This episode is brilliant. You should make a follow up of this episode with current stories of hoax. A lot of viral videos around !

In November1938 I was a fourteen year old 'radio nut' and as 8 o'clock approached I anxiously awaited the broadcast of War of the Worlds. Somehow there was a problem finding the station even though I was sure that I had the radio dial set right. But there was no station break or announcement of what was going to be broadcast. I continued to wait and finally heard some faint whispering which I barely made out to sound like "Are we ready? Yes. Go ahead. We're on." Then a normal broadcast voice announced, "Ladies and gentlemen, instead of the program originally scheduled to be broadcast at this time (what a disappointment I felt) we now take you, 'one year in the future', to ???? ballroom etc.) I thought maybe I won't be disappointed and I wasn't. Does anyone else have this memory?
Thanks for your repeat on PBS on Penn State's wpsu.

I was listening to this episode in rebroadcast tonight and was with you until the mention of the Blair Witch Project. That movie was really a joke. I was at Angelika in NYC and never laughed so hard in my life. I hardly think you can compare BWP with WOTW. The entire theater started to boo and some people even asked for their money back. Why was it so unbelievable? Even city slickers knew that there is no such thing as the wilderness of Maryland, you walk down stream, down hill and follow the power lines and in at worse half a day you are going to hit someone else. Look on a map of that area and you can see it is ringed by roads, rivers and power lines, proving my point. The point being that the idea of martians is more believable.

Including this reference really lowered this program in my opinion.

Just heard program. Great show, but was surprised you didn't mention that it was the WOTW broadcast that forced the periodic "Station Identification" requirements for TV and radio stations. That is Radio 101 in university telecommunication classes!

I am a General Science (pre-med) graduate, a multimedia producer, a creature science fiction fan, and an enormous fan of Radiolab. Subsequent of this episode, I also became a fan of anything that is War of the Worlds. I have downloaded everything I could (that was free) about WOTW, and I have listened to this episode multiple times (often at night) because it resonates with me so greatly.

I have a question for the producers of Radiolab, that might have already been answered in the forum, but it's a lot to scour: How can I get a hold of the original Buffalo, New York broadcast? It is the only one I have not been able to get a hold of and I would really like to hear it.

Also, if Radiolab is looking to hire, I am quite a talented person without a full time job (I know, join the club, right?).

war of the worlds is war of the media. the radio as at tool for mass communication was given to millions of people in order to shape or alter their perception of reality... "they broke in... with live reports and bulletins... constant interruptions... this play stopped sounding like a play..." and life became altered and changed forever... a war for reality, virtually. 7/12/11

it is wonderful to see how a radio show can make me so thrilled and bring me so much enthusiasm for getting to know some of the most uninteresting facts. i suppose this is the magic of you guys: you really mean it.
that's why i think, if you look up at something close enough to get it into it's deeps... then everywhere you look there's a miracle.
thank you very much for teaching me that.
i only regret i got to this podcast just now. i will listen all the episodes! so i must say you did it. the mirage. you actually made it.
:)

As a huge fan of Orson Welles - and new fan of Radiolab - I just had to hear what you had done with this. I am not disappointed! Brilliant! I'm listening to this right now and had to comment. It's inspiring me in my editing studio. Thanks Jad and Robert! Orson would be proud.

On how easy it is to fool some people through broadcasting: My 24-year-old daughter called me one night, having just seen a TV show saying the world would end in 2012. She was scared to death and wanted to know what to do. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I had spend quite a while trying to convince her it wasn't true. I'm still not sure she believes me.

Okay, this is driving me absolutely nuts. I know Zoe Keating was the cellist here, but what, I ask, is the song that starts playing at 26:54. This is driving me nuts! I've heard this before and I cannot figure out where.

Love the show, and this was a truly stellar episode

this is my FAVORITE radiolab, i never knew the pop culture surrounding the radio broadcast at the time and that it had been done in other countries. great job, guys!

peter... *insert insults that are not allowed here*

sean is right its a great piece of music and I was aswell disapointed to see that they handelled it like that

This is one of my top 5 episodes! I absolutely love it!

Sean,

You are a friggin' whiner. Shut the hell up!

The Lead character was news paperman. He was a narrator and observer.1978 Richard Burton was the Narrator. it was a musical with Burtons Welsh tones to hold our attention

Tragically the same experiment was again repeated in September 2001 - where 3800 or so individuals were deliberately sacrificed to promote and artificially incorrect story - on the reality of actual events. Do internet searches on
"nanothermite" for more correct truth.

i love radiolab.

however, i must take issue with this episode. or, more to the point, one single statement.

