Futility Closet

In 1944, a bizarre criminal assaulted the small town of Mattoon, Illinois. Victims reported smelling a sickly sweet odor in their bedrooms before being overcome with nausea and a feeling of paralysis. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll pursue the mad gasser of Mattoon, who vanished as quickly as he had struck, leaving residents to wonder whether he had ever existed at all. We'll also ponder the concept of identical cousins and puzzle over a midnight stabbing. Intro: Enterprise, Ala., erected an $1,800 monument to the boll weevil. In the late 1930s, a plaster mannequin named Cynthia archly toured the New York social scene. Sources for our feature on the mad gasser of Mattoon: Bob Ladendorf and Robert E. Bartholomew, "The Mad Gasser of Mattoon: How the Press Created an Imaginary Chemical Weapons Attack," Skeptical Inquirer 26:4 (July/August 2002), 50-54. Robert E. Bartholomew and Jeffrey S. Victor, "A Social-Psychological Theory of Collective Anxiety Attacks: The 'Mad Gasser' Reexamine