I remember watching a tv movie about the radio play panic. There was a great line that somebody said to that farmer, something like, "I've never seen anything so damn dumb." It was pretty bold dialogue for the 1980s, lol.
@@kimberlywebster6057 America in 1938 - no Internet, tv was but an infant, not everyone in rural villages had telephones and if they did they had to share a line (party line). The radio was the primary source of news and entertainment and , in this case, They decided to mix the two together which was a very bad idea. And let’s not forget the overall fear of ufo’s during that time that escalated well up into and throughout the 1960’s. And let’s not forget what was going on in the rest of the world (including Europe) at that time. There’s a global reason this broadcast was so effective.
@@MichaelPoage666 the bold line was in the 1980’s and yes it was bold at that time. But this broadcast was 1938. Think about what was going on in the world (including Europe) at that time and this fear isn’t quite so dumb after all.
Everything about this story screams confirmation bias that it's simply unbelievable. Anyone with any gun training would know a shotgun isn't going to be effective at that range.
My mom was 8 when “War of the Worlds” was broadcast. She, her two elder siblings and her mom scrambled down to the dirt cellar under their home. It took my grandfather coming home and finding them there, to reassure everyone it was just ‘pretend’. Needless to say, no one was amused!
Heck, I remember people being convinced that The Blair Witch Project was real. One of my sister's friends couldn't even bring herself to drive home alone when they saw it the first Friday of its release because she was that scared by it.
Lmao I was 9 when I watched in on TV one night back in '99/00, and since it has just recently been out everyone had been talking about it, I remember news about people that were fainting or just having terrible reactions in theaters lol, there was a lot of debate if it was real or not because people were still pretty superstitious at the time, plus ofc the documentary style of the film. Some people (or could've been kids in my class) were saying the people were gone for real.. But yeah after seeing the movie I had nightmares for months and I'd be terrrrrified of the dark lmao
Still have to say it's one of my favorites though 👌 and the scary movie (of the scary movie franchise) that makes fun of it with the runny nose scene is also 👌 lol
@@sunna8476 I also remember the Sci-fi channel airing a "documentary" about the missing teens and the discovery of the cameras to add to the realness of it.
To be fair, choosing to do radio plays that have “urgent warnings delivered by radio” in the script probably aren’t the best choices for radio plays in a time period where radios were heavily used to get accurate news reports. I feel like current times have proven we’re still very capable of this sort of hysteria. It took one news report on one supermarket having its toilet paper bought up during the early phase of covid for the entirety of Australia to go into a panic about buying it, causing a shortage that wouldn’t have happened if people had continued to shop like normal. The media has a scary amount of power over people and their behaviour.
It also severely damages the effectiveness of real warnings. People are supposed to trust these alerts and react swiftly to them, not to have to think twice whether they are part of a play. Unfortunately, things like this are still common. An everyday example from the UK are info boards at underground stations. These are supposed to show vitally important information, but are sometimes used for stupid jokes.
Well kids playing D and D were consorting with the devil. That and magic the gathering. Im old enought to remember those panics. Not as big but made news and freeked people out
Plus people back then didn’t have the world literally at their fingertips. They wouldn’t be able to whip out their phones and log on to the Internet to search up if something was real. They’d have to wait until the radio hosts were updated on the chaos they were causing and assured them all it was a hoax, or wait until newspapers came out the next day
Apparently in the 2010's, the discovery channel aired a fictional documentary about mermaids that some people thought was real. Something about them being on the verge of extinction, accompanied by a fake cellphone video of two boys finding one on a beach. No mass panic, though, just some sadness and disappointment.
I think I remember either Discovery or maybe National Geographic had a faux-documentary about a 'real' dragon corpse, recently discovered. It was actually fairly convincing, as I recall, except for the whole 'dragons are real!' bit.
The War of the Worlds panic is very much the stuff of legends. There were a handful of people that panicked but the press media hyped it up as much as possible because radio was a huge threat to them in that it could get out news to the public within minutes rather than taking most of the day.
I mean I’m happy that this video pointed out that the stories were overblown with most of the minority of people tricked just called the studio to ask what was going on.
I am really shocked that they fell for this. Its easily disprovable. with a 10 minute google search. The warnings were dispersed through the program. Granted, it wasn't until 2010 that people began to REALLY look into it. But Snopes, PBS, and national Geographic have all run articles on it.
Orson Wells also played a part in perpetuating the myth of the reaction. However he did it ever so subtlety and matter of fact that one could say it was an extension of the show.
The 1938 "War of the Worlds" was so effective because it used the latest broadcast news techniques, including throwing to reporters stationed in the field. In 1968, Buffalo, NY radio station WKBW did an updated version of "War of the Worlds", set in the Buffalo area. Despite an extensive advertising campaign for several weeks ahead of time, and fully advising authorities, the broadcast still caused some panic in the area, because it used the latest broadcast news techniques, and used real WKBW newsmen, who played themselves. Crowds of people rushed to Grand Island (the site of the landing), and the Canadian military dispatched troops to the border, to quell any invaders, human or otherwise.
Awesome! Surprised Ghostwatch didn't find its way in here though, it was a big deal when it was broadcast at Halloween in 1992. The warning about it being fictional on the continuity announcement before it parallels the War of the Worlds incident.
To be fair, television do have an option, radio doesnt - they could have a small banner or something on screen through it all, that it was fictional. I can understand, why the "War of the Worlds" debacle wasnt anticipated, nothing like it had ever happened b4. Anything after that was a combination of lack of imagination (kinda paradoxical considering the sort of fiction) and just plain negligence.
I work in local news radio and TV. One year, when I was just starting out, the station I worked for did an april fools prank. I'm personally opposed to them on general principle. They recorded a news segment at our local - very much landlocked - swimming lake, saying some dolphins had been spotted there. We got a guy to 'interview' as a marine biologist and spliced in some stock footage of dolphins. Now, anybody with more than two brain cells could clearly tell it was a prank. And yet, we had people showing up with binoculars and asking for more details about the dolphin sightings... I'm saying... basically there's no way to 'idiot proof' broadcasts like this. Because there are a LOT of idiots out there who'll think it's real.
OMG, that's such a good innocuous one!!! I mean, we're so conditioned to trust our news sources. Not so much today, but I'm GenX and grew up in the 70s and 80s. I'd be one of those ding dongs thinking, "My god...did someone somehow transport dolphins to the lake? They're saltwater creatures--they're going to die!!" lol...before my brain kicked in. And I always forget to check if it's April Fools!
@@nicoleofnowhere8842 Well that's precisely why I'm opposed to doing them on air. I've never done one as a newsreader and don't intend to. People have a hard enough time believing the actual news these days without us adding actual fake news in the mix :D
Reminds me of a joke a radio station did where I lived in Western CT for April Fools. They stated the power company had sold a large lake in the area (Candlewood for those from CT) to the company that built the Danbury Fair Mall and that the lake would be drained and the largest mall in the world would be built. That joke did not end well, Especially among those with expensive lakeside property.
In Seattle 1989 a tv program called Almost Live (a local snl type show) ran an April Fool's joke telling everyone that the space needle had in fact collapsed. They used some of their actors to portray shocked witnesses to the act. There was a disclaimer at the beginning of the show but who very few people actually read it. They had so many 911 calls come in they had to shut the 911 line down. They managed to piss off the cops and the city over it. It's funny to watch after the fact but at the time, people weren't laughing.
@@rahnesong I loved "Almost Live"! I don't remember that one, though. I totally believe they got in trouble. This is why you don't see this kind of stuff anymore.
Fascinating Horror would do a great job of reviewing accidents related to inflatable bouncy castles. It's a tragic topic but one that could do with greater attention. 🏰
what you said about trusting a "voice of authority" is so true. For example - I believe almost everything YOU say, Fascinating Horror! If one day you randomly did some very poor research or even wrote up a piece of fiction i'm certain i wouldn't realize at first glance.
reminds me of his april fool's day joke from last year where he recited the plot of jaws like it was one of his ordinary videos. since i watched it a week or two after the fact (and thus wasn't in the mindset that it was probably a joke), it took him mentioning something i specifically remembered from the movie a few minutes in for me to go "hey, this is just jaws." i bet if i remembered less about the movie i probably would've bought it, at least until the video was over and i saw the comments.
@@rogerrendzak8055 I've seen jaws and it took me a moment! I thought that perhaps the original story was based on true events that were being covered until I realized, no, it's just jaws
The music you play in the intro and outro always helps create such vivid imagery to every story that you cover! It always fits so well, please never change it
My mom was a teenager in western New York when War of the Worlds was broadcast. While her cousins were panicking, she suggested tuning in to other radio stations. Surely everyone would be broadcasting this disaster. Fortunately they took her sensible suggestion and calmed down.
Remember when someone accidently turned on the invasion alarm and mass text alerts in Hawaii and everyone started taking shelter? Happened a couple years ago.
The war of the worlds incident has always been so fascinating to me. And with the rise of analog horror as a genre, It feels so surreal to imagine all these people getting so enveloped into a radio play thinking it was real.
