Welles' War of the Worlds Panic

On Halloween Eve in 1938, Orson Welles created mass panic with a radio adaptation of H.G. Wells's The War of the Worlds. Introducing the story as an unexpected interruption, Welles omitted clues to its fictional nature. The broadcast triggered widespread panic as listeners believed in an actual alien invasion, prompting Welles to interrupt the program to clarify its fictional nature, leading to both notoriety and a subsequent Hollywood career.