What’s flying over New Jersey?
The nightly news is replicating Orson Welles’s 1938 broadcast of War of the Worlds, which scared Americans by describing an invasion of space aliens. Listeners who tuned into the broadcast a little late didn’t hear the disclaimer that it was fiction. Now, they are tuning in on time and hearing real broadcasts about mysterious objects flying over our skies. And people are asking the same questions they asked long ago, “What are those things?” They have heard the government’s disclaimers, but they are not sure whether to believe them. The public is frightened, and bland reassurances from Washington aren’t helping.