Latest / Ridiculous History / The Mad Gasser of Mattoon, Part 1

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The Mad Gasser of Mattoon, Part 1 · Ridiculous History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. Today's episode is a gas?
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: But is it a mad gas? Well, I think that's
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: our starting question. I don't know, but let me take
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: a mad gasp for breath before I start talking about this,
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: because there's a lot to go over. I love the expression, Um,
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: it's a gas. Let's see what life's a gas. There's
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: a t Rex song laughs, a gas. Best annunciation of
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: the word gas, stretching it out to literally like four syllables. Um.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: But yeah, we're talking about hysteria, We're talking about things
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: existing largely in the minds of the public and kind
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: of inventing foes that represent kind of your deepest, darkest fears. Yeah. Yeah,
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: And of course, as always, mad gas to have our
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: super producer Casey Pegram and our guest producer Andrew Howard
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: along with us on the ride today. If you're a
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: fan of hip hop, of course you know that people
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: can be gassed about something, which might mean excited, sometimes
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: with the connotation of being overly excited or maybe a
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: little more optimistic about an idea. This has nothing to
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: do with music, but it does have a lot to
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: do with public panic and the fear of crowds. Now,
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: this story may not be familiar to a lot of
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: people outside of Central Illinois, but if you are from
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: central Illinois, specifically the town of Mattune, then you are
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: probably familiar with the events that began in early September
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: nineteen four. Here's the headline, folks, there was a mysterious
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: figure in black who was, for some enigmatic reason spraying
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: paralyzing gas into the windows of people's homes. That's that's
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: a very specific odd flex slash crime. Uh. The newspapers, No,
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: they went overboard. Oh, I forgot to say, I'm ben.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: The newspapers went overboard with the reporting of this, and
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: they kind of took it to the court of public opinion,
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: declaring that these attacks, these gassings, were the work of
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: what they called a mad gas er. And off air,
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: we talked about the idea of putting there's this very
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: specific move with reporting and publicity, sometimes with alarmist reporting,
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: to put the word mad in front of a verb
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: of something someone did, so like mad gasser. There would
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: also be the one you brought up earlier, role. Yeah,
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: like a mad bomber or perhaps a mad I don't know.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: Once you start getting into slashing, that just you don't
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: need an extra word in front of that. You just
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: because you're a slasher. It's it's it's implied. I think
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: that you're a mad slasher. I do like the term
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: mad dash though, right, like I made a mad dash
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  Speaker 1: for the bus or whatever. Um. But no, it's true, Ben,
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  Speaker 1: And I was looking it up because the the idea
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: of of gassing or of a paralyzing gas, to me
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: makes me think of what would be considered a nerve
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: agent or nerve gas, which wasn't really discovered or invented
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  Speaker 1: even really until I believe the late thirties, if I'm
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: not mistaken, Ben, And it would have been used during
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: World War Two. But would it have been in the
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: zeitgeist yet by this point, Ben, it seems like this
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  Speaker 1: is very, very close to that whole discovery. Yeah, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: because just a few years after the thirties, it would
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: have been incredibly unusual for someone to both know about
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: this stuff and have access to it. So, like, let's
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: say you have a career in the military, and some
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: specific aspects of the military, you could quite possibly be
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  Speaker 1: very well aware of this stuff, but then knowing what
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: it is and how it works would not be the
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: same thing as being able to get your glove clad
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: hands on it and then and then properly fumigate somebody's
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  Speaker 1: house with it totally. And the one we think of
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  Speaker 1: even still today, saren gas was not discovered until nineteen
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  Speaker 1: thirty nine. It's unclear to me, but I think I
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  Speaker 1: I'm I'm leaning in your direction, Ben, that this wouldn't
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  Speaker 1: have been something that would have been like discussed or
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: have wrecked paranoia about. But that's that's really interesting. But
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  Speaker 1: that's really it's it's really interesting to consider where this
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: hysteria or this panic came from and when we'll get
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: right into that. Yeah, this is the thing. So just
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  Speaker 1: a little further word about this. If this gas existed
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  Speaker 1: and had the effects that it was described as having
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  Speaker 1: in the papers of the time, then it would have
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: been an incapacitated agent, and those agents are Humanity is
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: known about the ability of some substances to like put
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: people in a stupor, or paralyze them, or put them
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  Speaker 1: to sleep for a long time. The question is all
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  Speaker 1: about the specifics. What is this gas? What happened? Why
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: did over twenty people claim that this mad gas or
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: sometimes known as the phantom anesthesis. Why why did over
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  Speaker 1: twenty people feel like they were attacked by this person? Uh,
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  Speaker 1: the FBI began investigating. Uh. Spoiler alert, fellow ridiculous historians.
