For my first blog, I decided to scientifically evaluate one of the most well-known hoaxes in American History, the War of The Worlds radio hoax that took place on October 30, 1938. Although not originally intended to be a hoax, estimates are that the hoax 6 million people heard the broadcast, and 1.7 million believed it, with many of them panicking. People blame the mass belief in the hoax on the fact that they only mentioned it was a radio play being read to sound like a newscast at the beginning, but if people would have followed some principles of scientific thinking they would have never even guessed it to be a hoax. The main scientific principle that applies to this is extraordinary claims requires extraordinary evidence. To believe that aliens have flown down from the sky and are decimating the country side with poisonous gas and heat rays is quite an extraordinary claim, and the only evidence backing it up was a single radio broadcast. If there was some better evidence, such as an earthquake to explain the alien ship crash or fog across the country side that could pass for the poisonous gas this hoax would have been way more believable. Although things may have been different back in the 1930s, today I would consider it unreasonable to put all my trust in one source, especially if that single source was mainstream media. Ruling out rival hypothesizes would have worked to show that there could be other explanations, such as a radio play or a Halloween prank, that you should make sure they are not true before you completely and utterly put all faith in the only explanation you have.
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/archive/permalink/the_war_of_the_worlds/
http://history1900s.about.com/od/1930s/a/warofworlds.htm
http://www.war-ofthe-worlds.co.uk/
