The Psychological Warfare Of The Worlds
Tonight, once the episode is posted, we’re heading out to view a re-creation of the classic Orson Welles radio production of The War Of The Worlds, and I’m quite excited. I also find it interesting that, due to the panic caused by the original, conspiracy theories still abound regarding the broadcast.
In the 1999 documentary, Masters of the Universe: The Secret Birth of the Federal Reserve, writer Daniel Hopsicker claims the Rockefeller Foundation funded the broadcast, studied the panic, and compiled a report available to a few. – wikipedia
While I’d never heard that particular angle, I do recall reading this second theory in my youth.
There has been continued speculation the panic generated by War of the Worlds inspired officials to cover up unidentified flying object evidence, avoiding a similar panic. U.S. Air Force Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, the first head of UFO investigatory Project Blue Book wrote, “The [U.S. government’s] UFO files are full of references to the near mass panic of October 30, 1938, when Orson Welles presented his now famous The War of the Worlds broadcast.” – wikipedia
Of course the Government’s “UFO” files are full of references to the broadcast: this would be something like an investigation of 1950s family structure turning up mentions of Beaver Cleaver – it doesn’t make Martians, or the Beav, any more real.
Unfortunately, not every legacy of the episode was a positive one.
In February 1949, Leonardo Paez and Eduardo Alcaraz produced a Spanish-language version of Welles’s 1938 script for Radio Quito in Quito, Ecuador. The broadcast set off panic in the city. Police and fire brigades rushed out of town to engage the supposed alien invasion force. After it was revealed that the broadcast was fiction, the panic transformed into a riot and hundreds attacked Radio Quito and El Comercio, the local newspaper. In the days preceding the broadcast, El Comercio had participated in the hoax by publishing false reports of unidentified objects in the skies above Ecuador. The riot resulted in six (or more) deaths, including those of Paez’s girlfriend and nephew. Paez moved to Venezuela after the incident. – wikipedia
Clarifying and putting the Ruppelt comments in context, the references to the broadcast are not there as evidence of a coverup or 1938 conspiracy theory, but they are used as part of the underlying theory that the confirmation of the existance of UFO’s would create mass panic and undermine society. If you believe in the gov’t coverup theory, one of the reasons for withholding alien info is that it would destablize organized religion, cast extreme doubt on the reliability of gov’t and casuse general unrest and violence. The broadcast is constantly referenced as evidence but there has never been any link shown between the broadcast and anything having to do with real UFO’s or gov’t coverups. It has been speculated that Welles did it as a test to see how the public would react but those are more or less baseless.
I should have known you’d have something interesting to say on the topic, a post regarding conspiracies, & the WotW, could only be more up your alley if it was somehow implied Superman was involved.
It’s an interesting idea to consider the broadcast as an experimental run for actual alien introduction – although you’d think they might want to start with a little friendlier test-case.
It would probably be fairly easy to continue that trail of public opinion testing by following aliens in pop culture through their iterations: WotW to, say, The Day The Earth Stood Still, and leading on towards The X-Files.
That would be interesting but I find the mere existence of those films more significant.
I already have a theory about the acceptance of aliens that is pretty much the opposite of what the gov’t fears and frankly it is quite obvious.
Regardless of it came about organically or through some plan, (I suspect simply organically) I think society is more than prepared for aliens. The “Communion” type grey alien is firmly entrenched in pop culture. Ask anyone worldwide to describe an alien and that is far and away what you get. Children play with alien toys and watch cartoons about creatures from other worlds. Teenagers wear clothes with aliens on them and serious gamers get Alienware computers with the alien logo. Adults write novels that star aliens. Society and culture is full of space and alien imagery. Not just in humorous ways or only in sci-fi, but they are a serious part of the zeitgeist. Spend a day and just keep track of how many toys you see, shows you come across, stories you read, t-shirts people wear, and expressions people use. I have no theory about why it happened this way, but if aliens were to arrive today and announce their presence they would fit almost seamlessly in a slot that is already waiting for them in our life.
You can say the same thing for vampires or elves, which is why that theory is not at all dependent on the reality of aliens and I suspect no nefarious scheme involved. The theory will still stand even if it is conclusively proven that there is no life beyond Earth. The slot is still open.
Sorry to ramble on. I tried to be brief, if you can believe it. You should have seen what I cut.
Hmm, interesting point. Do you think ‘the slot’ is a modern equivalent to the same sort of longing for something spiritual? Something beyond ourselves that we can look to greater meaning for?
Are we just a little lonely?
It’s also worth noting, I think, that even when space travel was still in the realm of Vampires and Elves, we were imagining distant planets – Carter of Mars comes to mind. My memory on his transition is poor, but didn’t he essentially magically wish himself onto the red planet?
He was a Civil War soldier. Out West he got into a fracas with some Indians and hid in a cave. Strange gas overtook him and when he awoke he was out of his body and in some astral way arrived on Barsoom- Mars. At the end of the first book he ended up back home on Earth but he was able to go back to Mars in some sort of undefined “magical wish” kind of way.
I can’t say if it is spiritual or not- I find myself too literal and scientific to properly discuss the spiritual side of things. I always come back to Taylor’s great line near the beginning of Planet of The Apes. “I’m a seeker too. But my dreams aren’t like yours. I can’t help thinking that somewhere in the universe there has to be something better than man. Has to be.”
Right! Just that much of a taste has me tempted to dig those books back up. Fantastic, except for the occasional problem related to the attitudes of the time.
Great line from Planet of the Apes as well. I’d say it makes a fairly decent summary of both science and spirituality since the ’70s or so.
(Er, I too fall on the side of science.)
Succinctly put, no mass panic, no anarchy. Religion will have some ‘splaining to do, as Ricky Ricardo said, but believers will always believe.