A Star Trek: The Next Generation actor once terrified the nation

Star Trek reigns supreme as one of the most important and well-done pieces of science fiction in the world. Its near-60-year run has made millions, upon millions of people into fans. Fans remain as dedicated to it decades later as they did the first time they watched it. The stories, the aliens, the crew. There are dozens, if not more reasons to love the show, but for most people, beyond the stories, it's the cast.

Patrick Stewart, William Shatner, Jeri Ryan, LeVar Burton, and so many others captured the hearts and minds of the fandom time and time again. The core cast didn't do all the heavy lifting, as part-time appearances from the likes of John de Lancie as Q also enthralled fans as they watched Star Trek every week. Yet, for de Lancie, his biggest impact in the world of science fiction may not have been on Star Trek.

In fact, his biggest impact may have been on the United States as a whole.

In 1994, a made-for-television movie aired called Without Warning. The film starts as a Lori Andersonn-led murder mystery, before jump-cutting to what is perceived to be a genuine news report that is breaking into the film. Featuring real, recognizable CBS news anchors, the film begins to depict a series of asteroids striking the Earth.

Shot in a style that reminisces many actual breaking news stories, the movie follows several reporters as they uncover what would appear to be the first contact with an alien race that goes wrong. A movie that just so happened to feature Star Trek: The Next Generation's de Lancie.

This isn't a case of people not realizing who de Lancie was due to it being a launching point in his career. Not at all. This was years after he debuted as Q. Yet, for whatever reason, despite de Lancie and numerous other names people would recognize (Jane Kaczmarek, Phillip Baker Hall, de Lancie), there was a sizeable amount of people who thought this dramatization was real.

Scare Theater recently did a bit of a dive into the film, as well as the inspiration for it, the Orson Wells War of the Worlds radio broadcast from the 1930s. In the video, he does a look into the fact that, despite the internet being around, no other networks covering such an event and even reminders throughout the broadcast that this was just a work of fiction, a sizeable amount of people thought this was real.

Calls went out to CBS and to other channels as well. With some needing to know if it's true or not, and others lambasting the likes of ABC, NBC, and Fox for not covering the event as well. It wasn't real but in a time where if your channel flipped at the wrong time, you wouldn't know something like this wasn't real, it's understandable why some were as concerned as they were.

de Lancie's role is minor but obvious. It appears as though he was brought on in part due to his ties with Star Trek and an attempt by CBS to put people at ease by having some pretty noteworthy faces in the show. It didn't work for some, obviously, as people still freaked out over the film.

Apparently the reaction was expected, which is why several television markets refused to air the film.

Just goes to show you how easy misinformation truly is to spread.