The Martians are coming — again.
Nearly 70 years ago, families panicked as they encircled their radio sets and listened to a disturbing broadcast.
Upbeat dance music was suddenly interrupted by a news flash: A meteor had landed near Princeton, N.J., killing 1,500 people. As more reports came in, it was determined that the meteor was actually a spacecraft full of Martians who were carrying “death rays” and invading the planet.
On Oct. 31, 1938, people across America believed this radio drama, a screenplay of H.G. Wells’ 1898 science-fiction novella “War of the Worlds,” to be real.
In Concrete, an actual power outage coincided with dark skies during the live radio show. Thinking their lives were in imminent danger, several people in the eastern Skagit County town fled to the safety of the woods.
Throughout the nation, countless people called police departments, newspapers and radio stations to ask how they could protect themselves against what they thought was the beginning of an interplanetary war, according to a story that ran in The New York Times the day after the broadcast.
All this panic was inspired by one well-performed piece of drama.
The NW Actors Repertory Theater hopes it can inspire a bit of that same fear when it performs its own live rendition of “War of the Worlds” at the Lincoln Theater.
Complete with live sound effects by an old-fashioned Foley man, Lincoln Theater’s booming organ and singing commercials performed by women reminiscent of the famed Andrews Sisters, the show will be held the Friday and Saturday after Thanksgiving. The cast is comprised of local talent, including KAPS 660 AM morning radio hosts Mike Yeoman and Steve Morgan.
As far-fetched as it may seem today, Bruce Weech can understand how Americans could believe that Martians had landed after hearing the 1938 broadcast.
“This was right at the end of the Great Depression; people were used to calamity,” said Weech, who is producing and directing the local “War of the Worlds” show. “People in rural areas weren’t at all surprised that the world was turning on its end.”
Besides, radio was the source of information in the 1930s. Before television and long before the Internet, people counted on radio newscasts to learn what was happening in the world.
Just as importantly, radio was a prime source of evening entertainment. Many families gathered in their living rooms after dinner to listen to such programs as Orson Welles’ famed drama, “The Shadow.” But many weren’t expecting Welles and his Mercury Theatre group to host such a realistic performance as “War of the Worlds” for the Columbia Broadcasting System back in 1938.
The show certainly took the folks of Concrete by surprise. According to Charles Dwelley’s 1980 book, “So They Called the Town Concrete,” an electrical sub-station short-circuited at the Superior Portland Cement Co. in central Concrete on that infamous night. The sub-station gave off “a huge flash of brilliant light” just as the radio show described large explosions and poison gas spreading in the air.
Concrete went dark and its residents went berserk, Dwelley wrote.
One devout Catholic and his wife dashed off to Bellingham to see their priest and make one final confession. Others “accepted their fate” and held prayer sessions on their porches as they waited for the poisonous gas to reach them, Dwelley wrote. And those who knew hiding places in the woods left their homes for the hills surrounding Concrete.
It wasn’t until power was restored that residents could hear radio announcements explaining the creative conflict they’d heard earlier was no war at all.
“Everybody settled down except for those folks in the woods,” explained Lou Hillman, who retold Concrete’s “War of the Worlds” story for the city’s Ghost Walk last month. “And then it came out on the news wires that ... this little town of Concrete had to send out posses to find their residents out in the woods.”
But Jack Hoover, one of the few known residents in Concrete during the 1938 broadcast alive today, contends the wire reports were exaggerated. While at his family’s home on the outskirts of town, Hoover, who was 16 at the time, neither listened to the show that night nor heard any ruckus coming from downtown.
“The next day, they were laughing” about the show, Hoover said of people in town. “There wasn’t too many, just a few.”
Of course, the question is whether people could still react so strongly to “War of the Worlds” in 2007.
“We’re in tumultuous times similar to 1938,” Weech said. “We’re in war, the economy is iffy, at best, and people are still looking for answers. I don’t think it’s out of the reach of possibly that someone might tune in and make them wonder.”
Such a reaction may not be physically possible in Concrete, however.
Though the Nov. 24 show will be aired live at 7 p.m. on Skagit Valley College’s KSVR 91.7 FM, the station’s radio waves don’t reach farther east than Sedro-Woolley. People also can listen to the show online at
http://www.ksvr.org, but need a broadband Internet service or a 56K or higher dial-up modem. Concrete doesn’t have broadband, either, Hillman said.
Just in case, Weech is planning to contact local emergency officials before the show airs.
“I’m going to call the 911 center and put them on alert,” Weech said with a smirk.
• Franny White can be reached at 360-416-2148 or
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