CHICAGO, IL, September 04, 2026 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Dead Air: The Night Orson Welles Terrified America, the acclaimed nonfiction book by bestselling author William Elliott Hazelgrove, is now available as an audiobook, bringing listeners inside one of the most extraordinary nights in American broadcasting history.

On October 30, 1938, a 23-year-old Orson Welles and his Mercury Theatre on the Air presented an adaptation of H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds. The program was structured to sound like an ordinary radio broadcast interrupted by increasingly alarming news bulletins reporting that something had landed in rural New Jersey.

The invaders were Martians.

What followed became an enduring piece of American history.

In Dead Air, Hazelgrove reconstructs the people, personalities, media environment, and events surrounding the broadcast, separating the mythology from what actually happened while capturing an era when radio possessed an immediacy and authority difficult to imagine today.

The audiobook gives the story a particularly appropriate new life. Dead Air is, after all, a book about the extraordinary power of the spoken word—and about what can happen when millions of people hear something they believe might be real.

"Radio was the internet of 1938," Hazelgrove says. "It was immediate, intimate, and trusted. Orson Welles understood the power of the medium, and on that October night he demonstrated just how powerful it could be."

Dead Air has received national attention, with coverage including The Associated Press, The Wall Street Journal, Air Mail, and WYSO's The Book Nook.

Hazelgrove is a national bestselling author of fiction and narrative nonfiction whose books explore dramatic and often misunderstood moments in American history. His work has been covered by The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, USA Today, NPR, C-SPAN, and other national media outlets.

The audiobook edition of Dead Air: The Night Orson Welles Terrified America is available now.

William Elliott Hazelgrove is a National Bestselling Author of over 25 books of fiction and narrative nonfiction whose books explore dramatic and often misunderstood moments in American history. His work has been covered by The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, USA Today, NPR, C-SPAN, and other national media outlets. His books have been optioned for the movies.

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