Excerpt From: “The Sword of Damocles, Our Nuclear Age.” By Michael and James Hall (Now On Audible, Kindle & Amazon Books.)

In recent weeks 3I/ATLAS has caused wild speculation. It of course may very well be an explainable interstellar object, albeit a very uncommon and extremely large one. Despite this, social media is beside itself. Accomplished Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb has called for rigorous analysis of the object, drawing on his published work to argue for open scientific inquiry.

Even if 3I/ATLAS proves to be nothing more than a natural interstellar visitor, the idea of a Martian or alien assault is not entirely fanciful. My father, Michael Hall, has long explored these themes, authoring serious books and articles that culminated in a whimsical 2006 essay titled What Would Have Happened If the Martians Really Invaded Grover’s Mill, New Jersey?—which we reprint here to uncover unexpected truths involving the USAF that very few are aware of..

On October 30, 1938, Orson Welles’ broadcast of The War of the Worlds stunned listeners with its simulated live-news format, convincing many that Grover’s Mill, New Jersey, was under siege. This dramatic intersection of fiction and public panic would later prompt the Pentagon’s Director of Air Force Intelligence, in 1952, to assign Lieutenant Edward J. Ruppelt—soon to lead Project Blue Book—an extraordinary task: to investigate the psychological and national security fallout of the 1938 broadcast. (Source: Edward Ruppelt’s unedited manuscript of The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects, courtesy of Professor Swords.)

Drawing on a rare passage from his unedited 1956 manuscript for what would become a bestselling book, Ruppelt noted: “The public reaction was of such force that any future UFO report would inevitably be colored by preceding cultural myths.” This convergence of theatrical drama and official study underscores our enduring need to separate fact from fiction.

Ruppelt did, in fact, trace the legend of mass hysteria back to Halloween Eve of 1938, when Orson Welles and producer John Houseman presented H.G. Wells’1898 story The War of the Worlds as a “live” radio drama cast in the style of a CBS news bulletin. It was a strikingly effective technique—but unfortunately led many to believe it was an actual newscast.

The panic that was said to ensue, however, was exaggerated. Welles and Houseman were reportedly told—before the broadcast had even ended—that bodies were littering local roadsides from accidents caused by the radio-induced hysteria. Welles may have feared his career was over at that moment, though in truth, it was just beginning. Some reactions were so dramatic they bordered on the absurd, and these anecdotes found their way into Ph.D. dissertations and scholarly articles for decades—despite yielding no verifiable casualties. Although headlines screamed of thousands “fleeing in terror,” no contemporary records support widespread harm, and historians now agree the panic was largely overstated.

The number of people who panicked—or believed the broadcast was real—is ultimately beside the point. What matters is that the perception of mass panic became the enduring legacy. That perception is precisely why Ruppelt was tasked by the Air Force to study the broadcast’s repercussions. In keeping with popular lore, military officials believed the drama had triggered a dangerous episode of hysteria, and they wanted to know how extensive it had been. The true significance lies not in the authenticity of the panic, but in the Air Force’s willingness to explore how cultural narratives might amplify public fear of extraterrestrial threats.

At the dawn of the nuclear age, even a fictional Martian invasion posed real-world anxieties—so much so that military officials felt compelled to measure fiction’s fallout before confronting any actual unidentified aerial phenomena.

Thus, the real takeaway isn’t how many listeners panicked in 1938, but that everyone believed they did. That collective misperception became the drama’s lasting legacy—and it’s why, a decade and a half later, Air Force Intelligence asked Edward Ruppelt to trace its fallout. Military leaders, convinced a radio play had triggered mass hysteria, wanted to know just how dangerous it had been.

Ruppelt’s write-up never received extensive analysis. Swamped by the summer 1952 UFO wave, he dashed off what reads more like a two-page high school term paper than a formal inquiry. In his private notes, he even repeated unverified rumors of “two suicides”—a claim with no documentary support. The report’s shortcomings underscore that its real value lay not in Ruppelt’s methodology, but in the Air Force’s belief that fiction could shape public reaction to the unknown.

What matters is that the Pentagon thought a fictional Martian invasion could spark genuine terror.

This wasn’t idle paranoia—it reflected a broader concern, shared by some senior officers, that real-world unidentified phenomena might catalyze the same frenzy. In researching a biography I wrote of Edward Ruppelt, I spoke with a mid-level Air Force officer in 1999 who confirmed just how seriously they took the threat of extraterrestrial panic.

