"Is there... anyone?"

In 1938 Orson Welles and The Mercury Theatre adapted H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds. The sixty minute broadcast aired October 30 as a special Halloween episode - without commercials. While they (Welles and Mercury Theatre) always said that they said it was a dramatization, the one at the opening of the show was timed to be before people would have turned the channel from other radio programmes. End result: People freaked.

I can't tell you how much I love this recording. While I listen to it on cd every once in a while, it's the first time I heard it in fifth grade that'll always stick with me. Halloween was on a Friday, and so my homeroom teacher decided to make it a light day. She played it while we waited for school to get out and I remember as it went on everybody got quiet and just listened, looking at each other like 'What if?'.

An interview with H.G. Wells and Orson Welles:


Mercury Theatre's presentation of War of the Worlds (7 part playlist):