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Leprechaun, v. 1, issue 1, March 1942

Page 5

LEPRECHAUN                                                              5

[title and author centered, title also underlined.] 
THE GREATEST RADIO HOAX
by
GERRY de la REE, JR.

One quiet evening in 1938, October 30th, to be exact, the most startling radio broadcast, and what has become one of the most famous, was presented by Orson Welles and his Mercury players. Never before has one broadcast skyrocketed one man into prominence overnight, as this one did.
Welles' realistic reproduction of the H.G. Wells book, "War of the Worlds", casued more of a panic than did the recent Japanese at-tack on the Hawaiian and Phillippine Islands. Not since the days of the Spanish American War, when the Spanish Fleet was reported off the coast of New England, had the people of the United States been quite so frightened.
I was among the thousands who heard that particular Hallowe'en broadcast, and I believe that my explanation of why so many people were caught unaware of the falseness of the tale is the nearest to be-ing correct. 
The Mercury Theater went on the air at 8:00 P. M., Eastern Stan-dard Time, at the same time that the Charlie McCarthy program began on another network. Many people turned to the McCarthy program and lis-tened to Edgar Bergen and his Stooge crack jokes for the first five minutes, and then switched the dial --- to the Orson Welles program in many cases.
If this happened to be the case, they got in on it just in time to hear an interlude of dance music interrupted with a news bulletin when sounded exceptionally realistic. It was announced that a strange meteor had landed at Grovers Mills, N.J., and a few minutes later still snother [sic] bulletin came through stating that huge creatures, pre-sumably Martians, were emerging from this strange capsule.
Before long, people had their ears glued to the radio, hearing of terrible disasters in and around New Jersey. I, for one, like thous-ands of others, had never read "The War of the Worlds", and this, coupled with the fact that I had just finished a copy on AMAZING STOR-IES, made it seem quite possible to me.
However, after turning the dial to other stations, I dismissed this idea, as all other networks were continuing with their scheduled broadcasts. A few minutes later the program was switched to Princeton University, where a professor was supposed to give his explanation of the invasion. The professor was Orson Welles, and this was the final tip-off, as far as I was concerned.
[centered and underlined] Interesting Repercussions
Hundreds of what now seem humorous incidents occurred the country over, as a result of the fantastic broadcast. In New York City fifteen people were put in hospitals, suffering from shock and nervous break-downs. The story got the headline in all New York papers, and the Herald Tribune even printed a reproduction of one cover from AMAZING STORIES.
The CBS studio in New York received hurried calls from people all over the Metropolitan area. "I've got two black eyes", shouted one wo-man. "I dashed out of the house and ran into something. I'll sue you for every last cent you've got!" The switchboard of the New York Daily News handled more than one thousand calls in the next hour and one half.
The supposedly mythical Grovers Mills turned out ot be an authen-tic place, and the Williams farm, where the meteor was supposed to have landed, really was in existence, much to the embarrassment of Mr. Welles. Mrs. Williams was listening to the broadcast and got the shock

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LEPRECHAUN 5 [title and author centered, title also underlined.] THE GREATEST RADIO HOAX by GERRY de la REE, JR. One quiet evening in 1938, October 30th, to be exact, the most startling radio broadcast, and what has become one of the most famous, was presented by Orson Welles and his Mercury players. Never before has one broadcast skyrocketed one man into prominence overnight, as this one did. Welles' realistic reproduction of the H.G. Wells book, "War of the Worlds", casued more of a panic than did the recent Japanese at-tack on the Hawaiian and Phillippine Islands. Not since the days of the Spanish American War, when the Spanish Fleet was reported off the coast of New England, had the people of the United States been quite so frightened. I was among the thousands who heard that particular Hallowe'en broadcast, and I believe that my explanation of why so many people were caught unaware of the falseness of the tale is the nearest to be-ing correct. The Mercury Theater went on the air at 8:00 P. M., Eastern Stan-dard Time, at the same time that the Charlie McCarthy program began on another network. Many people turned to the McCarthy program and lis-tened to Edgar Bergen and his Stooge crack jokes for the first five minutes, and then switched the dial --- to the Orson Welles program in many cases. If this happened to be the case, they got in on it just in time to hear an interlude of dance music interrupted with a news bulletin when sounded exceptionally realistic. It was announced that a strange meteor had landed at Grovers Mills, N.J., and a few minutes later still snother [sic] bulletin came through stating that huge creatures, pre-sumably Martians, were emerging from this strange capsule. Before long, people had their ears glued to the radio, hearing of terrible disasters in and around New Jersey. I, for one, like thous-ands of others, had never read "The War of the Worlds", and this, coupled with the fact that I had just finished a copy on AMAZING STOR-IES, made it seem quite possible to me. However, after turning the dial to other stations, I dismissed this idea, as all other networks were continuing with their scheduled broadcasts. A few minutes later the program was switched to Princeton University, where a professor was supposed to give his explanation of the invasion. The professor was Orson Welles, and this was the final tip-off, as far as I was concerned. [centered and underlined] Interesting Repercussions Hundreds of what now seem humorous incidents occurred the country over, as a result of the fantastic broadcast. In New York City fifteen people were put in hospitals, suffering from shock and nervous break-downs. The story got the headline in all New York papers, and the Herald Tribune even printed a reproduction of one cover from AMAZING STORIES. The CBS studio in New York received hurried calls from people all over the Metropolitan area. "I've got two black eyes", shouted one wo-man. "I dashed out of the house and ran into something. I'll sue you for every last cent you've got!" The switchboard of the New York Daily News handled more than one thousand calls in the next hour and one half. The supposedly mythical Grovers Mills turned out ot be an authen-tic place, and the Williams farm, where the meteor was supposed to have landed, really was in existence, much to the embarrassment of Mr. Welles. Mrs. Williams was listening to the broadcast and got the shock