Judge Joe Pigott (JP)

JP: I had an unusual step-grandfather, who was a country doctor with emphasis on country. And he had no sense of humor, whatsoever, especially when it involved himself.

And his only recreation was listening to the radio. When he was listening to the radio, you just did not make a sound, especially when the news was on.

Well, in 1938, on Mercury Theatre, on the radio, Orson Welles announced that men from Mars had landed in New Jersey.

[Clip: Those strange beings who landed in the Jersey farmlands tonight are the vanguard of an invading army from the planet Mars.]

And since it was New Jersey and I had an uncle in New Jersey, they thought, ’Well, there he goes.’

And the program kept telling about that they were coming in this direction and so the doctor  told his wife, ’Let’s get in the car and go over to my brother’s house, so we can all be together when the end comes.’

So they got in his Chevrolet automobile, and drove around to his brother’s house and they began talking about how it was the end of the world and they began confessing to each other and repenting of their sins. And the more they talked, the madder they got at each other.

But along about 11 ’o clock that night, one young skeptic went back into the house and turned on the radio, and he heard on the news that there was nothing to it. It was just a drama on Mercury Theatre.

[Clip: Are the result of a studio dramatization.]

Well, he walked back out into the yard where they were confessing, and he waited a few minutes before he told them that it was just a big hoax.

Well, Doctor and his wife were convinced that there must have been something to it, because they had smelled, on the way over there, they had smelled this rubber burning. And they figured that was the sound of it.  They later found out, he had driven all the way over there with the emergency break on.

Anyway, they drove back home without the doctor saying a word.

This story was told over and over within the family, but Doctor never saw any humor to it at all and would get up and leave in a huff any time anyone began to repeat it.

[Clip: That was no martian. It’s Halloween.  Tonight the Columbia Broadcasting System and its affiliates coast to coast brought you the War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells.]