The War of the Worlds

On the evening of October 30, 1938, the Mercury Theatre on the Air radio show, produced by Orson Welles and John Houseman began their broadcast with “reporting” by the fictional character Carl Phillips, accompanied by a fictional Princeton University Astronomer named Professor Pierson.

“Ladies and gentleman, this is Carl Philips again, at the Wilmuth Farm, Grovers Mill, New Jersey…. Well, I hardly know where to begin, to paint for you a word picture of the strange scene before my eyes, like something out of a modern Arabian Nights. Well, I just got here. I haven’t had a chance to look around yet. I guess that’s it. Yes, I guess that’s the …thing, directly in front of me, half buried in a vast pit. Must have struck with terrific force. The ground is covered with splinters of a tree it must have struck on its way down. What I can see of the …object itself doesn’t look very much like a meteor, at least not the meteors I’ve seen. It looks more like a huge cylinder…”.

Welles, who would go on to be a famed actor and director, narrated and performed an adaptation of H.G. Wells’ classic novel, The War of the Worlds. What ensued was panic as listeners who had missed the beginning of the broadcast thought extraterrestrial beings were invading New Jersey. Grovers Mill panicked and the fire chief of nearby Cranbury, New Jersey received dozens of reports and phone calls. The story captivated newspaper headlines following the broadcast and caught the attention of noted Princeton University Psychology professor Hadley Cantril. Cantril studied the effect of the broadcast and published his findings in The Invasion from Mars: A Study in the Psychology of Panic. According to his findings, an estimated 6 million listeners tuned into the broadcast, 1.7 million of them took the “report” as fact and 1.2 million panicked as a result.

Resources for Further Research:

1. The Invasion from Mars: A Study in the Psychology of Panic by Hadley Cantril
2. Articles from the Papers of Princeton database:
   • Princeton to Investigate Hysteria From Radio Play (Princeton Herald, 1938)
   • Welles’ Broadcast Aids Psychologists: Research Department Wil Study Incident – Cantril to Talk on Episode at 10:30 (Daily Princetonian, 1938)
   • Cantril Directing Hysteria Analysis: Professor Heading Investigation of Radio Public’s Research to Recent Martian Invasion (Daily Princetonian, 1939)
   • Wells and Welles Films to be Shown at Museum (Town Topics, 1988)
   • News of the Theatres Orson Welles Broadcast to be Recreated Sunday (Town Topics, 1988)
3. Professor Hadley Cantril Studied Hysteria After ‘War of the Worlds’ by Elyse Graham (Princeton Alumni Weekly)
4. Articles from The New York Times
   • Radio Listeners in Panic, Taking War Drama as Fact (1938)
   • Excerpts From the ‘War’ Broadcast (1938)
   • War’ broadcast studied (1938)
5. The Infamous War of the Worlds Broadcast was a Magnificent Fluke by A. Brad Schwartz (Smithsonian Magazine)
6. WNYC Studios’ Radiolab
7. Titles from Princeton Public Library’s collection