Martian tripod

Martian tripods were a mobile armaments from H. G. Wells' story The War of the Worlds with a powerful energy weapon that caused those irradiated by it to burst into flame. In the Land of Fiction, the Master used them to kill off the Sisyphean Society, describing them to the 19th century villains as a "dark wonder of the next century". (COMIC: Character Assassin)

According to one account, the tripods envisioned by Wells were in fact psychic projections from the Meercocks. (PROSE: Verdigris) Another claimed that the tripods has been real, and Wells had helped Torchwood cover up a real invasion. (AUDIO: Goodbye Piccadilly)

During the 1938 radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds, some Americans thought that Martians had really invaded Earth (AUDIO: Invaders from Mars) and saw water towers as Martian tripods. (PROSE: Elementary, My Dear Sheila)

In the 1950s, Norton Folgate tricked Fat Kim into claiming a tripod beneath Leicester Square, using an alien key in Andy Davidson’s mind, whilst the Vicar led Torchwood One against it. In the ensuing confrontation Andy killed Fat Kim by passing on the alien key into her mind, which killed her as she was not an alien, and the disabled tripod fell on the Vicar, killing him. Torchwood covered up the Incident as a publicity stunt for a The War of the Worlds film. (AUDIO: Goodbye Piccadilly)

Some accounts indicate that the inhabitants of Mars did use tripods. The Ice Warriors had "giant camera tripods" by the end of the 20th century (PROSE: The Dying Days) and the Martians used tripods. (AUDIO: Vince Cosmos: Glam Rock Detective)

When Missy recreated The War of the Worlds, she built her invaders tripods using Time Lord technology. Claiming and repairing the Master's Tissue Compression Eliminator, the Tenth Doctor shrunk the tripods and released them in Mars' ancient past. (AUDIO: The Martian Invasion of Planetoid 50)