Let’s remember when Orson Welles scared the living crap out of Skagit County (and the rest of the country) with “War of the Worlds,” on this day in 1938 (October 30)
The story of Orson Wells’ reading of H.G. Wells’ “War of the Worlds” being so realistic that, when he read it over the radio, people thought he was seriously reporting an alien invasion, despite disclosures that it’s fiction.
Allen J. Stein of HistoryLink explains:
On October 30, 1938, Orson Welles (1915–1985) and the Mercury Theatre on the Air broadcast a radio dramatization of H. G. Wells’s War of the Worlds on the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) coast-to-coast network. The story of invading Martians is presented realistically, but disclaimers stating that the presentation is entirely fictional are aired four times during the hour-long show. Nevertheless, a nationwide panic ensues that reaches as far as the Pacific Northwest.
The radio play originated live at 8:00 p.m. in New York over station WABC and was fed to CBS affiliates across the nation. The show appeared to be a regular radio program with break-ins from an announcer telling of a meteor that crashed near Princeton, New Jersey, killing 1,500 persons. Following that, listeners were treated to “live reports” of Martians with death rays spreading throughout the countryside, killing every human in their path in what appeared to be the conquest of planet Earth.
Cool. But how does this relate locally?Well, it does.
Even here in the Pacific Northwest, far from ground zero of the Martian invasion, CBS affiliate radio stations KIRO and KVI were flooded with phone calls. Switchboards at The Seattle Times and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer were likewise jammed, as persons throughout the state called the largest news outlets they could find for facts and updates on what they thought was the end of the world. Policemen at practically every stationhouse in the state calmed callers as best they could.
Probably the most terrified listeners were in the town of Concrete, located in Skagit County, 60 miles northeast of Seattle. By sheer coincidence, during the midpoint of the broadcast a power failure plunged almost the entire town of 1,000 into darkness. Some listeners fainted while others grabbed their families to head up into the mountains. Some of the men grabbed their guns, planning to blow away any bug-eyed monster or spaceship that got in their way.
Amazing.
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