Editor’s Note: This is an update of earlier versions of this story. Marking the 85th anniversary of the historic broadcast, 97.9 WHAV airs the original “Mercury Theater on the Air” presentation of the “War of the Worlds,” Monday, Oct. 30, with an encore three hours later at 1 a.m.
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The supposed Martian invasion of Earth and its aftermath 83 years ago this week didn’t seem to faze Greater Haverhill residents.
In fact, most locals didn’t even know about the “death rays” that destroyed metropolitan New York the night before. That is, until they picked up their newspapers Monday, Oct. 31, 1938—Halloween. The 14-page daily Haverhill Gazette’s lead headline that day screamed “U.S. Investigates—Wells in Blast at Radio Stunt.”
“Thousands of terror-stricken radio listeners throughout the country fled from their homes last night when they tuned in on a series of synthetic news broadcasts which depicted the beginning of an interplanetary war,” read the first paragraph. The newspaper used national wire copy—or teletype—simply because there were no local reports of widespread panic, heart attacks and attempted suicides as other cities had reported.
The Wells who was blasting, according to the story, was H.G. Wells, author of the original 1898 “War of the Worlds” novel. He claimed Orson Welles didn’t have permission to use the author’s book in that way.
An inside continuation of the article used the headline, “Radio Account of Martian Invasion Terrifies U.S.” across all...
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