I still remember listening to War of the Worlds vinyl LP when I was aged around 9 (1982), and was absolutely terrified. I now still own the record, and still at times feel that fear I experienced as a young boy back then.
Jeff Wayne's war of the world's is a classic. Coronation Street had a story where a character with mental health problems was obsessed with it and believed it was a prophecy or something. The live show is OK but not the best. It's great having the music live but sadly the visual element is lacking.
@@incredibleflameboy The talent in the original release, beats the talent in the live show, and the new live show. Especially the Curate. Nobody did him better than the original.
i first learned of the orson welles war of the worlds broadcast in the third grade, and my teacher made us read the book. at the time, i thought the entire story was boring, and that the people who believed it were simply stupid. of course, now with the proper context, i can definitely see why it was so real to the listeners. thanks for covering this!
Yeah, the modern day equivalent would be everyone's phones, news apps, and social media pages simultaneously displaying something like "bomb (or massive meteor) headed to earth, take cover, but expect to die". CBS was your go to news back then, till the paper came out the next day. There where barely 2 options, let alone the dozens we can quickly check these days.
Additional context: this was shortly after the Munich crisis, and many Americans expected N*zi Germany to invade other nations (possibly the US) at any time. (And less than a year after, that's exactly what happened!) So it's speculated that some of the panic may have been people assuming unknown German weapons were being mistaken for alien technology. Somebody from far away, invading? Sounded awfully familiar in the fall of '38. Maybe people didn't ALL believe it was Martians. But that didn't really make it less scary. I've listened to the broadcast several times, and a lot of the second half is the nuts and bolts of individual characters' encounters with huge, weird machines that destroy National Guardsmen. Anyone tuning in late could have heard that and imagined tanks, not tripods.
During the 60's and 70's, I got trauma from listening to the radio as a child. The drama was so realistic that nobody was there to tell you that it was all not true. The end of the world makes you think differently, feel differently, and the music that you heard will keep on repeating through your mind at every minute of the day. I would look at the sky with dear, and the moon looks like a symbol of death.
@@jorgemoro5476 Imagine being a child, a normal child who may struggle to identify fact from fantasy, and hearing on the radio that aliens are invading and you're going to die? As an adult it's easy to look back on these things and think 'how would someone ever believe this?' But we forget what it feels like to be a child.
When I was a kid someone told me the world was going to end (in like 3 days or something). I was all freaked out, acting weird, and when I finally asked my mom she was like "ohhh, no, that's not true" and she explained rumors to me. Kids don't know what to expect. (I also got mortified by the Airplane comedy movie, I thought the roof was going to rip off a plane (my dad flew for sometimes). My mom said I held his pants to keep him home from the airport and when he left I balled my eyes out saying "that's the last time we'll ever see dad!" If you've ever seen the movie it's clearly a silly comedy, but I really believed it.
I think for me personally, the scariest broadcast panic was in January 13, 2018 when a ballistic missile alert was accidentally issued in Hawaii through TV, radio, and cellphone alerts. This came at a time when tensions were high with North Korea over building nuclear weapons, and made this much more convincing. After confirming that the alert was false, the public responded in way that was similar to that letter you read in Before The Sun Goes Down. They thought it was the end of the world, and were saying they're final goodbyes to friends and family.
I'm sure this will get buried but it's a true story that happened to me. I was 6 years old. My dad sat me down in front of the LP player (bearing in mind I'm mid-thirties so this would have been in the early 1990's) and put on war of the world's. No word that it was a recording, a previous radio broadcast or was a work of science fiction. And what happened? I absolutely shit myself from fear that Earth was being invaded by aliens. There was no initial warning it was not a recording on the LP. Almost as Welles intended.
Halloween, I'm 7, and my father shakes me awake at midnight to come listen to this on the radio. He acted like it was real up to the heat rays. I was absolutely terrified. Then he told me the story of the panic. Nothing like a good ol' fashion gaslighting from a parent.
@@JohnDoeRando The book was written by H.G. Wells, and the dramatization featured Orson Welles, so you could also have phrased it as "All's Wells that ends Welles." 😁😉
I fell for something like that when I was a kid as well. It was at new years evening 2000. Long before that, everyone kept talking about the Y2K problem and what catastrophic events could follow that event. And there it was, new year has started, my family and I had a good time with friends and family and.. well.. the tv was running. What I did not know until then was, that we had some "parody news shows" here in Germany back then, and the tv was showing one of them at exactly 0:00 am. Everyone went outsite, I was on my way outsite as well, but then I saw a news broadcast on tv that got my attention as I walked by. There was seemingly a news reporter on the screen, with fire in the background, talking about planes falling from the sky and the imminent threat of nuclear desaster because some nuclear power plants in the EU are out of control. I did not worry about Y2K until I saw that broadcast. That's when I paniced because it looked like a legit news broadcast.. like all the others seen from that tv station. Took me like 20 minutes to realise that this was all a joke. 20 minutes during which I thought I might die soon. I did not take it too bad though. After this I watched that show every weekend, because I thought the show was funny. But the way this show introduced itself to me.. man.. they got me really good :D
Oh wow! I'm half "that must have been terrifying!" and half "that's freaking hilarious!!!" Did you ever contact the show and tell them they'd got you? Do you remember the name of the show, I'd like to see if I can find that footage on RUclips. Glad you took it well.
Oh wow, the Y2K thing. I was gathered with a small group of friends and a large group of alcohol bottles that night, and my only friend that took Y2K seriously was the host. She made some overly-dramatic goodbye speech to her young daughter when the child's grandparents picked her up, said something TO HER YOUNG DAUGHTER about the world ending, and sent her off. When midnight finally came and absolutely nothing unusual happened, she went outside and started laughing her drunk ass off. I really dodged a bullet when she and I didn't get together.
I live in the US and knew Australia was about 12 hours ahead of us, so when US news reports showed everything was fine in those earlier time zones, I knew there was nothing to worry about.
When I first got to Quito, Ecuador in 1993, on my last year of high school, some kids told me about “The War of the Worlds” being broadcast on the radio there in the early 1940s. The broadcast resulted in the lynching of several people from the radio when people realized it wasn’t real but a radio play. Many years later, probably about 15-20, I researched on the internet and realized that what they had told me had actually happened. That radio station was one and a half blocks from my house and I had been inside it when I did a paper on it in college!
My step grandfather was the man who read it on air. He suffered burns on over half his body. He went back in to save people, and angry protesters even tried to throw him back into the fire. His name was Luis Beltran.
Thank you! I’m Australian. “Alternative 3” was shown here. To add to its realism, I’m fairly sure it was shown on ABC, our government backed channel(which was a lot more reliable back then). If it’s the broadcast I’m thinking of, it was only as the credits rolled that a disclaimer came up on screen, stating it was a hoax and warning of unquestioning trust in the media. I’ve never been able to find anyone else who saw it, nor have I found it on line, and of course didn’t know the title. I was fifteen and watched it with my parents, who were both usually very cynical. We all believed it wholeheartedly. So thank you, Fascinating for verifying a long ago memory. As for War of the Worlds, I will trust your version of events, as I’ve seen n read differing accounts of how seriously the production was regarded. That letter to Parliament was very indicative of the distress felt. In fifty years, I wonder if Fascinating’s grandchild will publish some of our internet scandals, fears, and conspiracies on what ever medium we have by then?
My father used to say, "Believe nothing you hear, and only half of what you see." Having said that, I walked in on a BBC show some years ago that looked like a documentary of an anthrax outbreak in London. Afterwards I was angry that this happened and no one told me. I later realised that it was, in fact, an expertly crafted drama.
Taken from Wikipedia: . A Spanish-language version produced in February 1949 by Leonardo Paez and Eduardo Alcaraz for Radio Quito in Quito, Ecuador, reportedly 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. Hundreds attacked Radio Quito and El Comercio, a local newspaper owner of the radio station that had participated in the hoax by publishing false reports of unidentified objects in the skies above Ecuador in the days preceding the broadcast. The riot resulted in at least seven deaths, including those of Paez's girlfriend and nephew. Radio Quito was off the air for two years, until 1951. After the incident, Paez self-exiled to Venezuela, where he lived in the city of Mérida until his death in 1991.
My step grandfather was the man who read this! He suffered burns to over half of his body and people tried to throw him back into the fire. He went back in to save others as well. His name was Luis Beltran. He was a legend.
@@colombianguy8194 I question why they thought it would be a good idea to produce the broadcast 11 years after the mass panic in ‘38. I’m torn because the literature nerd in me loves seeing stories translated and adapted for more people to enjoy, at the same time I feel like a different medium could have been used.
@@temporalbutterfly9186 Well comunication wasn't the greatest back then, maybe they knew about the panic that would happen but since they didn't see it personally they thought it wouldnt be that bad
I wondered if “Ghostwatch” would be included since that was a TV broadcast which caused panic due to people believing it was true and not a fictional show.
