* War of the Worlds *
The original uncut radio broadcast from Oct. 30th 1938!
(The radio drama, that panicked a nation!)
We also present you: a live theatrical performance by Mosaico Berlin.
Start: 7 & 9 p. m.
Entrance fee: 7 €
The story:
On October 30, 1938, Orson Welles and “The Mercury Theatre on the Air” performed a radio drama based on the science fiction story by H. G. Wells “War of the Worlds” (1898). The show was broadcasted over the Columbia Broadcasting System network, coast-to-coast.
The sound effects and acting was so powerful, it caused mass hysteria. Thousands of listeners panicked nationwide, not realizing it was just a radio play.
The next day, The New York Times ran this headline: “Radio Listeners in Panic, Taking War Drama as Fact – Many Flee Homes to Escape ‘Gas Raid From Mars’ – Phone Calls Swamp Police at Broadcast of Wells Fantasy”.
United Press reported: “The federal communications commission investigated a radio program which caused thousands of persons in every part of the country to believe that the eastern United States had been invaded by creatures from the planet Mars in the first engagement of a ‘War of the Worlds’”.
This radio drama had a vast impact in media histoy.
Maybe, however, it was a big conspiracy? Contemporary witnesses reported, the landing and following attack of extraterrestrial beings in Grover’s Mill, New Jersey was a fact!
So, how bad was it?
Do you have the nerve to listen the original uncut radio broadcast?