Description
It was an ordinary night in October of 1938 until a news bulletin interrupted the dance music on CBS radio–aliens were invading the United States!
This is true story of the Halloween radio prank that duped much of the country into believing that Martians had invaded.
The video below presents the children’s picture book “ALIENS ARE COMING!” the true account of the 1938 Mercury Theatre radio broadcast of “The War of the Worlds”, with audio from the original broadcast!!
Orson Welles who narrated the broadcast later said:
“Radio in those days, before the tube and the transistor, wasn’t just a noise in somebody’s pocket – it was the voice of authority. Too much so. At least, I thought so. It was time for someone to take the starch out of some of that authority: hence my broadcast.”
The interesting thing is that you will find another video just below which explains that the story of the radio program that panicked the nation and has been told for decades is a FAKE. “The only reason newspapers did this was because people were pulling away from the newspapers and listened to radio more often than they read the news. So, the newspapers had a brilliant idea: if they can “prove” that radio is an unreliable source of information, people will start buying newspapers again.”- This is an interesting explanation from @glumdoubled
As from what age do you think that we should introduce children to fake news? Especially the young ones tend to believe whatever they see on you tube etc..
You tube of the read aloud of the book:
Listen to the real radio broadcast:
You tube of the controversy:
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