The Night Mars Invaded New Jersey

The Night Mars Invaded New Jersey

There was a time when radio was king. But no one knew just how powerful electronic media was until that October evening in 1938. Some six million listeners were tuned in to the CBS program The Mercury Theater when the show was preempted by a frantic news bulletin: “Toronto, Canada. Professor Morse of McGill University has observed a total of three explosions on the planet Mars.” Another urgent bulletin followed: “It is reported that at 8:50 p.m. a huge, flaming object, believed to be a meteorite, fell in the neighborhood of Grover’s Mill, New Jersey.”

The announcer said that CBS had dispatched reporter Carl Phillips to the scene. Twenty seconds later, Phillips was on the air. He described the mass chaos of crowds stampeding over police barricades to see the meteorite. A nationwide radio audience could hear the sounds of sirens, horns, and people shoving and shouting. Soon this bedlam in New Jersey would grip the nation.

Phillips interviewed Princeton scientist Professor Pierson, who declared excitedly that this was not a meteorite but something encased in a metal not found on earth: a cylindrical shape, something extraterrestrial! The reporter interrupted the professor: “Just a minute! Something’s happening! Ladies and gentlemen, this is terrific! This end of the thing is beginning to flake off! The top is beginning to rotate like a screw! The thing must be hollow!”

The radio audience could hear the shouts of panicked bystanders. “Look, the darn thing’s unscrewing!” “Keep back, there! Keep back, I tell you!” “Maybe there’s men in it trying to escape!” Phillips was now screaming about something like a gigantic gray snake coming out of the top. It had tentacles, was as huge as a bear, and glistened like wet leather, with huge black eyes like a serpent. Its mouth was V-shaped, with saliva dripping from rimless lips that seemed to quiver and pulsate.

Reports were coming in rapid fire: spaceships were hovering over the Hudson River; the monster from the space cylinder was incinerating people with heat rays; Martian tripods were obliterating undermanned state police; a report from the governor of New Jersey had declared martial law; and highways were clogged as people fled the aliens.

By now millions of listeners across America were panic stricken. Hysterical people ran into the streets. Phone lines were jammed. Most listeners didn’t wait around to hear the final words from The Mercury Theater: “You’ve been listening to the CBS presentation of Orson Wells and The Mercury Theater in an original dramatization of The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells.”

This innovative use of dramatized fiction became national headlines: RADIO LISTENERS IN PANIC—New York Times. RADIO FAKE SCARES NATION—Chicago Herald. U.S. TERRORIZED—San Francisco Chronicle. The legendary career of Orson Wells was launched, and so was the mega power of mass media. Decades later we are still blitzed by entertainment sold as news, much of it biased or false. That is good enough reason to look for the straight scoop in the Bible. The best thing about the true news is that it is also the good news.

Truth is powerful, and it will still prevail after every lie has been exposed.

All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right.

2 Timothy 3:16