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  Speaker 1: The police never captured this gas or. So here's the thing.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: Police never captured this gas or. Doctors medical experts who
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: examined the victims could not find anything wrong with them,
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  Speaker 1: nor traces of chemicals in the bodies of these victims.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: And police also couldn't find traces of the chemicals in
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  Speaker 1: the residences or the structures that the gas er was
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: alleged to attack. The person also didn't leave footprints. So
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: what sparked the panic? And it is a panic, it's
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: it's actually it's something called mass hysteria, which is very real,
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: absolutely mass hysteria. And the thing that really gets interesting
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: is how, you know, I brought up the idea of
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: nerve agents, and I think that there's a real nice
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  Speaker 1: clue in that headline or that that other nickname the
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  Speaker 1: phantom anisthetist. The idea of this could have been the
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  Speaker 1: work of a different substance, not a nerve agent at all,
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  Speaker 1: but more or of like a laughing gas situation that
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: people would have been aware of that you used to
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: put people under during surgery, and that you know, it
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: had had been around for a long time and was
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: commonly used like in dental procedures and and uh and
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: the like UM or something heavier that might have been
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: used during you know, more invasive surgery. But the thing
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  Speaker 1: that's fascinating is the behavior of of some of these
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  Speaker 1: individuals that claim to have been drugged in this way.
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  Speaker 1: And we also have like a precedent kind of for
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  Speaker 1: this kind of mass hysteria. We have reported it recently
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  Speaker 1: in fact, or at least what we you know, conjectured
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: to be that been on stuff. They don't want you
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: to know where. I believe it was in India, there
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  Speaker 1: were cases of young children seeing um apparitions of some
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: kind or demons or you know, possession type things. And uh,
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: there is film that we actually saw of of these uh,
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: these kids kind of in the state of this trance
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: like state kind of screaming as though they're having a
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  Speaker 1: waking nightmare. That's obviously a very upsetting example. UM. We
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: have a slightly more funny but then it gets to
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: be upsetting. Example from France in July of fIF eighteen,
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: where we had people dancing uncontrollably in the streets like
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: this song, you know, dancing in the street. I think
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: that's what David Bowie and Mick Jagger. Fabulous video, but
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: it escalates this kind of mania or hysteria. Tends to
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  Speaker 1: be catchy, like the song also dancing in the streets,
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: which I probably won't be able to get in my
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: head for the rest of the week. These numbers of
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  Speaker 1: people started to balloon, from thirty to several hundred individuals
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  Speaker 1: dancing in the streets. And and some of them actually died. Uh,
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  Speaker 1: not from some kind of poisoning or some kind of
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: substance or any kind of thing like that. It was
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  Speaker 1: literally just from over exhaustion, like that scene in The
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: Midsummer where you dance so hard that you just pass out.
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  Speaker 1: Only these folks actually died. Yeah, you can die from exhaustion,
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: it's true. And uh, the Screaming Girls of Malaysia is
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: that stuff they don't want you to know. Episode I
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  Speaker 1: believe well worth a listen. Look there there are multiple
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  Speaker 1: cases of what people would later describe as mass hysterians.
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  Speaker 1: Some of them sound a little silly, you know, with
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: the benefit of retrospect, when you're thinking, Wow, was there
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: really a problem with nuns in France meowing like cats?
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  Speaker 1: How is that contagious? You know? What is the Mount
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: Pleasant Mississippi hexing? The question today is is this a
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  Speaker 1: case of this mass hysteria. To answer that, we have
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: to go to the beginning. Mattuna is a pretty small city.
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  Speaker 1: It's about forty nine fifty miles south of Champagne is
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: the crow Flies, population around eighteen thousand. If we fast
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: forward to the end of August, it's hot town. Summer
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: in the city, you know what I mean, people have
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: their windows open at night because they want to let
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: in that cool evening breeze. But in nineteen forty four,
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: summer is a little bit different. Instead of having their
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: windows open all the way typically the way they usually
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: would write, with just some gauzy curtains between them and
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  Speaker 1: the outside world, people only open their windows a crack
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  Speaker 1: because so many of the men of the town were
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  Speaker 1: away fighting a World War two, and there was this
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  Speaker 1: kind of um, this undercurrent of fear, and this was
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  Speaker 1: common in most of the United States at the time.
