Which 1938 radio broadcast of a Martian invasion frightened some listeners?

On the night before Halloween in 1938, Orson Welles and his Mercury Theatre on the Air broadcast an adaptation of H. G. Wells’ novel The War of the Worlds. It was written as a series of realistic news bulletins describing Martians landing in Grovers Mill, New Jersey.

Some listeners who tuned in late missed the introduction and believed the reports were real. Newspapers the next day reported widespread panic.

Historians now believe the panic was greatly exaggerated by newspapers eager to criticize radio, their new competitor. Still, the broadcast made twenty-three-year-old Welles famous, and he soon made Citizen Kane.