I have never met anyone I respected more than Colonel Nathan Rosengarten. His long and distinguished career included many years of service at Wright-Patterson, first as an Army airfield and later as an Air Force base. Rosengarten worked in Air Technical Intelligence and was present at a pivotal Pentagon meeting in 1951, convened to address a troubling report from senior Air Force pilots who had encountered an extraordinarily exotic flying object—described as a “flying saucer”—over Sandy Hook, New Jersey (Project Blue Book Files, National Archives, Record Group 341, Microfilm Publication No. T-1206, Roll No. 8, Case 977).

The case involved a T-33 jet trainer piloted by Lieutenant Wilbert S. Rogers, with Major Edward Ballard Jr. in the rear seat. At 11:35 AM EST on September 10, 1951, the two were flying northward at 20,000 feet over Point Pleasant, New Jersey, en route to Sandy Hook. Rogers spotted a dull, silvery object far below on a southbound, opposing parallel course, roughly 12,000 feet beneath them. Though headed toward a landing at Mitchel Air Force Base in New York, Rogers lingered to give Ballard a chance to observe the object. Ballard was initially occupied with radio communications, but forty-five seconds later, he caught sight of it just as the UFO entered a descending arc that would cut beneath their flight path. Ground control, listening via an open mic, heard the pilots’ reactions as the object banked, revealing a discus-like silhouette. Rogers turned left to keep the object in view, initiating a dramatic 360-degree descending maneuver that dropped them 3,000 feet. Both pilots estimated the craft to be 30 to 50 feet in diameter and moving at speeds approaching 700 miles per hour—extraordinary for 1951. It was clearly not a balloon; the object banked sharply and accelerated, outpacing their jet even as Rogers increased throttle from 450 to 550 miles per hour. The UFO completed a 90-degree turn and flew out over the ocean at roughly 5,000 feet, maintaining level flight near the speed of sound. Rogers attempted to parallel its course from 17,000 feet, but the object continued to accelerate, covering 35 miles in only two minutes.

Just prior to this aerial encounter, a young Army Signal Corps radar operator, PFC Eugent A. Clark, stationed at Fort Monmouth, had tracked a low-flying target moving too fast for his AN/MPG-1 radar’s automatic plotting mode. Coincidentally, several visiting Army officers were present and witnessed the radar blip streak across the coastline at an estimated 700 miles per hour before vanishing near Sandy Hook—just south of New York City.

Although Air Force Intelligence quietly investigated the incident, news of the encounter reached the press. Major General Charles Cabell, head of Air Force Intelligence and a seasoned combat veteran, first learned of the sighting from newspapers rather than his own channels. Outraged, he demanded answers. A high-priority meeting was convened at the Pentagon, with General Cabell presiding. Colonel Rosengarten was flown in from Wright-Patterson to provide a briefing. In an interview with me nearly half a century later, Rosengarten recalled the meeting as a confidential and serious discussion among intelligence staff. He had the distinct impression that General Cabell was convinced his pilots had encountered genuine, unexplainable phenomena—echoing General Twining’s earlier conclusion that such objects were “real and not visionary.”

Rosengarten also remembered Cabell firmly expressing a belief that “flying saucers came from outer space.” The General, a decorated World War II veteran, did not treat UFO reports as frivolous. He instructed his staff to take them seriously and made it clear he was to be awakened at any hour if developments warranted his attention. He tasked Rosengarten with revitalizing the stagnant UFO investigation effort at Wright-Patterson. Rosengarten played a key role in assigning Edward Ruppelt to lead the reorganized initiative, which would soon be known as Project Blue Book. (Edward Ruppelt’s personal papers.)

Numerous sources confirm that several senior Air Force officials during the early 1950s believed UFOs were of extraterrestrial origin. Edward J. Ruppelt, who headed Project Blue Book, stated this plainly in his own book recounting those years. His private notes went further, naming specific individuals who held that belief.

(For a detailed account of the personalities and internal dynamics behind those early investigations, Michael Hall biography of Ruppelt—Captain Edward J. Ruppelt: Summer of the Saucers–1952 (Rose Press: Albuquerque, New Mexico, 2000). It draws extensively from his personal papers and offers a close look at the era’s unfolding drama.)

So the point is not in dispute. What remains unclear is what led certain officers to such conclusions. Perhaps they had access to information never made public. Maybe they even had physical evidence—crashed saucers stored away in a warehouse. Or perhaps they simply made a sober assessment of the many credible sighting reports compiled by the Blue Book office, many of which are now easily available in publicly assessable declassified files.

Having spent considerable time reviewing the records from Projects Sign, Grudge, and Blue Book, I can attest that some of the reports are astonishing—filed by highly credible observers describing extraordinary phenomena. Many came from experienced pilots, both military and civilian. It’s important to note that while a significant number of senior Air Force officials in 1952 took the subject seriously, others within the Pentagon and at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base worked actively to suppress or diminish the reports. And it wasn’t always because they disbelieved them. Often, it seemed they simply wanted the issue to disappear.

