"The War of the Worlds" is an episode of the American radio drama anthology series The Mercury Theatre on the Air. Directed and narrated by actor and future filmmaker Orson Welles, the episode was an adaptation of H. G. Wells's novel The War of the Worlds (1898). It became famous for causing mass panic, although the extent of this panic is debated.
The first two thirds of the 62-minute broadcast were presented as a series of simulated news bulletins, which suggested to some listeners that an actual alien invasion by Martians was currently in progress. Compounding the issue was the fact that the Mercury Theatre on the Air was a sustaining show (it ran without commercial breaks), adding to the program's realism, and that others were primarily listening to Edgar Bergen and only tuned in to the show during a musical interlude, thereby missing the introduction that proved the show was a drama.
"The War of the Worlds" was performed as a Halloween episode of the series on October 30, 1938, and aired over the Columbia Broadcasting System radio network.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_Worlds_%28radio_drama%29
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