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You're built to win it. Welcome to snoozecast. The podcast is on to help you fall asleep. Find a set snoozecast.com and if you enjoy our show, please share us with a friend. This episode is brought to you by the immensity of vacancy in which the dust of the material universe swims. Tonight, to continue our sixth annual spooky sleep story series, we shall read the opening to The War of the Worlds, written by H.G. Wells, and first published in 1898. Tune in every Wednesday this month for sleep stories of the darker variety, like classic horror literature and ghost stories. If you prefer to avoid the mildly macabre, we hope you'll enjoy one of our many other stories available wherever you listen to podcasts. Catch up on previous years by finding our free standalone podcast series,

Snewscast presents Spooky Stories. Or, if you are a premium subscriber, look for Snewscast Plus or Snewscast Plus Deluxe Spooky Stories, instead to listen ad-free. H.G. Wells, often referred to as the father of science fiction, published The War of the

Worlds in 1898, marking a groundbreaking moment in the genre. Born in 1866 in England, Wells was a prolific writer whose works spanned both fiction and nonfiction, often reflecting his deep interest in social issues, science, and human evolution. The War of the Worlds stands out as one of his most enduring and influential works. Set in Victorian England, the novel explores the vulnerability of humankind in the face of superior extraterrestrial forces, an idea that was revolutionary for its time. Wells blended scientific ideas with thrilling narrative, vividly imagining Martian invaders wielding advanced technology, like enormous tripods. This portrayal of a technologically superior being wreaking havoc on humanity, mirrored concerns of imperialism and the unknown while questioning the assumptions of Western dominance. The story's cultural impact as immense, most notably when Orson Wells' 1938 radio adaptation apparently caused public panic, as listeners mistook the dramatization for a real Martian invasion. Although new data seems to suggest the extent of this panic may have been minimal. Wells' tale remains timeless, continuing to inspire adaptations, films, and discussions on human survival and the role of science and

society. In the War of the Worlds, Wells not only entertains, but also offers a compelling critique of humanity's fragile position in the universe, showcasing the blend of imagination An intellect that defined his career.

Let's get cozy. Close your eyes. Relax your body into the softness of your bed. Now, take a few deep breaths. No one would have believed in the last years of the 19th century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own. That as men visit themselves about their various concerns, they were scrutinized and studied. Perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinize the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency, men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene and their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. No one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources of human danger, were thought of them only to dismiss the

idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable. It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most terrestrial men fancied there might be other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise. Yet across the Gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with invious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us, and early in the 20th century came the great disillusionment. The planet Mars, I scarcely need remind the reader, revolves about the sun at a mean distance of 140 million miles. And the light and heat it receives from the sun is barely half of that received by this world. It must be, if the nebular hypothesis has any truth, older than our world, and long before this earth ceased to be molten, life upon its surface must have begun its course. The fact that it is scarcely one-seventh of the volume of the earth must have accelerated its cooling to the temperature at which life could begin. It has air and water, and all that is necessary for the support of animated existence. Yet so vain is man, and so blinded by his vanity that no writer, up to the very end of the 19th century, expressed any idea that intelligent life might have developed, therefore, or indeed, at all, beyond its earthly level. Nor was it generally understood that since Mars is older than our Earth, with scarcely a quarter of the superficial area and remotor from the Sun, it necessarily follows that it is not only more distant from time's beginning, but nearer its end. The secular cooling that must someday overtake our planet has already gone far indeed with our neighbor. Its physical condition is still largely a mystery, but we know now that even in its equatorial region, the midday temperature barely approaches that of our coldest winter. Its air is much more attenuated than ours. Its oceans have shrunk until they cover, but a third of its surface. And as its slow seasons change, huge snowcabs gather and melt, about either pole and periodically inundate its temperate zones. That last stage of exhaustion, which to us is still incredibly remote, has become a present day problem for the inhabitants of Mars. The immediate pressure of necessity has brightened their intellects, enlarged their powers, and hardened their hearts, and looking across space with instruments and intelligences, such as we have scarcely dreamed of, they see at its nearest distance, only 35 million of miles sunward of them. A morning star of hope. Our own warmer planet, green with vegetation and gray with water, with a cloudy atmosphere eloquent of fertility, with glimpses through its drifting cloud whisps of broad stretches of populace country and narrow, Navy-crouted seas. The Martians seem to have calculated their descent with amazing subtlety. Their mathematical learning is evidently far and excessive ours. Had our instruments permitted it, we might have seen the gathering trouble far back in the 19th century. Men like Shia Pirelli watched the red planet. It is odd by the buy that for countless centuries, Mars has been the star of war, but failed to interpret the fluctuating appearances of the markings they mapped so well. All that time, the Martians must have been getting ready. During the opposition of 1894, a great light was seen on the illuminated part of the disc, first at the lick observatory, then by paratin of niece, and then by other observers. English readers heard of it first in the issue of nature dated August the second. Pocular markings as yet unexplained were seen near the site of that outbreak during the next two oppositions. storm burst upon us six years ago now. As Mars approached opposition, Level of Java set the wires of the astronomical exchange, palpitating with the amazing intelligence of a huge outbreak of incandescent gas upon the planet. It had occurred towards midnight of the twelfth, and the spectroscope to which he had once resorted, indicated a mass of flaming gas, chiefly hydrogen, moving with an enormous velocity towards this earth. Yet, the next day, there was nothing of this in the papers, except a

