Also at the begining of the broadcast the audiance was informed that it was a radio play. Some missed that or forgot but they were told. Orson just tried something a bit new in the way they broadcast a story and it backfired.

your there are yer?

The little green alien behind me is my Mother! 

Too may years on the sauce! 

Look Lonesome do you have to draw attention to the fact that she has to heads? She is right behind me after all and she reads all the stuff here.Hold on, calm down mother its only a commercial, there that's better, take your pill, relax, let it all hang out, not like that, jeez, sorry you best turn away. Right Mother back in your cage.

Bear with me on this one. Earlier today while taking a customers order we bagan to talk about TWOTW. This particular customer has a keen interest in UFO related incidents. He spoke about the 1938 Orson Welles Mercury Theatre production of The War Of The Worlds and how it was played out over the radio, the effect it had and the closing down of the broadcast. Its what he said that interested me, see what you think - He said his theory and others of his UFO group was that the whole thing was set up by the U.S goverment with the help of the 'Mercury Theatre', a kind of 'test' to see how the public and autorities would react to a UFO scare. Wanting to make the 'test' more realistic to the listener it was left to 'Mercury' to come up with the goods - TWOTW. The panic that followed showed what a success the 'test' was but the scale of the panic was something the goverment had not counted on, so the play was stopped. Orson Welles became the scapegoat for the goverment.

But why did they go ahead with this lavish 'test' - the late 30s gave way to UFO sighting on a large scale.

Now, Im not a UFO fanatic so the UFO part of this is something I really cant reply to, but its sounds like a good theory.