BIGSTAR

“Ladies and gentlemen, we interrupt our program of dance music to bring you a special bulletin from the Intercontinental Radio News. At twenty minutes before eight, Central Time, Professor Farrell of the Mount Jennings Observatory, Chicago, Illinois, reports observing several explosions of incandescent gas, occurring at regular intervals on the planet Mars. The spectroscope indicates the gas to be hydrogen and moving towards the Earth with enormous velocity…”

Then…

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is the most terrifying thing I have ever witnessed…Someone’s crawling out of the hollow top…The whole field’s caught fire…It’s coming this way. About twenty yards to my right…”

People poured into the streets. Some went to church or rushed to spend their last hours with family.  People wrapped their faces with wet towels to protect against the poison gas the radio said was headed from New Jersey.  It was the end of the world.

We’re too smart and jaded these days to fall for such a story… Right?  Hmm, we’re not sure about that. Today we rely so heavily on media, both traditional and social, who knows if another mass hysteria of the public can be induced.

In honor of his legendary on-air performance, check out Orson Welle’s classic masterpiece ‘The Stranger’ starring Edward G. Robinson, Loretta Young, and himself.

Wilson of the War Crimes Commission is seeking Franz Kindler, mastermind of the Holocaust, who has effectively erased his identity. Wilson releases Kindler’s former comrade Meinike and follows him to Harper, Connecticut, where he is killed before he can identify Kindler. Now Wilson’s only clue is Kindler’s fascination with antique clocks; but though Kindler seems secure in his new identity, he feels his past closing in.