little note in the daily telegraph, and the world went in ignorance of one of the gravest dangers that ever threatened the human race. I might not have heard of the eruption at all had I not met Ogle V, the well-known astronomer at Ottershaw. He was immensely excited at the news, and in the excess of his feelings invited me up to take a turn with him that night in a scrutiny of the red planet. In spite of all that has happened since, I still remember that vigil very distinctly. The black and silent observatory, the shadowed lantern throwing a feeble glow upon the floor in the corner, the steady ticking of the clockwork of the telescope, the little slit in the roof, An oblong profundity with the stardust streaked across it. O'il they moved about, invisible, but audible. Looking through the telescope, One saw a circle of deep blue and the little round planet swimming in the field. It seemed such a little thing, so bright and small, and still faintly marked with transverse stripes and slightly flattened from the perfect round. But so little it was, so silvery warm, the pins head of light. It was as if it quivered. But really, this was the telescope vibrating with the activity of the clockwork that kept the planet in view. As I watched, the planet seemed to grow larger and smaller, and to advance and recede. But that was simply that my eye was tired. 14 millions of miles it was from us, more than 40 millions of miles of void. Few people realize the immensity of vacancy in which the dust of the material universe swims. Near it, in the field, I remember, were three faint points of light. Three telescopic stars infinitely remote, and all around it was the unfathomable darkness of empty space. You know how that blackness looks on a frosty starlight night. In a telescope, it seems far profounder and invisible to me because it was so remote and small, flying swiftly and steadily towards me across that incredible distance. Drawing near every minute by so many thousands of miles came the thing they were sending us. night too, there was another jetting out of gas from the distant planet I saw it. A reddish flash at the edge. The slightest projection of the outline just as the chronometer struck midnight. And at that I told Oglevi, And he took my place. The night was warm and I was thirsty.

And I went stretching my legs clumsily and feeling my way in the darkness to the little table where the siphon stood. While Ogilvi exclaimed at the streamer of gas that came out towards us. I remember how I sat on the table there in the blackness, with patches of green and crimson swimming before my eyes. I wish I had a light to smoke by. Little suspecting of the minute gleam I had seen and all that it would presently bring me. Ogilvie watched till one, and then gave it up, and we lit the lantern, and walked over to his house. Down below in the darkness were ottersaw, and all their hundreds of people, sleeping in peace. He was full of speculation that night about the condition of Mars and scoffed at the vulgar idea of its having inhabitants who were signaling us. His idea was that meteorites might be falling in a heavy shower upon the planet or that a huge volcanic explosion was in progress. He pointed out to me how unlikely it was that organic evolution had taken the same direction in the two adjacent planets. The chances against anything man-like on Mars are a million to one." He said. Hundreds of observers saw the flame that night, and the night after about midnight, and again the night after, and so for ten nights of flame each night. Why the shots ceased after the tenth, no one on Earth has attempted to explain. It may be the gases of the firing caused to the Martians' inconvenience. Dense clouds of smoke or dust visible through a powerful telescope on Earth as little grey fluctuating patches spread through the clearness of the planet's atmosphere, and obscured its more familiar features. Even the daily papers woke up to the disturbances at last, and popular notes appeared here, there, and everywhere, concerning the volcano upon Mars. The Siriochomic Periodical Punch, I remember, made a happy use of it in the political cartoon. I remember how Jubilant Markham was at securing a new photograph of the planet for the illustrated paper he edited in those days. People in these latter times scarcely realize the abundance and enterprise of our nineteenth century papers. For my own part, I was much occupied in learnings to ride the bicycle, and to busy upon a series of papers discussing the probable developments of moral ideas as civilization progressed. One night I went for a walk with my wife. It was Starlight, and I explained the signs of the zodiac to her and pointed out Mars, a bright dot of light creeping zenith word towards which so many telescopes were pointed. It was a warm night, coming home, coming home, a party of excursionists past us, singing and playing music. There were lights in the upper windows of the houses as the people went to bed. From the railway station in the distance came the sound of shunting trains, ringing and rumbling, softened almost into melody by the distance. My wife pointed out to me the brightness of the red, green, and yellow signal lights

hanging in a framework against the sky.

