

A spontaneous re-enactment of Orson Welles' 1938 "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast unfolded Friday on microblogging site Twitter.

Hundreds of tweets detailed a mock Martian invasion, with reports both panic-stricken and humorous.

"Smoking, smoldering hunks of buildings, cars and people lay strewn about," wrote one user, joshlewis. "The tripods have left the Warehouse District in ruins."

Another, iancanfield, wrote: "The freeways are packed! I've heard from a few stuck on 252 and 94, they are sitting ducks."

Since the site made headlines at South by Southwest in 2007, Twitter has been used to comment on national events and disseminate crucial information quickly during natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina and earthquakes. A team of NASA scientists even adopted the service to blast space-loving geeks with updates on the Mars Phoenix roverLander's progress.

However, it appears this is the first time the service has been used for mass fiction. The mock Twittering appears to be spontaneous: Twitterers are chipping in as the idea spreads across the network.

Thursday marked the 70th anniversary of Orson Welles' legendary radio broadcast of "The War of the Worlds," an adaptation of the H.G. Wells science fiction novel.

Welles' hour-long faux newscast sparked a nationwide panic when it aired Oct. 30, 1938, causing many Americans to believe an actual Martian invasion was under way.

To distinguish the apocalyptic messages from the rest of the updates flowing through the site – and to prevent igniting the kind of confusion and panic caused by Welles' historic broadcast – participants are adding the tag

"#wotw2" to the ends of their fictional accounts.

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said fictional, multi-user gags like Friday's "War of the Worlds" blitz are a natural evolution, given the microblogging site's instantaneous, real-time format.

"I'm impressed by the level of creativity that continues to emerge from such a simple service," said Stone in an e-mail. "Even when they are only allowed 140 characters, people find interesting, helpful and playful ways to communicate. This spontaneous game behavior is not dissimilar from the way folks tend to check in and self-organize during shared events like disasters, festivals and the recent presidential debates."

Other Twitterers contributed more colorful tidbits. Dielaughing posted: "Getting my herpes ready to infect the aliens."

__Update: __ Turns out the experiment wasn't totally spontaneous, it was actually a staged reenactment, using Twitter to experiment with the War of the Worlds broadcast on the internet. The event was organized by Twitterers Josh Lewis, Ryan Paul and Kris Kowal.

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