From the 1920s, the idea of alien visitation in space ships was commonplace in popular comic strips and radio and movie serials, such as Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon. In particular, the Flash Gordon serials have the Earth being attacked from space by alien meteors, ray beams, and biological weapons. In 1938, a radio broadcast version of "The War of the Worlds" by Orson Welles, using a contemporary setting for H. G. Wells' Martian invasion, created some public panic in the United States.