WO(t)W! I never knew radio could be so frightening!

When Mr. Costal first told our class about the first time he had heard the radio broadcast of Orson Welles reading H.G. Wells' "The War of The Worlds" for Mercury Theater, I didn't believe a word of what he was saying (haha). People fleeing from their houses? Running ramped through the city streets? All from a radio broadcast on the night of Halloween?? Pfft, yeah right...

So I went home and did a little (internet) exploring, and found some archives of this specific broadcast.

I started listening to this broadcast on Sunday night, home alone, at about 10PM. After about 10 minutes of listening, I was already beginning to feel bored, thinking "this is stupid! Where is Tom Cruise?!" But woahh, was I wrong.. at that point in the broadcast, Tom Cruise would have been a comic relief! At about 15:40, Welles begins to describe the creature emerging from the spacecraft, as corny as that may sound. But the vivid descriptions of the beings, its eyes and its face, its ship and its shadows, made it all come to life (Stephen King was spot-on with his statement that listening to the radio was more frightening than watching the television or a movie could ever be)! And perhaps the most frightening part of this broadcast was (as Costal said) the realism in characters voices, character reporter "Carl Phillips" listened to the reports of the Hindenburg disaster more than a dozen times before recording his take on "The War of The Worlds," (as well as the disturbing background ensemble of whirring and hissing, screaming and crying); as well as their blunt (but I'm sure, carefully planned out) actions, e.g. when the news reporter, cuts his report short and the broadcast slowly switches back to playing the music of Ramon Raquello and his orchestra...

"Good heavens, something's wriggling out of the shadow like a gray snake. Now it's another one, and another. They look like tentacles to me. There, I can see the thing's body. It's large, large as a bear and it glistens like wet leather. But that face, it . . . Ladies and gentlemen, it's indescribable. I can hardly force myself to keep looking at it. The eyes are black and gleam like a serpent. The mouth is V-shaped with saliva dripping from its rimless lips that seem to quiver and pulsate. The monster or whatever it is can hardly move. It seems weighed down by . . . possibly gravity or something. The thing's raising up. The crowd falls back now. They've seen plenty. This is the most extraordinary experience. I can't find words . . . I'll pull this microphone with me as I talk. I'll have to stop the description until I can take a new position. Hold on, will you please, I'll be right back in a minute."

...Perhaps it was horrifying because I was home alone. False. I listened to the broadcast for a third time, not two hours ago, with a house full of family and food, listening with sound-proof headphones, and I still got the chills (The Shakes, lol)...

Try and listen for the reporter "Carl Phillips," describing the barely mobile Martian before it incinerates the crowd with "heat-rays", as his shouts about the incoming flames are cut off in mid-sentence... probably one of the most frightening things i have ever HEARD!

..."The Silence is Terrifying"



Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre Broadcast of H.G. Wells' "The War of The Worlds", October 30, 1938: http://sounds.mercurytheatre.info/mercury/381030.mp3

Mercury Theater Archive: http://www.mercurytheatre.info/

WNYC.org/NPR: War of the Worlds gets out of hand!: http://blogs.wnyc.org/radiolab/2008/03/25/war-of-the-worlds/
(Describes how "Carl Phillips" used the crashing of the Hindenburg report to boost his own commentary, how children of the time were told to bring gas masks to school, and how Orson Welles and C.B.S. created the most successful media hoax of all time, that would eventually leave 6 dead in Quito, Ecuador).