From the War of the Worlds to the Internet

One of my favorite shows is Radio Lab. Radio Lab, from WNYC, is a quirky science show where they explore a different topic each episode with a quirky, humorous style. They recently rebroadcast their episode looking at the radio broadcast of "War of the Worlds" and you can download it for free and listen.

Some interesting notes on the show: in the original broadcast, the guy who played the reported studied the tapes of the Hindenberg broadcast to try and strike the right tone. The Mercury Theater was not popular at the time so not many people listened to the beginning of the broadcast. Lots of the people who paniced were what we would now call channel surfers. Surveys found about 1 out of 12 people listening didn't get that it was a radio play and thought it was real. They even read transcripts of the emergency calls they got...many people thought it was the Germans who were invading!

They also talk about a 1950s version in Quito, Ecquador. In Quito, they seeded the audience by getting the major newspaper to print fake stories about happenings on Mars leading up to the broadcast. On the night of the broadcast, they promoted a live radio performance by a popular singing group to ensure a large audience. Of course, they changed all the locations to be near Quito. Well, it worked. People paniced, even the military went out to find the Martians (which led more people to believe it was true!) At the end of the evening, when the hoax was revealed, pitchfork and torch wielding mob set the radio station on fire...6 people died (including the producer's girlfriend...okay, I don't know if the mob really had pitchforks, but the obviously had some type of fire).

They conclude with a telling of the Disco War of the Worlds done in Buffalo in 1978 which got the Canadian military to block bridges at the border.

So how does the connect to the internet? Well, what percentage of people still think Obama is a muslim? More than 1 out of 12! People want to believe what they hear from "credible" sources (credible in quotations since credible can be in the eye of the beholder). And it is not always easy to tell what is a credible source since some nonsense does sneak into the wire services.

Take the story about the burglar subdued by the ghost I blogged about. Sounds suspicious...could be a hoax. They even talked about that story on this week's Skeptics Guide to the Universe. They talked about various medical conditions that could have come into play or the possibility that it was all BS.

People think we are smarter, more sophisticated and less likely to fall for those hoaxes now than in 1938. Looking around the internet, I think we are probably MORE likely to fall for this nonsense as many people have become much less discerning about their sources of information.

I am already dreading all the 2012 doomsday nonsense I will have to put up with for the next few years (and I have already been interviewed by a television producer from Spain asking my opinion...don't think it will make the show based on what she wanted me to say and what I said!)