The BBC Radio Panic of 1926

12 years before Orson Welles' infamous "War of the Worlds" broadcast that allegedly caused mass panic, a similar incident occurred across the Atlantic. But it didn't involve aliens...

[@thedon978]

Fr. Ronald Knox was a brilliant man. Of that there is no doubt. The names he gave his characters are delightful.

[@saxongreen78]

What a keen channel, Cobber!

[@maddyg3208]

Interesting, thanks for posting. Both events took place against a background of public anxiety, one about socialism, the other about militarism. There would have been many people for whom such anxiety affected their normal disbelief.

[@addie_is_me]

That’s a really good point. The backdrops helped the broadcasts frighten people.

[@sallyallen820]

This was so cool! And honestly kind of funny 😂 The quality of this video was great btw, I actually willingly learned a lot!

[@nicolemeece9485]

I just love this channel...who needs Netflix when you can binge something awesome...HISTORY!!!

[@GeraBrown]

Love it! Thanks for presenting the complete story. You did a wonderful job! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ I've been missing your videos lately due to lack of time. I hope to catch up soon. ♥️

[@hakeemfullerton8645]

This was amazing that's for sharing

[@geoflevan2318]

I love your channel! Thank you!✌😁

[@plusheeview1482]

I love this channel! Can you do an examination of the labor unrest in England during the '20s that you touched upon in this video?

[@shannonc.5837]

This is hilarious! Fake news is certainly not a new phenomenon...

[@bellumfallax]

"Fake news is certainly not a new phenomenon..." Nor is credulity.

[@bellumfallax]

@Carly Sewell Comedy? Not by my definition, where comedy means that almost everyone finds it funny, and almost nobody winds up scared. I'd call this a cleverly-executed prank, Carly. Regardless, prank or not, my comment about the timeless ubiquity of fake news and credulity still stands.

[@georgeelmerdenbrough6906]

@@bellumfallax You think ever joke is funny ?

[@bellumfallax]

I don't reply to those who can't express themselves clearly.

[@georgeelmerdenbrough6906]

@@bellumfallax sure you do

[@kennymik1509]

Good show. Thank you for sharing.

[@mediaprof6328]

Thanks for this. It was quite interesting.

[@eileen1820]

Amazing story. Makes me wish or at least romanticize about simpler times. Loved it!

[@Trickynickymarts]

Great story that I had not heard of before. Well researched and put together too, thank you. Its funny but I have a crystal set wireless from that very year, rather similar to the one those boys were tuning into.

[@svorourke7056]

...very interesting!!! great podcast!!

[@Game_Hero]

This is just like that ghost show they broadcasted in the UK during the 1990s, where despite all the warnings this was a fictionnal show pretending to be an extensive report on ghosts people skipped them.

[@mattclements1348]

Excellent vid

[@stevensiferd7104]

@3:05 - "While we don't have the original broadcast, we do have the original script. And with just that, it's not easy to see how this report could've been construed as real news. With names like 'Mister Poppleberry, the secretary of the National Movement for Abolishing Theatre Queues,' it should've been obvious that it was a parody." @5:31 - Shows a newspaper clipping that includes the name "Sir Leo George Chiozza Money." From Wikipedia: "Sir Leo George Chiozza Money (Italian pronunciation: [ˈkjɔttsa];[1] 13 June 1870 - 25 September 1944), born Leone Giorgio Chiozza, was an Italian-born economic theorist who moved to Britain in the 1890s,[2] where he made his name as a politician, journalist and author." The moral of the story: Never underestimate the British capacity for generating silly names. After all, this is a country with locality names like Giggleswick, Scunthrope and Upton Snodsbury.

[@SirKenchalot]

LOL so British to not think of faking an alien invasion but a clock bell being toppled!

[@nathalie_desrosiers]

And in 1957, the 'Spaghetti-tree hoax' ...

[@spmoran4703]

It cannot be . I have booked my holiday to Italy. To gather my supply of spaghetti.

[@kesmarn]

Father Coughlin + Orson Welles = Father Knox. Thanks for a fascinating story!

[@NoirChat138]

🤣🤣🤣 and that's what in my country we call " uno scherzo da prete" (a priest joke)

[@sarahgray430]

This sounds like something out of a Monty Python sketch from 50 years later, especially the part about Mr.Gooch being set on fire and a prominent member of Parliment being strung up from a lamp post like Mussolini.

