In today’s world where almost everyone is connected to the Internet, who would have thought that a mere radio ad would have people running around all over the place in the belief that an alien invasion is upon us. Orson Welles famously triggered mass hysteria over the radio waves in 1938 with his War of The Worlds broadcast, but in 2013? Really?

Well yes. Last week an Alabama radio station, Star 94.9, began running a few ads to prepare listeners for a format change. Their big mistake was to  use an alien invasion as the storyline, which didn’t turn out quite as they planned in the end.  Apparently, according to the ad script, aliens are not big fans of Justin Bieber or pop music in general, so their idea was to invade the radio station and change the format to one they preferred. It’s a clever plot all right, but maybe a little bit too clever, as it scared a few folks half to death. In 2013.

As you might expect, a lot of the fever was spread by kids using social media and their cell phones, at which point the station began to receive phone calls from the police and school officials. Luckily the whole issue was cleared up fairly quickly after a brief explanation to the police. There’s no word on whether any drones were deployed in the area. Program director for Shoals Radio Group, Brian Rickman, said in a statement that he and his team thought the alien pitch was a funny storyline. Bet they won’t be running that one again for a few years.

So just in case you think the tin-foil brigade finally left earth with the last Roswell inmate back in the 60s, here’s proof they’re alive and well and living in Alabama.

[via AL]