Public reaction
The New York Times headline from October 31, 1938
Some listeners heard only a portion of the broadcast and, in the atmosphere of tension and anxiety prior to World War II, took it to be an actual news broadcast. Newspapers reported that panic ensued, with people across the Northeastern United States and Canada fleeing their homes. Some people called CBS, newspapers or the police in confusion over the realism of the news bulletins.
Future Tonight Show host Jack Paar had announcing duties that night for Cleveland CBS affiliate WGAR. As panicked listeners called the studio, Paar attempted to calm them on the phone and on air by saying, "The world is not coming to an end. Trust me. When have I ever lied to you?" When the listeners started charging Paar with "covering up the truth", he called WGAR's station manager for help. Oblivious to the situation, the manager advised Paar to calm down, saying it was "all a tempest in a teapot."
In the town of Concrete, Washington, phone lines and electricity went out due to a short-circuit at the Superior Portland Cement Company's substation. Residents were unable to call neighbors, family or friends to calm their fears. Reporters who heard of the coincidental blackout sent the story over the news-wire, and soon Concrete was known worldwide.
Within one month, newspapers had published 12,500 articles about the broadcast and its impact. Adolf Hitler cited the panic, as Richard J. Hand writes, as "evidence of the decadence and corrupt condition of democracy."
Media Adaptations
An audiocassette version of Wells’s The War of the Worlds is available from Books in Motion. It was released in 1982.
The 1938 radio adaptation of The War of the Worlds, by Orson Welles’s Mercury Theatre on the Air company, is of course the most famous and has become an important piece of American history because of the panic that it induced when it went out across the country.
The War of the Worlds was loosely adapted into a movie in 1953 by producer George Pal, and it starred Gene Barry and Ann Robinson. The adaptation won the Academy Award for Best Special Effects. It is available on VHS and DVD from Paramount.
A stage musical version of the story was produced in London in 1978. Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of the "War of the Worlds" starred Richard Burton and had songs by David Essex and musicians from the bands The Moody Blues and Tin Lizzy. The soundtrack album achieved multi-platinum status and is available on CBS Records.
A 2005 American science fiction disaster film and a loose adaptation of H. G. Wells's novel of the same name, War of the Worlds, directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Josh Friedman and David Koepp. It stars Tom Cruise as Ray Ferrier, a divorced dock worker estranged from his children (Dakota Fanning and Justin Chatwin) and living separately from them. As his ex-wife drops their children off for him to look after for a few days, the planet is invaded by aliens (loosely based on H. G. Wells' Martians) driving Tripods and as earth's armies are defeated, Ray tries to protect his children and flee to Boston to rejoin his ex-wife.