Montevideo invaded. Watch the carnage.

I love this. Not sure who put it together or even why, but this is a fantastic modern take on an alien invasion. Giant robots start stomping toward Montevideo and without preamble start trashing the city. For something that has no link that I can discern to a big budget studio, it really is an astounding piece of work. The fact that it's called "panic attack" does make me wonder if someone is thinking Orson Welles with this.

Europe and America sign up for Mars

Great to see that NASA and the ESA have finally inked a deal to work together on a Mars exploration program. The deal will ensure a steady fleet of probes to the red planet, beginning with a European-led orbiter in 2016, with surface rovers to follow in 2018. A network of landers has also been proposed for 2020. The ultimate goal will be to bring a sample back to Earth. I just wonder why we can't bring in some more partners? The Japanese and Chinese are building their space programs up, and so surely there would be much to be gained by creating a worldwide Mars program? More detail on the ESA/NASA deal at the BBC.

Movie The Fourth Kind inspired by Welles broadcast?

A new movie about the phenomena of alien abduction is drawing some comparisons with The War of the Worlds broadcast of 1938, though by the sounds of things it has much more in common with The Blair Witch Project. Of course it's a little known fact that the Blair Witch Project was itself influenced by Welles' War of the Worlds scare, so the lineage is there, if a little far removed. Anyway, the movie purports to be a true story about alien abductions that have taken place in Nome, Alaska. A psychiatrist played by Milla Jovovich begins to find a pattern in the repressed memories of her patients and supposed "real" archive footage adds to the terror. Check out the trailer below.

SF Crowsnest reviews Waging the War of the Worlds

Doing that really sad thing I'm sure many authors do of googling their own book titles, I discovered that SF Crowsnest has been very kind with a review, using the word "definitive", which is very very flattering and saying "This book deserves your attention and a place on your bookshelf..." which is very very very flattering. The blog I still love radio also carried a very favourable review the other day which also used the same word, and said "...one book can now serve as the definitive single source for old-time radio buffs and reference librarians everywhere." If you'd like to avail yourself of a copy of this "definitive" book, then Amazon.com has stock. :-)

Listen to my interview on the Paranormal Podcast

I recently had the chance to enjoy a great chat with Jim Harold, the host of the Paranormal Podcast. Jim had very kindly invited me onto the show to talk about a shared passion for The War of the Worlds and old time radio and of course to plug my book, Waging the War of the Worlds. It was a fun interview, and we touched on a number of different panic broadcasts. I was particularly pleased to be able to offer some new insights (detailed in my book) about the 1949 Quito broadcast. The full podcast is available now for download from Jim's site, the Paranormal Podcast, where you'll also find over a 100 other shows covering every spooky, controversial and paranormal subject under this, or any other sun.

War of the Worlds tribute broadcast for October 30th.

While it is easy enough to get your hands on a copy of the 1938 broadcast of The War of the Worlds, it is a rather nice idea to be able to tune into a live repeat at the exact same time and date it went out in 1938. So thumbs up to the folks behind the new movie Me and Orson Welles, who have organised the website waroftheworldstribute.com to do just that. Visit at 8pm EST and you'll be able to hear the whole broadcast. Perhaps they can keep the site going and made it an annual event.

Could a War of the Worlds panic occur again?

The 71st anniversary of the Orson Welles War of the Worlds radio broadcast falls on October 30th and recent events seem to indicate that we're still just as gullible and susceptible to this sort of thing as people were back in 1938. I’ve posted the question “Could there ever be another War of the Worlds style scare?” on the Amazon.com history discussion forum and so far the consensus seems to be yes. You can add your own thoughts on the Amazon discussion, but for the record, I’m siding with those who say it could happen. The recent stories featuring Balloon Boy and the Latvian meteor show just how easy it is for hoax stories to gain traction in the Internet age. It’s a subject I cover in a chapter of my new book, Waging the War of the Worlds.