Seventy years ago in a Halloween episode of the Mercury Theatre on the Air, Orson
Welles whipped millions of Americans into a martian-crazed panic with his radio play
adaptation of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds. You know the story. Those who tuned in
late missed the disclaimer that the program was pure fantasy. A typical evening of
musical programming was suddenly interrupted by “eyewitness news reporting”
describing a Martian invasion that was wreaking devastation in Grovers Mill, New
Jersey (about 22 miles from Trenton). From there the Martians began decimating the
denizens of New York with heat rays and poisonous black smoke. Please hold your
snide remarks. Think people of that bygone era were gullible? Don’t forget with war
on the horizon in Europe, fears of invasion and mass destruction were keeping those
folks up at night. War of the Worlds played on those apprehensions with gleeful
abandon.
This, said Orson Welles, was the “Mercury Theatre’s own radio version of dressing up
in a sheet. . .jumping out of a bush and saying ‘Boo!’ So goodbye everybody, and
remember please for the next day or so the terrible lesson you learned tonight: that
grinning, glowing, globular invader of your living room is an inhabitant of the
pumpkin patch and if your doorbell rings and nobody’s there, that was no Martian,
it’s Halloween.”
Tracks Used:
“War Of The Worlds” Original Radio Broadcast October 30,1938
“Luciana” by Juno Reactor
“The Vision” by Elysium
“2012” by CJ Catalizer
“Alien Patrol” by The Infinity Project
“And The Day Turned To Fright - Eat Static Remix” by Shpongle
“Silver Satellite” by Proton Kinoun
“Echoes Of An Empty Room” by E-Mantra
“Frozen Sleep” by Mindsphere
