1 month ago Drone discovered near Morris County, New Jersey. Since then, additional sightings have been reported daily in different parts of the region, rapidly increasing concerns about the origin and purpose of these unidentified flying objects. “At this time, there is no evidence that the reported drone sightings pose a threat to national security or public safety or have foreign ties,” the FBI and Department of Homeland Security said in a statement. joint statement. However, the total lack of further information on the issue captured the public’s imagination. One New Jersey lawmaker said the drone came from an Iranian “mothership” off the coast.
If this real-life news story sounds familiar, Morris County is just over an hour away from Grover’s Mill, the famous site of the fictional Martian invasion dramatized in Orson Welles’ novel. Consider the fact that there is. Adapted into a radio drama by H.G. Wells in 1938 space war. Because it was broadcast like a real emergency broadcast, it “deceived many people who watched it late and believed the incident was really happening.” Space.com’s Elizabeth Fernandez writes:.
The precarious nature of American life in the late 1930s certainly played a role, given that “caught between two world wars, the country was in the midst of the Great Depression and mass unemployment.” It had become. Some listeners speculated that the Martians were actually Nazis, or that the crash landing was connected to some other environmental catastrophe.
86 years since space war The story of the national panic it sparked is now being aired and calls for revision. Not many people were listening to it in the first place, and even fewer accepted it as reality, and even then, drastic responses were rare. But as Wells himself said, video aboveOver the next decades, he heard listeners describe their panic at the sudden and unbelievable prospect of Mars attacking Earth. “Actually, when we were doing the Mars broadcast, we weren’t as innocent as we intended,” he admits. “We were fed up with the way everything that went through this new magic box, the radio, was being swallowed up,” and so they were inclined to “attack the reliability of the machine.” What a relief that we in the 21st century are, of course, far too sophisticated to accept all that new technology has to tell us.
Related content:
When Orson Welles met HG Wells in 1940: Hear the stories of legends space war, citizen kaneWorld War II
Edward Gorey illustrates H.G. Wells space war In His Unparalleled Gothic Style (1960)
Listen to radio performances of 10 of Orson Welles’ Shakespeare plays (1936-1944).
H.G. Wells’ terrifying 1906 illustration space war
Carl Jung’s interesting 1957 letter about UFOs
CIA declassifies 2,780 pages of UFO documents, now available for free download
Based in Seoul, Colin Mbemust write and broadcastIt’s about cities, languages ​​and cultures. His projects include the Substack newsletter books about cities and a book Stateless City: A Stroll Through Los Angeles in the 21st Century. Follow him on the social network formerly known as Twitter. @Colinbemust.
