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[00:00.92]Journalist: No one would have believed
[00:02.45]in the last years of the nineteenth century
[00:05.08]that human affairs were being watched from the timeless worlds of space.
[00:09.96]No one could have dreamed that we were being scrutinized,
[00:12.84]as someone with a microscope studies creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water.
[00:18.49]Few men even considered the possibility of life on other planets
[00:22.61]and yet,across the gulf of space,
[00:25.58]minds immeasurably superior to ours regarded this Earth with envious eyes,
[00:32.10]and slowly and surely, they drew their plans against us.
[04:52.61]At midnight on the twelfth of August,
[04:54.92]a huge mass of luminous gas erupted from Mars and sped towards Earth.
[04:59.76]Across two hundred million miles of void,
[05:02.79]invisibly hurtling towards us came the first of the missiles that were to bring so much calamity to Earth.
[05:09.40]As I watched, there was another jet of gas. It was another missile starting on its way.
[05:45.83]And that's how it was for the next ten nights. A flare, spurting out from Mars,
[05:51.42]bright green, drawing a green mist behind it, a beautiful, but somehow disturbing sight.
[05:59.37]Ogilvy the astronomer assured me we were in no danger.
[06:02.95]He was convinced there could be no living thing on that remote forbidding planet.
[07:05.97][06:10.87]"The chances of anything coming from mars are a million to one" he said
[07:36.07][07:15.29][06:20.15]"The chances of anything coming from mars are a million to one, but still they come!"
[06:32.17]Journalist: Then came the night the first missile approached Earth.
[06:35.28]It was thought to be an ordinary falling star,
[06:37.68]but next day there was a huge crater in the middle of the Common,
[06:40.85]and Ogilvy came to examine what lay there: a cylinder, thirty yards across, glowing hot.
[06:47.86]And with faint sounds of movement coming from within.
[06:52.05]Suddenly the top began moving, rotating, unscrewing,
[06:56.63]and Ogilvy feared there was a man inside, trying to escape.
[07:00.36]He rushed to the cylinder, but the intense heat stopped him before he could burn himself on the metal.
[07:26.69]"Yes the chances of anything coming from mars are a million to one" he said
[08:33.27]Journalist: It seems totally incredible to me now that everyone spent that evening as though it were just like any other.
[08:46.77]From the railway station came the sound of shunting trains, ringing and rumbling, softened almost into melody by the distance.
[09:00.48]It all seemed so safe and tranquil.