When retired Judge Joe Pigott was growing up in Mississippi, he knew that his step-grandfather was an unusual man. A country doctor, “he had no sense of humor whatsoever,” Pigott recalls, “especially when it involved himself.”

And anytime the man known simply as “Doctor” was listening to the radio, “you just did not make a sound,” Pigott says — “especially when the news was on.”

Unfortunately for Doctor, his two quirks betrayed him one night in 1938, when radios around the country blared the news of an erupting “War of the Worlds.”

This is terrific. My favorite Story Corp. story yet. Make sure to read/listen to the rest here.