In the process of writing about Spring Heeled Jack, I discovered America was also haunted by the weird and absurd. Eighty years ago (1944 for the mathematically challenged) the small city of Mattoon in Cole County, Illinois was subjected to a deadly peril, a Mad Gasser or to be exact, the ‘Mad Gasser of Mattoon.'
It began in September when Aline Kearney noticed a ‘sickening sweet odour.’ Within moments her legs became numb and then paralysed, her throat abnormally dry. Alarmed, her sister Martha called her husband who saw a man outside lurking near a bedroom window. The brother chased the man away and later described him as tall, dressed in black and wearing a tight cap. Within the hour Aline’s legs returned to normal.
The following day the local paper reported the incident with the headline ‘Anaesthetic Prowler on Loose’ and thus launched a flood of other stories. Orbon Raef and his wife reported a similar thing had happened the day before the Kearney incident. Both had been asleep but had awakened to a strange and noxious smell. Both were paralysed for an hour and a half.
Olive Brown claimed she’d been attacked even earlier, she too experiencing a dry throat and temporary paralysis. On the same night as the Kearney attack, Mrs George Rider recorded a similar experience. For whatever reason, she’d been up late that night drinking ‘several pots of coffee.’ She heard an unexpected ‘plop’ followed by a noxious smell that made her dizzy and tingle all over. A neighbour reported a strange smell that made her children vomit.
On September 5th Beulah Cordes picked up a small piece of cloth from her porch. For some reason, she sniffed it, staggered, and screamed. She reported ‘a feeling of paralysis like an electric shock’ and was sick for two hours.
Not to be outdone, Edna Jones, a local fortune teller, smelled something suspicious in her boarding house. On running out, she saw an ‘ape-like man with long arms reaching out, holding a spray gun.’ He fired three rounds of gas at her causing her to go numb all over.
Hysteria set in. Armed vigilantes roamed the streets hunting the ‘Mad Gasser.’ A woman loading her gun in readiness for the Gasser accidentally blew a hole in her ceiling. Chemical experts suggested a popular rat poison—chloropicrin, a sweet smelling poisonous gas but the symptoms didn’t match and no actual traces of it were found. Police theories ranged from a rogue chemistry teacher, Japanese terrorists, an escaped or recently released lunatic. A town had become unhinged.
When no culprit was found, other theories came to the fore. The Chief of Police suggested it was chemical run-off from a local factory: the Atlas Imperial Diesel Engine Company. The company made the obvious point that none of its employees experienced any kind of symptoms.
The final, most popular theory was that it was a classic example of mass hysteria. A similar incident in 1972 amongst data workers in a Midwest university was similarly dismissed as a manifestation of generalised discontent.
No conclusive evidence was ever found for a similar incident in Springfield Missouri. In 1987 Springfield was terrorised by ‘Ether Eddie’ who broke into fifteen homes, knocking out women with a formaldehyde cloth pressed to their noses. None of the women ranging from an eight-year-old girl to a mature 56-year-old were sexually molested and nothing was stolen. Even so, the town went berserk, few walked the streets alone at nights, and shops sold out of deadbolts. The following year a woman shot a burglar prying open her window. The wounded man was arrested and served ten years but police found no direct link between him and ‘Ether Eddie.’
I won’t go into the Hopkinsville Goblins. Time doesn’t allow. But for those who enjoy anodyne explanations for the weird and peculiar, it’s hard to beat the American government’s explanation for recent ‘attacks’ on U.S diplomats summed up in the term ‘Havana Syndrome,’ where it was first experienced. These unexplained symptoms are now officially classed as AHIs or Anomalous Health Incidents.
2 comments:
I was piqued by the description of sweet, sickly smell.
Phosgene (today) has a fresh, mowed lawn smell, but I wonder if a less processed version would smell sweet or sickly.
It does affect the lungs very effectively.
I only know about phosgene because it's one of many deadly chemicals Greg used to handle when he worked in the chemical industry.
Thanks, Maria. That's an interesting insight/possibility. Would it also induce the short lived paralysis? I hope Greg never became all tingly and numb and neither of you ever find a suspicious small piece of cloth outside your front door :)
Post a Comment