On October 30, 1938 America went into a panic.

We were being invaded by Martians. Or so we thought.

The Mercury Theatre on the Air performed a Halloween radio episode directed and narrated by the great Orson Welles. It was an adaption of the H.G. Well’s novel, The War of the Worlds – which was first published in 1898.

None of this matted when people tuned in and heard the broadcast – missing the intro which stated the show was a dramatization – and believing that an actual alien invasion was occurring.

It caused mass panic and outrage, with the media proclaiming cruel deception against the broadcasters. People immediately called for changes to Federal regulations pertaining to the FCC.

Nearly 80 years later, we’ve come no further, except the roles have reversed.

The media causes the panic now.

Look no further than our current Ebola crises. Now, as a disclaimer, it is clear that the Ebola threat is real and it can/should be a concern, but the manner in which it is purported, you’d think it had taken out half the world’s population, largely due to its by-minute coverage and sensationalized reporting.

There were more Ebola experts on CNN’s split screen the other night than people who currently have Ebola in the United States – or that have been married to Kim Kardashian.

An anchor for NY 1 warned of the dangers of consuming mucus and feces that might come from an Ebola patient. No, really. That happened. Apparently, this was a warning we needed to hear and heed.

Common sense and logic go out the window in these situations. You play with the strings of the puppets long enough, they become tangled.

The media is our machine of mass influence, whether through TV or Twitter. And it must keep the machine running. It has to feed the beast.

This is why you get three weeks of Malaysian Airline coverage in the spring – there was nothing else to cover than moved the needle – what consumes the fear and panic more than a vanished flight, theories and mystery?

We are getting more of this with Ebola. While we never want to make light of a serious illness, some of the coverage has been comical – from sites writing research articles regarding Ebola – and covering themselves with the disclaimer “we don’t know for sure” and “no one should panic.” They are certain you need to quarantine for 21 days – except they need more data to prove that.

If you want to stop making people panic, then stop putting things out there that make people panic. Don’t report what isn’t known.

The New York Times published an article on Sunday about those in quarantine. It cautioned against paranoia, fear and cruelty – only to tell stories of paranoia, fear and cruelty.

The reality is anything can happen to us. Most of the time, the odds are it will not. We could have an Ebola outbreak in the United States. We could also have an asteroid smash into Earth tomorrow. Both are plots from movies (“Outbreak” and “Armageddon”), but the disease outbreak seems more logical to most of us as a thing that could actually happen.

Or it could only seem that way because we have absolutely no understanding of the universe and the way space works and what’s out there. The asteroid theory is only outside the realm of believability because we do not understand it, we cannot see it.

But both outcomes can be terrifying.

That is, if we let them.

We can blame the media for preying on our fears and perpetuating all the panic, but we’re allowing it to happen to us.

Fear is a very real and human emotion – it’s why we both like and dislike horror movies at the same time. The mind is a very powerful place and goes as far as we would like it to – or let it. Deep within our subconscious is something that triggers us to fear one thing that sparks most all forms of fear: death.

Our fear of death prevents us quite often from living life. We’re afraid to die because of the perceived unknown of what happens after. Even for those who believe in a form of religion or faith, there remains some element of fear for the majority of people. There are no reports from beyond, nothing to be seen, no audio to hear.

You can be at peace with this and live life free of fear – or succumb to its darkness and attempt to do what no one truly can and avoid death. Good luck with the latter.

It’s one thing to be safe, cautious and somewhat guarded with the world. It’s quite another to allow yourself to submit to the panic and fear perpetuating society currently.

And why does this fear play such a pivotal role for the future we’re trying to safeguard?

Because we are freely giving up liberties for the out of convenience; we subjugate control to feel protected, thusly making us less so all the while.

We’d rather give up certain things now to protect a future we want to have – except it might not look anything like what we’ve envisioned. That would be something to fear. The more we give away in our freedoms now, the less we have in the future.

But we’re a short-term society.

We want things now. We want them cheaply. We long for instant gratification and instant satisfaction, unwilling to wait for the natural surprises, for the well-earned payoff. Better yet, we prove unable to show patience or faith.

It is interesting to watch as celebrities have pledged and donated millions of dollars – or in Paul Allen’s case, $100 million – to fight Ebola. While generous and hopefully extremely helpful, it is also fair to say that these outbreaks and situations may have been under better control or even cured had that money been shared long ago. But we only do what we must when pushed or threatened.

You see, fear rules most of our society. It always has. We were afraid of King George and what he might do. We were afraid of the Indians, the Spanish, the French, the Japanese, the Vietnamese, the middle East. We’re not alone in our fear, mind you. Countries and groups the world over are fighting out of fear.

We pretend we’ve changed, that our past has impacted our future through an education. We act like we are smarter. But we’re making the same mistakes. We’re reacting out of fear. We’re easily swayed by propaganda. We panic and overreact, just like we did during numerous past conflicts in the world.

We’re afraid of each other and what we might do to one another. So we put each other in quarantine, in concentration camps. We refuse to give certain rights and liberties – all out of fear. And we give up our personal rights and freedoms for the very same reason. We don’t trust the governments of the world? We don’t trust ourselves.

History repeats itself. And the only winner is fear.

FDR was right: “The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself.”

The war on the world is not conducted with armies, religion and weapons. It is conducted through the mind, through persuasion and fear.

Currently, we are weak and easily swayed.

Of course, based on our past, I’d say we’ve always been this way.

2014 looks an awful lot like 1938 – and many different years before it.