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The Mad Gasser of Mattoon, Part 2 · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
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Speaker 1: back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
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Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. This is the second part
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Speaker 1: of our two part episode on the Mad Gasser of
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Speaker 1: the two So, with the blessing of our super producer,
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Speaker 1: Casey Pegraham, we'll get right into it. We have a
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Speaker 1: few days following that initial kind of rash of reporting
0:53
Speaker 1: um in the local paper, a Mr. Carl Cords and
0:57
Speaker 1: Mrs Bulah Chords coming back to their home them and
1:00
Speaker 1: around ten o'clock at night, and they discovered on their
1:03
Speaker 1: porch a small piece of white cloth that was just
1:08
Speaker 1: sitting there next to the screen door. Uh, and Mrs Cords,
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Speaker 1: like you do, I guess, uh picked it up and
1:14
Speaker 1: sniffed it. I don't know about that, I will. Yeah,
1:20
Speaker 1: that's that's an odd thing to do. They live in
1:22
Speaker 1: a nicer town than we do, probably guess. So maybe
1:27
Speaker 1: there was an odor coming off of it or something
1:29
Speaker 1: and it was intrigued her. But yeah, she apparently took
1:32
Speaker 1: a big, old deep huff of that thing and instantly
1:36
Speaker 1: became violently ill. She began to swell up, and hives,
1:41
Speaker 1: you know, covered her face and and she had burning
1:44
Speaker 1: sensation and her mouth and throat and started violently vomiting,
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Speaker 1: like we've seen, very similar effects to some of these
1:51
Speaker 1: other reports we've seen. She goes weak in the knees,
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Speaker 1: full paralysis of the legs soon um follow that, and
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Speaker 1: she describes it later it was a feeling of realysis,
2:00
Speaker 1: she said. My husband had to help me into the house,
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Speaker 1: and soon my lips were swollen and the roof of
2:06
Speaker 1: my mouth and my throat burned. I began to spit blood,
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Speaker 1: and my husband called a physician. It was more than
2:12
Speaker 1: two hours before I began to feel normal again, and
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Speaker 1: the police came and they took the cloth, and they
2:19
Speaker 1: also searched the home and they did find a skeleton
2:24
Speaker 1: key and an empty tube of lipstick on the porch
2:28
Speaker 1: as well, so they figured that the prowler was trying
2:31
Speaker 1: to break in using that skeleton key. I'm sure most
2:33
Speaker 1: people know what skeleton key is, Like I guess before
2:37
Speaker 1: the days of more machined kind of locks and keys
2:42
Speaker 1: where it was very specific to each lock, you would
2:45
Speaker 1: have a skeleton key that was just like a basic
2:48
Speaker 1: key that would just trigger the mechanism of most key.
2:51
Speaker 1: And again maybe there were Ben, you might be able
2:53
Speaker 1: to answer this, Um, maybe they were specifically tooled to
2:57
Speaker 1: a set of locks in a home, But to me,
3:00
Speaker 1: it feels like it was more rudimentary than that. Yeah,
3:04
Speaker 1: it can be difficult. So skeleton keys have been around
3:08
Speaker 1: for a while, and some would be specific to a house, right,
3:12
Speaker 1: just like that single house has a skeleton key. But
3:15
Speaker 1: I was also wondering about this detail, like how many
3:19
Speaker 1: locks smiths were in Matune at the time, Like how
3:24
Speaker 1: many people would have professionally worked with locks. Was this
3:29
Speaker 1: a key that maybe they had like left under their
3:31
Speaker 1: mat and forgotten about, you know, because we don't know
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Speaker 1: much about that key, and we don't know much about
3:37
Speaker 1: this lipstick, but we do know, you know, crazy. We'll
3:41
Speaker 1: get into some theories here, but we do know that
3:44
Speaker 1: there is one thing that happens with these kind of
3:47
Speaker 1: panics and crimes. Copycats entered the chat. So it is
3:51
Speaker 1: possible that somebody else tried to do something like this
3:55
Speaker 1: with a very different m O. Because up to now,
3:58
Speaker 1: the mad gasser has ever attempted to enter through a door.
4:02
Speaker 1: They've been at windows, right, and you don't need a
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Speaker 1: skeleton key for a window. Uh. They also haven't left
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Speaker 1: anything else behind, So if this was the mad Gaser
4:13
Speaker 1: not a copycat, they were interrupted and a later examination
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Speaker 1: of the cloth found no chemicals on it that could
4:21
Speaker 1: cause miscords this specific type of distress. But later that
4:26
Speaker 1: night someone else reports an attempted gassing. Mrs Leonard Burrow
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Speaker 1: said that a stranger broke into her bedroom window and
4:37
Speaker 1: then tried to gas her as well. So we've got
4:40
Speaker 1: so far. Like, if we're the police, let's do law
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Speaker 1: and order, Mattoon. So we're on the case. This is
4:48
Speaker 1: a huge break in our case, possibly because it's the
4:51
Speaker 1: first time we found physical evidence. However, things continue to
4:56
Speaker 1: escalate from September six through the teeth. Yes, that's right.
5:01
Speaker 1: On September the sixth, after the News broke the story
5:05
Speaker 1: on the cords, there were seven, no less than seven
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Speaker 1: more attacks reported, and that included one that supposedly involved
5:15
Speaker 1: or allegedly involved the sighting of the mad gass or
5:19
Speaker 1: the prowler, the man in black um. And yeah, like
5:22
Speaker 1: I said that, we like we said from the start,
5:24
Speaker 1: already a lot of anxiety in the air because of
5:28
Speaker 1: the war. Um. And now you know you have these
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Speaker 1: escalating reports of some lunatic running rampant around their small town,
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Speaker 1: just gassing people Willie and or Nilly, and the FBI
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Speaker 1: gets called in from Springfield, which isn't too far from Mattoon,
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Speaker 1: to give the local cops a hand with the investigation.
