Grovers Mill War of The Worlds Plaque
Grover's Mill, is a real life country town in New Jersey. It was famous for being the location of a historical event that didn't actually happen. In Orson Welles's radio play of The War of the Worlds, Grover's Mill was the place where the first Martians of the invading army landed and the started of the conquest in the story.
However, the radio play was in the form of a staged news bulliten. For people who didn't know it was staged, they assumed it was a real news broadcast, so they assumed that Grover's Mill had actually been destroyed by the Martian's Tripods, and the entire world would soon be destroyed by this Alien invasion. This assumption caused widespread panic for hundreds to thousands of radio listeners for almost 4 hours, who were convinced that the end of the human race had come.
Grover's Mill was honored in different War of the Worlds productions, and other forms of pop culture. In other forms of the WOTW story, it is indicated that in the War of the Worlds TV series, Grover's Mill is featured in the episode "Eye for an Eye" in 1988, and the 2005 film by Steven Spielberg takes place in a city in New Jersey, the same place where Grover's Mill is located.
Excerpt Orson Welles' War of the Worlds- The First Attack on Grover's Mill.[]
Role in the Radio Play[]
In the story, late at night Grover's Mill, after numerous explosions have been reported on the planet Mars, a large flaming object crash lands in a field in the middle of the forest. As police and reporters curiously surround the object, it is revealed to be a large cylinder. Everybody is curious, and for a while no activity had been reported. Suddenly, a part of the cylinder slowly opened. As police moved everyone back, everybody watched in awe, as the lid opened up, revealing many alien occupants. Everybody is either scared or excited. Three police officers step forward and use a white flag to signal to the aliens that they are friends, hoping they will understand. Unfortunatley, the aliens took no notice, and started their plans to invade us. The cylinder transformed a part of it into a giant heat ray. At this point, all hell broke loose.
The aliens fire the massive weapon at the crowd, killing the officers in a shower of flames, who die screaming in pain. Everybody begins to panic, and the aliens use the weapon to slaughter humans, blow up cars and houses, and set the forest landscape on fire. At the end, 40 people, including one of the main characters, Reporter Carl Phillips is killed.
Realizing this meant war, the U.S millitary responded to the massacre by sending an army of 7,000 men to Grover's Mill, New Jersey. Tanks, jeeps, cannons, trucks, and soilders, rode down the evacuated streets of Grover's Mill, to the alien crash site. From the forest to the field, all of the equipment and soilders surrounded the giant cylinder, and got ready to attack. It was two quiet minutes. The lid to the cylinder opened again. Expecting the heat ray to emerge, the soilders got ready to fire. But much to their shock, instead of a heat ray, a large Fighting Machine stood up on three legs. All the weapons were fired to destroy the machine, but the aliens had put out a shield which destroyed the flying bullets, missles, and cannon pellets before it hit it. The millitary gave it all they got. The Tripod fought back and fired heat rays at the army. The rays struck the soilders, tanks, cannons, and all their equpiment, causing all of them to explode into fire. After a horrifying 2 minute battle the soilders, terrified, ran away from the machines. However, the machine kept killing soilders and destroying the equipment. In the end, only 150 soldiers survived the attack out of a total of 7,000. After that, the aliens leave the now devastated Grover's Mill, to continue their invasion on Earth.
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