Nation IN BRIEF : NEW YORK : CBS Under Fire for Asteroids TV Hoax

A fictional news broadcast showing gigantic asteroids crash-landing on Earth took Americans by surprise, with TV viewers jamming CBS switchboards to find out if their world was coming to an end. Titled “Without Warning,” the program attributed fictional reports of worldwide disaster to news outlets such as Reuters and The Associated Press and showed scenes of panic and death on the ground, massive tie-ups in the skies above the United States and the collapse of the world’s stock markets. The broadcast was reminiscent of Orson Welles’ famous 1938 radio dramatization of H.G. Wells’ “War of the Worlds”