he went to Jersey, because he was in Princeton, so he went where he was and interviewed 135 people.
3
SPEAKER_03
And he said, were you scared by this broadcast?
3
SPEAKER_03
And the participant would say, yes.
3
SPEAKER_03
And he d say, you re in my study.
3
SPEAKER_03
And he d ask the next one, were you scared?
3
SPEAKER_03
Were you scared by this broadcast?
3
SPEAKER_03
No, he d be like, you re not in the study.
3
SPEAKER_03
That s crazy.
3
SPEAKER_03
And so, yeah, he said in the methodology that he selected 100 out of the 135 because they had been scared by the broadcast.
3
SPEAKER_03
And so he took these interviews of people in New Jersey, and he extrapolated it to the rest of the country.
3
SPEAKER_03
And he said, yep, this is real.
3
SPEAKER_03
This is a really great example of
3
SPEAKER_03
people being fooled into terror and panic.
3
SPEAKER_03
And, you know, the response is, when this happens, like we saw after the War of the Worlds broadcast, people will run out into the street.
3
SPEAKER_03
They will flee the city.
3
SPEAKER_03
They will call their friends and neighbors.
3
SPEAKER_03
They may attempt suicide.
3
SPEAKER_03
They may die of a heart attack, like the New York Times reported.
3
SPEAKER_03
20 or so people in New York alone needed to be treated for shock and hysteria.
3
SPEAKER_03
This is what happens when somebody toys with the public trust.
3
SPEAKER_03
And yeah, it s pretty nuts.
3
SPEAKER_03
The end.
3
SPEAKER_03
That was the end of Hadley s book.
3
SPEAKER_00
Right.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, not the end of this episode.
3
SPEAKER_00
So this is what this specific study is what if you ve ever taken a mass media or a communications college class, you ve probably studied War of the Worlds largely because of this study.
3
SPEAKER_00
Basically, it might have just come and gone if it weren t for this.
3
SPEAKER_00
This academic paper that were put out and all of a sudden for decades and decades it s reported on as like a cautionary tale almost of responsibility in media, even fictional media.
3
SPEAKER_00
And as recently as 2013, PBS American Experience documentary said this was the case.
3
SPEAKER_00
Our old pals at Radiolab in 2008 did an episode about this where that was the case.
3
SPEAKER_00
But there were a few problems with this paper beyond the supremely bad methodology behind just getting scared New Jersey people.
3
SPEAKER_00
to go in there and give their report was they ended up finding real ratings for this thing.
3
SPEAKER_00
And not a ton of people even heard it, it turns out.
3
SPEAKER_00
Right.
3
SPEAKER_00
So his 6 million estimate was way off.
3
SPEAKER_00
Way, way, way off.
3
SPEAKER_00
They did a survey during the program that said 2% of respondents said that they were listening.
3
SPEAKER_00
And some markets, like big cities like Boston, even preempted this thing for local programming.
3
SPEAKER_00
a ton of people.
3
SPEAKER_00
It wasn t a ton of people being scared and, like, just literally losing their minds with fear and panic.
3
SPEAKER_00
And things swing so far the other way that the narrative became, you know what, no one was really scared at all.
3
SPEAKER_00
And what newspapers really did was they put out hit pieces on a competing medium like radio and how you shouldn t trust it anymore.
3
SPEAKER_03
So what happened over the last… sometime within the 21st century, sometime in the 2010s, the myth that America lost its mind, went bonkers, and ran wild in the street because they were panicked by the War of the Worlds broadcast was shown to be a myth, that it didn t happen.
3
SPEAKER_03
And that was the new understanding for a little while, just a few years, until another guy came along and said, you know what?
3
SPEAKER_03
Actually, both are right and both are wrong in a lot of ways.
3
SPEAKER_00
Should we take a break and talk about the truth always being somewhere in the middle?
3
SPEAKER_03
Mm-hmm.
3
SPEAKER_02
Guess what, Mango?
3
SPEAKER_02
What s that, Will?
3
SPEAKER_02
So iHeart is giving us a whole minute to promote our podcast, Part-Time Genius.
3
SPEAKER_01
I know.
3
SPEAKER_01
That s why I spent my whole week composing a haiku for the occasion.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s about my emotional journey in podcasting over the last seven years, and it s called Earthquake House.