There's a movie called "Countdown to Looking Glass" that played on the movie channel when cable was new to my area, right at a touchy time in the late Cold War. It's mostly done in a news-anchor style, and boy, was I confused to turn on the movie channel and see what looked like an emergency broadcast about an impending nuclear exchange ... for a few brief moments, that movie had me fooled (but there was nothing on the broadcast or cable news networks about it.)
I love this. So fascinating. Another one that stuck with me is Ghostwatch, aired on BBC1 in 1992, where a bunch of well-known broadcasters/presenters go to a 'live' viewing of a haunted house and real evidence is found. I've watched it, albeit knowing it was fake, and it was very creepy. It's never been repeated on BBC because it caused such a fuss!
Ghostwatch was amazing! It's one of my favourite found footage/mockumentary type horror movies. I can see that being terrifying to watch as it was airing, especially without being able to do a quick Google search to find out whether it's real or not.
Ghostwatch wad especially scary because it ended with the BBC presenter ( Michael Parkinson) apparently becoming possessed. Lurching zombie-like around the studio, shouting "Aaaaaaarrrrrrgggghhhhh! Your mother ducks rocks in Hell!" (or something like that).
I remember living in San Diego in the 90s. And there was the emergency shuttle landing hoax. My family actually drove past the airport. People were everywhere. With lawn chairs waiting
This channel has never failed to deliver on their promise of telling us some really *Fascinating Horror* stories!! I really hope they cover the *Khodynka Tragedy* one day-I think it’s a perfect story for FH!💖
If peoples tik tok or IG, Facebook feeds were interrupted that’s where the melt down would occur, not from an invasion from the sky. People are so numb to reality and care so little about it that we know have a metaverse! These same people would only worry about if their wifi would continue to operate while the aliens ate their loved ones alive!
A flip to these stories, my Dad was driving across America on holiday on 11th September. He turned on the radio and he and his girlfriend for a while, thought there were listening to a radio play...............
It was perfect timing by Orson, rising tensions pre WW2, just a few years after the great depression, the hay day of Radio before Television and CBS was the most listened to station by far, it was just a large nervous audience ripe for an event to go down in history.
There was one time, somewhere in mid 2000, when a similar hoax that looked like a real newsreel on TV told people of Belgium that Belgium ceased to exist because it was politically split up in two. Phones calls flooded all important institutions.
Excellent video as always. I know it wasn't quite the same, but I loved the April Fool's day episode on the Italian Spaghetti harvest on Panorama. Panic buying of spaghetti sauce was probably the worst that that created, but shows the power of the media, if the subject is, at the time, so little known about, or the gullibility of a certain type of person. Makes me think of flat earthers..lol.
Over reaction and sensationalism its a product of our time, covering this pandemic will be an interesting one for the future, we have so many lessons still to learn.
I remember Alternative 3 very well - it was superbly executed, used the ad breaks well and closed with a 'reveal' that a decade earlier the US had film life on Mars. Then the credits rolled, me and my brother went 'uh-oh ans then he spotted the date. Sobering observation: one of the 1938 newspapers, leading on the WotW panic had a smaller story next to it about displaced Jews from Germany seeking refuge in Poland... There's special edition of Citizen Kane on DVD that includes the entire play and you can hear how people may have been sucked in.
I love how y'all say the letter H. May those differences between us always exist for they enrich the experience of being alive far more than the manufactured attempts at doing so that seem forced upon us at all times. I love your videos!
In the early '10s I discovered a local radio station that would broadcast such plays all night. There was really cool stuff and the best ones were mostly those that sounded like they would be actually happening.
Remember Ghostwatch on the BBC in the early 90's? I was a small kid, but when Pipes started acting up I got the phone and spent ages trying to get through on that fake number they put up on screen.
When child star Shirley Temple was asked about the broadcast, she said that she knew it was a show because if it had been a real event the station would not have been running ads during it. Clever girl.
While these shows had a dramatic impact in their day, the power of the news media continues having an effect of distorting viewers' perception of reality. In any disaster or other bad incident, the TV cameras seek to capture the most horrific scenes. If there is a flood, they show the worst of it-- the dozen houses that got swept away, not the thousands that remained standing, safely sheltering their occupants. If there is a riot, they show the worst of it, and find the business owners who lost everything. They don't show the neighborhoods where nothing happened. They also don't show the cases where demonstrators are being paid to act up. So the reality presented to viewers is the small part that is intended to keep viewers glued to their screens and tell a frightening or maddening story-- not the totality of circumstances.
Love this one, excellent documentary! There are times, even today, when I'll have the TV on in the background and I'll hear an ad (advert) promoting the local TV station's weather team, with snippets of their coverage from past weather events. Not paying close attention, I'll hear something about a tornado warning or other severe weather event, which causes me to take note until I quickly realize that what I was seeing and hearing was merely an advertisement.
The one I remember vividly is when the BBC broadcast a TV drama called Ghostwatch during Halloween in the early 90's when I was about 8 years old. It was presented by Michael Parkinson, and had other then well known TV personalities such as Sarah Greene giving it an air of authenticity. I remember there being some news articles that came out soon after it's broadcast claiming that people had thought that it was real. If I remember correctly, someone even committed suicide because of it.
I was just trying to remember about this; I heard about it & even saw a clip with Craig Charles in it. Someone killed themself?☹️ That really sucks☹️☹️☹️☹️
I don't know if it's your voice, the writing or the interesting topics, but I find your content really soothing for some reason - even when the topics are kind of morbid. Thank you for the time and effort you put in, we appreciate it.
I remember hearing what happened with the broadcasting, how it caused mass panic. My Experience While driving to work, a radio broadcast came on saying that a plane had crashed into the building and the description of what was going on, the build up to the second plane... I honestly thought it was a hoax 🙈🥺 only later at work to find out the truth. That broadcast still has effects. 😔 disbelief
Alternative 3 is great. I watched it a couple of years ago on RUclips for free. It has the American actor Shane Rimmer in it some of you might recognise from multiple James Bond films, Superman 2, and the people that time forgot.
Years ago, back in the early 1990s, I remember turning on the tv and there was a news report about an attack on the east coast. It scared my anxiety-prone brain for a moment until I thought to check the other channels to see what they were running. No news story, just their regular programming. And the “special news story” was on a commercial break when I went back to it. It ended up making so little impact that I can’t remember anything about it beyond that, other than annoyance that somebody was trying to pull a War of the Worlds-type stunt.
Quickly one after another, four of the fighting machines appeared. Monstrous tripods, higher than the tallest steeple, striding over the pine trees and smashing them. Walking engines of glittering metal. Each carried a huge funnel. I realised with horror, that I'd seen that awful thing before. A fifth machine appeared over the far bank, raised itself to full height, flourished the funnel high in the air. Then the ghostly, terrible heat ray stuck the town. As it struck all five fighting machines exalted. Emitting deafening howls which roared like thunder. UUULLLAAAAHHH!!!
I've had the reverse happening to me once. In The Netherlands in the 90's there used to be a late-night series where a major city's crisis management team was put to the test by having them face a fake scenario - anything from terrorist attack to a major incident involving a chemical factory, etc. The crisis management team would get their info both from the usual chain of information - officer on duty for firebrigade, director of the local hospital etc - but als newsclips from real newsreaders and reporters 'on the scene' interviewing eye witnesses etc. I came home from the cinema some evening and zapped past the channels and came across what I thought was an episode of this series. Some weird scenario involving a neighbourhood in Amsterdam where a cargo 747 had crashed into a highrise apartment building. It took me fully 3 or 4 minutes before I realised it was actually for real (El Al flight 1862) and not an episode of that programme.
It's fascinating to read the articles afterwards and what was being written in the New York Times in 1938. Thanks for going the extra mile in finding that information.
I remember as a very young child, mid 80s, parents watching war of the worlds on TV. It gave me severe nightmares for years. Never watched it since, but want to!
Top-notch channel. The time and effort that you put into researching the topics you cover, and your informative and entertaining presentation of them, are amazing and much appreciated.
Cool topic!!! I think you manage to stand out from the rest in very good ways (hard to describe). Excellent topics, many I hadn’t heard of. So much to learn from mistakes or unfortunate events.
The War of the Worlds is the only of these broadcast panics I'd heard of. The others were new to me. Easily the most bizarre video from this channel, but made even more entertaining by the narrator's voice. I loved it
Your my favorite RUclipsr by far and have been for a long time. And the fact that you without knowing me talked about something that impacted my life so hard when I watched something about this when I was little so much that I have thoughts of it randomly at times wishing I could remember what it was called but I could remember it in such detail. I am 35 next month. I have severe anxiety that I truly know what it’s like to know how fear can literally drive you into the ground. I struggle with it and my demons every day. You help with that when I see you’ve posted a new video I get so excited. Thank you for these brief stories bc they bring a little light into my world.
Remember my dad retelling this (from my grandparents) when I was little as we were listening to a reading of it on our local public radio station. Started a lifelong love of books. Honestly I thought he was exaggerating
Orson Welles was truly a visionary and a genius. This stunt is just a footnote in his film and theatre career in which he produced and directed legendary films like “Touch of Evil”, “The Magnificent Ambersons”, The Lady from Shanghai” and of course “Citizen Kane”.
