First, a little more about the broadcast. It was 1938, after all, and as the Great Depression hung on and forces of war were gathering in Europe, Americans were nervous about invasion. Those who listened to the entire broadcast should have heard the disclaimer at the beginning, and the way it started: the narrator (Welles) set the story in 1939, a year later, when “business was better. The war scare was over.” Clearly fictional.

But lots of people didn’t tune in until the program was well underway, and they heard ordinary dance music interrupted by what sounded like news bulletins, until the fake news took over. Nothing like this had been done before.

Historians dispute how many Americans actually panicked and tried to flee, etc., though comedian and writer Steve Allen wrote vividly about his aunt in Chicago being swept up in it when he was a child and she was taking care of him.

Afterwards, H.G. Wells wasn’t the only one who wasn’t amused. FDR blamed Orson Welles when a few years later, some people refused to believe that Japanese airplanes had suddenly attacked and destroyed much of the American fleet at Pearl Harbor.