3
SPEAKER_02
Mango, I m going to cut you off right there.
3
SPEAKER_02
Why don t we just tell people about our show instead?
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that s a better idea.
3
SPEAKER_01
So every week on Part-Time Genius, we feed our curiosity by answering the world s most important questions.
4
SPEAKER_05
Things like, when did America start dialing 911?
4
SPEAKER_05
Is William Shatner s best acting work in Esperanto?
4
SPEAKER_05
Also, what happened to Esperanto?
4
SPEAKER_04
Plus we cover questions like, how Chinese is your Chinese food?
4
SPEAKER_04
How do dollar stores stay in business?
4
SPEAKER_04
And of course, is there an Illuminati of cheese?
4
SPEAKER_05
There absolutely is, and we are risking our lives by talking about it.
4
SPEAKER_05
But if you love mind-blowing facts, incredible history, and really bad jokes, make your brains happy and tune in to Part-Time Genius.
4
SPEAKER_04
Listen to Part-Time Genius on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
4
SPEAKER_07
Last season, millions tuned into the Betrayal podcast to hear a shocking story of deception.
4
SPEAKER_07
I m Andrea Gunning, and now we re sharing an all-new story of betrayal.
4
SPEAKER_07
Stacey thought she had the perfect husband.
4
SPEAKER_07
Doctor, father, family man.
4
SPEAKER_07
It was the perfect cover for Justin Rutherford to hide behind.
4
SPEAKER_06
They led me into the house, and I mean, it was like a movie.
4
SPEAKER_06
He was sitting at our kitchen table.
4
SPEAKER_06
The cops were guarding him.
4
SPEAKER_07
Stacey learned how far her husband would go to save himself.
4
SPEAKER_06
I slept with a loaded gun next to my bed.
4
SPEAKER_02
He did not just say, I wish he was dead.
4
SPEAKER_02
He actually gave details and explained different scenarios on how to kill him.
4
SPEAKER_06
He, to me, is scarier than Jeffrey Dahmer.
4
SPEAKER_07
Listen to Betrayal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
4
SPEAKER_03
A new season of Bridgerton is here.
4
SPEAKER_03
And with it, a new season of Bridgerton, the official podcast.
4
SPEAKER_03
I m your host, Gabrielle Collins.
4
SPEAKER_03
And this season, we are bringing fans even deeper into the ton.
4
SPEAKER_03
Colin Bridgerton has returned from his travels abroad.
4
SPEAKER_03
Is Betrothal written in the stars for the eligible bachelor?
4
SPEAKER_03
Meanwhile, the ton is reverberating with speculation of who holds Lady Whistledown s pen.
4
SPEAKER_03
We re discussing it all.
4
SPEAKER_03
I sit down with Nicola Coughlin, Luke Newton, Shonda Rhimes, and more to offer an exclusive peek behind the scenes of each episode of the new season.
4
SPEAKER_03
Watch season three of the Shondaland series on Netflix.
4
SPEAKER_03
Then, fall in love all over again by listening to Bridgerton, the official podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
4
SPEAKER_03
Subscribe to catch a new episode every Thursday.
4
♪ Oh yeah ♪
4
SPEAKER_01
All right, I said the truth is always somewhere in between.
4
SPEAKER_01
That s not always the case with everything in life, obviously, but that s a saying for a reason.
4
SPEAKER_01
And that definitely seems to be the case in this case with a gentleman named A. Brad Schwartz.
4
SPEAKER_01
He s probably the leading War of the World scholar.
4
SPEAKER_01
And he went back and he went and investigated
4
SPEAKER_01
the letters and the cables that came in.
4
SPEAKER_01
They were at the University of Michigan archives.
4
SPEAKER_01
And these are the letters that actually came in to Wells and the Mercury Theater in the days after the broadcast.
4
SPEAKER_01
And what he contends, and I agree, is that this is what you need to be reading is what people were really thinking at the time that weren t just cherry picked in the town where that got attacked in New Jersey, who were obviously there were going to be freaked out more than anyone in the country.
4
SPEAKER_00
Right.
4
SPEAKER_00
So one of the things that he points out is, you know, everybody been, you know, since around 2010 or maybe a little earlier, everyone had been wailing on Hadley Cantrell for his terrible, terrible methodology.
4
SPEAKER_00
But the revisionists were also kind of doing the same thing.