I work at a radio station and it is an annual Halloween tradition to have a local actors group (The Butler Did It Players) come into the studio to recreate the 1938 broadcast of The War of the Worlds.
So this is one of my favorite channels for a couple of reasons, outside of the great stories. One, he swears not at all, which is refreshing here, and he doesn't use videos or stills of people or things that aren't actually related to the story, just to add some motion. I also have never seen any commercials on this channel that has anything to do with manscaping, of which I have seen and heard _quite enough_, thank you.
I was 12 but I still clearly remember Alternative 3 playing here in Australia and it scared the bejesus out of everyone tho I'm sure not as badly as the specter of WW3 hanging over a cold war London, what utter stupidity that one was!
That's a really good reminder that the biggest difference between a true story and a believable work of fiction is a well told story. Even I can recall patently, obviously false stories in fantasy settings that were told well enough that in the moment, they felt like it was real. Now, of course, once the story had ended, it was obvious that it wasn't real. After all, magic does not exist. But, in the moment, it had captured the attention well enough to feel believable.
@@creech54 The newsreader was played by Ed Flanders, who would have been immediately recognisable to fans of "St. Elsewhere," but those who didn't watch that show might not have been sufficiently familiar with him to know that he was "just an actor." We were hundreds of miles away from ground zero, and far outside of the alleged danger zone, yet there were still a few people who were afraid of being caught in the blast.
I don't understand how anybody could have taken Special Bulletin for real. There were constant warnings that it wasn't real all over that one, nobody should have had more than a few minutes before getting clued in.
Now imagine what could be achieved if they were permitted to broadcast for 2 years and recruit most politicians and a handful of well-known scientists as cast of characters.
Fun fact! Grover's Mill, where the first landing of the martians in "War of The Worlds" was set, is the name of where the Pyronite boy named Alan lives in Ben 10: Alien Force, the name being a tribute to the book.
I love this video in particular because I feel like I have a personal connection to it and I love the way you pronounce "H.G. Wells". My mom listened to the War of the Worlds broadcast as a teenager. She knew it was fake because she listened from the beginning, but some of her older brothers and sisters who were married, or living elsewhere and didn't listen from the beginning, panicked and called their mom (my grandma) and their little sister to make sure they were okay...
I wonder if these broadcasts (unintentionally) became the first examples of analog horror. The medium subverted/exceeded its own expectations, like Ghostwatch, Without Warning, and other mockumentarys, and scared the living crap out of listeners not in the loop. There's plenty of analog horror shows on RUclips though, and pretty high quality ones at that.
I'm basically an historian with early radio and I only recently heard that all the "chaos" with the "War Of The Worlds" broadcast of 1938 was totally blown out of proportion and a PR stunt. Throughout the broadcast it was made clear that it was only a play. It boosted Wells notoriety which was floundering at this time. He had tried to hype himself up in Hollywood in the late '30's and was not impressing anyone. In fact, one studio gave him a chance with a script he had. The movie got so complex and expensive that the bosses pulled the plug on it. So, a PR stunt is all it was.
I’ve seen a few comments mentioning Ghost Watch from the early 90s, which definitely caused a stir as I recall. But I’m going to mention the live broadcast of Inside No. 9 from Hallowe’en in 2018, called Dead Line. It started out like any other episode, but descended into chaos thanks to random breakdowns, strange voices and even faked CCTV feeds of the cast watching ITV - a brilliant ruse, as it was live, anyone changing channel would’ve found themselves watching that same programme. What made it work was the huge effort made to stop leaks on Twitter and the like. Apparently, it had people apoplectic with rage at being forced to watch a repeat of another episode (which had been reworked slightly to add spooky effects), then outrage at the BBC not even getting that right. At one point, the actress Stephanie Cole was seen to take her own life out of fear, leading to her Wikipedia page being updated to say she’d died that night! It’s not really worth watching as a recording, as it becomes apparent very quickly that it’s a ruse, but when it was live it sucked a lot of people in.
Was thinking of this show! I watched it but when the "repeat" started I turned it off. Only by following Twitter did I realise my mistake and turned it back on.
The "War of the Worlds incident" is famous as hell but I didn't know the latter two. As always, very informative! ...so how can I add my name to the list for Mars evacuee?
Minor correction about "Before the sun goes down". In the video, you say that the it was broadcast on ITV in 1929. This is impossible, however. ITV launched in 1955, 26 years AFTER the broadcast date listed here of 1929. Also, the first sattelite was launched in 1957, 28 years after the show broadcast date of the show with a sattelite in the premise. "Before the sun goes down" (1929) was a song. "Before the sun goes down" on ITV was broadcast in 1959, 4 years after ITV launched and 2 years after the first sattelite.
The war of the worlds one that happened in Ecuador was read by my step grandfather and the radio station was burned down because of the outrage. He had burns on over half his body. My step grandfather has since passed away and I never did meet him, but he was a legendary man. There are so many stories my step dad has told me about it. You should see about covering the Quito, Ecuador war of the worlds broadcast! I’ve never seen anyone cover it but my step dads sister has spoken about it on a podcast before. My grandfathers name was Luis Beltran. He was an incredible man and even went back into the radio station fire to save others. I hope you’d consider covering it because it’s truly an insane story. Sorry for the long comment lol just thought I’d share!
Boy, you just don't hear voice-overs using the word "debacle" nowadays...thank you for pronouncing it correctly -- your intelligence is one of the reasons I love your vids. Thanks!
![Seungmin "그렇게, 천천히, 우리(As we are)" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/kAzmhLHePqU/mqdefault.jpg)
"A drunken farmer mistook a water tower for an alien fighting machine..."
PLEASE TELL ME HE
"...and blasted it with his shotgun".
Excellent.
America!
I remember watching a tv movie about the radio play panic. There was a great line that somebody said to that farmer, something like, "I've never seen anything so damn dumb." It was pretty bold dialogue for the 1980s, lol.
@@kimberlywebster6057 America in 1938 - no Internet, tv was but an infant, not everyone in rural villages had telephones and if they did they had to share a line (party line). The radio was the primary source of news and entertainment and , in this case, They decided to mix the two together which was a very bad idea. And let’s not forget the overall fear of ufo’s during that time that escalated well up into and throughout the 1960’s. And let’s not forget what was going on in the rest of the world (including Europe) at that time. There’s a global reason this broadcast was so effective.
@@MichaelPoage666 the bold line was in the 1980’s and yes it was bold at that time. But this broadcast was 1938. Think about what was going on in the world (including Europe) at that time and this fear isn’t quite so dumb after all.
Everything about this story screams confirmation bias that it's simply unbelievable. Anyone with any gun training would know a shotgun isn't going to be effective at that range.
My mom was 8 when “War of the Worlds” was broadcast. She, her two elder siblings and her mom scrambled down to the dirt cellar under their home. It took my grandfather coming home and finding them there, to reassure everyone it was just ‘pretend’. Needless to say, no one was amused!
My mother heard it the night of the broadcast, but she heard the disclaimer. She was pretty amused at the panic that resulted.
@Jesus' Beloved. I was going to state, "let me guess, they were religious". But after noticing your username…………
No, they didn’t. They probably didn’t even tune in
@@SamuraiCypher ?
@@owens.studios What are you typing a question mark to me about?
I like the drunk farmer shooting a water tower thinking it was an alien.
The drunk farmer shoots at everything on his property thinking they are cosmic horrors or something else.
To be fair, the aliens were inspired by water tanks.
A true American hero 😂, little does he know he saved us from an alien invasion that night.
Funny as hell 😆
That's the most American thing I've ever heard
Heck, I remember people being convinced that The Blair Witch Project was real. One of my sister's friends couldn't even bring herself to drive home alone when they saw it the first Friday of its release because she was that scared by it.
BWP was a fantastic example of a psychological thriller.
Lmao I was 9 when I watched in on TV one night back in '99/00, and since it has just recently been out everyone had been talking about it, I remember news about people that were fainting or just having terrible reactions in theaters lol, there was a lot of debate if it was real or not because people were still pretty superstitious at the time, plus ofc the documentary style of the film. Some people (or could've been kids in my class) were saying the people were gone for real.. But yeah after seeing the movie I had nightmares for months and I'd be terrrrrified of the dark lmao
Still have to say it's one of my favorites though 👌 and the scary movie (of the scary movie franchise) that makes fun of it with the runny nose scene is also 👌 lol
@@sunna8476 I also remember the Sci-fi channel airing a "documentary" about the missing teens and the discovery of the cameras to add to the realness of it.
@@silentjay01 I didn't have access to that channel so I never saw that but I'm def looking it up now lol
To be fair, choosing to do radio plays that have “urgent warnings delivered by radio” in the script probably aren’t the best choices for radio plays in a time period where radios were heavily used to get accurate news reports. I feel like current times have proven we’re still very capable of this sort of hysteria. It took one news report on one supermarket having its toilet paper bought up during the early phase of covid for the entirety of Australia to go into a panic about buying it, causing a shortage that wouldn’t have happened if people had continued to shop like normal. The media has a scary amount of power over people and their behaviour.