5:49
Speaker 1: So in September seven, even though there were no attacks reported,
5:54
Speaker 1: this phantom anistetis made the news. And here here's the
6:00
Speaker 1: basic kind of takeaway from the from the report, mattuns
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Speaker 1: mad and the statists apparently took a respite from his
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Speaker 1: maniacal four as Thursday night, the papers said, terrified citizens
6:11
Speaker 1: are inclined to hold their breath and wonder when and
6:15
Speaker 1: where he might strike next. Good lord, let's let's also
6:19
Speaker 1: pivot the story a little bit to the responsibility of
6:21
Speaker 1: the press, shall we. Yeah, that's the issue, and it's
6:25
Speaker 1: an important one because they realized the paper was going
6:30
Speaker 1: gangbusters as long as it had a story that was
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Speaker 1: somehow about the mad gas er in in somewhere in
6:38
Speaker 1: the folds, right, and so they decided to report that
6:42
Speaker 1: there was no report, and uh still try to ratchet
6:46
Speaker 1: up the tension by pointing out that people were scared,
6:49
Speaker 1: attempting to make the more scared. And when we go
6:54
Speaker 1: to the idea of responsibility of papers. We're not just
6:58
Speaker 1: talking about the matun Journal gives that anymore. We're also
7:01
Speaker 1: talking about the papers in Chicago, right that are popular
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Speaker 1: in this town, but they're they're known as national publications.
7:10
Speaker 1: So within a few days you would be able to
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Speaker 1: read multiple reports and speculative pieces about the gas or
7:17
Speaker 1: from any number of papers. Time Magazine even reported on
7:23
Speaker 1: this and they said they got a little they styled
7:26
Speaker 1: on it, and I like the way they wrote this.
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Speaker 1: It moves through the night as nimbly and secretly as
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Speaker 1: a cat squirting a sweetish gas through bedroom windows, which
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Speaker 1: is very like Macavity. You know, I'm sorry, his sweetish
7:42
Speaker 1: gas a sweet I mean it made me think of
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Speaker 1: Swedish gas, like like like manufactured by the Swedes. That
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Speaker 1: is very funny. Secretly, You're right, Macavity. It's very jellical,
7:54
Speaker 1: no question about it. And of course this just this
7:58
Speaker 1: kind of you can't buy this kind of a story,
8:01
Speaker 1: you know, you can't. Uh. And the imagery it's just
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Speaker 1: it's absolutely gonzo. Um. So back in the tune, you
8:08
Speaker 1: had the police chief, I'm presuming his last name was
8:10
Speaker 1: Wiggins put the entire force a ten man force, by
8:15
Speaker 1: the way, which is ridiculously understaffed seeming. But not one
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Speaker 1: of them could find any evidence of the actual prowler.
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Speaker 1: So the state police gets called in, got another associated headline,
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Speaker 1: state hunts gas madman. That's a tricky one. I almost
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Speaker 1: wanted to say mad gas man um the war two uh,
8:38
Speaker 1: and the Army's the army is called in the Chemical
8:41
Speaker 1: Warfare Service tried to figure out what the gas might
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Speaker 1: be bent. Do we have any reports of what was
8:49
Speaker 1: on that cloth? I'm sorry if I if I missed that.
8:52
Speaker 1: We do not, So we we know that they may
8:55
Speaker 1: have found a couple of things, but because it's literally
8:58
Speaker 1: a you know, a dirty cloth on the round, but
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Speaker 1: they didn't find anything that could do any of the
9:04
Speaker 1: stuff described by by the neighbors or the victims over
9:09
Speaker 1: in Matune. Responding to all the people around the nation
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Speaker 1: who are writing in with their own kind of armchair
9:18
Speaker 1: investigative opinions, here the police chief and and his forces
9:23
Speaker 1: are just it's kind of like the second act of
9:25
Speaker 1: a law and order episode where now they have to
9:27
Speaker 1: fight the public opinion, all the people saying like, why
9:31
Speaker 1: don't you do anything? Up and coming politicians making Hay
9:35
Speaker 1: like you know, I would hold the police chief accountable.
9:39
Speaker 1: The attacks continue to rise and the police decide that
9:43
Speaker 1: they're going to have to do something different. So they
9:48
Speaker 1: stopped looking for this wild and crazy guy who is
9:53
Speaker 1: somehow managing to attack multiple homes but as a never
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Speaker 1: clearly seen by vigilantes who are currently patrolling the town
10:01
Speaker 1: every night, and be never leaves evidence. So instead they say,
10:07
Speaker 1: we're going to put in a workflow where we verify
10:09
Speaker 1: these attacks. Hospital examinations of some of the folks who
10:13
Speaker 1: have come forward have found nothing wrong with them. Zip, zero, zilch, nada,
10:20
Speaker 1: and the incident started to decrease a little bit, but
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Speaker 1: there was this breaking point for the police and one
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Speaker 1: night three reports came in and so police then announced, look,
10:35
Speaker 1: you can report it an attack. You should report an
10:39
Speaker 1: attack if you encounter one, but when you report it,
10:43
Speaker 1: you need to submit to a full medical examination. If
10:47
Speaker 1: you reported an attack and you don't agree to let
10:50
Speaker 1: a doctor examine you, then we are going to arrest you,
10:53
Speaker 1: which is crazy because they have been like inundated with
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Speaker 1: what they considered false reports, which led to their follow
11:03
Speaker 1: up statement on the twelfth where they said, quote, the
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Speaker 1: entire incident was likely the result of explainable occurrences exacerbated
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Speaker 1: by public fears and a sign of the anxiety felt
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Speaker 1: by women while local men were on war service. So
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Speaker 1: the misogyny is there. Basically, what they're saying is like, oh,
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Speaker 1: these women focus so emotional, that's really what's happening. And
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Speaker 1: you know, I think we can all agree that's that's
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Speaker 1: a dumb thing to say, at least the second part.
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Speaker 1: The rest of it, the idea that there are public
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Speaker 1: fears that are kind of getting in a feedback loop
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Speaker 1: and growing out of hand. That makes total sense. But
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Speaker 1: either way, right after this announcement on the twelfth, the
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Speaker 1: number of attacks and reports of attacks drops precipitously. The
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Speaker 1: very last report comes on someone says they gas or
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Speaker 1: was a woman dressed as a man, and I've found
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Speaker 1: their footprints beneath the window for some reason, they were
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Speaker 1: wearing high heels. By this time, the number of self
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Speaker 1: reported victims totaled around or was it thirty three according
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Speaker 1: to the newspapers, And when the attacks stopped, or when
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Speaker 1: people stopped reporting these attacks, no suspects were ever named,
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Speaker 1: no charges were ever filed. So our question now ridiculous. Historians,
12:29
Speaker 1: what the heck happened? Was there even really a mad gasser?
