War of the Worlds in Latacunga

We
were reading an
article in our aggregator about
the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame in Seattle, which didn’t
quite break the threshold of blogability in these busy times, until
we came across a reference to a 1949 broadcast of an adaptation of
H.G. Wells, "War of the World" by Radio Quito which reportedly caused
multiple deaths.

Fascinated, we tracked down the whole story.  Incredibly, neither we nor Norma Yvonne, who is Ecuadorian, had ever heard anything about it before. It
seems a couple of DJ jokers, trying to pump up interest in their young
station, came up with the idea of doing an Ecuadorian version of the
CBS radio broadcast ten earlier. In Ecuador, the Martians landed in Latacunga,
an almost entirely indigenous province high in the Andes, and were advancing
on Quito in the form of a dark cloud.

In a novel Latin twist, they had voice impersonators
(a popular form of radio jollies in LA) come on as the Minister of the
Interior and the Archbishop of Quito leading prayers on the air. They even had
the "Mayor" of Quito announce that women and children should abandon
the city so that the men folk could defend it without distractions. People
were running through the streets in their pajamas, ransacking liquor
stores and pharmacies  and fornicating in the parks. Actually, we
got carried away and made that last phrase up, but the rest is history.

When informed it was all a hoax, instead of heading
sheepishly home to sleep it off, the enraged populace surrounded the station and burned
it to the ground, along with El Commercio, the Dean of Ecuadorian newspapers, which owned the station. Several people were burned to death, and more
were shot by police.

Whew, and all this time we thought of Ecuadorians
as peaceful, non-violent people. Come to think of it, one of the reasons we have always
liked it there is that EVERYONE believes in extraterrestrials, and most
people have seen UFO’s first hand.  They seem to like to hang out
around the Equator, probably for navigational reasons. Even the Dowbrigade
has seen them. So it’s probably not too surprising that if anything could
set off these placid Pacific people, it would be messing with their ETs….

The
Day the Martians Landed in Ecuador by Bob Moore

article on SF Museum from the
New York Times