This raises the question: why were officials so concerned about panic? In my interviews with Air Force veterans from that period, the word “panic” surfaced repeatedly. It became a kind of catchphrase—a default explanation for the lack of public engagement or transparency in most UFO investigations. I believe this perception was genuine and rooted in an unspoken Cold War-era policy. In other words, I don’t think the military or government ever truly understood what UFOs were, but I do believe they concluded the phenomenon was real. And they feared that acknowledging it too openly could trigger public unrest—perhaps recalling the reaction to the infamous 1938 War of the Worlds broadcast.

Beyond that, the Air Force likely felt there was little it could do. UFOs were unpredictable and, in most cases, not overtly threatening. Ignoring them became the path of least resistance. There were also strategic concerns: the subject risked distracting attention from the real adversary—the Soviet Union. In fact, we know that in January 1953, the CIA and Air Force convened a panel of selected scientists, known as the Robertson Panel, to assess the issue.

The panel’s conclusions led to an unofficial but highly effective campaign of debunking and de-emphasizing UFO reports—a posture that persisted throughout the Cold War. Even in the 1950s, academic studies were already exploring the societal impact of contact with extraterrestrial intelligence. Several Ph.D. dissertations used the War of the Worlds broadcast as a framework for analyzing human behavior under stress. Some of these were published as early as 1952. Today, the idea of extraterrestrial life is no longer novel—even to skeptics—but in that era, it carried profound implications for science, society, and national security.

It’s difficult, from our 21st-century vantage point, to imagine a time when the concept of extraterrestrial life wasn’t saturated with cultural preconceptions. Today, we’re steeped in imagery shaped by Steven Spielberg, Star Wars, and countless other productions dating back to the late 1940s. But prior to that era—before the 1938 War of the Worlds broadcast and the first “flying saucer” sightings of 1947—there was no such cultural scaffolding. That said, the idea of alien visitation was not entirely without precedent.

Some researchers have argued that the “panic” caused by Orson Welles’ radio drama served as a psychological primer for later UFO sightings. The theory suggests that the broadcast planted a seed in the public imagination—a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. Others have speculated that early science fiction serials like Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon may have subtly shaped the American psyche. Perhaps this was a concern Ruppelt considered in his own study. As an avid reader since youth, Ruppelt would have known that the concept of extraterrestrial life was already deeply embedded in the public consciousness long before Welles’ broadcast.

Even H.G. Wells’ original 1898 novel may have drawn inspiration from earlier sources. One notable influence was Percival Lowell, founder of the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. By 1894, Lowell believed he had observed canals on Mars through his telescope—evidence, he thought, of intelligent life. Lowell himself had been inspired by Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli, who described linear features on Mars as “canali,” a term later mistranslated as “canals.” While some scientists were skeptical, others entertained the possibility. Until the Mars probes of the 1960s and ’70s revealed a barren landscape, many people remained open to the idea. Even today, some still speculate that Mars may once have hosted life.

It would be satisfying to end this article with a definitive revelation, but the hard evidence for UFOs remains elusive. What I can offer, however, are a few overlooked insights into the War of the Worlds broadcast itself. Contrary to popular belief, the radio play was not a faithful retelling of H.G. Wells’s novel. It was a unique creation, loosely inspired by the original, and written by Howard Koch—Orson Welles’ associate and later co-screenwriter of Casablanca (written by Julius J. & Philip G. Epstein and Howard Koch, based on the play Everybody Comes to Rick’s by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison).

Koch drew little from the 19th-century source material. Instead, influenced by the summer’s escalating Czechoslovakian crisis, he reimagined the story as a simulated real-time news bulletin—eerily similar to today’s “breaking news” format.

Though the war in Europe was still a year away, Americans were already anxious, much like we are today when headlines warn of rising tensions with Russia and Ukraine, Iran and Israeli, North Korea, or other global flashpoints. Koch relocated the Martian invasion from England to New Jersey, grounding the story in real geography. Contrary to many scholarly claims, Grover’s Mill—where the invasion was said to begin—is not fictional. It’s a real, unincorporated community in New Jersey. Koch reportedly studied road maps he purchased at gas stations during his commute to New York, using them to inject realism into the script.

When CBS attorneys reviewed the final draft—as was standard practice—they immediately flagged its realism. Executives warned Welles and producer John Houseman to make substantial changes. They did tone it down, but Koch’s writing, combined with Welles and Houseman’s dramatic flair, produced a broadcast that was simply too compelling to be dismissed. The result was a work of dramatic art that endures to this day.

