MARTIANS!

 

How New Bern survived the Halloween 1938 broadcast of  The War of the Worlds.

Illustration by Alvim Correa from the 1906 Belgian edition of The War of the Worlds.

..

by John B. Green III

At 8 p.m. on Sunday, October 30, 1938, a radio play based on H.G. Wells 1898 novel The War of the Worlds was broadcast across the United States by the Columbia Broadcasting System.  Wells' novel, set in 1890's England, recounted the invasion of Earth by Martians.  Using huge, three-legged fighting machines equipped with "heat rays", the Martian invaders rain destruction across England before succumbing to Earth-based "microbes" for which they have no immunity.  The radio play, directed by American actor Orson Welles, revised the 1898 novel by moving the story forward in time to 1938 and placing the Martian invasion in New Jersey.

By accident or design, the realistic sound effects along with broadcast techniques that mimicked news bulletins, were mistaken by thousands of Americans (including quite a few New Bernians) as live news coverage of an actual Martian invasion of the United States.  Although Orson Welles and others involved in the broadcast would later deny that they intended any harm, the panic and resulting outrage would lead to near-arrest for Welles and numerous calls for investigations by Congress and the Federal Communications Commission. 

Associated Press coverage, Sun-Journal, Monday, 31 Oct 1938.

So, how did the citizens of New Bern take the presumed alien invasion?  Data is scarce and boils down to one local newspaper column and what my father told me about the event.  New Bern had three local newspapers in 1938: the Sun-Journal, the New Bern Times, and the New Bern Tribune.  The Sun-Journal carried the news service accounts of the aftermath but little notice of the local reaction.  The appropriate issues of the New Bern Times are missing.  Fortunately, the New Bern Tribune for Monday, October 31, 1938, contains the local news column of Billy Arthur, popular newsman and wit.  Arthur devotes the first four paragraphs of his column to the local response to the supposed invasion

George Green declares that Sunday night's broadcast, 

which so many folks thought was the end of the world,

turned the last five black strands of hair in Fred Scott's 

head to gray.

New Bernians were really frightened. All over town 

yesterday we heard of how so and so went home and 

prayed, how some recited the 23rd Psalm over and over, 

how Nathan Frank rushed home to his wife and children,

and Mr. Scott went home to see about his family.

Frank Allston hurriedly conveyed the news of the 

broadcast downtown, and the folks on the corner turned

on radios and buried their heads in them until the announcer

spurted the people from Mars were headed toward Fort

Bragg and would be there in 17 minutes. Then the fellows 

started scurrying home.

No one yesterday was ashamed to admit he was frightened,

because his fears were shared by everyone who heard the

broadcast.

All well and good, you say, but what about your father's account?  Here it is: My then thirteen-year-old father was with his father at a corner gas station that fateful night.   A crowd had gathered around the station's radio. Picking up on the confusion and growing concern of those around him, my father asked his father what they ought to do.  My grandfather replied "I think we had better go home."  And so they did, and they spent a tense but otherwise uneventful evening.  The morning paper revealed the truth of the matter and they and the rest of New Bern went on with their lives.

A special thank you to co-worker Caitlyn Wilson who suggested this Halloween topic.