It seemed so safe and tranquil.

Two, the falling star. Then came the night of the first Falling Star. It was seen early in the morning, rushing over Winchester Eastward, a line of flame high in the atmosphere. must have seen it and taken it for an ordinary falling star. Albin described it as leaving a greenish streak behind it that glowed for some seconds. Denning, our greatest authority on meteorites stated that the height of its first appearance was about 90 or 100 miles. It seemed to him that it fell to Earth about 100 miles east of him. I was at home at that hour and writing in my study. And although my French windows faced towards autosha, and the blind was up, for I loved in those days to look up at the night sky, I saw nothing of it. Yet this strangest of all things that ever came to earth from outer space must have fallen while I was sitting there, visible to me had I only looked up as it passed. Some of those who saw its flight say it traveled with a hissing sound. I myself heard nothing of that. Many people in Berkshire, Surrey, and Middle-Saxx must have seen the fall of it, and at most, have thought that another meteorite had descended. No one seems to have troubled to look for the fallen mass that night. But very early in the morning, poor Oglevy would seen the shooting star and who was persuaded that a meteorite lay somewhere on the comet between Horsel, Otters, and woking rose early with the idea of finding it. Find it he did soon after dawn, and not far from the sand-bits. An enormous hole had been made by the impact of the projectile, and the sand and gravel had been flung wildly in every direction over the heath, forming heaps visible a mile and a half away. The thing itself lay almost entirely buried in sand. Amid the scattered splinters of a fir tree, it had shivered to fragments in its descent. The uncovered part had the appearance of a huge cylinder, caked over, and its outline soften by a thick, scaly, done-colored

incestation. It had a diameter of about 30 yards. He approached the mass, surprised at

the size, and more so at the shape, since most meteorites are rounded more or less completely. It was, however, still so hot from its flight through the air as to forbid his near approach. A stirring noise within its cylinder he has scribed to the unequal cooling of its surface. For at that time it had not occurred to him that it might be hollow. He remained standing at the edge of the pit that the thing had made for itself, staring at its strange appearance, astonished chiefly at its unusual shape and color, and dimly perceiving, even then, some evidence of design in its arrival. The early morning was wonderfully still, and the sun, just clearing the pine trees towards Waybridge, was already warm. He did not remember hearing any birds that morning. There was certainly no breeze stirring, and the only sounds were the faint movements from within the cindery cylinder. He was all alone on the common. Then suddenly he noticed with a start that some of the grey clinker, the ashy incrustation that covered the meteorite, was falling off the circular edge of the end. It was dropping off in flakes and raining down upon the sand. For minute he scarcely realized what this meant. And although the heat was excessive, he clambered down into the pit, close to the bulk, to see it more clearly. He fancied even then that the cooling of the body might account for this. But would stop that idea was the fact that the ash was falling only from the end of the cylinder. And then he perceived that very slowly the circular top of the cylinder was rotating on its body. It was such a gradual movement that he discovered it only through noticing that a black mark that had been near him five minutes ago was now at the other side of the circumference. Even then, he scarcely understood what this indicated.

Then an idea came upon him with flash. The cylinder was artificial, hollow, with an end that screwed out. Something within the cylinder was unscrewing the top. Had once, with a quick mental leap, he linked the thing with the flash upon Mars. The thought of the confined creatures was so dreadful to him that he forgot the heat and went forward to the cylinder to help turn. But luckily, the dull radiation arrested him before he could burn his hands on the still glowing metal. And that he stood ear resolute for a moment. Then, turned, scrambled out of the pit, and set off running into woking. The time then must have been somewhere about six o'clock. He met a wagoner and tried to make him understand, but the tale he told and his appearance were so wild his hat had fallen off in the pit that the man simply drove on. He was equally unsuccessful with the potman, who was just unlocking the doors of the public house by Horsel Bridge. The fellow thought he was mad and made an unsuccessful attempt to shut him into the taproom. That sobered him a little. And when he saw Henderson,

the London journalist in his garden, he called over the palings and made himself understood. Henderson, he called. You saw that shooting star last night? Well, said Henderson. It's out on Horsel Common now.

Good Lord said Henderson. Fall in meteor, right? That's good.

And Henderson snatched up his jacket and came out into the road.

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