12:34
Speaker 1: Was there really a mad gasser? And not? And we're
12:38
Speaker 1: not trying to gaslight anybody here. I had to, I
12:40
Speaker 1: had to do it. But yeah, probably not. It's entirely
12:44
Speaker 1: likely that there was no mad gas or that this
12:49
Speaker 1: was a combination of that paranoia, that anxiety brought on
12:54
Speaker 1: by the war conflict, um, and just kind of an
12:58
Speaker 1: escalating case of mass hysteria like we talked about at
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Speaker 1: the top of the show. But also there are some
13:06
Speaker 1: pretty amazing theories, some ranging from absolutely absurd and over
13:11
Speaker 1: the top to some pretty plausible, and we are now
13:15
Speaker 1: going to go through some of those. My personal favorite,
13:19
Speaker 1: that we won't even put in the numbered list would
13:22
Speaker 1: be the idea of some sort of extraterrestrial visitor that
13:27
Speaker 1: was spraying people with nerve agents and using them for
13:31
Speaker 1: experiments or something with some sort of secret, you know,
13:35
Speaker 1: nefarious agenda. Uh. Perhaps this was some kind of inventor
13:40
Speaker 1: or some sort of you know, mad scientists that was
13:43
Speaker 1: testing out his creations on the unsuspecting public or yeah,
13:49
Speaker 1: or up the government, you know, as when when in doubt,
13:53
Speaker 1: blame the government, um, because you know, surely the FBI
13:58
Speaker 1: and the police and the state police were all in cahoots,
14:01
Speaker 1: you know. But here's the thing, then, none of this
14:03
Speaker 1: is that crazy actually, because again we've talked about MK Ultra,
14:08
Speaker 1: and we know that the CIA absolutely did experiments on
14:12
Speaker 1: the public um through this guy named George Why. If
14:15
Speaker 1: you want to hear more about that, check out the
14:16
Speaker 1: show Operation Midnight Climax that I had the privilege of
14:20
Speaker 1: of hosting and narrating um. But yeah, they they actually
14:23
Speaker 1: would reach out when people were reporting being dosed with
14:26
Speaker 1: LSD by the CIA. They didn't know it was the CIA.
14:30
Speaker 1: They went to report this guy George White, who was
14:32
Speaker 1: an agent of the CIA. The police had already been
14:35
Speaker 1: reached out to by the CIA and told to bury
14:37
Speaker 1: the reports. So that this is not outside of the
14:39
Speaker 1: realm of possibility of the government angle. But we've got
14:42
Speaker 1: some much more plausible and realistic potential scenarios based on
14:47
Speaker 1: the environment. Literally. Yeah, I'd like to go back to
14:51
Speaker 1: the government part. Because people also know that the US
14:54
Speaker 1: has a long history. Even back in the forties, people
14:57
Speaker 1: were aware to some degree that the US has a
14:59
Speaker 1: long history of human experimentation, not just Tuskegee, Uh, not
15:05
Speaker 1: just dim k ultra. But but like also things in St. Louis,
15:10
Speaker 1: chemical spraying of entire populations, this stuff definitely happens, uh.
15:15
Speaker 1: And keep in mind that around this time there are
15:17
Speaker 1: also secret towns like Oak Ridge, which is just up
15:22
Speaker 1: the way from some of my relatives in modern day Tennessee. Yeah,
15:26
Speaker 1: so I can understand that fear absolutely. These other theories though,
15:31
Speaker 1: are as, as we said, more a little more plausible. First,
15:36
Speaker 1: Mattoons Police Chief ce Coal when they issue that statement
15:42
Speaker 1: we mentioned on September twelve, they say that this could
15:45
Speaker 1: be industrial pollution. There is an Atlas diesel engine company
15:52
Speaker 1: that's not too far away and it creates large quantities
15:57
Speaker 1: of what's known as carbon tetrachlori gas. Us. He says,
16:01
Speaker 1: this gas is the only thing that we can find
16:03
Speaker 1: that would explain these reported cases paralysis and illness. And
16:08
Speaker 1: then he says, you know, it could be carried through
16:10
Speaker 1: the town. It could have left some stains on that
16:14
Speaker 1: cloth or that rag that were found on the home,
16:17
Speaker 1: and explain why it didn't have any like why I
16:19
Speaker 1: had a smell, but why it didn't have any chemicals
16:23
Speaker 1: that on later investigation could have been found to be
16:26
Speaker 1: an incapacitating agents. And he said, you know, maybe the
16:29
Speaker 1: mad gasser is just a figment of the collective imagination.
16:35
Speaker 1: And he described the entire cases quote a mistake from
16:38
Speaker 1: beginning to end. So imagine you work at that let's
16:42
Speaker 1: diesel plant. Are you gonna take this No, You're gonna
16:45
Speaker 1: send your spokesperson out to deny the allegations and say
16:49
Speaker 1: that you only use that specific gas in your fire extinguishers.
16:53
Speaker 1: And if there are any other gases that are used there,
16:56
Speaker 1: they obviously caused no ill effects. Because we have a
16:58
Speaker 1: ton of people working here. How come they don't ever
17:02
Speaker 1: lose the use of their limbs? How come they don't
17:04
Speaker 1: ever have a sickly sweet smell and then violent vomiting
17:09
Speaker 1: and maybe even more importantly, one of the best parts
17:11
Speaker 1: of their argument, how come this gas has never caused
17:14
Speaker 1: problems in the city before? And so this, this theory, though,
17:20
Speaker 1: still has as missing pieces. It's got a lot of
17:23
Speaker 1: missing pieces, one of which is like the means of transmission. Right,
17:27
Speaker 1: Let's say, if this gas is a byproduct of some
17:29
Speaker 1: industrial process, like how is it how is it not
17:33
Speaker 1: affecting everybody? And or on a much larger scale, if
17:37
Speaker 1: it's just being pumped out into the air people are breathing. Um,
17:41
Speaker 1: why is it like being more targeted. How does this
17:44
Speaker 1: relate to the rag, you know, the piece of cloth
17:47
Speaker 1: that that doesn't really add up. It really doesn't make
17:50
Speaker 1: a whole lot of sense unless it was polluting water
17:53
Speaker 1: or something that was like easily a source a vector
17:57
Speaker 1: you know, for people receiving this substance into their bodies,
18:02
Speaker 1: you know, and large enough doses that it would actually
18:04
Speaker 1: affect people. Um. You know, we we've covered on stuff
18:07
Speaker 1: that I want you to know, bend tons of industrial
18:09
Speaker 1: pollution situations. And usually when it really starts to affect
18:13
Speaker 1: the population, it starts to affect like the livestock starts
18:16
Speaker 1: to affect you know, people on mass and it's usually
18:18
Speaker 1: because of seeping into the groundwater, right, Yeah, it's usually
18:23
Speaker 1: something that doesn't target a specific house, like lead contamination,
18:27
Speaker 1: for instance, gets everybody who's exposed to the lead through
18:31
Speaker 1: as you said, often water source. That's one of the
18:34
Speaker 1: biggest holes with theory number one. It didn't explain and
18:39
Speaker 1: this is the official explanation, but it didn't explain how
18:42
Speaker 1: so many people reported seeing the same figure they saw
18:48
Speaker 1: they saw the same individual and described it the same way,
18:51
Speaker 1: even when they were talking about different witnesses, and people
18:56
Speaker 1: would say I saw someone running, even if they didn't
19:00
Speaker 1: have any idea that a gas attack quote unquote had
19:03
Speaker 1: taken place. And this leads us to theory number two,
19:09
Speaker 1: an actual individual, like there was an actual person somehow.
