Chaos of "War of the Worlds" Remembered 75 Years Later

At the age of 97, William Herz has a lifetime of memories to look back upon, but there's one dating back 75 years that stands out.

In 1938, Herz was a member of the Mercury Theater on the Air, a drama company founded by a little-known director named Orson Welles.

"He was a brilliant, wonderful, impossible human being," Herz says.

The Mercury Players broadcast on CBS Radio. On Oct. 30, Halloween Eve, they did an adaptation of H.G. Wells' "War of the Worlds." Herz, the only surviving member of the cast, read Welles' part during dress rehearsal.

"I really thought it was pretty far out and people would not respond to it," Herz says.

Herz couldn't have been more wrong.

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Bob Sanders, who grew up in Grovers Mill, recalls that night. He’s 81 now and remembers his father assuring the family during the broadcast that it was just a radio drama.

“We all sat there and listened to it, and I guess about halfway through the road filled up with cars,” he tells KYW Newsradio 1060 AM in Philadelphia.  Some of the local people put their families in the car and took off before they found out it was a hoax, and others wanted to come see what the Martians looked like!