War of the Worlds in Portland Oregon

Today's Podcast describes the effect that the radio show War of the Worlds had on Portland, Oregon.

Transcript

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Welcome to Kitts Myths and Mysteries, listened to in all 50 states and 39 countries. Stories from a world you thought you knew. Today, panic in the streets. Eighty-eight years ago, America woke up to discover that the night before they had been the victim of a theatrical radio presentation. The date was October 30th, 1938. The radio show was Orson Wells' Mercury on the Air version of H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds. In 1938, war was brewing as Germany invaded Austria. Japan was strongly aligned with the invader. Prior to World War II, it was forecast that Britain would suffer night air bombing attacks, causing large numbers of civilian casualties and mass destruction. It was widely agreed that navigation and targeting would be more difficult if mad made lights on the ground could be extinguished. As early as July 1938, American citizens were urged to practice lights out, beginning at dusk. It would not be called blackout drills until 1939. Fear crossed the United States as rumors spread about coming to the aid of our British ally should war break out. But the sounds of war that came over the radio that october thirtieth, nineteen thirty eight were not from Europe, but from Mars. This was a live broadcast across America. 5 PM in the West, which would have been 8 PM Eastern Time, meant there was no time to warn the West about this radio show. A wave of hysteria that swept across the United States that night before Halloween as a realistic radio dramatization reached all the way to Portland, Oregon, 2,500 miles from the scene of the fictional invasion. The telephone switchboards of the Oregonian newspaper were swamped. Hundreds of excited calls came in. People rushed into the business offices of the newspaper demanding information. Hundreds of calls were made to the Portland police, most wanting to know what protection the city could offer and what place might be safe in the event that wholesale destruction spread to the Pacific Northwest. Doctors reported cases of women fainting. A man was reported to have loaded his family into a car and driven frantically through the streets of Portland, Oregon, searching for a haven of refuge. Portland offices of the Western Union Telegraph Company were jammed with persons seeking to send telegrams to relatives in the east inquiring as to their safety. Just as an announcer was choked off by poisonous gas in what he had said might be the last broadcast ever made, the town plunged into darkness. The town of Oregon plunged into darkness. Of course, this was the effect of the early blackout program announced the week before. Elsewhere in the Northwest, calls poured into newspapers, press association offices by the thousands. A Seattle newspaper switchboard reported hysterical calls from persons wanting to know if it was true that New York had disappeared beneath the Atlantic Ocean. Phrases like Here they come, tallest skyscrapers, they're throwing heat waves shocked and horrified radio listeners. One Oregonian journalist coming back from the coast pulled into a gas station and was informed by a panic stricken McMinnville attendant not to bother that the world was coming to an end. That was 1938 America. Today we are much more savvy and have many more ways of receiving news other than radio, and of course if a spiraless message came over Facebook or Twitter or one of the internet news services, we wouldn't be fooled. Or would we? This is Kit Crumb. Be sure to listen tomorrow for another story from a world you thought you knew. Thanks for listening.