Conspiracy theory In a theatrical trailer for his film F For Fake, Welles joked about such theories, jesting that the broadcast indeed "had secret sponsors".
While Mercury Theatre had no sponsor, CBS and the Rockefeller Foundation were contracting the leading crowd psychology researchers of the time; CBS had Edward Bernays, the Rockefeller Foundation had Ivy Lee.
With the involvement of Frank Stanton in the Radio Project and his position in the CBS research department, it is possible the "creative curiosity" of Orson Welles came from conversations within these business circles. A detailed documentary on these circles and the ideas behind social manipulation was made by the BBC, called The Century of the Self.
There has been continued speculation the panic generated by War of the Worlds inspired officials to cover up unidentified flying object evidence, avoiding a similar panic. U.S. Air Force Captain Edward J. Ruppelt[9], the first head of UFO investigatory Project Blue Book wrote, "The [U.S. government's] UFO files are full of references to the near mass panic of October 30, 1938, when Orson Welles presented his now famous The War of the Worlds broadcast."
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That's all the digging I'm energetic enough to bother with today. Sorry.
IIRC, What I read years ago was a declassified CIA document to the effect that they set up the media folks, including Orson Welles, to pull it off.
It's arguable as to what % of the population were how terrified. The mythos about it is evidently as interesting as the facts.
Nevertheless, the government DID use that whole thing as justification for maintaining strict UFO secrecy.
>> It’s arguable as to what % of the population were how terrified. The mythos about it is evidently as interesting as the facts.
I think you’ve made an important point here. How much of the “terror” was really a myth?
The show has been broadcast a couple of times since, once in some foreign country where someone was actually killed. But the person who was killed was killed because the people found out it was fake and were angry at having been deceived.
And then I’ve noticed that there have been a few recent discussions of the whole thing. A Freakonomics podcast, for one. Have these recent discussions been done to reinforce the possibly false idea that the public can’t handle the truth? How accurate are they? (Freakonomics has also had a series this summer/fall of CEO interviews and most or all of those CEOs have since resigned. Coincidence???)