[meteorite-list] The Meteorite that panicked a Nation

From: Sterling K. Webb <kelly_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:27:43 2004
Message-ID: <3FA3178B.27A2C702_at_bhil.com>

Hi,

    The Mercury Theatre of the Air had ratings as close to zero as you can
get and still be on the air. No, lower than that. They were opposite Edgar
Bergen and Charlie McCarthy. How could a ventriloquist act could possibly
work on radio? But it did, and the show was a super-ratings leader.
    But that particular night, it wasn't on. By the time the vast national
audience had figured out they weren't going to get the wise-cracking
dummie and switched from NBC to CBS to see what was on there (not knowing
because they never listened to CBS at that time slot), THEY HAD MISSED THE
DISCLAIMER that said this is the Mercury Theatre of the Air and this is
just a play adapted from H. G. Wells, enjoy, etc.
    Caught cold, flat-footed, off-balance, and unprepared, the audience
was dropped right into an ongoing Martian invasion already at full roll...
They're weren't dumb, just sucker-punched.


Sterling
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magellon wrote:

> All,
> Last evening marked the passing of an event that occurred
> Sixty-five years ago. Even though many of us were not yet born,
> we have all heard of about the panic associated with this event.
>
> If you had turned your radio on just after 8' o'clock to your favorite
> CBS station you would be entertained by Ramon Raquello and
> his orchestra when the show was interrupted by a special report
> from Intercontinental Radio News. The bulletin was to let people
> know that scientists had noticed explosions on the surface
> of Mars, and that something was flying towards the
> earth at an incredible speed. After the announcement the music
> began again. Then another news report came on. This time to
> inform the audience that a huge, flaming object, believed to
> be a meteorite had fallen to earth at Grovers Mill, New Jersey.
> At Grovers Mill it was realized that the object was not a meteorite.
> Eventually, a huge creature with a drooling V-shaped mouth
> emerged from the object, zapped the people dead, and torched
> the field with its heat-ray. And the horror continued....
> Listeners thought they were tuning in live reports from the scene
> but were actually hearing Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater
> on the Air with their updated version of H.G. Wells' sci-fi novel
> The War of the Worlds.
>
> The War of the Worlds broadcast terrified people from
> coast to coast. Families fled their homes, covering their mouths
> with handkerchiefs trying not to breathe the harmful black gas.
> People packed into churches. Roads leading out of cities were
> jammed with cars. People across the nation thought they were
> going to die. It is estimated that over six million people listened
> to that broadcast, and close to two million thought it was a
> news bulletin.
>
> For more info see:
> movie "The Night that panicked America"
> http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/www/warworlds/warw.html
> http://www.waroftheworlds.org/the_broadcast.htm
>
Received on Fri 31 Oct 2003 09:16:44 PM PST