On Sunday the 30th of October 1938 at 8pm ET the CBS radio network aired a special Halloween adaptation of H.G Wells’ “War of the Worlds”. It was delivered like a special news bulletin as a way of updating and innovating the source material. It was meant to be a hoax for the spooky season and therefore the goal was to frighten listeners. However, some citizens were more taken in than others by the realism of the presentation, and it resulted in small pockets of panic and confusion.
While it wasn’t chaos in the streets as the myth has been told, it did demonstrate how media can affect people’s reality. Television was only in its infancy, and radio was the primary source of immediate news for the population. That was it. You are sitting in your home listening to the wireless and you have precious little options to fact check what you are hearing.
You can change the channel, but that doesn’t prove much. Maybe that other station isn’t up to date yet with the emergency. The neighbours are all in the same boat, so all you can do is talk amongst yourselves and/or argue. Calling the authorities would seem like the logical thing to do. They should be in communication with other departments and would have a much better chance of getting to the bottom of the situation.
So, when you read that there was a massive influx of calls to local law enforcement agencies you must keep in mind that the available access to information was very limited in 1938.
Flash forward around 45 years to when I was a pup in the 1980s and we were so much more advanced than those yokels. Running amok in the streets because of a radio program. “Did you know people were arming up? These poor simple fools were firing shots at shadows they were so frightened!”
Yeah, we were too clever to fall for something like that in the 1980s. Joke being that we had no trouble believing the over-exaggerated and/or fabricated stories of how a radio program caused alarm when it managed to trick people into wondering if it was authentic. Pranked about the reaction to a years old hoax – perfect!
Way down south in the isolated land of Oz we bought that panic in the streets bullshit hook, line and sinker. Someone heard or read it somewhere and told someone else and pretty soon, “everyone knows that!” Urban myths and all manner of tall tales got tossed around and somehow became realer the more times they were told.
Nothing fed our craving for the inexplicable more than “Great Mysteries of the World”. I recall it playing on television on Sunday afternoon and we would all sit transfixed as Leonard Nimoy would regale us with uncanny tales of bizarre and scary phenomenon that may or may not be for real.
“This series presents information based in part on theory and conjecture. The producer’s purpose is to suggest some possible explanations, but not necessarily the only ones, to the mysteries we will examine.”
Spoken disclaimer
I always remember getting spooked during the opening credits every time that weird looking vampire showed up. It would be a long time before I would learn about “Nosferatu”; yet another bit of information that was simply too hard to find in my Gen X world.
For many of us kids, this was our first introduction to Bigfoot, The Loch ness monster and the Bermuda Triangle. All of which were hotly debated whenever they were brought up. I am positive that any kid growing up during the popularity of that show would shit bricks if they thought they would be travelling through that fucken Bermuda Triangle. No fucking way man!!!
UFOs, ghosts and demonic possessions were all possibilities, and while I am sure university libraries would have scientific and sceptical literature on the subjects, none of us was going to do any research into it beyond the Encyclopedia and some random book about myths and legends in the school library.
There would have been magazines cashing in on the more notorious strange and spooky stories. There was always a Time Life book collection to order by mail if you could afford it. Along with other shows such as “Ripley’s Believe it or Not!” our fertile little brains were overflowing with baffling and unnerving places, creatures and events.
“I think Bigfoot is blurry, that’s the problem. It’s not the photographer’s fault. Bigfoot is blurry, and that’s extra scary to me. There’s a large, out-of-focus monster roaming the countryside.”
Mitch Hedberg
Some of us never did any real investigating until the internet started to get big and even more never even bothered then. I am certain that plenty of my peers still hold superstitions or sneaking suspicions that were imprinted via one of those shows when they were a kid.
It wasn’t just those shows fuelling our imaginations and blurring the lines between science and the supernatural. It was movies and TV shows we watched all the time and the cliches we accepted as fact. Of course, superheroes aren’t real, but so many commonalities that were taken for granted somehow slipped into our understanding of ‘reality’. There was a funny meme circulating a while ago which covers this brilliantly:
Another lethal peril of the natural world was piranhas. We wholeheartedly feared those ravenous fish and thought human beings were a regularly on the menu. I’m sure there are still many people my age who think these carnivorous critters attack any human unfortunate enough to be swimming nearby. That unsuspecting bathers are the preferred cuisine guaranteed to kick off a feeding frenzy and leave nothing but bones and blood in the water. To be honest I still struggle with the actual data saying it is very rare.
That’s quite interesting being that I was born and raised in Australia and spent much of my youth in the surf. Yes, Jaws scared me, but it never kept me away from the waves. Trust me, when I hear a shark alarm I get my ass on the sand ASAP and would do the same if I saw a fin. I’m not bobbing around wondering if I might be about to meet a playful dolphin. I know sharks can kill and maim; I just also know we are not this gastronomic treat that they simply cannot resist.
Maybe it’s the unfamiliarity that ramps up the fear factor. I would definitely be very wary in our tropical north where warnings about crocodiles are posted. Our fear of the unknown springs from being out of our element and being bombarded with unique stimuli. Strange surroundings and/or unusual events leave us vulnerable to unexpected threats and that can increase anxiety right alongside awareness.
Nowadays finding the answer to any of those old enigmas is a click, even a verbal question, away. All the historical and scientific records relating to those Great Mysteries of the World from my childhood are floating in cyberspace waiting to be summoned. Along with any other obscure information you may wish to find.
Of course, this overabundance has given rise to a whole new host of confusing conundrums. “Fake news” is becoming an all-too-common occurrence. One could just as easily find a website espousing the existence of Yetis as one debunking them. I suppose the magic lies in the impossibility of proving anything beyond a doubt. There is always a little wriggle room for blind faith; even if it is the width of a bees’ dick.
Ever since I was a kid, this has always looked like a forearm and hand sticking out of the water. There’s nothing to compare for scale. I wasn’t positive that it didn’t exist, I just couldn’t imagine it being enormous.
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