The night before Halloween in 1938, acclaimed filmmaker Orson Welles and his Mercury Theatre on the Air company performed an adaptation of H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds, delivered in the form of fake radio bulletins that described a Martian invasion of New Jersey. Unfortunately, some listeners mistook the bulletins for fact, leading them to anxiously contact police, newspaper offices and radio stations in a desperate bid to figure out if New Jersey was, in fact, being invaded by aliens.

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One TikToker named Dom has revived this gag for the modern age, with several twists, including the fact that instead of pranking the entire country, he just pranked his mom. In the video, we see the pair sitting on the couch before an NBC News bulletin starts playing, with the chyron reading, “Giant oval shaped object appears in major cities,” although it’s almost immediately interrupted by an emergency broadcast alert informing viewers that the government has issued a national emergency warning.

Throughout, Dom’s mom gets more and more anxious, sitting up and giving the emergency alert her full attention, as well as yelling out for a “Gordo,” presumably her husband, to come and see what was going on. As soon as the emergency alert message appears, she starts screaming, “I told you guys we needed a f**kin’ plan!” before jumping off the couch and attempting to contact loved ones.

If she weren’t already freaked out, the emergency alert begins going into detail about why the government has declared a national emergency at the same time she discovers that her phone isn’t working. Meanwhile, Dom is just sitting on the couch and helpfully letting her know, “They’re saying aliens!”

She continues to get more and more panicked, shouting “I’m afraid!” and “Stop sitting on your f**king ass and help me!”, the latter directed at Dom, who doesn’t move a muscle, committed to enjoying the alien invasion from the comfort of the couch, evidently.

The video doesn’t show us how mom responded after learning it was a prank, but it probably wasn’t with a kiss and a hug. On the bright side, at least Dom knows which parent he can rely on in a crisis: not mom.