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Journalist: No one would have believed |
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in the last years of the nineteenth century |
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that human affairs were being watched from the timeless worlds of space. |
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No one could have dreamed that we were being scrutinized, |
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as someone with a microscope studies creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. |
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Few men even considered the possibility of life on other planets |
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and yet,across the gulf of space, |
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minds immeasurably superior to ours regarded this Earth with envious eyes, |
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and slowly and surely, they drew their plans against us. |
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At midnight on the twelfth of August, |
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a huge mass of luminous gas erupted from Mars and sped towards Earth. |
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Across two hundred million miles of void, |
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invisibly hurtling towards us came the first of the missiles that were to bring so much calamity to Earth. |
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As I watched, there was another jet of gas. It was another missile starting on its way. |
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And that's how it was for the next ten nights. A flare, spurting out from Mars, |
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bright green, drawing a green mist behind it, a beautiful, but somehow disturbing sight. |
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Ogilvy the astronomer assured me we were in no danger. |
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He was convinced there could be no living thing on that remote forbidding planet. |
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"The chances of anything coming from mars are a million to one" he said |
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"The chances of anything coming from mars are a million to one, but still they come!" |
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Journalist: Then came the night the first missile approached Earth. |
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It was thought to be an ordinary falling star, |
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but next day there was a huge crater in the middle of the Common, |
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and Ogilvy came to examine what lay there: a cylinder, thirty yards across, glowing hot. |
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And with faint sounds of movement coming from within. |
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Suddenly the top began moving, rotating, unscrewing, |
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and Ogilvy feared there was a man inside, trying to escape. |
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He rushed to the cylinder, but the intense heat stopped him before he could burn himself on the metal. |
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"Yes the chances of anything coming from mars are a million to one" he said |
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Journalist: It seems totally incredible to me now that everyone spent that evening as though it were just like any other. |
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From the railway station came the sound of shunting trains, ringing and rumbling, softened almost into melody by the distance. |
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It all seemed so safe and tranquil. |