Where can I find heat-ray SFX?

April 25, 2007 1:35 PM

Does anyone know where I can find a sound clip of the original "War of the Worlds" heat-ray sound?

This is one of those sounds you'll either immediately hear in your head, or you won't know what I'm talking about, so it's kinda useless for me to provide too much detail. It's the sound of the heat rays from the 1953 George Pal version of War of the Worlds -- I'm pretty sure it was originally developed for that film, but it's been used in all sorts of movies/TV shows/cartoons since. I'm also guessing the sound is royalty-free, but I could be wrong.

posted by hifiparasol to media & arts (9 answers total)

Googling "War of the Worlds" wav gives this as the first result. Any of those sounds fit the bill?
posted by blueberry at 1:44 PM on April 25, 2007 [1 favorite]

Wow, OK. Thanks. That's, like, the one phrase I didn't Google.
posted by hifiparasol at 1:50 PM on April 25, 2007

My goodness, the green ray is totally Crystal Quest. No wait, not Crystal Quest, what the hell is the name of the game where you are a spaceship in the middle and you have to break apart passing meteors to finish the level?
posted by phaedon at 2:20 PM on April 25, 2007

IIRC, the green ray was made by banging on the guy wires that held up a telephone pole.
posted by kuujjuarapik at 2:23 PM on April 25, 2007

phaedon: Asteroid?
posted by good in a vacuum at 2:59 PM on April 25, 2007

no, thats not it. but its almost exactly like asteroids, just with much better color graphics (not vector-based, and also on the mac). *pulls hair out*
posted by phaedon at 3:26 PM on April 25, 2007

phaedon, was it Ambrosia's OS9 game Maelstrom? If it was an OS7-9 game, you might be able to jog your memory for the title over at The Macintosh Garden.
posted by blueberry at 3:41 PM on April 25, 2007 [1 favorite]

THANK you goddamn it. i would've had nightmares.
posted by phaedon at 3:50 PM on April 25, 2007

That is the sound from lots of old arcade video games.
posted by Goofyy at 2:23 AM on April 26, 2007