Experience #18- Listen to War of the Worlds

So back when we were driving out to Utah for our summer vacation, I downloaded some new music to make the drive more fun. One of the things I downloaded was a copy of the original Orson Welles War of the Worlds radio broadcast from 1938. Unfortunately right before we left on vacation our computer died so it never made it on to the iPod. But today I decided to finally give the 55 minutes a listen while I drove around doing my errands (and desperately trying to pass the time until we pick up Brian at the airport tonight). Highly entertaining! To both people out there who might not know about War of the Worlds, it was a fictional radio broadcast about the invasion of earth by Martians. Although Orson Welles thought most people would understand it was fake, millions of people did not and it caused widespread panic across the nation. Now what I was most interested to know was exactly what happened when the Martians invaded. How did they come, what did they do, etc. Well, I will tell you! It all starts with the crash of a cylindrical capsule in New Jersey. Then tentacled Martians emerge and start annihilating everyone with super heated "ray guns." I Love it! (And I guess everyone else did too because from then on the ray gun was the alien weapon of choice.) In the first battle with this ship, there were supposedly 7,000 people fighting it and in the aftermath only 120 survivors. From there we get poisonous black gas, more "tripods" that kill everyone, mass evacuations- it was pretty intense. Especially for 1938! Furthermore, it is so hard for me to imagine a time without the Internet and cell phone where you could hear something on the radio and basically have no real way to confirm or deny anything you are hearing. Such a different time to live in. Anyway, here is a two minute snippet of the broadcast from youtube if you care to indulge:


And I have decided that the two things I liked the most about the broadcast were 1. the fact that New Jersey is where the Martians decided to start taking over the planet (because even back then New Jersey was kind of a joke) and 2. what happens to the Martians in the end. I guess you will just have to hear it for yourself :)