No one would have believed .......

... in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. No one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources of human danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable. 

On this day in history in 1938, Orson Welles' War Of The Worlds was broadcast on the radio and caused panic across the United States as people feared the country was under attack by Martians. It has been said that one of the reasons why so many Americans believed in the invasion was because so many people were poised for an invasion from Europe or Asia as World War II raged around them. It occurs to me that, in the run up to the general election, many Americans are similarly poised, this time from the enemies within - such as Antifa and White Supremacist groups like The Proud Boys. I hope that nobody will throw a spark into that tinderbox and that the election will transpire more peacefully than this image, an homage to Orson Welles' (and H.G. Wells') genius.

“And before we judge of them too harshly we must remember what ruthless and utter destruction our own species has wrought, not only upon animals, such as the vanished bison and the dodo, but upon its inferior races. The Tasmanians, in spite of their human likeness, were entirely swept out of existence in a war of extermination waged by European immigrants, in the space of fifty years.”

The Eve Of The War