On October 30, 1938, Orson Welles' Mercury Players performed a radio play version of H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds. Some people in the unsuspecting public took the broadcast as a real report about a Martian invasion. In this television play of twenty years later, several fictional storylines present the story of the 1938 broadcast and the panic it caused. Edward R. Murrow, as himself, provides short narrative bridges between scenes. The fun includes watching the young extras for a surprising number of faces that will later range from the familiar to the famous.