Listen here to complete radio broadcast (1938):

The War of the Worlds was an episode of the American radio drama series Mercury Theatre on the Air, performed as a Halloween special on October 30, 1938, and aired over CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System). Directed and narrated by Orson Welles, it was an adaptation of H. G. Wells’ novel. For the first two-thirds of the hour long broadcast, the story was presented as a series of realistic, interrupting news bulletins reporting a Martian invasion in New Jersey – with sirens, field reporters, and descriptions of war machines and poison gas.

Up to six million people tuned in to the show, most of whom had no idea that what they were listening to was fictional. Some listeners then called the police, warned neighbors, or fled their homes. Although the exact extent of the panic response has been debated, in the days following, the press and newspapers claimed the broadcast caused mass, nationwide panic and condemned the airing as cruel and deceptive.

(Sources: Schwartz, A.B. (2015) Broadcast hysteria: Orson Welles’s War of the Worlds and the art of fake news. New York: Hill and Wang, & Smithsonian Mag )

BBC Witness History Episode (2025) – Orson Welles broadcasts The War of the Worlds