Did Orson Welles' 1938 broadcast really cause mass panic?

No, not in the sense of the popular story. A small share of listeners were frightened, and a few may have panicked, but the evidence does not show mass hysteria across the United States. Many of those who were alarmed had tuned in late and missed the signs that it was fiction, and some assumed Germany, not Mars, was attacking. Researchers who have revisited the record call the nationwide panic a myth. [1] [2]

On the night of 30 October 1938, the C.E. Hooper ratings service telephoned 5,000 households. Only 2 percent said they were listening to a radio play or the Orson Welles program, and none said a news broadcast. Welles was scheduled against the hugely popular Chase and Sanborn Hour with Edgar Bergen, and some CBS affiliates, including Boston's WEEI, did not carry the show. Jefferson Pooley and Michael Socolow note that the claim of many listeners dial-surfing over to Welles has never been backed by an actual number. CBS's Frank Stanton later recalled that most people did not hear it, and those who did treated it as a prank. [3]

Pooley and Socolow argue that newspapers had lost advertising revenue to radio during the Depression and used the broadcast to portray radio as irresponsible. They cite a New York Times editorial, "Terror by Radio," as an example. Joseph Campbell, a communication professor at American University, says the coverage was almost entirely anecdotal. Wire services such as the Associated Press extrapolated widespread fear from small numbers of scattered accounts, and papers made sweeping claims with little documentation. [3] [1] [2]

The legend was reinforced in 1940 by Princeton psychologist Hadley Cantril in The Invasion From Mars. He estimated about six million listeners, of whom perhaps 1.2 million were "frightened" or "disturbed." Critics note that these words are not the same as "panic-stricken." Pooley and Socolow add that Cantril relied on a survey whose audience figure was over 100 percent higher than any other measure, which Cantril himself acknowledged, and that it may have been influenced by the newspaper publicity. [2] [3]

Newspapers reported no deaths or serious injuries tied to the broadcast, which Campbell says would be unlikely had real panic gripped the country. No newspaper reported a verified suicide. Princeton researchers checked a rumor of people treated for shock at a Newark hospital and found it inaccurate, and six New York hospitals surveyed six weeks later had no cases linked to the show. A Washington Post report of a Baltimore heart-attack death was never confirmed. One listener sued CBS for $50,000 over nervous shock, and the suit was quickly dismissed. A reader who walked down F Street in Washington during the broadcast wrote that he saw nothing approaching mass hysteria. [2] [3]

The broadcast did make Welles famous. The next morning his name and face were on newspaper front pages across the country, and police, newspapers and radio stations had received calls. [4]