Broadcast of 'War of the Worlds' by Orson Welles in 1938 - Psychological Experimentation!

I recently saw a documentary of "War of the Worlds". The original was a Novel written by H. G Wells in 1898. The novel had an adaptation which was presented on October 30, 1938 by Mercury Theatre on Air, in the format of a News Broadcast by Orson Welles, plus other actors.

Many people went into panic mode, fleeing their homes, and many reported to have committed suicide - although this was blown out of proportion by reporters at the time. "Official" reports states that no one was harmed.

A new adaptation was broadcasted in Ecuador - This was however different; mass demonstrations occurred at the station which was burned down - killing 6 inside.

What I found interesting, which I have found from researching the topic since watching the documentary (I never thought about it before this) was that it could have well been a psychological experiment to see how people would respond to such 'catastrophic' news, ie Alien Invasion, or simply acknowledging that there was/is Alien presence around earth.

How would governments of earth know, how people would react to such news if one day they would have to announce such controversial information? No one knew...

So I think it was an elaborate plan to see how this would pan out, by staging an event such as this.

Since the broadcast, Orson Welles (and others involved) rose to stardom, one movie of Welles was the famous 'Citizen Kane, a movie which has been recognised as the "greatest movie of all time". (I remember analysing this movie in High School for Media class).

The other theory, was to implement a form of control of broacasting, since radio was a farely new concept in the 30's. Staging a radical broadcast would allow the strict rules and guidelines of how and what is to be presented and in which format.

So, here you have it, a direct link to download the 'War Of The Worlds - Broadcast by Orson Welles' in mp3 format. Other Mercury on Air broadcasts can be found Here.

Last but not least - a video on Google of the War of the Worlds broadcast, with animation (cheesy) but fun none the less.

Google Video Link

Thx