It also severely damages the effectiveness of real warnings. People are supposed to trust these alerts and react swiftly to them, not to have to think twice whether they are part of a play.
Unfortunately, things like this are still common. An everyday example from the UK are info boards at underground stations. These are supposed to show vitally important information, but are sometimes used for stupid jokes.
The whole world has been convinced to put its lives on hold for a flu. Might as well have been aliens.
Well kids playing D and D were consorting with the devil. That and magic the gathering. Im old enought to remember those panics. Not as big but made news and freeked people out
@@Eclispestar old.
Plus people back then didn’t have the world literally at their fingertips. They wouldn’t be able to whip out their phones and log on to the Internet to search up if something was real. They’d have to wait until the radio hosts were updated on the chaos they were causing and assured them all it was a hoax, or wait until newspapers came out the next day
Apparently in the 2010's, the discovery channel aired a fictional documentary about mermaids that some people thought was real. Something about them being on the verge of extinction, accompanied by a fake cellphone video of two boys finding one on a beach. No mass panic, though, just some sadness and disappointment.
Dugongs and manatees are real, though.
I think I remember either Discovery or maybe National Geographic had a faux-documentary about a 'real' dragon corpse, recently discovered. It was actually fairly convincing, as I recall, except for the whole 'dragons are real!' bit.
As a kid, I vividly remember watching this mermaid doc and thinking "why is the scientific community hiding this!"
I remember that!
There was a pretty big jump scare in it, IIRC.
The War of the Worlds panic is very much the stuff of legends. There were a handful of people that panicked but the press media hyped it up as much as possible because radio was a huge threat to them in that it could get out news to the public within minutes rather than taking most of the day.
It will eventually make it to storied myth status if it hasent already
I mean I’m happy that this video pointed out that the stories were overblown with most of the minority of people tricked just called the studio to ask what was going on.
It's a good job the media doesn't do that anymore....
I am really shocked that they fell for this. Its easily disprovable. with a 10 minute google search. The warnings were dispersed through the program. Granted, it wasn't until 2010 that people began to REALLY look into it. But Snopes, PBS, and national Geographic have all run articles on it.
Orson Wells also played a part in perpetuating the myth of the reaction. However he did it ever so subtlety and matter of fact that one could say it was an extension of the show.
The 1938 "War of the Worlds" was so effective because it used the latest broadcast news techniques, including throwing to reporters stationed in the field.
In 1968, Buffalo, NY radio station WKBW did an updated version of "War of the Worlds", set in the Buffalo area. Despite an extensive advertising campaign for several weeks ahead of time, and fully advising authorities, the broadcast still caused some panic in the area, because it used the latest broadcast news techniques, and used real WKBW newsmen, who played themselves.
Crowds of people rushed to Grand Island (the site of the landing), and the Canadian military dispatched troops to the border, to quell any invaders, human or otherwise.
Awesome! Surprised Ghostwatch didn't find its way in here though, it was a big deal when it was broadcast at Halloween in 1992. The warning about it being fictional on the continuity announcement before it parallels the War of the Worlds incident.
true I remember that!
I was just about to say about Ghostwatch. The madness that came of that.
To be fair, television do have an option, radio doesnt - they could have a small banner or something on screen through it all, that it was fictional. I can understand, why the "War of the Worlds" debacle wasnt anticipated, nothing like it had ever happened b4. Anything after that was a combination of lack of imagination (kinda paradoxical considering the sort of fiction) and just plain negligence.
Ghostwatch scared the absolute shit out of me as a wee 11 year old. I've never watched it again since.
Yes! Right on the tip of my tongue.
I work in local news radio and TV. One year, when I was just starting out, the station I worked for did an april fools prank. I'm personally opposed to them on general principle. They recorded a news segment at our local - very much landlocked - swimming lake, saying some dolphins had been spotted there. We got a guy to 'interview' as a marine biologist and spliced in some stock footage of dolphins. Now, anybody with more than two brain cells could clearly tell it was a prank. And yet, we had people showing up with binoculars and asking for more details about the dolphin sightings...
I'm saying... basically there's no way to 'idiot proof' broadcasts like this. Because there are a LOT of idiots out there who'll think it's real.
OMG, that's such a good innocuous one!!! I mean, we're so conditioned to trust our news sources. Not so much today, but I'm GenX and grew up in the 70s and 80s. I'd be one of those ding dongs thinking, "My god...did someone somehow transport dolphins to the lake? They're saltwater creatures--they're going to die!!" lol...before my brain kicked in. And I always forget to check if it's April Fools!
@@nicoleofnowhere8842 Well that's precisely why I'm opposed to doing them on air. I've never done one as a newsreader and don't intend to.
People have a hard enough time believing the actual news these days without us adding actual fake news in the mix :D
Reminds me of a joke a radio station did where I lived in Western CT for April Fools. They stated the power company had sold a large lake in the area (Candlewood for those from CT) to the company that built the Danbury Fair Mall and that the lake would be drained and the largest mall in the world would be built. That joke did not end well, Especially among those with expensive lakeside property.
In Seattle 1989 a tv program called Almost Live (a local snl type show) ran an April Fool's joke telling everyone that the space needle had in fact collapsed. They used some of their actors to portray shocked witnesses to the act. There was a disclaimer at the beginning of the show but who very few people actually read it. They had so many 911 calls come in they had to shut the 911 line down. They managed to piss off the cops and the city over it. It's funny to watch after the fact but at the time, people weren't laughing.
@@rahnesong I loved "Almost Live"! I don't remember that one, though. I totally believe they got in trouble. This is why you don't see this kind of stuff anymore.
Fascinating Horror would do a great job of reviewing accidents related to inflatable bouncy castles. It's a tragic topic but one that could do with greater attention. 🏰
Especially with the recent one in Tasmania down here in Aus... so sad
@@aaronbryant7615 exactly.
Oh my gosh I couldn’t even imagine. Definitely have to read up on that out now , thank you.
@@dezaraesky1298 it's heart breaking they were on their last day of primary school :(
If we are covering Aussie jumping Castle drama then we must acknowledge Chris Lilley's "We can be heroes" character.
what you said about trusting a "voice of authority" is so true. For example - I believe almost everything YOU say, Fascinating Horror! If one day you randomly did some very poor research or even wrote up a piece of fiction i'm certain i wouldn't realize at first glance.
reminds me of his april fool's day joke from last year where he recited the plot of jaws like it was one of his ordinary videos. since i watched it a week or two after the fact (and thus wasn't in the mindset that it was probably a joke), it took him mentioning something i specifically remembered from the movie a few minutes in for me to go "hey, this is just jaws." i bet if i remembered less about the movie i probably would've bought it, at least until the video was over and i saw the comments.
@@year2082 It actually took you a few minutes, to realize that? Since you've seen the movie, it should of been instantaneous, like my reaction!!!
@@year2082 I was going to mention that - hilarious! 👌🏻😂
@@rogerrendzak8055 I've seen jaws and it took me a moment! I thought that perhaps the original story was based on true events that were being covered until I realized, no, it's just jaws
Yeah, like the Milgram Experiment.
The music you play in the intro and outro always helps create such vivid imagery to every story that you cover! It always fits so well, please never change it
Spooky
I agree
It's part of your brand🙏
It sounds nice
Agreed. I love it.
My mom was a teenager in western New York when War of the Worlds was broadcast. While her cousins were panicking, she suggested tuning in to other radio stations. Surely everyone would be broadcasting this disaster. Fortunately they took her sensible suggestion and calmed down.
Remember when someone accidently turned on the invasion alarm and mass text alerts in Hawaii and everyone started taking shelter? Happened a couple years ago.
The war of the worlds incident has always been so fascinating to me. And with the rise of analog horror as a genre, It feels so surreal to imagine all these people getting so enveloped into a radio play thinking it was real.
The farmer shooting the water tower made me chuckle! imagine if you were driving by and saw a dude blasting a water tower with a shotgun! haha
fancy seeing you here
I still remember listening to War of the Worlds vinyl LP when I was aged around 9 (1982), and was absolutely terrified. I now still own the record, and still at times feel that fear I experienced as a young boy back then.
Scary but amazing .!!
You talking about Jeff Wayne's version? I remember the Red Weed track scared the shit out of me as a kid.
ULLLLLLLAAAAAAA
Jeff Wayne's war of the world's is a classic. Coronation Street had a story where a character with mental health problems was obsessed with it and believed it was a prophecy or something.
The live show is OK but not the best. It's great having the music live but sadly the visual element is lacking.
@@incredibleflameboy The talent in the original release, beats the talent in the live show, and the new live show. Especially the Curate. Nobody did him better than the original.
i first learned of the orson welles war of the worlds broadcast in the third grade, and my teacher made us read the book. at the time, i thought the entire story was boring, and that the people who believed it were simply stupid. of course, now with the proper context, i can definitely see why it was so real to the listeners. thanks for covering this!
The novel was boring? No way! When I was a kid, I read it a hundred times, it was so amazing.
