History 2186A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: The Panic Broadcast, Percival Lowell, Orson Welles

• School: Western University
• Department: History
• Course: History 2186A/B
• Professor: Jonathan Vance

Document Summary

Week 9: threats from other realms (part 2) Space invaders, martian attacks, and alien abductions: mars attacks, the panic broadcast. La guerra de los mundos: mass delusion, mars attacks! The possibility of people believing in aliens started in the late 19th century about 100 years before we went to the mood; People believed aliens came from mars there are references to mars in ancient egypt. There was a big change in the 1870s, when astronomers announced there was water on mars this was enough to generate public interest; People could believe that there was beings on mars. An astronomer; published series of books in 1890s & 1910s on what life would be like on mars; His argument was that mars was a dying planet; His argument was that mars built irrigation canals to bring water from their polar ice caps to the popular places of the planet. Idea of the canals on mars created controversy;