19:14
Speaker 1: BE very interested to hear your thoughts on this one, folks.
19:23
Speaker 1: Like we said, there are a couple of paranormal theories
19:28
Speaker 1: about this, like, hey, it's kind of a cryptod or
19:32
Speaker 1: hey it's an extraterrestrial or an extra dimensional entity of
19:37
Speaker 1: some sort. But this goes back to a guy's work
19:39
Speaker 1: I really enjoy mentioned them in an earlier Stuff They
19:42
Speaker 1: Want You to Know episode on Don Decker is a
19:45
Speaker 1: history teacher named Robert Bartholomew who was based in New
19:49
Speaker 1: Zealand for a time, and he says there's no proof
19:53
Speaker 1: that there was some gas or in Virginia. Who later
19:57
Speaker 1: I don't know, through a dartboard at his US map
19:59
Speaker 1: and yeah, and pick central Illinois. But there is one person,
20:05
Speaker 1: a native of of the area named Scott Marona, who
20:09
Speaker 1: is a high school chemistry teacher and the author of
20:11
Speaker 1: a book called The Mad Gaster of Matune. He says
20:15
Speaker 1: not only did the mad gas really exist, but he
20:19
Speaker 1: thinks he knows who it was, a guy named Farley
20:23
Speaker 1: lou well Yeah. It sounds about right, sounds like an
20:27
Speaker 1: absolute psychopath. I'm just kidding. You can't really judge a
20:30
Speaker 1: book by its cover or a psychopath by his name.
20:33
Speaker 1: Farley Llewellen was something of an outcast. He's the son
20:37
Speaker 1: of a grocer um and he was believed by uh
20:43
Speaker 1: Scott Marona to have been the mad gas or. Marona
20:46
Speaker 1: wrote a book in two thousand three about the events
20:51
Speaker 1: um where he claimed that lleu Ellen wanted revenge on
20:55
Speaker 1: Mattune as a whole because they had ostracized him for
20:59
Speaker 1: being a was certainly tracks in terms of like the
21:03
Speaker 1: attitudes of the time in a you know, kind of
21:06
Speaker 1: rural Midwestern town like that most of the town believed
21:11
Speaker 1: that Farley was going insane, Marona wrote in the book,
21:16
Speaker 1: And that Matune was kind of, you know, like a
21:20
Speaker 1: real gossip mill kind of town. Uh. And there was
21:24
Speaker 1: a lot of insinuating that the man's sexual preference was
21:28
Speaker 1: the cause of his quote diminishing insanity. Um. Yeah, so
21:33
Speaker 1: like extra extra extra, uh, you know, just reductive thinking
21:38
Speaker 1: and and and and highly offensive and enough. I'm sure
21:41
Speaker 1: it wouldn't you know, make anyone feel very isolated and um,
21:46
Speaker 1: you know, just demonized in that way. Uh So I
21:50
Speaker 1: can understand the anger there, but what you do with
21:53
Speaker 1: that anger is is the thing. So Maroona actually came
21:58
Speaker 1: to the conclusion that Allen was the most likely candidate
22:02
Speaker 1: because he felt that one of the descriptions of the
22:06
Speaker 1: suspect in one of those many pieces that were written
22:10
Speaker 1: about at the time matched Llewellen, and so he's he
22:14
Speaker 1: thought he was the guy because Dullen was was a
22:16
Speaker 1: bit distinct. He was a tall, lanky, thin man um
22:22
Speaker 1: who matched one of these supposed eyewitness accounts um outside
22:28
Speaker 1: of the Kearney home. In fact, Um he had graduated
22:31
Speaker 1: from the University of Illinois as well with a ding
22:34
Speaker 1: ding ding chemistry degree and had himself a bit of
22:39
Speaker 1: a home lab laboratory type set up. Which is nothing
22:43
Speaker 1: wrong with that, but that is that could be considered
22:46
Speaker 1: circumstantial evidence. It's like, it's the thing that on Law
22:50
Speaker 1: and Order and matun would make you look into the
22:53
Speaker 1: case a little more. But other chemists, professional chemists are
22:58
Speaker 1: pretty skeptical that someone working at home even a mad
23:02
Speaker 1: genius could create a gas that would be a stable
23:05
Speaker 1: enough to make someone sick, but be also fleeting enough
23:09
Speaker 1: something that would dissipate quickly enough too not leave any traces.
