In this episode of Weird After Dark, your ghost hosts dig into one of the most infamous moments in broadcast history — the 1938 War of the Worlds radio panic. Following Darren Marlar’s replay of the original Mercury Theatre production, the hosts unpack how Orson Welles’ Halloween broadcast managed to convince thousands that Earth was under attack by Martians. From ancient fears of the red planet and Percival Lowell’s “canals” to H.G. Wells’ biting social critique and the raw anxieties of Depression-era America, they explore the perfect storm that turned fiction into full-blown mass hysteria. The conversation moves through later adaptations, from Cold War films to Spielberg’s post-9/11 version, and how each era projects its own fears onto the story of invasion. The hosts also touch on real-life consequences — including deadly riots in Ecuador — and how science eventually debunked the myth of Martian civilizations. Wrapping up, they draw a chilling parallel between Wells’ microscopic “heroes” and our modern vulnerabilities to invisible threats.
