There were opening announcements made at the beginning of the radio adaptation of H.G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds, but what they did not anticipate is that the listeners who tuned in half-way through the radio play would have no idea that it was only a dramatization and would believe the news-like structure which understandably caused them distress.
The production team made lots of revisions, slowing down the pace of the first act, deleting some crucial scenes that would be tell-tale signs of a fictional work, and all this contributed to panic that ensued. The following day, there was a press conference held to clear all of it up.