'thats the DISCO version of WAR OF THE WORLDS'

in reference to JEFF WAYNE'S MUSICAL VERSION OF WAR OF THE WORLDS

shame on you!

to dismiss this work in such a snotty way.

i suggest you (and your listeners) give this work another (or first) listen...i think youll be surprised.

this is probably the best adaptation of WAR OF THE WORLDS ever done...

at once, the most faithful, and most original.

if you havent heard it. get it! turn out the lights. relax. and let the story. the music. the voice of SIR RICHARD BURTON take you away....

'the disco version of war of the worlds' shame on you.

Please come and do a live show in L.A. I love you guys!

Hey great show, changed my life and all, but...Robert told us there was no reporter guy in the HG Wells book and that the OW version came to include this.. but...

There WAS a reporter character in the HG Wells novel. He was 'the Journalist.' And it was from this character that the book was written in.

Also, the original War Of The Worlds was not a novel, but a series of short stories, written like a news flash opver a period of a months in I believe, (although I may be wrong), the London Evening Standard a few years before the novel was published in 1898.

This is, I believe where OW got the idea for a radio play in flash sequences.

Anyway, You guys rule. What you do is simply amazing.

I discovered Radiolab on my local NPR channel WBEZ Chicago about one month ago. Great stuff! I was so impressed with your shows that I donated money to WNYC!
Keep up the good work!
:)

this is okay

Hey was this episode faked... a la War of the Worlds?
some of the live audience sounds sounded... canned...

Wonderful, and truly fascinating!

I love you guys! Keep 'em coming

Thanks for marking the rebroadcasts in the title!

yay for the new season! but ... why are seasons only 5 episodes? :-( And... I have ideas for your show. Things pop up and I think, "Radiolab should totally do a show about that!" How do I send you the ideas?

Hmmmm, it actually looks like none of the season 4 episodes are available in the podcast. Is that on purpose?

Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you!!! Ever since iTunes got corrupted and I had to resubscribe to the podcast I've been missing this show. For some reason it doesn't appear as an available back issue for download. Not sure why, since that's how I got it the first time, and I was able to get most of the other episodes, but this one I could never get back.

Thanks again. I love this episode.

Do you folk really think Orson Welles deliberately tried to cause panic? FDR's comment to the effect that all the intelligent people were listening to Bergen & McCarthy hits home again. Except that probably the really educated, intelligent people were regular Orson Welles listeners and knew better - it's the un-with-it folk that started twisting dials in the middle of something and then didn't have sense enough to check elsewhere, that fell "victim". From everything I've read, the amount of "panic" has historically been VERY over-estimated. So THEN who were the manipulators and fear-mongers? Right again - the 'news' media who built it all out of proportion, creating one of the greatest 'urban myths' of all time. Right up there on the list with 'The Jazz Singer' being the first sound movie. It wasn't even Jolson's first sound film! I'm not sure whether your excellent program helped overcome the WOTW myth or spur it on. But well done! Lee Munsick

Hey Radiolab, I want to comment on what a terrific show the "War of the Worlds" episode was.
I've been an Orson Wells fan for a long time, and was quite familiar with the War of the Worlds radio show. It was nice to hear a new take on an old subject.
Usually, the WOTW phenomenon is regarded as: a hoax, example of mass-hysteria, people-were-so-stupid-back-then, the power of media to deceive, etc..
However, I have never heard anyone put the story in a broader context, particularly, that radio shows were being interrupted by news about World War 2 (which had essentially just started in Europe.)
I find it telling that many people who panicked thought that the Germans had attacked!
As Kyle K mentioned above, the Aqua Teen Hunger Force panic that happened in Boston is a great example of how a mass panic can happen in our day and age. (Ironically, the ATHF panic also involved an alien invasion!) Despite all of the changes in society, and advanced technology and media, it shows we can still fall victim to mass hysteria and panic. Maybe the people in 1938 weren't as simple or naive as we think, and maybe we're not as smart and advanced as we think we are.
This Radiolab episode examines a well-known and familiar topic and shows us how it can be relevant to us today. Excellent show!

I have always found your show to be consistently enlightening, and even mind blowing, but never offensive... until now. I was shocked to hear you describe Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds as disco! I have listened to this work dozens of times and never felt the urge to dance.
So, just to put you in your place with authority, I looked up the album on Amazon. What the $#%^! It's not only disco, but it's currently ranked number 21 on Amazon's disco chart. Not bad for a 30-year old album. That was on April 2nd. Today (April 4th) it has settled to #51. I suspect that your recent mention gave it a boost.
OK, I learned something. However, I encourage you to enjoy this masterpiece of music and give it the credit it deserves.

I too had the cut off at the end of the podcast, and had to come on here to see if it was intentional.... trust me it had the right effect, i was just about to get in to bed while listening and then silence....and i freaked out....anyway, best regards from the UK, this is awesome stuff, keep it going, it keeps my mostly lazy student brain now quite active

thank you again for another great episode.
I had wondered about how people could be so ignorant, but you really helped put it in context and I see that I could easily have bought into it

Since this was your first live show, I'm curious if you have more photographs of the performance to share.

