Here’s a Halloween throwback for the  books: October 30, 1938, the night aliens “landed” in New Jersey. Picture this: my grandfather and his buddies, truck loaded with ordinance, racing down the highway with one mission—protect the planet from a Martian invasion. They weren’t the only ones. On that evening, radios crackled with “The War of the Worlds,” a Halloween broadcast of Orson Welles’ Mercury Theatre on the Air, and listeners in pockets around the country believed a genuine attack was underway.

Check out my War of the Worlds Movie Reviews on Reelay.

Imagine —one trusted source of information, and the news sounds credible enough to make your blood run cold. When you’re hit with something that shocking, you’re left with two choices: freeze or act. My grandfather’s crew chose action. Grandma Sue gave him all kinds of business when he got home- but he hardly cared. Even knowing the truth now, it’s hard to fault him. Back then, it wasn’t about gullibility; it was about rising to the occasion for a world he believed was in peril. Today, we might chuckle at the image of those men barreling down Route 80, but in that moment, he wasn’t just a “guy who fell for it”—he was a would-be hero, ready to defend his home.

Orson Welles’ innovative, unbroken “news bulletin” format added to the panic, and many tuned in mid-broadcast, missing the part that clearly labeled it as science fiction. Public outcry followed, some demanding FCC regulations, but the whole affair ultimately earned Welles a reputation as a maverick storyteller. Halloween had served up a real-life horror that, while a product of fiction, left listeners with tales they’d recount for years.

I still remember ours.

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