[@nicholasreid1836]

An "eccentric" Catholic priest??? Ronald Knox was one of the wittiest and best-known Catholic apologists of his day, much published in the press, author of many books and biographer. Being fluent in Hebrew, Greek and Latin, he also produced a new and modern-language translation of the Bible. His wit appealed to many people. Anyway, thank you for making this episode. i have been aware of Knox's "hoax" for years and I always bridle a little when people think that the Welles' broadcast was the first time a radio audience was frightened by a piece of fiction. BTW in the case of both the Knox and the Welles "hoaxes", very few people were actually sucked in. Tales of the Welles broadcast causing mass panic, clogging up the highways etc. are pure fiction. Some people have called this "the hoax about the hoax".

[@Athanasius81]

You are exactly right. C.S. Lewis described Msgr. Knox as perhaps the wittiest man in Europe. He was one of the key figures of the Catholic literary revival of the early twentieth century. Speaking of his Bible, it was the Bishops of England and Wales in 1936 who asked him to undertake his translation of the Bible. Indeed, as Baronius Press (which has republished his Bible) has put it: "Msgr. Knox's Bible was the first English Bible to be approved for liturgical use...the quality of its language continued to be admired and today extracts continue to be used in the Liturgy of the Hours in the UK, Ireland, Australasia and parts of Africa". Incidentally, on the Wikipedia page for Ronald Knox, it is noted that Orson Welles himself in an interview credited Knox's broadcast for giving him the idea for his own broadcast. In one of the footnotes (22), it gives this as the source: Welles, Orson, and Peter Bogdanovich, This is Orson Welles. HarperAudio, 30 September 1992. ISBN 1559946806 Audiotape 4A 6:25-6:42. Welles states, "I got the idea from a BBC show that had gone on the year before [sic], when a Catholic priest told how some Communists had seized London and a lot of people in London believed it. And I thought that'd be fun to do on a big scale, let's have it from outer space - that's how I got the idea."

[@spmoran4703]

Eccentric Catholic priest? No , these creatures have never existed I am not a very good liar.

[@nicholasreid1836]

@@Athanasius81 Glad Welles said this. Pity he got the date so badly wrong - Knox's broadcast was well over a decade before Welles' broadcast.

[@robkunkel8833]

“one clever Priest”. Fr. Knox

[@byzantineroman2407]

Fr. Ronald Knox has a translation of the Bible, as well. In fact, it's quite good.

[@syxepop]

This "one clever Priest" did far more of a service to Londoners than he'd ever thought possible. If Germany's political and military leadership thought they in early WWII could "scare the daylights" out of the people by bombing the cities, they would get "the shock of their lives" by finding out they were DESENSITIZED by this "radio scare" 15 years beforehand. We STILL can learn from the "century old wisdom"... 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

[@addie_is_me]

Americans could no fall for it? Orson Welles may have thought, “Game on!”

[@__issamae]

the 1920s ghostwatch! (or, more like, ghostwatch is the 1990s version of this! haha)

[@hilarioph]

What a history before the War Of The Worlds came to the States. Is only a prank for their radio drama and they never do this for their time

[@TheMarinemom02]

So.......not gonna play the play?

[@bigred9428]

I still don't understand, though, how this was supposed to be a comedy sketch. Since the writer was a priest, I assume the story was supposed to have a point. What was it?

[@Athanasius81]

I don't think there was supposed to be a point, other than being a parody of the BBC. Though certainly Ronald Knox wrote parodies that had a point. For instance, as a 23-year old, he wrote "Studies in the Literature of Sherlock Holmes", which I've seen described as the "cornerstone of Sherlockian Literature" (commented on by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself), but which he originally wrote simply as a parody of modern biblical criticism: www.diogenes-club.com/studies.htm

[@spmoran4703]

Christian's have a sence of humour.

[@paddyearly]

Hilarious🙏 Look how gullible people have been in the past two years😭 Fr. Knox pray for our world🙏

[@spmoran4703]

Proving that even Christian's have a naughty sence of humour .

[@heru-deshet359]

Just like CNN except they never say it's fake at the beginning of each news report.

[@Game_Hero]

Source?

[@heru-deshet359]

@@Game_Hero Source for what?! A source isn't needed when experience demonstrates it.

[@Game_Hero]

@@heru-deshet359 If its so easy to see, have a source to back it up, it should be just as easy to find in a neutral third party

[@heru-deshet359]

@@Game_Hero Well then, look it up buddy.

[@Game_Hero]

@@heru-deshet359 It's to avoid confusion on the debate that we must be talking about the same thing so source please? Lead by exemple.

[@victorboucher675]

So have you seen the Castle Rock fake President they just did on Jan 20?

[@ShowCat1]

Forerunner to CNN.

[@josephgarza5265]

That’s not even close to funny! Playing on simpletons minds.

[@EqualOpportunityDestoroya]

This is why I am a little suspicious of the Corona virus, being a pandemic.

[@Game_Hero]

those that died of it and their relatives are less suspicious though