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  Speaker 1: Even if you were a civilian, you were told you
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  Speaker 1: were part of the fight. You needed to be on
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: the alert. You needed to keep your mouth shut about
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: possible military movements and keep your eyes open for any
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: suss activity. Everybody was on the edge of a figurative knife.
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  Speaker 1: And so on August thirty one, a couple is asleep
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  Speaker 1: in their house. They wake up, they smell something that
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  Speaker 1: they described as sweet, and then they say, as soon
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  Speaker 1: as we smelled this, we began feeling strange. Understandably, this
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  Speaker 1: freaked him out, absolutely, And I think it is key
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  Speaker 1: how on edge people would have been, you know, for
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: fear of a larger attack, perhaps, right, And it's interesting
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  Speaker 1: how you know. I think it's key that the folks
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  Speaker 1: were so on edge, perhaps for fear of a larger
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  Speaker 1: attack or a bombing rate of some kind. Who knows,
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: you know, it's all very sketchy territory. Even though the
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: war is not on us soil. Who knows what could happen.
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  Speaker 1: So i'm I'm I'm with them in that headspace. But
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  Speaker 1: you're right, that sweet smell kind of wafting in through
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  Speaker 1: the window we had Mrs rafe Um she got out
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  Speaker 1: of bed thinking that maybe it was a gas leak
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: or that the pilot light was out, and she found
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: herself to be paralyzed or at least her legs at
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  Speaker 1: this point, and her husband, Mr. Rafe, was afflicted similarly.
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  Speaker 1: He was weak, he felt nausea overtake him, and he
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  Speaker 1: immediately began to vomit violently. That's no fun um and
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: he without keeping getting out of bed. Uh So, Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: we had other reports from neighbors that a young mother
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: was awakened by her daughter coughing violently, and then when
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: she checked on her daughter, she found that she had
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: been paralyzed, wasn't able to get out of bed. And
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: apparently neither of those families reported these happenings right away,
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: and maybe it wasn't until another attack on September one.
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  Speaker 1: Folks felt maybe something was up. What happened on the
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: ninth of September one, nineteen ben Yeah, they that's a
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: really important point. They did eventually report this, but after
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: some amount of time had passed. And this this is
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: going to be a crucial detail. Later September for Eileen
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: Kearney goes to bed that evening, she's not feeling super great.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: Her sister had helped her count some money that she
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: had gotten from a Czechi cashed earlier. But Kearney had
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: left her windows open at her house, so anyone who
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: walked by could have seen her and her sister counting
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: out the scratch. Why was she concerned, Well, she had reason.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: Her husband was working the late shift, and the newspapers
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: at the time, which were making a mistake about it,
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: folks thriving on this culture fear. They had said the
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: police were looking for a Nazi who had escaped a
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: pow camp near Peoria, Illinois. And then there was also
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: an ongoing concern about prowlers peeping tom's they have been
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: called at other times. So it's around eleven PM. She
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: goes to bed. She had a three year old daughter.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: She takes her daughter with her, and then not too
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: long as History of Yesterday dot com reports, it not
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: too long after eleven PM, Kearney notices a sickly sweet
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: odor in her bedroom. It sounds familiar, but unlike the races.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: She ignores the smell and she's like, I got the
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: window open. Maybe it's some flowers, right, Maybe I'm just
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: smelling flowers and I'm not too familiar with it. But
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: she noticed the smell started becoming stronger, more apparent, and
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: then she, like the folks from the other day, began
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: to lose feeling, specifically in her legs. She called for
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: her sister, Martha, who was staying overnight as well, saying Martha,
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: come help me. Martha ran next door to the Robinson's.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: Those are their neighbors, and their neighbors summoned the police. Mr.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: Robinson and law enforcement search around the house and the yard,
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: and they find nothing amiss. They don't experience any paralytic
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: effects or anything like that. Whatever happened, if gas it
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: was must have dissipated between the time Kearney became paralyzed
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: and the time her neighbors arrived. And then finally her
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: husband gets home. Burt Burt Kearney comes home from driving
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: a taxi. It's like midnight thirty, you know, it's it's
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: getting into the wee hours, and he says something interesting.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: He thinks he saw someone. Specifically, he thought he saw
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: a tall man in dark clothes with a tight fitting
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: cap lurking at the bedroom window, and he took off
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: after this guy, but the guy got away, So the
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: police are called a second time and for a second time,
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: they don't find anything. Nothing amiss, no footprints, nothing and disarray,
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: certainly not some unidentified, dark clad, super sketchy stranger. About
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: thirty minutes later, Ms Kearney could walk again. Her paralysis
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: is gone, but her daughter is still feeling these ill
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: effects until the next morning. And that next morning Ms
