Shortly after 8 p.m. on the Halloween Eve, 1938, a panicked radio announcer broke in with a report that Martians had landed in the tiny town of Grovers Mill, New Jersey. Although most listeners understood that the program was a radio drama, the next day's headlines reported that thousands of others plunged into panic. It turned out to be H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds performed by Orson Welles.