In 1938, October 30th, the night before Halloween, Orson Welles made a radio performance to the nation. He began to read-off an adaptation of H.G. Wells' "War of the Worlds", mentioning that it was fiction at the start, but it was read as if it were a news broadcast, from the perspective of a reporter in the midst of a Martian invasion. It was a very convincing and involving radio show, here it is, if you have an hour-ish to spare.
In fact, it was so convincing, that people flipped out. They ran amok, most of the radio-owning population was convinced that the staged radio performance was an actual announcement, and fearful that martians were taking over humanity. Suicides spiked and marbles were lost (metaphorically, and maybe literally).
It may seem kind of silly to imagine this, as people are going nuts over a little piece of show. But, like I mentioned in the "Great Train Robbery", this was the first time anyone had seen of heard anything like this, and so, madness ensued.
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