Mercury Theatre/War Of The Worlds Hoax--New Hoax in Belgium. Phony Civil War. LINK

[Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor]

On October 30, 1938, Orson Welles managed to frighten the US by creating a phoney Martian Invasion, & scaring the pants off us.

http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/war_worlds.html
A Euro Broadcaster has walked in Welles’ bloated footprints. And started a “civil war” in Belgium.

The Times & The Sunday Times

It’s the end of Belgium as we know it… only joking
David Charter in Brussels

Thousands of Belgians were thrown into a panic by news that the Flemish half of the country had declared independence. A two-hour live television report on the break-up of the nation showed images of ecstatic Flemish nationalists waving flags on the streets and queues of French speakers heading for the “border”.
The panic turned to anger after RTBF, the French public broadcaster, admitted 40 minutes into the show that it was a hoax designed to dramatise tensions between Flanders, in the north, and French-speaking Wallonia, in the south.

---

Guy Verhofstadt, the Prime Minister, condemned the show, comparing it to Orson Welles’s 1938 radio broadcast of War of the Worlds, which convinced thousands of Americans Martians had invaded.

The broadcast comes before talks next year on redistributing powers between the two regions. Mr Verhofstadt’s spokesman said: “It is very bad Orson Welles, in very poor taste.

I’m suprised.

I’m suprised that somebody would do it, & that anybody would believe it.
Comments?

[CalMeacham]

This keeps happening over and over. Orson Welles didn’t start it – there was a BBC hoax about riots in London that, despite the ludicrous claims, was accepted as a real occurrence about a year before the infamous War of the Worlds broadcast. There was also a disastrous “War of the Worlds” broadcast in South America not long after Welles’ version in the US, with similar or worse results.
Heck, when I was in Grad school circa 1982 a TV station put on a drama about terrorists with an atomic bomb in Atlanta (I think). It was done in verite style. Despite disclaimers run at every commercial break a lot of people still thought it was the real thing.

So I’m not at all surprised.

[tanstaafl]

@CalMeacham

Heck, when I was in Grad school circa 1982 a TV station put on a drama about terrorists with an atomic bomb in Atlanta (I think). It was done in verite style. Despite disclaimers run at every commercial break a lot of people still thought it was the real thing.

That was Special Bulletin and was set in Charleston, SC. I lived in South Carolina at the time and actually watched it on a Charleston station. They had a “dramatization” disclaimer on the screen through the entire broadcast and people were still calling the station in a panic. They had their news personalities on the air during just about every commercial break saying “This isn’t real folks, it’s just a show.”

[glee]

I remember watching (probably) CNN, when Saddam Hussein was firing rockets supposedly filled with chemical weapons at Israel.
There was a live link to a reporter in a Tel Aviv Hotel who said ‘there’s just been a loud explosion near here. I’m going to look out’. The US link guy shouted 'Don’t open the window!" :eek:

And who can forget pictures of Chemical Ali in Bagdad saying “There are no US tanks in this city.”
What’s that behind you, then?!

It is possible these days that dramatic events will be shown live on TV.