Martians in New Jersey

Special Halloween bonus post:

I just saw somewhere that 70 years ago last night was the original broadcast of Orson Wells' famous "War of the Worlds" adaptation. Based on the famous book by H.G. Wells (no relation to Orson, I don't think), the radio version moved the story from 1890s England to present-day Grover's Mill, NJ and presented it in the format of a live news broadcast.

ABOVE: The dreaded Martian "Milking Stool", the most
ridiculous-looking Doomsday Weapon of all time.
To quote Mr. Hyde, "God created a lot of useless,
stupid-looking things on this world too, but he didn't see fit
to make any of them three-legged. Why was that, do you think?"

The story goes that Wells scared the crap out of countless people that night, who thought the fake "news reports" were the real thing. My grandfather, who would have been 20 at the time, told me that he knew what was going to be on the radio at that time and tuned in early enough to catch the beginning of the show where they clearly stated it was fiction. I think he always doubted the stories about people thinking it was real.

Anyway, if you've never heard it, it's available here, thanks to the always awesome Internet Archive.