Welcome to Home of the Brave. I'm Scott Carrier. I think most people have heard about how on the day before Halloween in 1938

Orson Wells in the Mercury Theater on the air fake the Martian Invasion of the

Planet Earth by recreating H.G. Wells War of the Worlds on the radio.

They destroyed civilization as we know it in less than 40 minutes.

And a lot of people thought it was true and freaked out.

This strange phenomenon was examined in depth by Jad of Bamrad and Robert Corwinch on Radio Lab a few years ago,

and it's an excellent show, I highly recommend it, but I don't

think very many people have actually heard the original Mercury Theater broadcast, which is a shame

because it's one of the best radio stories ever produced.

Howard Koch is given credit for writing the radio adaptation,

but apparently there was a lot of collaboration with Wells and John Houseman. They did it quickly in a couple

weeks and argued and changed things in the script right up to the last minute. They all thought it was going to be a miserable failure, but the cast, the Mercury Theater

actors, really came together and pulled it off in stunning fashion, making it sound like

was actually happening in real time. The recording of the

broadcast is now available in the public domain so as a public service and

since it's Halloween I thought I'd play it.

So here it is, 79 years later, in its entirety.

It's an hour long, and it starts off kind of slowly,

but apparently that's the way Wells wanted it to make it sound more realistic.

The Columbia Broadcasting System and its affiliated stations present Orson Wells and the Mercury Theater

on the air in the War of the World by

H.G. Wells. Oh, Ladies and gentlemen the director of the Mercury Theater and star of these broadcasts Orson Wells.

...