It was Oct. 30, 1938, when a Martian spacecraft landed on a farm outside of Princeton, New Jersey, launching an attempted conquest of the earth.

But the Martian invasion wasn’t real.

People reacted with shock and fear to a CBS radio broadcast of “The War of the Worlds.”

The hourlong fictional fright, produced by 23-year-old actor Orson Welles, touched off a real drama. Radio listeners panicked, with some fleeing their homes and motorists clogging roads to get away.

Radio listeners round the country feared an extraterrestrial invasion that never happened.

The following day, a headline in The Johnstown Tribune read: “Mass Hysteria Hits Nation at Broadcast of Martian Invasion.”

The radio drama is still talked about 83 years later. Bo Moore, longtime radio voice and host of the local show Laurel Highlands Now, said Welles’ broadcast was brilliant.

“As far as I’m concerned, Orson Welles was one of the most creative minds of the 20th century,” Moore said. “This is what put him on the map. This is what made him famous.”

The broadcast - done in news-report style - was a radio adaptation of “The War of the Worlds,” a 1897 science fiction novel penned by H.G. Wells.

The suspense built as listeners were told that a Martian spacecraft has crashed on a farm in Grovers Mill, New Jersey. Unleashing poison smoke and armed with a deadly heat ray, they began their conquest - only stopped by a disease, rather than by guns and bombs.

The program combined orchestra music and spot-news bulletins.

Those who were channel surfing and happened upon the radio drama failed to hear the disclaimer that the show was fiction. That created panic in some quarters.

The International News Service published a story from Salt Lake City in which a telephone operator at radio-station KSL, local outlet for the program, said that a puzzled woman called and, when informed that the “Martian attack” was only a radio drama, cheerfully remarked: “Well, if it doesn’t do anything else, it made a lot of people pray.”

A United Press International report said that, in Indianapolis, an unidentified woman ran down the main aisle of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, crying, “The world is coming to an end.” The congregation was hastily dismissed.

INS reported that a New York man named Samuel Tisman said this: “My nephew phoned me, frantic with fear. I turned on the radio, heard the broadcast, grabbed a few belongings and ran for the elevator. When I got to the street, there were hundreds of people milling around in panic. Most of them ran towards Broadway.”

Louis Winkler, of the Bronx, said he tuned in when the broadcast was half-over.

“I almost had a heart attack,” he declared. “When the Secretary of the Interior was introduced, I was convinced. … I ran out into the street with scores of others and found people running in all directions.”

The story goes on to say that police were amused when some people claimed to have witnessed the disaster.

“What do you mean, it’s just a play?” a Brooklyn man shouted over the phone. “We can hear the firing all the way here, and I want a gas mask. I’m a taxpayer.”

Another INS report said one Bronx man called police headquarters, announcing: “They’re bombing New Jersey!”

“How do you know?” inquired Patrolman John Morrison.

“I heard it on the radio,” stammered the man. “Then I went up on the roof and I could see the smoke from the bombs drifting over New York. What shall I do?”

According to an INS story with a Pittsburgh dateline, a man reported to a newspaper that he had arrived home to find his wife with a bottle of poison in her hand, screaming: “I’d rather die this way than like that.”

Also from INS, this reported with a dateline of Des Moines, Iowa: Sen. Clyde Herring, of Iowa, declared today he would press for more stringent federal regulation of the airwaves.

In Washington, Frank R. McNinch, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, announced that he would investigate at once. He said he had received no complaints, but that the commission could investigate without having received complaints.

“Apparently the broadcast was quite realistic,” he said.

Subsequent investigations found that most radio listeners either didn’t hear the broadcast or understood it was fictional drama - and that the newspapers of the era overstated the fallout.

Still, Welles himself said he made it real.

“I can’t imagine an invasion from Mars would find ready acceptance,” he said when asked if he pranked the country, according to History.com. Decades later, however, Welles admitted, “The kind of response was merrily anticipated by us all. The size of it, of course, was flabbergasting.”

Moore believes something similar could happen today.

“I think that we have many sources of news which people find that identify with their own personal beliefs,” he said. “People are quite often fed stories that are exaggerated or aren’t necessarily true. A lot of people believe what they want to believe.”

Moore said the legend of the “War of the Worlds” broadcast continues to resonate.

“I see it as brilliant art,” he said, “and I also believe as time passes the legend of this story has grown.”

Patrick Buchnowski is a reporter for The Tribune-Democrat. He can be reached at 532-5061. Follow him on Twitter @PatBuchnowskiTD.