4
SPEAKER_00
They were making all sorts of suppositions, like the idea that the newspapers had basically conspired to target radio, its rival.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
to show how irresponsible it was and how it shouldn t be trusted with the news.
4
SPEAKER_00
There s really newspapers that should be handling the news.
4
SPEAKER_00
And maybe you can listen to Little Orphan Annie on the radio, but that s about it.
4
SPEAKER_00
That that was all supposition.
4
SPEAKER_00
That was as much supposition as Hadley Cantrell extrapolated his findings in New Jersey to the rest of the country.
4
SPEAKER_00
And A. Brad Schwartz, one of the reasons I think he s doing a good job is because he s saying, no, if you actually sit down and read these letters and these cables that were coming in in the days after, they really probably paint the most accurate picture anyone s ever found to this point of how it was actually received.
4
SPEAKER_00
Like you can see all
4
SPEAKER_00
almost in real time at the time, what people were saying about this in their letters to Orson Welles and to the Mercury Theater on the air.
4
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Yeah, and it was a range of feelings.
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It was everything from people who said, you know what, we knew it wasn t real, but it was really scary and super awesome.
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I don t know if they said things like super awesome.
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He said that a number of people wrote in who actually made fun of the people who fell for it and said that, you know, they re gullible, they re rubes.
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And one writer even said they should be sterilized and disenfranchised.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, because they d shown that in an actual emergency, they were undependable.
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They would just run around like chickens with their heads cut off in the streets.
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah, and Swartz sort of draws a line between what was going on back then to us today with this whole fake news, hoax, garbage that we have to listen to day in and day out.
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Basically said this is the first viral phenomenon in media was the war of the world s broadcast and it was a mixed bag.
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Some people loved it.
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SPEAKER_01
Some people did think it was real and panicked, but it certainly was not this widespread panic across the country like you were talking about.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, he said less than a quarter of the letters described what he would consider panic.
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SPEAKER_00
But even most of those weren t actually angry when they were writing the letter.
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SPEAKER_00
A lot of them were thrilled.
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SPEAKER_00
Like you got me.
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SPEAKER_00
He did.
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SPEAKER_00
Right.
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But he did say that, yes, there are cases that you see in these letters and cables.
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that describe people panicking.
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So that did happen in some cases.
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Most of it seems to have been isolated in New Jersey.
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So if Hadley Cantrell had not extrapolated his findings and had interviewed more people who had different reactions to the broadcast, but if it had just been like an investigation into the reaction in New Jersey, that study or that book would have been much more useful.
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SPEAKER_00
But the fact is he just screwed the methodology up so badly that it s basically useless.
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SPEAKER_00
But he didn t make up the panic that he described necessarily.
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SPEAKER_00
He may have exaggerated it, who knows.
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SPEAKER_00
But it does seem to have actually happened in some cases, but it was sporadic, few and far between, certainly not organized, and certainly not seen across the rest of the country like it was reported on by the papers the next day.
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah, which sort of leads us to the story of the poor pulses of Manhattan, this Manhattan couple.
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Um, they did fall for it.
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They were very scared.
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Uh, apparently as the story goes, they got their last $6 together and got on a train to get the heck out of New York.
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SPEAKER_01
Um, assuming not going West into New Jersey, uh, they went North toward Connecticut, um, got as far as they could on what little money they had get off the train.
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And, you know, there s a bunch of other passengers that they re telling, you know, they re warning everybody of what s happened.
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And this one guy there goes over and gets the, I just pictured this in the movie, it s like no one s listening to this guy.
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And he picks up the newspaper, basically the TV guide.
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SPEAKER_00
It s the Dunkin  Donuts guy.
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He says, hey guys, it says right here.
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SPEAKER_01
War of the Worlds broadcast is supposed to be on at that hour.
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SPEAKER_01
It just says right here in the newspaper, it s a radio play, everyone, no one, everyone, nobody, okay.
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SPEAKER_01
And then he just goes and gets on a train and leaves.
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But they feel bad for them, the other people.
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that had gathered together, they loaned them – or gave them, I guess, some money and chipped in and got them back to New York City.
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SPEAKER_01
And then later Estelle Paltz wrote a 15-page letter the next day to Orson Welles that was very admiring and said how thrilled she was.
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SPEAKER_01
I can t imagine what else is in that 15-page letter.
