# The Mad Gasser and the Windshield Pitting Epidemic · The Cult Dossier · The Atlas · The Congregation of Tomorrow

Source: https://congregationoftomorrow.org/atlas/library/cults/166-the-mad-gasser-and-the-windshield-pitting-epidemic/ · The Congregation of Tomorrow · the Atlas · language: en
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The Cult Dossier · No. 166 · Moral Panic / Mass Hysteria
The Mad Gasser and the Windshield Pitting Epidemic
The Phantom Anesthetist of Mattoon; the Seattle windshield pitting epidemic
1944 and 1954 · Mattoon, Illinois; Bellingham and Seattle, Washington
XVI. CONTAGION — SYMPTOMS THAT SPREAD WITHOUT A PATHOGEN
None.
### Who led it
### What it worshipped and taught
### Who was in it
### How it ended, or where it stands
### The dead
### Of note
### Its timeline
- 31 AUGUST – 1 SEPTEMBER 1944 MATTOON, ILLINOIS. URBAN RAEF reports a strange odour and nausea. The next night ALINE KEARNEY reports an odour followed by paralysis of her legs, and the local paper runs it as the first attack.
- SEPTEMBER 1944 OVER TWO DOZEN GASSING REPORTS in about two weeks, with many further sightings of a prowler. Symptoms include odd smells, nausea, vomiting, coughing and temporary leg paralysis. POLICE INVESTIGATE AND FIND NO GAS, NO DEVICE AND NO ASSAILANT. No one is ever identified.
- 12 SEPTEMBER 1944 THE POLICE CHIEF ANNOUNCES THERE HAD PROBABLY BEEN NO GAS ATTACKS AT ALL, blaming industrial odours and panic. The reports fall away. The local papers had run the story as fact from the start.
- 1945 DONALD M. JOHNSON publishes THE PHANTOM ANESTHETIST OF MATTOON: A FIELD STUDY OF MASS HYSTERIA in the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology. It becomes the textbook case.
- 23 MARCH 1954 SEATTLE. Newspapers carry reports of mysterious pitting damage to car windscreens in a city about 80 miles to the north. Over the following weeks the reports move south and thousands of vehicles are said to be affected.
- 14–17 APRIL 1954 The reports reach Seattle: more than 3,000 vehicles are said to be pitted. Blame falls on FALLOUT FROM PACIFIC HYDROGEN BOMB TESTING, then very recent news. On the night of 15 April THE MAYOR ASKS PRESIDENT EISENHOWER FOR HELP. By 17 April the reports have stopped.
- 1958 MEDALIA AND LARSEN, of the University of Washington, publish their study in the AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW: the pitting was ordinary road damage that had always been there. WHAT WAS NEW WAS THAT PEOPLE WERE LOOKING AT THEIR WINDSCREENS INSTEAD OF THROUGH THEM.
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