Orson Welles

"While the film version of Wells's novel is highly regarded by science-fiction and cinema buffs and was successful upon its release, the impact it had on mass consciousness cannot be compared to the effect of the radio broadcast of War of the Worlds on the day before Halloween in 1938. At that time, CBS's "Mercury Theatre" presented Orson Welles and a talented cast simulating a live news broadcast of an invasion of Earth by mechanized Martian war machines. Because the account of unstoppable alien beings landing in the New Jersey farmlands was depicted so realistically—and because many listeners tuned in after the Mercury Theatre production was already in progress—the greater part of the nation was in panic over the invaders from Mars."

Orson Wells acting out his famous "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast.

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