23:15
Speaker 1: And this leads our guy Bartholomew to say the following
23:20
Speaker 1: hard line here, ma'am. Anyone who examines all of the
23:22
Speaker 1: evidence and still thinks there was a real mad Gasser
23:26
Speaker 1: is living in fantasy land. The evidence for mass hysteria
23:30
Speaker 1: is overwhelming. It is a textbook case. The Mad Gasser
23:34
Speaker 1: outbreak was a media creation from start to finish and
23:38
Speaker 1: has nothing whatsoever to do with the paranormal. And that
23:42
Speaker 1: brings us to our third and final theory, mass hysteria. Noel,
23:48
Speaker 1: Before we get into this, I do want to, uh,
23:50
Speaker 1: I do want to point out that hysteria itself has
23:55
Speaker 1: its etymological origins in some in some stuff that I
24:00
Speaker 1: don't think any of us listening really agree with the
24:02
Speaker 1: idea that there is some kind of fundamental emotional instability
24:08
Speaker 1: in people who identify as women categorically untrue. Luckily now,
24:12
Speaker 1: and you know, whenever we're saying hysteria, we're talking about
24:15
Speaker 1: the modern definition exaggerated, uncontrolled emotional excitement among a given
24:23
Speaker 1: group of people. Think, I think that's definitely become more
24:27
Speaker 1: the way that it's used, but it's still you see
24:31
Speaker 1: it thrown around as a as a sexist kind of term,
24:33
Speaker 1: like oh, you're hysterical, things like that. Um, but yeah,
24:37
Speaker 1: not cool, and that is not what we're talking about
24:39
Speaker 1: at all. There's no gender involved in this, one way
24:42
Speaker 1: or the other. So the local commissioner of Public Health,
24:46
Speaker 1: Thomas the Right, he was pretty solid on this particular
24:52
Speaker 1: concept um. He believed that mass hysteria was to blame
24:57
Speaker 1: for these outbreaks. He said the following, There's no doubt
25:01
Speaker 1: that a mass maniac exists and has made a number
25:03
Speaker 1: of attacks, but many of the reported attacks are nothing
25:06
Speaker 1: more than hysteria for the gas man is entirely out
25:09
Speaker 1: of proportion to the menace of the relatively harmless gas.
25:13
Speaker 1: He is spraying the whole town is sick with hystarry. Okay,
25:16
Speaker 1: that's interesting. So he's saying there's a person a person,
25:20
Speaker 1: but that the attacks are much more innocuous than than
25:24
Speaker 1: has been reported or that people have made it out
25:27
Speaker 1: to be. Was that was that your takeaway? There been?
25:30
Speaker 1: So yeah, he's saying there might be some kind of
25:35
Speaker 1: dude running around. There might be a rando weirdo, but
25:39
Speaker 1: the he's saying that they're not causing your as much
25:44
Speaker 1: damage as they are, you know, portrayed to be causing
25:47
Speaker 1: or perceived to be causing. And then we have to
25:50
Speaker 1: talk about the timing. The public concern about this story
25:56
Speaker 1: lasted a little less than two weeks until or Labor
26:00
Speaker 1: Day nine. The reason it was not completely forgotten we
26:06
Speaker 1: owe that primarily to a guy named Donald Johnson. He
26:09
Speaker 1: was a University of Illinois psychology student who a few
26:15
Speaker 1: weeks after the incident visited Matune himself. In n he
26:21
Speaker 1: published a study of this case and in outfit called
26:24
Speaker 1: the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, And you can
26:30
Speaker 1: read citations of his research in tons of textbooks as
26:33
Speaker 1: a classic study of mass hysteria, which will go into
26:37
Speaker 1: a book recommendation I have at the very end of
26:40
Speaker 1: today's episode. So Johnson goes on to become a professor, right,
26:44
Speaker 1: and he says, the case of this mad gasser was psychogenic.
26:50
Speaker 1: It began, he said, with one person's imagination. MS. Kearney
26:53
Speaker 1: in particular, he said, an exciting, uncritical story appeared in
26:58
Speaker 1: the evening paper as the news spread, other people reported
27:01
Speaker 1: similar symptoms, more exciting stories, like even more exciting stories
27:05
Speaker 1: were written, and so the affair snowballed. He's not the
27:08
Speaker 1: one who said, like more exciting stories that was That
27:11
Speaker 1: was me. So according to this our real culprit here,
27:16
Speaker 1: if you believe Professor Johnson is the newspaper of the day,
27:21
Speaker 1: they had the power to influence not just public opinion,
27:24
Speaker 1: but public health. He thinks that without the press coverage here,
27:28
Speaker 1: the epidemic of hysteria, as he describes it would not
27:32
Speaker 1: have broken out. And this comes to us from the
27:34
Speaker 1: Washington Post because the only other medium of mass communication
27:38
Speaker 1: for local news was word of mouth at this time.
27:42
Speaker 1: A word of mouth was too slow to create a
27:45
Speaker 1: mass outbreak, and it was also considered less reliable than
27:50
Speaker 1: the paper. But that's why we have the phrase the
27:52
Speaker 1: paper of note. If the press prints it, it becomes
27:56
Speaker 1: in a way true. So Johnson, who allied up almost
28:01
Speaker 1: thirty police reports, uh, and that you know, the newspapers
28:05
Speaker 1: noted about thirty three people coming forward. He notes that
28:09
Speaker 1: all these police reports got reported in the media pretty
28:13
Speaker 1: much one time, like one day after the next. So
28:17
Speaker 1: this kind of added some high octane fuel here. So
28:27
Speaker 1: now we have perhaps in the crowd today some our
28:31
Speaker 1: fellow ridiculous historians are saying, Hey, you jerks, I'm from
28:35
Speaker 1: a tune. We're not a bunch of crazy people who
28:39
Speaker 1: are scared of gas coming through our windows. You guys
28:42
Speaker 1: are being unfair. Well, there are extenuating circumstances that we
28:48
Speaker 1: feel should be considered. We're gonna go to belt mag
28:52
Speaker 1: dot com for help with some of these, right, So
28:55
Speaker 1: there's a lot of Yeah, there's a lot to unpack here.
28:56
Speaker 1: Man and I made the bad dumb dad joke about lighting,
29:00
Speaker 1: but that really is a lot of what's coming on here.
29:03
Speaker 1: I think, Ben, you and I have discussed this in
29:05
Speaker 1: the past. But where the origin of the term gas
29:07
Speaker 1: lighting comes from. It being a psychological form of manipulating
29:13
Speaker 1: people into thinking that they're the ones that are insane
29:17
Speaker 1: um And it comes from a play Uh where a
29:21
Speaker 1: character named Jack Manningham um manipulates his wife Bella into
29:27
Speaker 1: believing that she is the one that's like losing it. Um.
