Aboriginal Tasmania and The War of the Worlds: Broadcast Anniversary

30 October 1938 · US broadcast date

H. G. Wells’s original novel The War of the Worlds refers directly to Aboriginal Tasmanians and claims they were “entirely swept out of existence”. That claim is false: Aboriginal Tasmanians survived and continue as living peoples and communities. The 1938 radio adaptation omitted that passage; its broadcast anniversary provides a date for examining the novel’s colonial context alongside the fear of invasion the adaptation evoked.

The broadcast that frightened some listeners

On 30 October 1938, Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre on the Air broadcast an adaptation of H. G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds over the CBS radio network in the United States. This entry marks that broadcast, rather than the novel’s publication.

The calendar uses the US local date. It was already 31 October in Australian Eastern Standard Time (AEST). These are two dates for the same broadcast, not separate performances.

The production used simulated news bulletins and eyewitness reports to tell a fictional story of a Martian invasion. The Library of Congress records that some listeners believed the events were real, despite announcements identifying the programme as a drama.

Fear, evidence and the mass-panic story

Some listeners were genuinely frightened or confused. However, the familiar account of nationwide mass hysteria goes beyond the evidence. Historian A. Brad Schwartz’s research into listener letters documents real but limited episodes of fear and shows how newspaper coverage magnified the reaction.

That distinction matters. Recognising exaggeration does not mean dismissing every listener’s fear. It means asking what the surviving evidence supports, rather than repeating the most dramatic version of the story.

Why it belongs in a First Nations calendar

The connection lies in the original novel’s explicit reference to Aboriginal Tasmanians. In Book One, Chapter 1, its narrator compares the invaders’ violence with European colonial violence, but falsely describes Aboriginal Tasmanians as “entirely swept out of existence”. Aboriginal Tasmanians survived and continue as living peoples and communities.

The Tasmanian passage is in the novel; it is not included in the 1938 broadcast transcript linked below. This article uses the broadcast anniversary to look back at the story’s colonial context, without attributing the novel’s words to the radio performance.

The comparison invites a question: why could fictional invasion produce such alarm while actual colonial violence could be treated as distant history? This is a question for reflection, not a claim that listeners in 1938 were responding to the Tasmanian passage.

Reading both stories critically

There are two narratives to examine: the novel’s false extinction claim and the later exaggeration of the broadcast’s public impact. They are different historical issues, but both show why influential accounts need to be checked against evidence and the voices they leave out.

Read the novel’s opening alongside Aboriginal-led contemporary material, and compare the radio transcript with accounts of listener reactions. Keep fiction, adaptation, historical fact and interpretation distinct.

Sources and further reading

• Page from the Past: War of the Worlds — Library of Congress
• Transcript of the 30 October 1938 broadcast — Wellesnet
• A. Brad Schwartz’s research into listener letters and public reactions — Vanity Fair
• War of the Worlds listener-letter collection — University of Michigan Library
• The original novel, Book One, Chapter 1 — H. G. Wells, Project Gutenberg edition
• Contemporary community programs and resources — Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre

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