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A Moment in Time is a series of theatrical audio clips in the style of early news radio broadcasts, covering events from Henry VIII to Hiroshima. Created by Dan Roberts starting in 1993, they are short "moments in time" that capture the feel and timbre of 1940s wartime radio.

A Moment in Time Archives: The Panic Broadcast - Part II

Volume: 3

Number: 71

Date: 08/09/2002

Lead: As the CBS broadcast of H.G. Wells War of the Worlds progressed, many in the audience began to take it seriously and fell into panic.

Tag: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: Orson Welles' career as a radio actor included the role of Lamont Cranston in the mystery series The Shadow, but his greatest fame came when he brought his Mercury Theater company to Columbia Broadcasting for a series of radio dramas based on famous novels. For Halloween Eve, October 30, 1938, the company chose Wells' science fiction nightmare War of the Worlds, the dramatic description of an invasion by hostile Martians who destroy the earth.

Several minutes into the program which used the format of simulated news bulletins breaking into an evening of musical entertainment, one of the actors was faking a live on-the-scene report from Grover's Mill, New Jersey.

"Wait! Something's happening! A humped shape is rising out of the pit. I can make out a small beam of light against a mirror. What's that? There's a jet of flame springing from that mirror, and it leaps right at the advancing men. It strikes them head on! Good Lord, their turning into flame! Now the whole field's caught fire. The woods...the barns... the gas tanks of automobiles...it's spreading everywhere. It's coming this way. About twenty yards to my right...."

By this point millions of people were hooked and taking this simulation as the real thing. Traffic jams were caused by people trying to escape. A man in Pittsburgh returned in mid-broadcast to find his wife just about to drink poison. Churches closed down in the middle of services. The network was overwhelmed with calls, complaints, and congratulations, and Orson Welles career was made. Gradually the panic subsided but the awesome power of mass communication, for good or ill, was proven without a doubt.

At the University of Richmond, this is Dan Roberts.

Cantril, Hadley. The Invasion from Mars. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1940.

Huges, David Y. and Harold Geduld. A Critical Edition of the War of the Worlds. Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1993.

Koch, Howard. The Panic Broadcast. New York: Avon Books, 1970.

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