Perhaps the single most famous entertainment radio broadcast of all time, Orson Welles’ October 30, 1938 drama scared countless listeners and made the front page of the “New York Times”—and also underlined the growing importance of radio in America. In the decades since, it has been widely imitated around the world and also provided subject matter for numerous motion pictures and television broadcasts. 

After an opening announcement (which few heard as they were tuned to Bergen/McCarthy), the Welles’ broadcast began with a weather forecast and then a hotel orchestra—both common programming staples. But, then, an announcer breaks in with a news bulletin about a cloud of gas on the planet Mars. After a bit more music, another announcer breaks in with further details—and an interview with a Princeton astronomer (played by Welles). From then on the program jumped from one reporter in New York’s Jersey suburbs to another, each one describing a seeming alien invasion and each more alarming in tone. By the 40-minute mark, alien machines are described as attacking Manhattan with gas and rays. Thousands—millions—were seemingly at risk!  Not surprisingly, by this point, panic was gripping some listeners. Psychology professor Hadley Cantril sought to find out why and discovered that listeners presumed what they were hearing—cleverly disguised as real journalism—was real and imminent. Almost none tuned to another station where they would quickly have found life was completely normal. Nor did they listen carefully enough to discern the quirks in the script that were clearly fictional. Instead they made hurried plans to flee the danger, and in the process panicked many others. And the panic was evident not just in the New York area where the drama was taking place, but in places as far away as Colorado.  The few that stayed with the drama heard a very different final 20 minutes. Welles played what appears to be one of the last people alive in the New York area and goes into something of a quest for the meaning about what has been happening and its likely outcome. At the end, the alien invaders are done in by lowly bacteria. A brief announcement at the broadcast’s conclusion made clear it had been but a drama, the 17th in the program series.