In 1938 for a special Halloween episode of the radio series the Mercury Theater, eventual actor-director Orson Welles performed an adaptation of H.G. Wells’ 1898 science-fiction horror classic The War of the Worlds. Presented as reality over the radio broadcast, it incited a nationwide panic among listeners who thought news of a real Martian alien invasion was taking place, prompting a public apology from Welles who remarked he did not intent to cause such a stir among the American people. Over half a century later in the United Kingdom circa 1992, the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) pulled off the same feat with their televised mockumentary video broadcast Ghostwatch, a film that somehow caused an even greater and more dangerous furor than anything Welles and crew concocted in 1938.
--Andrew Kotwicki