31 Days of Halloween | Day 16: The War of the Worlds — The Halloween Panic That Never Was
Haunted American HistoryShow Notes
On October 30, 1938, a radio reporter broadcasting from a farm field in New Jersey suddenly stopped speaking.
Moments earlier, he had described a terrifying scene: a strange metal cylinder, creatures emerging from inside it, and a mysterious weapon burning everything in its path.
Then came silence.
And somewhere in a New York studio, a piano began to play.
The broadcast was Orson Welles's adaptation of The War of the Worlds, a fictional account of a Martian invasion presented through realistic news bulletins.
According to newspaper headlines the following morning, America had descended into chaos. Families fled their homes. People barricaded themselves indoors. Some reportedly believed the world was ending.
But how much of that actually happened?
Tonight, we're revisiting one of the most famous broadcasts in American history, examining the evidence behind the legendary nationwide panic, and uncovering what really happened when another radio station staged its own Martian invasion eleven years later.
It's a story about fear, sensational headlines, the power of radio, and how a Halloween prank became a piece of American mythology.
Welcome to Day Sixteen of **31 Days of Halloween**.
More from Haunted American History
In February 1927, William Fuld fell to his death from the roof of his factory in Baltimore.
In the winter of 1590, an elderly Scottish healer named Agnes Sampson was brought before King James VI of Scotland.
In 1967, the RMS Queen Mary arrived in Long Beach, California, after more than three decades crossing the Atlantic.
In Savannah, Georgia, ghost stories are everywhere.
On November 13, 1974, a young man ran into a bar in Amityville, New York, shouting that his parents had been shot.