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: Kearney when she talks to the papers about this, she says,
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: her mouth and threw remained really dry like cot mouth,
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: and her lips she felt were burned by this gas. Yeah,
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: very specific results that people are talking about, but thankfully
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: the worst of these symptoms. The paralysis seemed to have
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: subsided after about a half hour, but her daughter was
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: feeling very under the weather until the next morning. Um So,
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: the next day Mrs Kearney went to the newspaper told
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: them about her mouth and throat and parched lips and
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: then the burning sensation and all of these things, including
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: this idea that there was some kind of prowler, and
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: you know, it was referring to this gas as though
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: this was like a sure thing. She knows this is
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: what happened. Um So, of course, like they do, the
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: media took this and ran with it, you know. Um So,
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: On September two, this became front page news in the
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: Mattoon Journal Gazette, admittedly paper with relatively small circulation, but
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: the front page read the following headline, anesthetic prowler on loose. Wow.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: I mean, come on, talk about whipping up a panic, right,
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: like a small town like that, the idea of a
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: very specific kind of almost fetishized prowler that is going
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: around and maybe not murdering people, but you know, doing
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: trying meaning to do them harm. And yeah, and then
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: there's another article that said Mrs Kearney and daughter first victims. Uh.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: And there was no evidence outside of the hearsay um
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: that was provided by Mrs Kearney and and her daughter.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: They had no evidence to back this up. There was
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: no police report associated with the existence of this prowler.
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: And yet they're reporting on this individual as though they
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: are the real deal. And so in the minds of people,
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: of course, it did becomes the real deal. And and
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: the paper benefited from this. If it bleeds, it leads,
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: or if it gases, it passes. Uh. Mattune Journal Gazette
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: saw a nent bump in subscribership. There's a big deal
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: in a small town. That's like nearly subscribership of eighteen
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: thousand people. That's a serious boost. And it's uh, it
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: only a crude momentum because a few days after that,
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: the reefs come forward and they say, you know, we also,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: we in our our neighbor encountered the exact same thing
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: you're describing. And picture the person at the Mattune Journal Gazette,
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: the editor in chief, saying, dang, we missed the headline.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: We could make an even more spectacular headline or sensationalist headline,
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: I should say again. They also, despite the fact that
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: they described some of the same things almost as if
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: they had read the paper with a ninety seven percent
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: subscription rate, they also did not have anything in the
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: way of evidence fingerprints, footprints, etcetera. So there is a
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: great question here, and it's something explored in multiple sources.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: And the question is this, to what extent where the
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: local papers involved in the making of the mad gas
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: or beyond just the reporting of the events. It's true
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: that they did not print anything about these attacks until
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: several days into September, and at that point, by that point,
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: multiple people, as we've shown, have already come to law
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: enforcement with complaints of attacks using gas, and ethically, it
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: would have been their job to talk about it. And
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: if the entire incident was just sort of a symptom
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: of the fear that was gripping so many people in
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: the US and Illinois at this time, then the truth
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: of the matter is that town gossip and chit chat
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: and argy bargele would have already have fired up the
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: populace well before they saw these headlines. So Anesthetic Prowler
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: is actually a little, um, I guess, a little less
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: sensationalistic than they could have gone. Oh, I mean, well,
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: if you compared to mad Gaster, to me, it sounds
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: like the newtered version, or like the more polite version
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: Anesthetic Prowler versus Mad Gaster. I think Anesthetic Prowler is
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: probably the more diplomatic of the two, right sure, yeah, yeah,
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: although I love when people dropped phantom into stuff. Phantom
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: is like mad as well. The papers did some digging
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: and they found that about a decade ago in Virginia
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: there have been reports of another rash of gassing incidents,
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: no arrest, no fatalities. So the papers revived this story
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: and they said, this is where the mad Gaster comes in.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: And they said, Hey, maybe that mad gasser who never
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: got caught in Virginia came out here to Central Illinois.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: And then when they reported that something that we've talked
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: about in the past on other shows began to happen.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: More and more people began coming forward and claimed that
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: they had a story. Just like if there's a report
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: of a famous person disappearing or a report of a
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: criminal on the loose, multiple people will claim they have
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: seen this person. And the thing is they're not necessarily lying.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: They believe what they're saying. And so, yeah, we have
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: to be careful when we think about all the other
