{"id":116740,"date":"2025-09-24T17:20:32","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T21:20:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.freethink.com\/?post_type=ftm_article&p=116740"},"modified":"2025-09-24T17:20:38","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T21:20:38","slug":"war-of-the-worlds-anti-radio-propaganda","status":"publish","type":"ftm_article","link":"https:\/\/www.freethink.com\/consumer-tech\/war-of-the-worlds-anti-radio-propaganda","title":{"rendered":"“War of the Worlds” didn\u2019t panic America. Newspapers did."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Remembered as history\u2019s most infamous radio broadcast, a 1938 dramatization of H.G. Wells\u2019 \u201cThe War of the Worlds<\/a>\u201d reportedly caused widespread panic when listeners thought a fictional news broadcast of an alien invasion was real.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Front<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The day after the broadcast, sensationalist headlines ran from coast to coast: The New York Times placed \u201cRadio Listeners in Panic, Taking War Drama as Fact\u201d<\/a> front and center, with the report beginning, \u201cA wave of mass hysteria seized thousands of radio listeners throughout the nation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Other headlines read \u201cHysteria Sweeps Nation,\u201d \u201cFake Radio \u2018War\u2019 Stirs Terror Through US,\u201d and \u201cDeath Blamed on Radio Scare.\u201d The radio play was blamed for panic in the streets, suicide attempts, and at least one fatal heart attack, reported by The Washington Post (but never corroborated or confirmed.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The FCC would announce a probe<\/a> of the incident, and one congressman would promise to introduce a congressional bill “controlling just such abuses as was heard over the radio last night \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even H.G. Wells himself felt moved to issue a statement<\/a> that he \u201cgave no permission whatever for alternations which might lead to the belief that it was real news.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Two<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Fictitious news<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The thing is \u2026 the mass hysteria likely didn\u2019t happen at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a 2013 article<\/a> for Slate, Jefferson Pooley<\/a> and Michael J. Socolow<\/a> called into question this popular historical tale \u2014 recently perpetrated by a PBS documentary \u2014 noting evidence to discredit the sensationalist reports at the time: ratings data suggesting a tiny listenership (just 2% of 5,000 households surveyed), among other things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1940, the initial media reporting was given academic legitimacy when Princeton Professor Hadley Cantril published the book \u201cThe Invasion From Mars,\u201d which claimed a million Americans were \u201cfrightened\u201d by the broadcast using flawed and misleading data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Newspaper
Daily News<\/a> \/ New York, New York \u00b7 Monday, October 31, 1938<\/figcaption><\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Pooley and Socolow note that when a team of researchers for the book tried to prove claims of hospitals treating people for shock due to the broadcast, they found the claims false.<\/p>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n