Very, very clever. Thanks for much for the "tell" after the one break, it's just the confirmation I needed. Very, very well done.

Excellent show as always. I'm a stagehand as a profession and it would be an honor to work on a live radiolab, definitely do more of them!

I first encountered War of the Worlds in full in a highschool theatre class but the connection is deeper. There really is something to the innate human propensity for becoming emotionally ensnared in the narrative despite all the evidence that it might be a fiction/fabrication. If this weren't true, live theatre (among countless other formats) simply would not work! (Which includes your live production of this show)! ;-)

FYI mp3 version here and no end-cutting glitch.

folks-aw. if only we were so clever to have the podcast cut out... we didn't think of that, but it would have been cool if we had. we've dowlnoaded the podcast on a few computers here and don't seem to be getting any files chopping off, so you may both be experiencing a flukey glitch. if you try downloading the mp3 or resubscribing to the podcast, it may fix the problem. let us know!

Like Frank Patrick, I also was listening to the podcast that cuts off to dead silence right when Jad says "Everything you hear on RadioLab is..." I wondered if this was indeed planned since it would make all to much sense... but noticed I still had 40 seconds left to the podcast on my ipod. Perhaps this was just a glitch? perhaps it was intended, either way it was a great way to end the program. I did however just listen to the last minute on the blog and noticed is does continue past where it cut off on my ipod. Maybe there are microscopic aliens messing with us from the far off planet of Apple. Great show!

Listened to WOTW podcast on last night's commute home. You got me so paranoid about radio hoaxes that I became absolutely convinced that the Quito and Buffalo stories were themselves hoaxes that RadioLab had concocted to prove we are all still subject to being fooled. Then, the podcast ends with a premature silence in the middle of Jad saying something to the effect that "Everything you hear on RadioLab is...SILENCE"

That was it. I was absolutely convinced of my premise...

...until I did a search on ["war of the worlds" quito].

I guess I was right. You did get me...in a roundabout way.

Great show.

I'm glad you discussed how the "War of the Worlds" formula has become the norm for news broadcasts. Still, you could have looked beyond trivial examples like the snake in the toilet.

False news stories have ignited wars. Why not discuss the Maine Incident (Wells refers to it in "Citizen Kane"), the Gulf of Tonkin, or the Reichstag fire?

Great episode, but it's a shame that you stopped short of examining how fear-mongering has continued to evolve to much greater levels. i.e. global warming, bird flu, Y2K, AIDS, etc...

The blueprint Wells provided has served not only the media, but the government itself. The same fear that keeps people tuned in until after the break, keeps other people voting in politicians who promise to protect them.

A great show, almost as good in podcast as it was live. Only thing I really missed was seeing Tom Keith.

Great Show!

I'm not sure if you guys did this on purpose, but cutting it off at the end was a nice touch. Made me wonder just a little....

Thanks for the free podcasts!

A wonderful show (as always), made that much better by the music of Zoe Keating.

I was very excited to hear her in the show. I may be wrong, but that's not the first time RadioLab has used Zoe's music, is it?

Good work, folks!

Jad and Robert: Another great show.

A tangentially related story: "War of the Worlds" meets "Woodstock". Back in the early 1990's, a Maryland radio station, WGRX, held a make believe three day free concert "on a farm somewhere in the Hagerstown area". They called it "Livestock". Despite repeated announcements that it was a fake, and performances by dead musicians, hordes of the station's listeners made a bee line for western Maryland, causing traffic jams and a little havoc for the Maryland State Police.

Loved the conclusion you came to at the end of this episode. Great way to tie media from the past to the present. Any chance of a live show in Chicago?!

I've been listening to RadioLab for something like a year now, and Kudos on one of the best shows yet. Loved the ending.

Just finished listening to "War of the Worlds" and I have to say that going in, I was skeptical that there was anything new to say about it. Once again, y'all managed in the last 10 minutes or so to elevate the subject to a totally unexpected level. I thought the segment of "fear blurbs" was dead on insight into how the tricks that Welles developed to critique media have been co-opted to further manipulate. Perhaps Welles himself was under the naive opinion that we would only be fooled once. Great work as always, gang. We need more than 5 shows a season!

I really loved this episode. Thanks!

I was lucky enough to be there at the Fitz for the taping of this show. It's great that the show works even without all the enhancements we got (visuals, extra music). I hope you do more live shows; it was fascinating. I only have one complaint: you cut out my boyfriend's line read! I suppose I can forgive you.

Love the show. I thought I had heard all about this a billion times, but I had no idea that they did it more than once. You also did a great job making me understand how people could actually fall for this. WELL DONE! Can't wait for the next show.