“The War of the Worlds” is an episode of the American radio drama anthology series The Mercury Theatre on the Air. It was performed as a Halloween episode of the series on Sunday, October 30, 1938, and aired over the Columbia Broadcasting System radio network. Directed and narrated by actor and future filmmaker Orson Welles, the episode was an adaptation of H. G. Wells’ novel The War of the Worlds (1898). It became famous for allegedly causing mass panic, although the scale of the panic is disputed as the program had relatively few listeners.(Wikipedia)
A radio dramatization of H.G. Wells’ “War of the Worlds” – which thousands of people misunderstood as a news broadcast of a current catastrophe in New Jersey – created almost unbelievable scenes of terror in New York, New Jersey, the South and as far west as San Francisco between 8 and 9 o’clock last night.
The panic started when an announcer suddenly interrupted the program of a dance orchestra – which was part of the dramatization – to “flash” an imaginary bulletin that a mysterious “meteor” had struck New Jersey, lighting the heavens for miles around.
A few seconds later, the announcer “flashed” the tidings that weird monsters were swarming out of the mass of metal – which was not a meteor but a tube-like car from Mars – and were destroying hundreds of people with death-ray guns. (excerpt from Daily News, October 31, 1938)