29:29
Speaker 1: So it's it's a term that gets thrown around a
29:31
Speaker 1: lot today. And ironically this story has to do with
29:35
Speaker 1: gas but not connected. But it very much is a
29:38
Speaker 1: thing that's happening here because it happens at night. Also true,
29:43
Speaker 1: but it very much is a thing that is happening
29:45
Speaker 1: because you have these folks that are like convinced they've
29:49
Speaker 1: been attacked or they've been victimized in some way, and
29:51
Speaker 1: then you have authorities kind of saying, nope, nope, nope, nope, no,
29:54
Speaker 1: you're you made it all up. It's your delusional. This
29:58
Speaker 1: became such a part of this trope that it actually
30:01
Speaker 1: made an appearance in the novel The Invasion of the
30:04
Speaker 1: Body Snatchers, where a character is described or a legend
30:09
Speaker 1: within the lore of the book them Tune maniac Um.
30:12
Speaker 1: He makes an appearance in this this book The Invasion
30:15
Speaker 1: of the Body Standards, which of course went on to
30:17
Speaker 1: be made into several films. Um and one character describes
30:22
Speaker 1: this legend uh and convinces the heroes of the story
30:26
Speaker 1: that they have become delusional. So because you know, sure
30:29
Speaker 1: there were some reports of this being real, but that
30:32
Speaker 1: it was almost surely completely false. Um. So yeah, it's
30:37
Speaker 1: like it's easy to get caught up in that, and
30:40
Speaker 1: and then you start to feel crazy and it can
30:42
Speaker 1: almost like escalate your fears because gas lighting is not
30:46
Speaker 1: meant to calm people down or make them feel like, oh,
30:50
Speaker 1: you're right, I was just blowing things out of proportion.
30:52
Speaker 1: The idea is to take something they know to be
30:55
Speaker 1: true in their heart of hearts, or at least fully
30:57
Speaker 1: believe it, and then convincing them that they are having
31:00
Speaker 1: some sort of you know, uh, hallucination or mental breakdown.
31:06
Speaker 1: Like my favorite example of that in an argument someone
31:09
Speaker 1: says you're gaslighting me, and they say, I'm not what
31:11
Speaker 1: what is gas lighting? That's just the thing you made
31:14
Speaker 1: up just now, you're crazy. That's that's like the best
31:18
Speaker 1: dumbest explanation of gas lighting. But also these fears, again,
31:21
Speaker 1: they're coming from a very reasonable place. If you look
31:24
Speaker 1: at the context of the world at this time September,
31:31
Speaker 1: Are you kidding me? World War two is you know,
31:34
Speaker 1: we know now in that World War two is winding down.
31:39
Speaker 1: But people in the US are wondering if those rumors
31:43
Speaker 1: about some sort of quote unquote hail Mary secret weapon
31:48
Speaker 1: are actually true. You know what I mean? There were
31:51
Speaker 1: reports that were domestic papers of the time that would say,
31:54
Speaker 1: you know, Nazi Germany has these mystery weapons. They're gonna
31:58
Speaker 1: turn the tide of the war. They may deploy like
32:02
Speaker 1: massively dangerous biological weapons, biological agents. And this is a
32:10
Speaker 1: town where a lot of young men, Like this is
32:13
Speaker 1: a rural Midwestern town, so a lot of young men
32:16
Speaker 1: have been sent directly to the front lines. And that
32:20
Speaker 1: means news of the war is everywhere. It's in the
32:22
Speaker 1: front of people's minds. And you think about the fear
32:26
Speaker 1: of poison gas. Of course people would have known about
32:29
Speaker 1: some sort of poison gas. You killed a ton of
32:31
Speaker 1: people in World War One, and international efforts in the
32:37
Speaker 1: interwar years between World War One and World War Two,
32:40
Speaker 1: there were a lot of efforts to ban chemical weapons
32:43
Speaker 1: and they all failed totally. Yeah, you would have if
32:47
Speaker 1: you lived there during this time, you would have known.
32:50
Speaker 1: You would have possibly personally known someone who came home
32:52
Speaker 1: from World War One with all kinds of injuries and
32:55
Speaker 1: burns from chemical warfare right then. And I feel like
32:59
Speaker 1: a dumb dumb from my questioning of this at the
33:01
Speaker 1: top of the show. I was speaking more in terms
33:03
Speaker 1: of nerve agents and like, you know, saren gas, which
33:05
Speaker 1: wouldn't have been discovered until a time where maybe that
33:08
Speaker 1: particular one wasn't as known by you know, people in
33:12
Speaker 1: in these small world towns. But mustard gas and the
33:14
Speaker 1: effects of its use in World War two would have
33:17
Speaker 1: absolutely been known. And these, um, these discussions about banning
33:21
Speaker 1: chemical warfare. So I was talking about a little bit
33:23
Speaker 1: of a different thing. But you know, mustard gas that
33:27
Speaker 1: just kills you dead, right, I mean that doesn't like
33:31
Speaker 1: paralyze you, or what's supposed to deal with like nerve
33:33
Speaker 1: gas versus mustard gas. They're they all just kind of
33:35
Speaker 1: are meant to to kill you, right. Well, mustard gas.
33:38
Speaker 1: The weird thing is it's tech it's a chemical warfare agent,
33:41
Speaker 1: but it's not technically a gas. Uh. It can form
33:45
Speaker 1: these large blisters on your skin and on your lungs.
33:50
Speaker 1: So it's an uncool way to go. But in the
33:53
Speaker 1: minds of like to the point about nerve agents versus
33:56
Speaker 1: you know, incapacitating agents versus like mustard assis, et cetera,
34:01
Speaker 1: to the mind of the average person living in the
34:06
Speaker 1: in these towns and across the country at this time,
34:09
Speaker 1: these are all kind of the same amorphous, terrifying thing.
34:13
Speaker 1: It's a really good point, just the specter of the
34:17
Speaker 1: idea of chemical attack, you know what I mean. Uh,
34:20
Speaker 1: And and and this just a really good point. Then
34:22
Speaker 1: the idea of their being this kind of hail Mary
34:24
Speaker 1: after the closing bell kind of attack. Um, that actually
34:29
Speaker 1: absolutely would have been something that would have been on
34:30
Speaker 1: people's minds in the same way that during the Cold
34:32
Speaker 1: War people would have been, you know, duck and cover
34:35
Speaker 1: and all that, and terrified of potential nuclear holocaust that
34:38
Speaker 1: could have just come at the drop of a bomb.
34:42
Speaker 1: And people were waiting for that terrible shoe to fall,
34:46
Speaker 1: because folks are still worried about a physical invasion of
34:52
Speaker 1: the United States, even if you're in what would be
34:55
Speaker 1: considered the heartland. And also people noticed that no one
34:59
Speaker 1: had used is in gas yet in World War Two.
