During this sixtieth anniversary year of the Martian panic, it is timely to reflect on the lessons we can glean from the incident, applying the wisdom that six decades of hindsight can provide. It is a testament to the remarkable power of expectation on perception. This message cannot be over-emphasized and continues to go widely unheeded, as visual misperceptions are a common thread in many reports of such diverse phenomena as religious signs and wonders, UFOs, and Bigfoot. These examples have been usually overlooked in subsequent popular and scholarly discussions of the panic. The event also reminds us that the human mind does not function like a video camera capturing each piece of data that comes into its field of vision.
People interpret information as it is processed.
In reality, there was no mention of a sheet of flame anywhere in the broadcast. The Mass Media Are a Powerful Force in Society Not only does the Martian panic demonstrate the enormous influence of the mass media in contemporary society, but in recent years an ironic twist has developed. The irony here is that for the better part of the past sixty years many people may have been misled by the media to believe that the panic was far more extensive and intense than it apparently was. However, regardless of the extent of the panic, there is little doubt that many Americans were genuinely frightened and some did try to flee the Martian gas raids and heat rays, especially in New Jersey and New York. Yet there is only scant anecdotal evidence to suggest that many listeners actually took some action after hearing the broadcast, such as packing belongings, grabbing guns, or fleeing in motor vehicles.