Yeah, the modern day equivalent would be everyone's phones, news apps, and social media pages simultaneously displaying something like "bomb (or massive meteor) headed to earth, take cover, but expect to die".
CBS was your go to news back then, till the paper came out the next day. There where barely 2 options, let alone the dozens we can quickly check these days.
Additional context: this was shortly after the Munich crisis, and many Americans expected N*zi Germany to invade other nations (possibly the US) at any time. (And less than a year after, that's exactly what happened!) So it's speculated that some of the panic may have been people assuming unknown German weapons were being mistaken for alien technology. Somebody from far away, invading? Sounded awfully familiar in the fall of '38. Maybe people didn't ALL believe it was Martians. But that didn't really make it less scary. I've listened to the broadcast several times, and a lot of the second half is the nuts and bolts of individual characters' encounters with huge, weird machines that destroy National Guardsmen. Anyone tuning in late could have heard that and imagined tanks, not tripods.
During the 60's and 70's, I got trauma from listening to the radio as a child. The drama was so realistic that nobody was there to tell you that it was all not true. The end of the world makes you think differently, feel differently, and the music that you heard will keep on repeating through your mind at every minute of the day. I would look at the sky with dear, and the moon looks like a symbol of death.
Space is scary. As its so overwhelming and powerful. Would blink all us out in a second. And the rest of the universe wouldn't even care.
Jeez. Are you under medical care?
@@jorgemoro5476 Imagine being a child, a normal child who may struggle to identify fact from fantasy, and hearing on the radio that aliens are invading and you're going to die? As an adult it's easy to look back on these things and think 'how would someone ever believe this?' But we forget what it feels like to be a child.
It's not right to scare children like this, I remember being very naive and trusting everything adults said as a kid.
When I was a kid someone told me the world was going to end (in like 3 days or something). I was all freaked out, acting weird, and when I finally asked my mom she was like "ohhh, no, that's not true" and she explained rumors to me.
Kids don't know what to expect.
(I also got mortified by the Airplane comedy movie, I thought the roof was going to rip off a plane (my dad flew for sometimes). My mom said I held his pants to keep him home from the airport and when he left I balled my eyes out saying "that's the last time we'll ever see dad!"
If you've ever seen the movie it's clearly a silly comedy, but I really believed it.
I think for me personally, the scariest broadcast panic was in January 13, 2018 when a ballistic missile alert was accidentally issued in Hawaii through TV, radio, and cellphone alerts. This came at a time when tensions were high with North Korea over building nuclear weapons, and made this much more convincing. After confirming that the alert was false, the public responded in way that was similar to that letter you read in Before The Sun Goes Down. They thought it was the end of the world, and were saying they're final goodbyes to friends and family.
That sounds terrifying!
I'm sure this will get buried but it's a true story that happened to me.
I was 6 years old. My dad sat me down in front of the LP player (bearing in mind I'm mid-thirties so this would have been in the early 1990's) and put on war of the world's. No word that it was a recording, a previous radio broadcast or was a work of science fiction.
And what happened? I absolutely shit myself from fear that Earth was being invaded by aliens. There was no initial warning it was not a recording on the LP.
Almost as Welles intended.
Halloween, I'm 7, and my father shakes me awake at midnight to come listen to this on the radio.
He acted like it was real up to the heat rays.
I was absolutely terrified.
Then he told me the story of the panic.
Nothing like a good ol' fashion gaslighting from a parent.
It was Welles intended... All's Welles that ends Welles.... I just had to.
@@JohnDoeRando The book was written by H.G. Wells, and the dramatization featured Orson Welles, so you could also have phrased it as "All's Wells that ends Welles." 😁😉
@@willmfrank lol even better.
Why can i so easily fall asleep listening to this man 😥
I fell for something like that when I was a kid as well. It was at new years evening 2000. Long before that, everyone kept talking about the Y2K problem and what catastrophic events could follow that event. And there it was, new year has started, my family and I had a good time with friends and family and.. well.. the tv was running. What I did not know until then was, that we had some "parody news shows" here in Germany back then, and the tv was showing one of them at exactly 0:00 am.
Everyone went outsite, I was on my way outsite as well, but then I saw a news broadcast on tv that got my attention as I walked by. There was seemingly a news reporter on the screen, with fire in the background, talking about planes falling from the sky and the imminent threat of nuclear desaster because some nuclear power plants in the EU are out of control. I did not worry about Y2K until I saw that broadcast. That's when I paniced because it looked like a legit news broadcast.. like all the others seen from that tv station. Took me like 20 minutes to realise that this was all a joke. 20 minutes during which I thought I might die soon.
I did not take it too bad though. After this I watched that show every weekend, because I thought the show was funny. But the way this show introduced itself to me.. man.. they got me really good :D
Oh wow! I'm half "that must have been terrifying!" and half "that's freaking hilarious!!!" Did you ever contact the show and tell them they'd got you? Do you remember the name of the show, I'd like to see if I can find that footage on RUclips. Glad you took it well.
@@EveryFairyDies it could have been "Die Wochenshow" oder "Freitag Nacht News".
@@hannevanbakker9021 Danke!
Oh wow, the Y2K thing. I was gathered with a small group of friends and a large group of alcohol bottles that night, and my only friend that took Y2K seriously was the host. She made some overly-dramatic goodbye speech to her young daughter when the child's grandparents picked her up, said something TO HER YOUNG DAUGHTER about the world ending, and sent her off. When midnight finally came and absolutely nothing unusual happened, she went outside and started laughing her drunk ass off. I really dodged a bullet when she and I didn't get together.
I live in the US and knew Australia was about 12 hours ahead of us, so when US news reports showed everything was fine in those earlier time zones, I knew there was nothing to worry about.
When I first got to Quito, Ecuador in 1993, on my last year of high school, some kids told me about “The War of the Worlds” being broadcast on the radio there in the early 1940s. The broadcast resulted in the lynching of several people from the radio when people realized it wasn’t real but a radio play. Many years later, probably about 15-20, I researched on the internet and realized that what they had told me had actually happened. That radio station was one and a half blocks from my house and I had been inside it when I did a paper on it in college!
My step grandfather was the man who read it on air. He suffered burns on over half his body. He went back in to save people, and angry protesters even tried to throw him back into the fire. His name was Luis Beltran.
@@sofialouised Holy cow! Your poor grandfather!
Thank you! I’m Australian. “Alternative 3” was shown here. To add to its realism, I’m fairly sure it was shown on ABC, our government backed channel(which was a lot more reliable back then). If it’s the broadcast I’m thinking of, it was only as the credits rolled that a disclaimer came up on screen, stating it was a hoax and warning of unquestioning trust in the media.
I’ve never been able to find anyone else who saw it, nor have I found it on line, and of course didn’t know the title. I was fifteen and watched it with my parents, who were both usually very cynical. We all believed it wholeheartedly. So thank you, Fascinating for verifying a long ago memory.
As for War of the Worlds, I will trust your version of events, as I’ve seen n read differing accounts of how seriously the production was regarded. That letter to Parliament was very indicative of the distress felt.
In fifty years, I wonder if Fascinating’s grandchild will publish some of our internet scandals, fears, and conspiracies on what ever medium we have by then?
My father used to say, "Believe nothing you hear, and only half of what you see." Having said that, I walked in on a BBC show some years ago that looked like a documentary of an anthrax outbreak in London. Afterwards I was angry that this happened and no one told me. I later realised that it was, in fact, an expertly crafted drama.
Taken from Wikipedia:
.
A Spanish-language version produced in February 1949 by Leonardo Paez and Eduardo Alcaraz for Radio Quito in Quito, Ecuador, reportedly 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. Hundreds attacked Radio Quito and El Comercio, a local newspaper owner of the radio station that had participated in the hoax by publishing false reports of unidentified objects in the skies above Ecuador in the days preceding the broadcast. The riot resulted in at least seven deaths, including those of Paez's girlfriend and nephew. Radio Quito was off the air for two years, until 1951. After the incident, Paez self-exiled to Venezuela, where he lived in the city of Mérida until his death in 1991.
My step grandfather was the man who read this! He suffered burns to over half of his body and people tried to throw him back into the fire. He went back in to save others as well. His name was Luis Beltran. He was a legend.
@@sofialouised historia increíble! Sólo en Latinoamérica le ganamos a los gringos en histeria masiva, jajaj
@@colombianguy8194 I question why they thought it would be a good idea to produce the broadcast 11 years after the mass panic in ‘38. I’m torn because the literature nerd in me loves seeing stories translated and adapted for more people to enjoy, at the same time I feel like a different medium could have been used.
@@temporalbutterfly9186 Well comunication wasn't the greatest back then, maybe they knew about the panic that would happen but since they didn't see it personally they thought it wouldnt be that bad
I wondered if “Ghostwatch” would be included since that was a TV broadcast which caused panic due to people believing it was true and not a fictional show.
