On October 30, 1938, Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre on the Air presented a radio adaptation of H.G. Wells's The War of the Worlds on CBS. The program, structured as a series of simulated news bulletins, described Martians landing in New Jersey and attacking the region. Despite four on-air disclaimers, an estimated one million of the nine to twelve million listeners experienced genuine fear, with thousands calling police, newspapers, and radio stations for confirmation. Some fled their homes, while others sought information about evacuation or the safety of loved ones.1
Public Reaction and Cultural Impact
The broadcast's impact was immediate and polarizing. Letters to CBS, the Mercury Theatre, and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ranged from outrage and calls for censorship to praise for the program's artistry. The FCC received over 600 complaints and commendations, and the event dominated headlines nationwide. The incident became a touchstone for debates about media responsibility, mass psychology, and the power of broadcast technology.2
Scholarly Analysis
Princeton psychologist Hadley Cantril conducted the first systematic study of the panic, interviewing 135 listeners and publishing The Invasion from Mars: A Study in the Psychology of Panic in 1940. Cantril found that the panic was shaped by the credibility of radio, the realism of the broadcast, and the social context of late 1930s America. Later research has nuanced the scale of the panic, but the event remains a defining episode in American media history.3
References
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Lee Ann Potter, "Jitterbugs and Crack-pots: Letters to the FCC about the 'War of the Worlds' Broadcast," Prologue Magazine, National Archives, Fall 2003. https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2003/fall/war-of-worlds.html ↩
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John Gosling and Howard Koch, Waging The War of the Worlds: A History of the 1938 Radio Broadcast and Resulting Panic, Including the Original Script (McFarland, 2009). ↩
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Hadley Cantril, The Invasion from Mars: A Study in the Psychology of Panic (Princeton University Press, 1940; Routledge, 2017). https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Invasion_from_Mars/txwuDwAAQBAJ ↩