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SPEAKER_01
It s a lot of pages.
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SPEAKER_00
I know.
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SPEAKER_00
Hell of a story, I think, is what Jesus kept saying.
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SPEAKER_00
Just over and over and over.
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SPEAKER_00
Right.
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SPEAKER_00
So that was one of the letters that Abraham Schwartz turned up in that trove.
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SPEAKER_00
And it very clearly describes a couple panicking because they mistook the War of the Worlds broadcast.
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SPEAKER_00
But again, this was not like across the nation, like the papers reported.
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Schwartz actually explains the papers basically as a combination of a couple of things.
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One is a bias.
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SPEAKER_01
I can t tell if it s selection bias, volunteer bias, or confirmation bias, but the bias is as follows.
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SPEAKER_01
If you re in a newsroom,
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And all of a sudden, your phone starts ringing off the hook.
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And you re getting 150% more calls that night.
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And all of them are people asking about this Martian invasion and what s going on.
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SPEAKER_01
And is this real?
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Or is this a hoax?
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SPEAKER_01
Or have you guys heard anything about this?
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SPEAKER_01
And some of those calls are even from the local police, who are also getting similar calls.
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SPEAKER_01
And now they re calling you to find out.
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SPEAKER_01
Then it seems like there s a lot of people calling and freaking out about this Martian thing.
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SPEAKER_01
But if you step back, if you zoom out,
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And look at that number of people that actually called the newsroom.
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It s just this minute fraction of the population of whatever town it is.
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So it wasn t a bunch of people freaking out.
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SPEAKER_01
But to the people answering the phone in the newsroom who are getting swamped with calls, way more calls than usual, it did seem like that.
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SPEAKER_01
So that, combined with anecdotal reports that no one followed up on from the wire services, that people were attempting suicide or having heart attacks or whatever, that just being reported and relayed as fact led everybody to believe that this was actually happening out there in the country, that people were running well.
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SPEAKER_01
Maybe not in my town, because I stuck my head outside of the newsroom and I didn t see anything.
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SPEAKER_01
I hear they re going crazy in Chicago right now, or I hear they re really going nuts in Milwaukee or whatever.
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SPEAKER_01
And that s how it got reported, and that s what everyone thought happened.
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SPEAKER_01
People who lived through this thought that this happened the next day.
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SPEAKER_01
Orson Welles thought his career was in jeopardy the next day because he accidentally made America go berserk.
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And that s how that myth began, and that s how it stood.
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And A. Brad Schwartz basically traced it back to lazy reporting.
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So myth busted.
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Thanks to A. Brad Swartz and us.
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And us, for sure.
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SPEAKER_01
I m glad you included us.
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SPEAKER_02
So there s an interesting footnote here, though, because this actually did kind of play out that way.
5
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Eight years later in – was it eight years later?
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SPEAKER_02
Yeah, 1948 in Ecuador.
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SPEAKER_02
So this is in Quito, Ecuador.
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SPEAKER_02
These broadcasters recreate the Orson Welles radio play.
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SPEAKER_02
And they did a version that went a lot further than his did and got other radio stations to join in and add to the reporting, which really pretty brilliant move there to increase like you turn the station and it s happening over there too.
5
SPEAKER_01
Right.
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SPEAKER_02
And this really did scare people.
5
SPEAKER_02
They really did take to the streets and panic.
5
SPEAKER_02
There was public panic going on, and then the crowd finds out that it s fiction, and they get angry and actually turn into an angry mob and burn down the local newspaper building that had the radio station inside of it, killing six people.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, six people died, 15 people were injured.
5
SPEAKER_01
Like they knew that the staff was in that building and they set the building on fire to try and kill them.
5
SPEAKER_01
And a bunch of people escaped out of the back, but a lot of people didn t escape.
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SPEAKER_01
And the two people who were responsible for the broadcast, including Ecuador s most beloved and trusted presenter, were indicted for it.
5
SPEAKER_02
Like they re morally safer, basically.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, exactly.
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SPEAKER_01
And they were indicted for their role in this.
5
SPEAKER_01
Like people died because of it.
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SPEAKER_01
And this actually does seem to have happened in Ecuador.
5
SPEAKER_02
Amazing.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
So there you go.
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SPEAKER_01
The idea that America fell into chaos and panic after the War of the Worlds broadcast in 1938 is largely myth.
