ALIENS ON THE RADIO

July 31, 2007, 10:00pm. Now in the mood to study and do school stuffs. Well, you might say that’s probably late, the thing is I am a night person. I am more productive when everything is silent and I have watched all the shows I want to watch. I crept to my brother’s room and took the laptop from his desk and started working. I went to the eleap site and logged in. Started listening to the mp3 file of the War of the Worlds, soon got bored and finally decided to just download the file. I then started writing the draft for the entry for information revolution. I slept at around one in the morn.

Aug. 1, 2007, 7:30am. I woke up early to continue listening to the 1938 broadcast of HG Wells' War of the Worlds by the Mercury Theater. Soon, I got into it. I was absorbed. I was fascinated and thought it was rubbish. I personally don’t believe in UFO’s, aliens nor Martians or the like. I was even irritated to the people of that time for their immaturity, rushing to conclusions and doing things without thinking first. Let me give you first a background on the story.
The broadcaster was saying that near the 20th century the world was being watched closely by intelligences greater than man, yet as mortal as their own. The researchers in the American observatory were had an astronomical watch over the planet Mars. They said that Mars had three explosions. Some of the people also believed that there are living intelligences that live on Mars which was opposed by the astronomers. Then one day a weird looking meteor fell in a New Jersey backyard. Event soon followed after the meteor’s crash and then something came out, a strange being which has heat ray and killed the people near it. That’s when the people concluded that the strange being came from the army of Mars and is now invading our world.

Soon I was faced with the question, “Was I affected by it like the other listeners?”

ANSWER: If I was living at that particular period, listening to the radio drama, yes I would have been affected by it just like the others. If I was in that time, I would have thought that whatever the broadcaster’s saying is true, and totally forgetting the fact that it is just a drama. I would have believed every word that he said. This is because of the lack of other means of finding out whether what he is saying is true or not. Actually, the radio drama was really convincing. The broadcaster is talking to the field reporter and then suddenly there are cries and shouts and then all of a sudden the line went dead. The script was well written as well, not to mention the right cue on when the music would be played. The addition of music adds to the suspense. BUT I didn’t live at that particular period and so, I wasn’t affected by the radio drama. I am more used to technologies than those who lived in the 1930’s. They were probably new to the idea of radio and so they might believe everything that they hear. They aren’t used to illusions carried through the radio unlike my generations. They would have been more fooled because of the added music which kept them from blinking. All these summed up totally hypnotized and fooled them, making them to believe that what they hear is true.