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We interrupt this Tumblr to bring you a special bulletin: in 1938, Martians invaded…New Jersey! At least, that was the plot of the now-infamous radio adaptation of War of the Worlds, directed and narrated by Orson Welles. 

On October 30, 1988, All Things Considered commemorated the 50th anniversary of the radio show by interspersing new interviews with excerpts from the radio drama. CBS publicity manager Hal Davis recalled, “Every phone began ringing at once and everybody was hysterical.”  CBS’s president, William Paley, claimed, “the whole country was bursting wide open.” 

In recent years, scholars have questioned claims of mass panic on the night of the broadcast, arguing that contemporary newspaper headlines exaggerated and sensationalized the response. However, the event prompted real panic and concern about the role of mass media in American society.  

As War of the Worlds radio dramatist Howard Koch told @npr​ in 1988, “I am disappointed in the gullibility of the American people, politically as well as in this instance, that they accept the most outrageous things as truth.”

Photo: New York Daily News front page October 31, 1938. Credit: New York Daily News Archive/Getty Images

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Spooky! Happy Halloween! -Laura