text: orsen wells's "war of the world"? what happened during orson wells "war of the world" radio broadcasts? ~voices were translated into radio signals, sent across space and received by receiver/translaters.  people turned dials marked "on" on little boxes called radios and the receivers translated the signals back to voices, which caused the peoples' eardrums to vibrate, sending signals to their brains, which were perceived as sounds (most notably voices).