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: people who came forward to other women said that something
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: like this had happened to them, not in August, but
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: a few months earlier, and they just didn't think about
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: reporting it until as they saw all the newspaper, Which
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: what is the logic there, Like if you got gassed,
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: if you felt like you got gassed and you were paralyzed,
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: even just for an hour, you you would tell like
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: you would at least text me and Casey absolutely, yeah,
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, and I'm not not trying to make this
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: overly heavy, but it's not even the same as say,
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: being a victim of sexual assault or being a victim
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: of molestation by like a relative or something like that.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: That makes sense that people would bury that and not
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: talk about it, because there's a personal shame element involved,
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: all kinds of psychological angles as to why people would
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: would hide that, Whereas maybe I don't know who, who
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: am I to say? Maybe this has a maybe there's
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: a cross over there somewhere, maybe someone feels, if they've
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: been victimized in any way, that there's a point of
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: shame there. But I agree with you completely been if
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: I had been gassed, or felt that I had been gassed,
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: I absolutely would say something. I don't see any reason
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: why I would why I would hide that or be
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: embarrassed by it. You know, it's the age of ubiquitous
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: information and uh NonStop continual communication online. So I imagine
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: if something like this happened today, even in the same town,
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: there would be some kids on TikTok who would be
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: on the case within three minutes. But the this you
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: make a good point. You know that there may be
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: some kind of shame, some kind of compelling shame, that
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: prevented people from reporting this, or they may have had
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: some personal circumstances that kind of disincentivize them from interacting
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: with the police, but it continues, the incidents multiply. Another
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: person comes forward and says, I was coming back to
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: my house. I saw a sketchy dude and black. He
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: was lurking by the window, and he ran away when
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: I tried to approach him. And then sometimes three or
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: four houses would report these specific types of gas attacks
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: on a single night. So the windows which were open
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: or crack are now shut, and people began sleeping in shifts.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: Let's go to there's one attack we know a lot about,
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: or the one that seems the most elaborate. Let's see
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: what's going on there. September five, ninety four. This is
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: a hell of a couple of weeks for the people
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: of the two It's true. And I want to point
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: out something that we talked about off the air, the
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: name Mattoon. When I first saw that and researching this,
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: I assumed it was in like, you know, India or something.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: It's just a very unusual name that doesn't necessarily sound
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: like it would be an Illinois. I love it. It's
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: it's it's a really cool, cool name and fun to
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: say and it's it's happened again. Folks, we have had
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: such a gas of a time. Uh, please don't call
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: us ourselves gas bags. But this is becoming a two
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: part episode. No, did you ever hear the phrase gas
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: bag before? I'm not making that up right, that's a
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: real no. No, that's funny you say that, Ben. I
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: was going to mention it earlier on um it's a
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: popper into my head gas bag and b But I
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: think it's like basically the equivalent of like being a
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: wind bag, or you know someone that's full of crap
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: and then just talks a lot of smack. Well, hopefully,
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: hopefully if we talks back, we're not We're not full
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: of crap, and we are going to return in our
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: very next episode with some more explorations of the mad
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: gas are including, perhaps most importantly, some theories about how
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: this strange event could have come to unfold. Can't wait
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: to hear your thoughts on these. In the meantime, Please
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: let us know what you think about this. You can
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: find us online. We're on Facebook. We like to recommend
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: ridiculous historians. You can also find us as individuals. That's right.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: You can find me on Instagram. Where I am at
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: how Now Noel Brown, and you can find me on
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: Instagram at Ben Bowlen, where occasionally I post embarrassing childhood
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: photos that my mother or keep sending me for some reason.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: You can also find me on Twitter, app and Bull
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: and h s W. Thanks as always to our super
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: producer Casey Pegraham and our guest producer Andrew Howard, and
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: a huge thanks to Gabe Luzier for bringing this, uh,
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: this amazing topic to our attention and for being innocent,
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: all around swell guy, who we will absolutely have back
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: on the show soon. Christopher Hasci yodas here in spirit,
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: Jonathan Trick on the Quister, and Alex Williams, who composed
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: our theme. I can't wait for Part two. Man, this
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: gets into some really interesting stuff, wouldn't you say? I
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: would say, And we'll see you then, Folks. For more
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app,
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.