Mercury Theatre Broadcast Panic That Night in ’38

During those days of radio’s supremacy, it was usual for the entire family to sit around the radio for the evening’s entertainment. My family always listened to the Mercury Theatre on CBS. That night, we were spellbound.

We’d heard and understood the opening announcement--that this was a play, that this was not real--but before the program was over, there was a frantic knocking at the door. The two spinster sisters who lived next door were almost prostrate in fear. “Did you hear?,” they wailed. “They’re here!” It took us almost half an hour to calm them down, to make them sit with us and listen to the rest of the program. When Welles’ finally said good-night, the sisters looked at us sheepishly, and wondered how on earth they could have been taken in.

They weren’t alone. Although most of the excitement centered on New Jersey, where the monsters “landed,” the panic was felt everywhere that CBS could be heard. Everyone, it seems, simply had forgotten that it was Halloween.