“Martian Cylinders are falling all over the country”
“The vanguard of an invading army from Mars”
Orson Welles faces reporters following his War of the Worlds broadcast.
With those words, Orson Welles allegedly put the country in a panic with his Mercury Theater of the Air broadcast of an adaptation of HG Wells “The War of The Worlds”.
The broadcast, 85 years ago this Monday, will be rebroadcast over KELY 1230 AM/98.5 FM at 6pm on Monday and heard over stations in Hawthorne, Pahrump, and the Amargosa Valley on affiliated stations.
“Whether the panic that was trumpeted in newspapers was as severe as newspapers wrote, or whether it was fake news, there’s no doubt that the show proved that radio was and is, the theater of the mind,” said Wyatt Cox, manager of KELY and the Nevada Talk Network. “Thanks to a fellow Old Time Radio collector, we have the best restoration of the 85 year old broadcast, and we are proud to join Welles in what he called the substitute of dressing up in a sheet and yelling BOO to the City and the state”
Leave a Reply