Could a War of the Worlds panic occur again?

The 71st anniversary of the Orson Welles War of the Worlds radio broadcast falls on October 30th and recent events seem to indicate that we're still just as gullible and susceptible to this sort of thing as people were back in 1938. I’ve posted the question “Could there ever be another War of the Worlds style scare?” on the Amazon.com history discussion forum and so far the consensus seems to be yes. You can add your own thoughts on the Amazon discussion, but for the record, I’m siding with those who say it could happen. The recent stories featuring Balloon Boy and the Latvian meteor show just how easy it is for hoax stories to gain traction in the Internet age. It’s a subject I cover in a chapter of my new book, Waging the War of the Worlds.