Naivety

It's been fifty years since the radio broadcast of "War of the Worlds". I drove Suzanne's auto, the CD was in the player, so I listened to it.
It is an interesting sci-fi story, not generally my genre of choice.
Hindsight being perfect, it strikes me how naive the listeners have been to truly believe there was a Martian invasion.
The story's airtime was less than one hour. Scientists were trying to explain seismic activity on Mars and subsequently on Earth.
Bulletins fly from New York City to a farm in New Jersey. Remote broadcasts are set up within minutes. Fires flare and are put out in minutes. How did the fire department arrive in practically negative time? Martians emerge from their ship, military groups are called to service with their equipment and, poof, there they are. The same with squadrons of Red Cross workers. Poof. All before wireless communication, and the government didn't work any faster then than it does now. Supposedly many people were fooled into thinking this was a real invasion.
Or were we fooled into believing that people bought into the story? Where were the people that said:"This makes no sense at all?, but it's a great story."
One would like to think that our children are smarter than we, the parents, are. Were we so very gullible only half a century ago?