@Alan Partridge Really Sad that that happened 🙁
He might be saving it for its own video
@@JediLadyMisty Good point 👍
There's a movie called "Countdown to Looking Glass" that played on the movie channel when cable was new to my area, right at a touchy time in the late Cold War. It's mostly done in a news-anchor style, and boy, was I confused to turn on the movie channel and see what looked like an emergency broadcast about an impending nuclear exchange ... for a few brief moments, that movie had me fooled (but there was nothing on the broadcast or cable news networks about it.)
I love this. So fascinating. Another one that stuck with me is Ghostwatch, aired on BBC1 in 1992, where a bunch of well-known broadcasters/presenters go to a 'live' viewing of a haunted house and real evidence is found. I've watched it, albeit knowing it was fake, and it was very creepy. It's never been repeated on BBC because it caused such a fuss!
Ghostwatch was amazing! It's one of my favourite found footage/mockumentary type horror movies. I can see that being terrifying to watch as it was airing, especially without being able to do a quick Google search to find out whether it's real or not.
Ghostwatch wad especially scary because it ended with the BBC presenter ( Michael Parkinson) apparently becoming possessed. Lurching zombie-like around the studio, shouting "Aaaaaaarrrrrrgggghhhhh! Your mother ducks rocks in Hell!" (or something like that).
My 6th grade teacher took a day and taught us about broadcast panics and it’s still one of my favorite lessons I learned in school. Thanks for this!
I remember living in San Diego in the 90s. And there was the emergency shuttle landing hoax. My family actually drove past the airport. People were everywhere. With lawn chairs waiting
This channel has never failed to deliver on their promise of telling us some really *Fascinating Horror* stories!!
I really hope they cover the *Khodynka Tragedy* one day-I think it’s a perfect story for FH!💖
Good old Simon covered that on his TIFO channel.
this can never happen in modern times because people are sophisticated, rational, and discerning. 😑
Uhhh That’s a good thing. Why would you want to make people panic?? 👀
@Zoe Rosaleen I think He was being sarcastic.
If peoples tik tok or IG, Facebook feeds were interrupted that’s where the melt down would occur, not from an invasion from the sky. People are so numb to reality and care so little about it that we know have a metaverse! These same people would only worry about if their wifi would continue to operate while the aliens ate their loved ones alive!
🤣🤣🤣
We're about to go extinct and no-one can say it out loud, is that your point?
A flip to these stories, my Dad was driving across America on holiday on 11th September. He turned on the radio and he and his girlfriend for a while, thought there were listening to a radio play...............
It was perfect timing by Orson, rising tensions pre WW2, just a few years after the great depression, the hay day of Radio before Television and CBS was the most listened to station by far, it was just a large nervous audience ripe for an event to go down in history.
The depression was still going strong in 1938.
There was one time, somewhere in mid 2000, when a similar hoax that looked like a real newsreel on TV told people of Belgium that Belgium ceased to exist because it was politically split up in two. Phones calls flooded all important institutions.
Excellent video as always.
I know it wasn't quite the same, but I loved the April Fool's day episode on the Italian Spaghetti harvest on Panorama.
Panic buying of spaghetti sauce was probably the worst that that created, but shows the power of the media, if the subject is, at the time, so little known about, or the gullibility of a certain type of person.
Makes me think of flat earthers..lol.
Over reaction and sensationalism its a product of our time, covering this pandemic will be an interesting one for the future, we have so many lessons still to learn.
I remember Alternative 3 very well - it was superbly executed, used the ad breaks well and closed with a 'reveal' that a decade earlier the US had film life on Mars. Then the credits rolled, me and my brother went 'uh-oh ans then he spotted the date. Sobering observation: one of the 1938 newspapers, leading on the WotW panic had a smaller story next to it about displaced Jews from Germany seeking refuge in Poland...
There's special edition of Citizen Kane on DVD that includes the entire play and you can hear how people may have been sucked in.
I love how y'all say the letter H. May those differences between us always exist for they enrich the experience of being alive far more than the manufactured attempts at doing so that seem forced upon us at all times. I love your videos!
In the early '10s I discovered a local radio station that would broadcast such plays all night. There was really cool stuff and the best ones were mostly those that sounded like they would be actually happening.
How Welles could’ve avoided panic:
Accompany the initial news reports with a kickass synth line
Remember Ghostwatch on the BBC in the early 90's? I was a small kid, but when Pipes started acting up I got the phone and spent ages trying to get through on that fake number they put up on screen.
When child star Shirley Temple was asked about the broadcast, she said that she knew it was a show because if it had been a real event the station would not have been running ads during it. Clever girl.
The news media saw these events and though "why don't we start a TV channel and do this 24hrs a day"
While these shows had a dramatic impact in their day, the power of the news media continues having an effect of distorting viewers' perception of reality. In any disaster or other bad incident, the TV cameras seek to capture the most horrific scenes. If there is a flood, they show the worst of it-- the dozen houses that got swept away, not the thousands that remained standing, safely sheltering their occupants. If there is a riot, they show the worst of it, and find the business owners who lost everything. They don't show the neighborhoods where nothing happened. They also don't show the cases where demonstrators are being paid to act up. So the reality presented to viewers is the small part that is intended to keep viewers glued to their screens and tell a frightening or maddening story-- not the totality of circumstances.
Love this one, excellent documentary!
There are times, even today, when I'll have the TV on in the background and I'll hear an ad (advert) promoting the local TV station's weather team, with snippets of their coverage from past weather events. Not paying close attention, I'll hear something about a tornado warning or other severe weather event, which causes me to take note until I quickly realize that what I was seeing and hearing was merely an advertisement.
My grandmother hustled all her children into the root cellar when she turned onto the War of the World's broadcast a little late. Lol
The one I remember vividly is when the BBC broadcast a TV drama called Ghostwatch during Halloween in the early 90's when I was about 8 years old. It was presented by Michael Parkinson, and had other then well known TV personalities such as Sarah Greene giving it an air of authenticity.
I remember there being some news articles that came out soon after it's broadcast claiming that people had thought that it was real. If I remember correctly, someone even committed suicide because of it.
I was just trying to remember about this; I heard about it & even saw a clip with Craig Charles in it. Someone killed themself?☹️ That really sucks☹️☹️☹️☹️
I don't know if it's your voice, the writing or the interesting topics, but I find your content really soothing for some reason - even when the topics are kind of morbid. Thank you for the time and effort you put in, we appreciate it.
I remember hearing what happened with the broadcasting, how it caused mass panic.
My Experience
While driving to work, a radio broadcast came on saying that a plane had crashed into the building and the description of what was going on, the build up to the second plane... I honestly thought it was a hoax 🙈🥺 only later at work to find out the truth.
That broadcast still has effects. 😔 disbelief
One of my favorite channels on RUclips. ❤️ Thank you for your content!!
Alternative 3 is great. I watched it a couple of years ago on RUclips for free. It has the American actor Shane Rimmer in it some of you might recognise from multiple James Bond films, Superman 2, and the people that time forgot.
Years ago, back in the early 1990s, I remember turning on the tv and there was a news report about an attack on the east coast. It scared my anxiety-prone brain for a moment until I thought to check the other channels to see what they were running. No news story, just their regular programming. And the “special news story” was on a commercial break when I went back to it. It ended up making so little impact that I can’t remember anything about it beyond that, other than annoyance that somebody was trying to pull a War of the Worlds-type stunt.
Quickly one after another, four of the fighting machines appeared. Monstrous tripods, higher than the tallest steeple, striding over the pine trees and smashing them. Walking engines of glittering metal. Each carried a huge funnel. I realised with horror, that I'd seen that awful thing before.
A fifth machine appeared over the far bank, raised itself to full height, flourished the funnel high in the air. Then the ghostly, terrible heat ray stuck the town.
As it struck all five fighting machines exalted. Emitting deafening howls which roared like thunder.
UUULLLAAAAHHH!!!
Ghost Watch holds up well. Saw it for the first time a few months ago and it is so well done.
I've had the reverse happening to me once. In The Netherlands in the 90's there used to be a late-night series where a major city's crisis management team was put to the test by having them face a fake scenario - anything from terrorist attack to a major incident involving a chemical factory, etc. The crisis management team would get their info both from the usual chain of information - officer on duty for firebrigade, director of the local hospital etc - but als newsclips from real newsreaders and reporters 'on the scene' interviewing eye witnesses etc.
I came home from the cinema some evening and zapped past the channels and came across what I thought was an episode of this series. Some weird scenario involving a neighbourhood in Amsterdam where a cargo 747 had crashed into a highrise apartment building. It took me fully 3 or 4 minutes before I realised it was actually for real (El Al flight 1862) and not an episode of that programme.
It's fascinating to read the articles afterwards and what was being written in the New York Times in 1938. Thanks for going the extra mile in finding that information.
I remember as a very young child, mid 80s, parents watching war of the worlds on TV. It gave me severe nightmares for years. Never watched it since, but want to!
X files was bad enough in the 90s. Knew it was a TV show. But still freaked me out.
Top-notch channel. The time and effort that you put into researching the topics you cover, and your informative and entertaining presentation of them, are amazing and much appreciated.
