Alien Radio Attack

Historically speaking, the first mockumentary was made in 1938 on the radio. An American director, Orson Wells—using Herbert Wells’s “The War of the Worlds” in his radio play—created a series of reports about the invasion of Martians in the State of New Jersey. The radio play gave rise to wild agitation, plunging thousands of Americans into panic: some even started packing their bags before the arrival of extraterrestrial invaders. But it is with the active growth of television and its formats that the genre of “mockumentary” fully came into prime.