35:01
Speaker 1: It was produced during that time, and plans were drawn
35:05
Speaker 1: up to use it, but it hadn't been deployed by
35:08
Speaker 1: either side. And if you want to see how fearful
35:11
Speaker 1: this is, you can just read, not the headlines, not
35:15
Speaker 1: the features of the journal gazette at this time, look
35:18
Speaker 1: at the ads. On August twenty, a few days before
35:21
Speaker 1: all this stuff starts going down, and the paper ran
35:24
Speaker 1: this ad promoting what we're called invasion bonds. And if
35:29
Speaker 1: you look at if you look at the copy, what
35:32
Speaker 1: you see is there's a picture of the grim Reaper,
35:34
Speaker 1: and he's got his hands wrapped around a broadsword instead
35:37
Speaker 1: of a scythe, which is interesting choice, I guess, and
35:40
Speaker 1: it says, and then another voice going like by your
35:47
Speaker 1: invasion wall bonds today, So like people are being sold
35:50
Speaker 1: stuff through fear, they're being primed to move in the
35:54
Speaker 1: context of that emotion. So of course you're going to
36:01
Speaker 1: be nervous in general, like their baseline anxiety. Can you
36:05
Speaker 1: imagine how high it must have been. You already might
36:07
Speaker 1: already have a relative right and who's across the sea,
36:12
Speaker 1: and you don't know what's going to happen to them.
36:15
Speaker 1: So there was this heightened awareness and people were already
36:19
Speaker 1: on their guard. Miscarney in particular was probably also very
36:23
Speaker 1: well aware of the reports of this escaped German prisoner.
36:27
Speaker 1: People were expecting for something terrible to happen, right, They
36:31
Speaker 1: were so ready for it in their heads, and they
36:34
Speaker 1: were anticipating it so much that in a way, there's
36:37
Speaker 1: this argument that they just started believing it was already happening. Yeah, Unsent,
36:44
Speaker 1: it makes sense. And I would be pretty terrified too, Ben,
36:48
Speaker 1: I don't know about you, how do you think you
36:49
Speaker 1: would feel living in this climate? Well, in a way,
36:54
Speaker 1: and this is something I think a lot of our
36:56
Speaker 1: our listeners were thinking about as well during this two
37:00
Speaker 1: part episode. In a way, we did live through something
37:04
Speaker 1: like this, did we not? Because we were relatively young
37:08
Speaker 1: when the events of September eleventh occurred, and and we
37:12
Speaker 1: can have people around the country, especially in larger cities
37:17
Speaker 1: or metro areas, had a very real fear that their structures,
37:24
Speaker 1: or people or their entire city would also be targeted.
37:28
Speaker 1: And I think a lot of this happens because you
37:32
Speaker 1: don't know when you're in the middle of history. You
37:36
Speaker 1: don't have the benefit of the textbook, you know what
37:39
Speaker 1: I mean. Can't You can't like skip the chapter seven
37:42
Speaker 1: nine six and go okay, okay, I'll be fine. No,
37:48
Speaker 1: you can't. Hindsight is in fact, and another another comparison
37:53
Speaker 1: I think might be to living through what we've lived
37:56
Speaker 1: through with COVID nineteen and and not knowing, um, when
38:01
Speaker 1: the other shoe was going to drop or you know,
38:03
Speaker 1: whether this was some sort of attack or whether this
38:06
Speaker 1: was some sort of like unprecedented plague that was going
38:10
Speaker 1: to kill us all uh, and just I think you know,
38:12
Speaker 1: the kind of wait and see kind of um approach
38:16
Speaker 1: can really lead to some wild speculation, especially when you're
38:19
Speaker 1: you know, hold up in your house and have something
38:21
Speaker 1: to do. But like doom scroll on the internet. True, Yeah,
38:25
Speaker 1: we have to wonder how again, how the uh, the
38:28
Speaker 1: internet would have affected this situation of the mad gas
38:32
Speaker 1: or so. The Washington Post has another theory about what
38:38
Speaker 1: specifically triggered the attack. Here, mattun returned to its normal
38:44
Speaker 1: um it's relative obscurity, and people still talk about the
38:50
Speaker 1: mad gas or incidents today, you know, the same way
38:53
Speaker 1: every like so many towns have kind of a local
38:56
Speaker 1: legend or a crazy event, uh and the mad gas
39:00
Speaker 1: her is the the event of Mattoon. But some folks
39:06
Speaker 1: at the Post did a little bit of detective work,
39:10
Speaker 1: and they said, even though Mrs Kearney never really went
39:14
Speaker 1: on record talking about what sparked her initial report of
39:18
Speaker 1: the sweet smelling gas, the Post speculates this all speculation
39:23
Speaker 1: that because she was an avid reader and spent her
39:26
Speaker 1: evenings reading that on the night of the attack, they
39:30
Speaker 1: conclude that she was reading one popular book of the era,
39:33
Speaker 1: My Life in Hard Times by James Thurber. It's pretty
39:37
Speaker 1: good book. In that book, she would have met one
39:39
Speaker 1: of Thurber's more infamous characters. Sarah Chouff Uh. Sarah Choff
39:45
Speaker 1: is a woman who quote never went to bed at
39:48
Speaker 1: night without the fear that a burglar was going to
39:50
Speaker 1: get in and blow chloroform under her door through a
39:53
Speaker 1: tube to avert this calamity, for she was in greater
39:56
Speaker 1: dread of anesthetics than of losing her household goods. Shows
39:59
Speaker 1: piled or money, silverware, and other valuables in a neat
40:02
Speaker 1: stack just outside our bedroom, with a note reading this
40:06
Speaker 1: is all I have. Please take it and do not
40:08
Speaker 1: use your chloroform, as this is all I have. That's
40:12
Speaker 1: pretty on the nose, right, Yeah, now that's that's wild.