I remember subscribing to this channel when it only had 10k subs now it’s creeping up to 1m! Congrats!
I just love the name, "Haitch G. Wells."
Some of the best narration on RUclips hands down. I can see this channel just keep growing & going from success to success, such is the quality.
Great vid FH. Sensational journalism is a double-edged sword.
Cool topic!!!
I think you manage to stand out from the rest in very good ways (hard to describe).
Excellent topics, many I hadn’t heard of. So much to learn from mistakes or unfortunate events.
The War of the Worlds is the only of these broadcast panics I'd heard of. The others were new to me. Easily the most bizarre video from this channel, but made even more entertaining by the narrator's voice. I loved it
I loved this. Though I am bitterly, bitterly disappointed that you didn't include GhostWatch.
Your my favorite RUclipsr by far and have been for a long time. And the fact that you without knowing me talked about something that impacted my life so hard when I watched something about this when I was little so much that I have thoughts of it randomly at times wishing I could remember what it was called but I could remember it in such detail. I am 35 next month. I have severe anxiety that I truly know what it’s like to know how fear can literally drive you into the ground. I struggle with it and my demons every day. You help with that when I see you’ve posted a new video I get so excited. Thank you for these brief stories bc they bring a little light into my world.
Remember my dad retelling this (from my grandparents) when I was little as we were listening to a reading of it on our local public radio station. Started a lifelong love of books. Honestly I thought he was exaggerating
Orson Welles was truly a visionary and a genius. This stunt is just a footnote in his film and theatre career in which he produced and directed legendary films like “Touch of Evil”, “The Magnificent Ambersons”, The Lady from Shanghai” and of course “Citizen Kane”.
I work at a radio station and it is an annual Halloween tradition to have a local actors group (The Butler Did It Players) come into the studio to recreate the 1938 broadcast of The War of the Worlds.
Do they still unscrew a pickle jar in a toilet to re-create the sound of the Martian cylinders opening?
So this is one of my favorite channels for a couple of reasons, outside of the great stories. One, he swears not at all, which is refreshing here, and he doesn't use videos or stills of people or things that aren't actually related to the story, just to add some motion. I also have never seen any commercials on this channel that has anything to do with manscaping, of which I have seen and heard _quite enough_, thank you.
I was 12 but I still clearly remember Alternative 3 playing here in Australia and it scared the bejesus out of everyone tho I'm sure not as badly as the specter of WW3 hanging over a cold war London, what utter stupidity that one was!
That's a really good reminder that the biggest difference between a true story and a believable work of fiction is a well told story. Even I can recall patently, obviously false stories in fantasy settings that were told well enough that in the moment, they felt like it was real. Now, of course, once the story had ended, it was obvious that it wasn't real. After all, magic does not exist. But, in the moment, it had captured the attention well enough to feel believable.
Well done! How about doing a part 2 mentioning "When World's Collide" and "Special Bulletin"?
I remember "Special Bulletin"! I knew ahead of time that it was just a drama, but there were people who thought it was really happening.
@@creech54 The newsreader was played by Ed Flanders, who would have been immediately recognisable to fans of "St. Elsewhere," but those who didn't watch that show might not have been sufficiently familiar with him to know that he was "just an actor." We were hundreds of miles away from ground zero, and far outside of the alleged danger zone, yet there were still a few people who were afraid of being caught in the blast.
@@willmfrank Thanks! I couldn't remember who the anchorman was. I was a regular viewer of "St. E."
I don't understand how anybody could have taken Special Bulletin for real. There were constant warnings that it wasn't real all over that one, nobody should have had more than a few minutes before getting clued in.
@@maryconner9409 You need to take into account that some people are just plain duuuuuuuumb!
Now imagine what could be achieved if they were permitted to broadcast for 2 years and recruit most politicians and a handful of well-known scientists as cast of characters.
Came here to say something like that..
3:38 Check the headline to the right. It really was the eve of destruction for literally millions of people.
I was wondering if anyone else would notice. "Camps maintained by distribution committee." Yikes
@@lxf7608 That was the Polish government creating refugee camps.
Fun fact! Grover's Mill, where the first landing of the martians in "War of The Worlds" was set, is the name of where the Pyronite boy named Alan lives in Ben 10: Alien Force, the name being a tribute to the book.
The lesson here is that a certain segment of the populace will always be able to be convinced of something just because they heard it somewhere.
And it's a larger segment than any sane person would have thought possible even 20 years ago.
All the news now adays would just say the same thing. Not many edgy trolls with national reach. Board room earns its namesake.
Ugh your right! 🤦🏼♀️
Always look forward to his videos. This is the first time I’ve caught a video being posted only an hour ago. So happy to see this video.
I thought you were going to talk about Ghostwatch (1992) because apparently alot of people thought it was real too.
I love this video in particular because I feel like I have a personal connection to it and I love the way you pronounce "H.G. Wells". My mom listened to the War of the Worlds broadcast as a teenager. She knew it was fake because she listened from the beginning, but some of her older brothers and sisters who were married, or living elsewhere and didn't listen from the beginning, panicked and called their mom (my grandma) and their little sister to make sure they were okay...
I wonder if these broadcasts (unintentionally) became the first examples of analog horror. The medium subverted/exceeded its own expectations, like Ghostwatch, Without Warning, and other mockumentarys, and scared the living crap out of listeners not in the loop.
There's plenty of analog horror shows on RUclips though, and pretty high quality ones at that.
Ooh any links ? I’ve seen ghost watch , WW, countdown to looking glass
So I've been hiding in this underground bunker for nothing? Dang it!!!
You should have added "Ghost Watch" from 1992
When your radio performance is so good, and has such good sound effects it causes panic. That's how you know you're doing a good job.
I'm basically an historian with early radio and I only recently heard that all the "chaos" with the "War Of The Worlds" broadcast of 1938 was totally blown out of proportion and a PR stunt. Throughout the broadcast it was made clear that it was only a play. It boosted Wells notoriety which was floundering at this time. He had tried to hype himself up in Hollywood in the late '30's and was not impressing anyone. In fact, one studio gave him a chance with a script he had. The movie got so complex and expensive that the bosses pulled the plug on it. So, a PR stunt is all it was.
Can't get enough of your podcasts.. keep up the good work.
Imagine someone have ideas like this during our current time, when the line between facts and fictions are even more blurred.
The fact checkers need to weigh in. But Jan 6 was the only meeningful riot in the last few years.
Wells hands down even if it wasn't intentional is without a doubt the best troll ever. A great man who will be missed.
You will miss me someday.
This channel is great.
I’ve seen a few comments mentioning Ghost Watch from the early 90s, which definitely caused a stir as I recall. But I’m going to mention the live broadcast of Inside No. 9 from Hallowe’en in 2018, called Dead Line. It started out like any other episode, but descended into chaos thanks to random breakdowns, strange voices and even faked CCTV feeds of the cast watching ITV - a brilliant ruse, as it was live, anyone changing channel would’ve found themselves watching that same programme. What made it work was the huge effort made to stop leaks on Twitter and the like. Apparently, it had people apoplectic with rage at being forced to watch a repeat of another episode (which had been reworked slightly to add spooky effects), then outrage at the BBC not even getting that right. At one point, the actress Stephanie Cole was seen to take her own life out of fear, leading to her Wikipedia page being updated to say she’d died that night! It’s not really worth watching as a recording, as it becomes apparent very quickly that it’s a ruse, but when it was live it sucked a lot of people in.
Was thinking of this show! I watched it but when the "repeat" started I turned it off. Only by following Twitter did I realise my mistake and turned it back on.
The "War of the Worlds incident" is famous as hell but I didn't know the latter two. As always, very informative!
...so how can I add my name to the list for Mars evacuee?
Minor correction about "Before the sun goes down". In the video, you say that the it was broadcast on ITV in 1929. This is impossible, however. ITV launched in 1955, 26 years AFTER the broadcast date listed here of 1929. Also, the first sattelite was launched in 1957, 28 years after the show broadcast date of the show with a sattelite in the premise.
"Before the sun goes down" (1929) was a song. "Before the sun goes down" on ITV was broadcast in 1959, 4 years after ITV launched and 2 years after the first sattelite.
Great content!
The war of the worlds one that happened in Ecuador was read by my step grandfather and the radio station was burned down because of the outrage. He had burns on over half his body. My step grandfather has since passed away and I never did meet him, but he was a legendary man. There are so many stories my step dad has told me about it. You should see about covering the Quito, Ecuador war of the worlds broadcast! I’ve never seen anyone cover it but my step dads sister has spoken about it on a podcast before. My grandfathers name was Luis Beltran. He was an incredible man and even went back into the radio station fire to save others. I hope you’d consider covering it because it’s truly an insane story. Sorry for the long comment lol just thought I’d share!
Boy, you just don't hear voice-overs using the word "debacle" nowadays...thank you for pronouncing it correctly -- your intelligence is one of the reasons I love your vids. Thanks!
Kinda like nowadays. If people would stop giving attention to MSM, we wouldn't be living in this nightmare. Great show as always. Thank you!