The War of the Worlds (1938 radio drama)

"The War of the Worlds" was a Halloween episode of the radio series The Mercury Theatre on the Air which was broadcast live at 8 pm ET on October 30, 1938 over the CBS Radio Network. The episode was directed and narrated by Orson Welles as an adaptation of H. G. Wells' novel The War of the Worlds and is infamous for inciting a panic by convincing some members of the listening audience that a Martian invasion was actually taking place.

The first half of the program was delivered in a realistic "breaking news" format. Since the Mercury Theatre on the Air had few commercial interruptions, the first break came after fictional reporters had described a devastating alien invasion and the fall of New York City. This apparently caused some confusion and fear among its listeners, though the scale of the panic is disputed. Popular legend holds that some of the radio audience may have been listening to the much more highly rated show The Chase and Sanborn Hour with Edgar Bergen on NBC and switched to "The War of the Worlds" during a musical interlude, thereby missing Welles's introduction of his show as a work of science fiction. However, modern research suggests that this happened only in rare instances.

Officials with CBS became aware of the public's growing reaction while the show was still being performed live, and though there was some pressure to stop the production, it continued to its planned conclusion. There was widespread media outrage in the hours and days that followed. The program's news-bulletin format was described as deceptive by some newspapers and public figures, leading to an outcry against the broadcasters and calls for regulation by the FCC.

Welles apologized at a hastily called news conference the next morning, and no punitive action was taken. The broadcast and subsequent publicity brought the 23-year-old Welles to the attention of the general public and gave him the reputation of an innovative storyteller and "trickster".