One of the big differences here was that Radio Quito was extremely popular, didn't have as many competitors as CBS, and was highly respected along with the paper as the city's smost trusted news sources. This also had the cooperation of Quito's local newspaper, as they were both owned by the same company. He used a Spanish-language version of the script written for a production in Chile which reportedly had also caused a brief panic. in 1949 in Quito, Ecuador directed by and starring Leonardo Páez, a familiar and beloved voice on Radio Quito journalist, broadcaster, actor, director, singer-songwriter, poet and playwright.The broadcast has been re-created several times: The legend of this program has, in any case, become part of American folklore. What people believed, and continue to believe, about the broadcast is as important as the notion that people believed the broadcast itself. However, the story is more complex than that. Later research indicates there was little to no actual panic, and the anxious reports that ran in the next day's newspapers were just an attempt by said newspapers to sell more copies (while also discrediting radio as a medium- New Media Are Evil, after all). or so the Urban Legends have it, at least. Rather than presenting a straight radio play like with previous Mercury Theatre broadcasts, for this episode the show started out offering its listeners what was apparently a simple program of live dance music-until, that is, they started breaking in with 'news bulletins' about strange explosions on the surface of Mars, followed by reports of a meteorite landing in rural New Jersey.Īs the on-air 'reporters' breathlessly described large alien tripods emerging from the cylindrical 'meteorites' and commencing to destroy the American countryside with heat-rays, many listeners believed that an actual Alien Invasion was taking place, and thus a nationwide panic quickly ensued. Wells's classic 1898 novel The War of the Worlds to a contemporary American setting. Needing to come up with a Halloween Episode for the Octobroadcast of his CBS radio program The Mercury Theatre on the Air, Orson Welles decided to adapt H. The single most (in)famous broadcast in American radio history. 'Ladies and gentlemen, we interrupt our program of dance music to bring you a special bulletin from the Intercontinental Radio News.'

Long beach war of the worlds 1938