All of the Mercury Theater broadcasts were, in fact, masterful retellings of classic literature. Yet at the time, few appreciated their artistic merit, and the show was on the verge of cancellation. That changed overnight. The War of the Worlds episode catapulted the program to stratospheric ratings. Within a few years, Welles, Houseman, Koch, and many of the Mercury Theater players had moved to Hollywood. Their careers were launched.

For a brief moment, they convinced many Americans that aliens were real. Unfortunately, the broadcast portrayed those aliens as hostile and destructive. One can only hope that if extraterrestrials ever do arrive—or have already arrived—that won’t be the case.

So what value does the War of the Worlds analogy hold? Perhaps very little. Yet one final point offers a chilling reminder: there were two other radio dramas, modeled after Welles’ broadcast and based on the H.G. Wells story, that did incite real panic. In both cases, people were injured. The power of narrative—especially when it mimics reality—can be profound. And sometimes, dangerous.

Just a few years after Orson Welles’ infamous broadcast, a second War of the Worlds drama descended upon an unsuspecting public—this time in South America. At 9:30 p.m. on November 12, 1944, panic erupted across several Chilean towns and cities when a Santiago radio station aired its own localized version of the alien invasion tale. The script was written by William Steele, an American radio veteran who had previously scripted episodes of The Shadow, a show Welles himself had starred in.

Steele, along with his assistant Paul Zenteno, followed the Koch-Welles formula precisely: they used real names, familiar locations, and the format of live news bulletins to simulate an unfolding crisis. The fictional landing site was placed just 15 miles south of Santiago in the town of Puente Alto. The broadcast’s realism was so convincing that, according to a Newsweek report from November 27, 1944, it triggered widespread panic. One tragic consequence was the death of an electrician named Jose Villarroel, a resident of Valparaíso, who suffered a fatal heart attack from fright—earning, perhaps, the dubious distinction of being the first person to die in an alien invasion, something even Welles’ Martians hadn’t managed.

The broadcast’s impact was amplified by its use of familiar institutions and impersonated voices. Just as Welles had done in 1938—substituting a Roosevelt impersonation for a government official—Steele’s production included references to the Red Cross and mimicked the voice of Chile’s Interior Minister. The illusion was powerful. The Santiago Civic Center was reported destroyed, along with air bases and army barracks. The play aired nationwide on the Cooperative Vitalicia Network, and as fictional reports described roads clogged with refugees, thousands of listeners fled into the streets or barricaded themselves inside their homes. One provincial governor even telegrammed the Minister of War, announcing that he had placed troops and artillery on alert to repel the invaders.

Despite the station having announced the fictional nature of the broadcast both in advance and twice during the program, the same blind misconceptions that engulfed America in 1938 took hold in Chile. Ironically, a law had been passed just a year earlier banning incendiary radio broadcasts. Fines were imposed, but for many, they did little to ease the embarrassment of having been fooled by a fictional play.

The second panic came in 1949, this time in Ecuador. On February 12, the capital city of Quito—then home to roughly 250,000 people—was gripped by chaos following another dramatized alien invasion. By night’s end, the offices of a local newspaper had been burned to the ground by enraged citizens.

One priest, overwhelmed by the hysteria, began taking open-air confessions from terrified parishioners who believed they wouldn’t survive the night. Sins once whispered in secrecy were now spoken aloud—broadcast to the gathered crowd and etched into memory. In that moment, absolution came easily. But when dawn broke and the world remained intact, those same parishioners faced a new reckoning—not from aliens, but from their spouses and neighbors.

The best story, however, circles back to Orson Welles himself. Over the course of his legendary career—which included *Citizen Kane* and countless other triumphs—Welles occasionally reflected on the broadcast that had catapulted him to national fame. He often downplayed its impact, as any great actor might. After all, Welles was a towering talent of the 20th century, and his career could have flourished even without *The War of the Worlds*. But late in life, when asked how he could have believed his Halloween-night performance in 1938 would be taken innocently—how he could have thought it wouldn’t shock the world, save his struggling radio show, and ignite his reputation—Welles paused, looked thoughtful, and simply smiled.

This has been an expert from: “The Sword of Damocles, Our Nuclear Age.” By Michael and James Hall (Now On Audible, Kindle & Amazon Books.)

3I/ATLAS Is Intriguing But There Was Once A Very Real War of The Worlds—According to the USAF

fOLLOW US

3I/ATLAS Is Intriguing But There Was Once A Very Real War of The Worlds—According to the USAF

Nuclear Anxieties

fOLLOW US