40:17
Speaker 1: Is there a name for this affliction, Ben, we should
40:20
Speaker 1: coin one. If not, it's very specific, like chlorophire. Well
40:25
Speaker 1: that's good, that's good. Uh. Well it's not our it's
40:28
Speaker 1: not our best work. Maybe, but this this has been
40:31
Speaker 1: a wild ride. And as we draw to the conclusion
40:36
Speaker 1: of our two part episode, I did one recommend one book,
40:40
Speaker 1: and I know it's one that you and I are
40:42
Speaker 1: both fans of. Your knowal it is Outbreak with an
40:47
Speaker 1: exclamation mark. Let me say that again. Outbreak. The Encyclopedia
40:51
Speaker 1: of extraordinary social behavior. This is a reference work with
40:55
Speaker 1: tons and tons and tons of real life examples outbreaks
41:00
Speaker 1: of hysteria throughout human civilization. It's well worth the read.
41:04
Speaker 1: Uh it's uh, it's weird, but do check it out.
41:09
Speaker 1: And if you are familiar with this book, please let
41:11
Speaker 1: us know which historical examples of hysteria outbreaks most fascinate you.
41:17
Speaker 1: And why was that the dancing plate Noel mentioned earlier?
41:20
Speaker 1: So the more modern screaming Girls of Malaysia Salem which trials.
41:24
Speaker 1: Perhaps there are tons of choices out there and they're
41:28
Speaker 1: probably I'm sure there's several knowl that you and I
41:30
Speaker 1: have yet to hear of. Indeed, Uh, And I do
41:33
Speaker 1: want to point out to as a couple of fun
41:35
Speaker 1: little bits of trivia here. Do you remember the the toys?
41:40
Speaker 1: I think it was probably from when we were kids
41:42
Speaker 1: where they kept going on for a while. Uh. Monster
41:45
Speaker 1: in my pocket. Yeah, they're they're like muscle men but
41:49
Speaker 1: painted right. Yeah, they're like weird little painted like army
41:53
Speaker 1: muscle wrestler guys, but you know, creepy spooky monsters. So
41:58
Speaker 1: one of them from series full or uh and they
42:02
Speaker 1: came out in two thousand six that would have been
42:03
Speaker 1: a little later. I swear I remember this from when
42:05
Speaker 1: I was a little kid, though, so it must be
42:07
Speaker 1: the kind of thing where that Yeah, so series one
42:09
Speaker 1: would have begun in ninety surely, yes, that tracks I
42:15
Speaker 1: definitely remember this. Um. I don't know that I had
42:18
Speaker 1: any but popular line of toys, because it continued well
42:22
Speaker 1: into the two thousand's and one of the two thousand
42:25
Speaker 1: six editions had a little creature by the name of
42:29
Speaker 1: the Mad Gaster of Mattun, who is a green, multi
42:35
Speaker 1: armed monster appears to have snakes coming off his body
42:38
Speaker 1: as well wearing some very odd brown kind of boot
42:43
Speaker 1: looking things, and and and uh on a creepy gas mask.
42:48
Speaker 1: Um so, yeah, apparently, let's see, there was a line
42:51
Speaker 1: associated with all of these things that must have come
42:53
Speaker 1: with a trading card or something, and his in particular,
42:57
Speaker 1: says the mysterious Many Act. The Mad Gasser haunts the night,
43:02
Speaker 1: releasing a strong, nauseating and paralyzing gas into the homes
43:07
Speaker 1: of his innocent victims as they sleep. He's never been
43:09
Speaker 1: identified or clearly seen. The only proof he exists is
43:13
Speaker 1: a trail of blue vapor and poisonous fumes. Don't inhale
43:18
Speaker 1: and you know what, Also, I'm glad we're bringing up
43:21
Speaker 1: this fact at the end. Also we should shout out
43:24
Speaker 1: not just not just monster my pocket musclemn but Matun
43:27
Speaker 1: doesn't need to have its identity reduced to the place
43:30
Speaker 1: where the mad Gasser was working. It is also, according
43:34
Speaker 1: to the residents of Matune, the bagel capital of the world.
43:38
Speaker 1: So we're ending on a more positive note as we
43:40
Speaker 1: get into lunchtime hours here self proclaimed bagel capital of
43:44
Speaker 1: the world. I don't know that there's any official designation there,
43:48
Speaker 1: and I'm sure there are. Bagels are great, but you know,
43:50
Speaker 1: it's kind of like world's best cup of coffee, you know,
43:53
Speaker 1: at a diner, which I love those claims. Like if
43:57
Speaker 1: I'm on a road trip and I see something, especially
43:59
Speaker 1: even as we at least specific, if it's like I'm
44:02
Speaker 1: driving somewhere I see world's fourth largest frying pan, then
44:05
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go I'm gonna go in there, and I'm
44:07
Speaker 1: not gonna you know, I'm not gonna compare it in
44:10
Speaker 1: a bad way to the third largest frying pan. I
44:12
Speaker 1: love roadside attractions. What about giant at aarondeck chairs? How
44:16
Speaker 1: do you feel about those? I'm I'm on board with him.
44:18
Speaker 1: It makes me feel very much like Tom Petty and
44:21
Speaker 1: that one video you know where he's like doing a
44:23
Speaker 1: mad Hatter Alice in Wonderland thing. Do you remember that one?
44:28
Speaker 1: Are you kidding? Don't come around here no more? The
44:30
Speaker 1: cake at the end of the eater. It's terrifying, really
44:33
Speaker 1: creepy video. He's got a big chair, That's what I remember. Yeah,
44:37
Speaker 1: I love those. But yeah, if you want to go
44:40
Speaker 1: to Mattuns Bagel Fest third week of July, you can
44:43
Speaker 1: learn more about it. Just put it into your search
44:46
Speaker 1: engine of choice. It has the world's largest bagel breakfast
44:50
Speaker 1: with the consumption of more than sixty thousand bagels, and
44:53
Speaker 1: to date at bagel Fest, no reports of mad gassing.
44:59
Speaker 1: Thank thank god. I don't know if they want that
45:02
Speaker 1: in the headline, but there you have it. Uh. Thank
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Speaker 1: you so much to our super producer Casey Pegram, our
45:08
Speaker 1: guest producer Andrew Howard. Thanks to research or extraordinaire Gabe Louisier,
45:14
Speaker 1: Jonathan strick on the Quister, Christopher Hacids here in Spirit,
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Speaker 1: Alex Williams, who composed our theme, and You've been, You've been.
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Speaker 1: It was always you. I knew it was you, and
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Speaker 1: I'm glad it was you. What a gas, but a gas.
45:28
Speaker 1: We'll see next time, folks. For more podcasts for My
45:52
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
45:55
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.