Fake News Causes Panic in Plain Dealing

On Halloween eve of 1938, over 32 million radio listeners tuned in to the popular weekly program Mercury Theater on the Air. A program of the Columbia Broadcasting System radio network. The program was directed by and starring Orson Welles. Locally, people tuned into KWKH radio to listen. Many listeners that night were frightened out of their wits. For days, reports appeared in newspapers across the nation describing listeners’ reactions everywhere.

The following appeared in “The Plain Dealing Progress” on Nov 04, 1938:

“The much talked about radio program last Halloween eve which featured war and the end of time, terrified a number of Plain Dealing people. Among the most terrified it was said, were Mr. and Mrs. D.W. McCance who left their home in terror and hurried down town to inform the populace that the end of time was near!........ The John H. Wheeler family and the H. A. Wheeler family were seriously aroused also. During the midst of the terrifying program, Mrs. Neva Wheeler glanced out a window and noted a grass fire over the hillside from her home, and she was convinced beyond all doubt that the whole world was in flames!........County Agent Joe Rhodes, en route from his home in Benton to pay a social call in Plain Dealing, heard the program over his automobile radio and sped to the home of John J. Doles to inform him of the terrible catastrophe. He was somewhat moved at the attitude taken by Mr. Doles who took the matter less seriously and refused to become alarmed. …... The program was very realistic, although of course imaginative. According to press reports, National Broadcasting Company has been solicited by thousands upon thousands of people to repeat the program. The sponsors say they do not plan to do it again.”

The fear that gripped those listeners came as they listened to the ‘newscaster’ describe a developing scene. He was ‘reporting live’ from Grover’s Mill, where the first Martian ship landed. As the scene developed, he continued to describe in great detail the creatures coming from the ship. Panic from listeners grew with every bewildered and breathless word that came across the airwaves as the ‘newscaster’ began describing the attack.

The aliens were spraying jets of flames destroying everything in their path beyond all recognition. In a very short time, the reports of human casualties grew from nearly 40 to thousands. With all of its might, the military could not defeat the enemy, who released clouds of black poisonous gas, killing everyone in its path.

Many listeners missed the disclaimer that the program was a fictional dramatization at the program’s start and the three other announcements. Including the following one made at the end of the performance:

Orson Welles

“This is Orson Welles, ladies and gentlemen, out of character to assure you that The War of The Worlds has no further significance than as the holiday offering it was intended to be. The Mercury Theatre’s own radio version of dressing up in a sheet and jumping out of a bush and saying Boo! Starting now, we couldn’t soap all your windows and steal all your garden gates by tomorrow night. . . so we did the best next thing. We annihilated the world before your very ears, and utterly destroyed the C. B. S. You will be relieved, I hope, to learn that we didn’t mean it, and that both institutions are still open for business. So goodbye everybody, and remember the terrible lesson you learned tonight. That grinning, glowing, globular invader of your living room is an inhabitant of the pumpkin patch, and if your doorbell rings and nobody’s there, that was no Martian. . .it’s Hallowe’en.”

The following day a report in the “Shreveport Journal” quoted Orson Welles as saying, “Far from expecting the radio audience to take the program as fact rather than fictional presentation, we feared that the classic H. G. Wells’ story, which has served as inspiration for so many moving pictures, radio serials and even comic strips might appear too old-fashioned for modern consumption. We can only suppose that the special nature of radio, which is often heard in fragments, or in parts disconnected from the whole, has led to this misunderstanding.”

H.G. Wells, the author of the 1898 novel, was still living when the broadcast aired. He was quoted as saying “that it was ‘implicit’ in the agreement for selling the radio rights that any broadcast would clearly ‘be fiction and not news.’” “The novelist added that he gave no permission whatever for alterations which might lead to the belief that the broadcast material was real news.”

When adapting the forty-year-old novel for the radio, Howard Koch changed the primary setting from 19th-century England to the contemporary United States, with the landing point of the first Martian spacecraft changed to rural Grover’s Mill, an unincorporated village in New Jersey. The program’s format was a simulated live newscast of developing events.

Radio stations across the nation were flooded with calls of panicked listeners trying to verify the news they were hearing. Locally, the KWKH radio station and The Shreveport Times reported over 100 phone calls that night from anxious listeners. Reports of the hysterics appeared for days in newspapers across the nation, including one report of attempted suicide to escape a terrible death at the hand of Martians. There were reports of injuries as people began fleeing their homes. Some callers wanted to offer their services to join the fight against the Martian invasion.

What do you want to know about Bossier Parish’s history? Visit, call or email the Bossier Parish Library History Center for help with your research. We are at 2206 Beckett Street, Bossier City, 318-746-7717, history-center@bossierlibrary.org.

By: Amy Robertson