5
SPEAKER_01
Go forth and spread the gospel, everybody.
5
SPEAKER_01
Unless you re in Ecuador and then you re like, no, it s actually happened here.
5
SPEAKER_01
And since I said that actually happened here, I think Chuck is time for this in a minute.
5
SPEAKER_02
So this is from Tom in the UK.
5
SPEAKER_02
Did you see this email?
5
SPEAKER_02
I don t think so.
5
SPEAKER_02
It s great.
5
SPEAKER_02
It s one long sentence, and I m going to try and read it in how I think Tom speaks.
5
SPEAKER_02
As a candy man.
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SPEAKER_02
As Tom from the UK.
5
SPEAKER_02
Because just the way he wrote it, I think Tom probably talks a little bit like this.
5
SPEAKER_01
This isn t Tom from the UK who was our tour manager when we did our UK tour, is it?
5
SPEAKER_02
No.
5
SPEAKER_02
Well, shout out to that Tom.
5
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, he was great.
5
SPEAKER_02
This is an engineer, and this is what he has to say.
5
SPEAKER_01
All right.
5
SPEAKER_02
Sup, Josh and Chuck.
5
SPEAKER_02
Tom, engineer from the UK, Stoke-on-Trent.
5
SPEAKER_02
Big fan of the show.
5
SPEAKER_02
Been binging for about two years and got through all of them.
5
SPEAKER_02
All of you lot, even Jerry.
5
SPEAKER_02
have got me through a lot these last couple years, and I put a few people onto your podcast, wanted to email you lot for a while, and finally managed to get round to emailing a load of things to people about stuff that really doesn t matter.
5
SPEAKER_02
emailed a TV show about one of their actors, a particle physicist about using a light year of lead as a frame of reference, the company Super Noodles for the excellent job they ve done with their super noodle pot, but I m not much for the peas.
5
SPEAKER_02
And I just wanted to say, I know you like the Japanese mayo, but you really need to try the Polish mayo.
5
SPEAKER_02
Spot on.
5
SPEAKER_02
All the best, Tom.
5
SPEAKER_01
Boy, oh boy, Tom, that was great.
5
SPEAKER_01
And Chuck, that was a fantastic stoke on Trent accent.
5
SPEAKER_01
The most accurate I ve ever heard.
5
SPEAKER_01
And the first.
5
SPEAKER_01
Tom, that was a great email.
5
SPEAKER_01
You re right, Chuck.
5
SPEAKER_01
I love that email so much.
5
SPEAKER_01
I had so much fun.
5
SPEAKER_01
You were right to choose that one.
5
SPEAKER_01
So thanks, Tom.
5
SPEAKER_01
Thanks for writing in.
5
SPEAKER_01
Thank you for including us in your list of people you harass via email.
5
SPEAKER_01
And keep listening, OK?
5
SPEAKER_01
And keep writing in.
5
SPEAKER_01
Maybe we ll make this a regular thing, Chuck.
5
SPEAKER_02
I would love that.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yep.
5
SPEAKER_01
So Tom, write in again.
5
SPEAKER_01
And if you want to write in too, we want to hear from you.
5
SPEAKER_01
You can send us an email to stuffpodcasts at iheartradio.com.
5
SPEAKER_06
Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
5
SPEAKER_06
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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SPEAKER_03
Guess what, Will?
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What s that, Mango?
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I ve been trying to write a promo for our podcast, Part-Time Genius, but even though we ve done over 250 episodes, we don t really talk about murders or cults.
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SPEAKER_03
I mean, we did just cover the Illuminati of cheese, so I feel like that makes us pretty edgy.
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SPEAKER_03
We also solve mysteries like how Chinese is your Chinese food and how do dollar stores make money?
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And then, of course, can you game a dog show?
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So what you re saying is everyone should be listening.
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Listen to Part-Time Genius on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
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I m Andrea Gunning, and now we re sharing an all-new story of betrayal.
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It was the perfect cover to hide behind.
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A new season of Bridgerton is here.
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And with it, a new season of Bridgerton, the official podcast.
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I m your host, Gabby Collins.
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And this season, we are bringing fans even deeper into the ton.
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Watch season three of the Shondaland series on Netflix.
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Then fall in love all over again by listening to Bridgerton, the official podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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