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On September 2, 1944, as the Second World War was in progress in Europe and the Pacific, some strange happenings were reported in the small town of Mattoon, Illinois. The front page of the town’s newspaper described a mysterious attack by an “Anesthetic Prowler” the previous evening. A young housewife named Aline Kearney had been laying in bed reading the newspaper when she noticed a strong, sweet odor seeping into the room. The smell made her and her three-year-old daughter feel ill, but when Aline tried to get out of bed, she found that she couldn’t move her legs.
Aline’s sister was staying at the house, and upon learning of the strange odor and its ill effects, she dashed to a neighbor’s house to have them contact the police. When the police investigated they found nothing out of the ordinary, but when Aline’s husband arrived at home at 12:30am from his job as a cab-driver, he discovered a prowler outside the bedroom window. He gave chase, yet the unknown lurker escaped. When the police were summoned back, they again found nothing. Real or imaginary, the dark figure would soon come to be known as the Mad Gasser of Mattoon, and this ambiguous individual would be blamed for dozens of such attacks in the following weeks.
Such is how the story was told in the Daily Journal-Gazette the following day, under the headline “‘Anesthetic Prowler’ on Loose.” The subheading ominously declared, “Mrs. Kearney and Daughter First Victims.” In using the term “first,” it seems that either the Gazette reporters had an uncanny predictive ability, or they had a flair for the dramatic. In the days following the news report, three other citizens came forward claiming that they had been the victims of “gassings” before the event at the Kearney house. People spoke of lightheadedness, paralysis, upset stomach, and vomiting, accompanied by a sickly-sweet odor.
A few days later on September 5, Mrs. Carl Cordes reported finding a small wet cloth on her porch, and when she picked it up she was overcome by an odor. “It was a feeling of paralysis,” she reported, “My husband had to help me into the house and soon my lips were swollen and the roof of my mouth and my throat burned. I began to spit blood and my husband called a physician. It was more than two hours before I began to feel normal again.”
Other newspapers quickly picked up the story, and soon the entire country was reading about Mattoon’s rumored mad gasser. For months, U.S. newspapers had been warning Americans that the Nazis might employ poison gas in attacks against civilians, so this sort of story sold a lot of newspapers to jittery citizens.
Reports of “gassings” continued, and increased daily. On September 8, the Gazette published an editorial criticizing police for not taking Aline Kearney’s report seriously. Shortly thereafter, ten Illinois state police officers were assigned to the case, as well as two agents from the FBI.
Before long, police began to receive reports of several attacks each night. Many victims reported a tall figure dressed in black fleeing from their property immediately after the attacks, as well as blue vapors and buzzing sounds. The Gazette continued its coverage as people throughout the country read of the events unfolding in Mattoon. Soon, large groups of armed citizens were roaming the town at night, following any police cars that were speeding off to investigate another attack. Police officers were ordered to start arresting the chasers, and tensions mounted.
On September 13th, eight days and three dozen victims later, the reports of attacks abruptly halted. Investigators were at a complete loss for an explanation. Careful searches found no chemical evidence of harmful gasses, and all of the victims were completely free of any lingering symptoms.
The only suspect ever investigated in the attacks was a man named Farley Llewellyn. He was a student of chemistry, and he was bitter because he had been ostracized by the community as a suspected homosexual. He seemed a compelling suspect because he had the means and the motive, and most of the alleged attacks occurred near his home. But even after he was placed under constant surveillance, the reports of the attacks had continued.
To this day, it is unclear who was responsible for the attacks, if anyone. Some have postulated that pollutants from nearby factories and industrial plants may have been the cause, but each report was so localized as to cast that possibility into doubt. The official investigation ultimately dismissed the Mad Gasser as an artifact of mass hysteria fed by the newspapers, which is certainly not outside the realm of possibility. It wouldn’t be the first nor the last time that human imagination and embellishment conjured a threat from nothing.
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That’s a gas.
The description sounds somewhat like Chloroform.
Dave
The gas is giving me ideas … strange ideas.
Why on earth did the cops arrest the armed citizens following them. They didn’t commit any crime.
Causing a general nuisance, probably.
Now that was Damn Interesting.
As for arresting armed groups of citizens following the police everywhere… it’s just not safe for people to be doing that. Police are trained to deal with dangerous situations and the general population is not. If an officer has defused a tense situation the arrival of agitated, armed people can make things worse than they were to begin with. If they begin to put themselves in a position where violence is going to occur they can be injured or killed, and so can the policemen themselves. They could conceivably help the situation, but the police cannot accept the liabilities that accompany such unknown quantities – their lives and those of other innocent bystanders shouldn’t be put at risk for no good reason. And those people don’t need to be there because the police are already dealing with the situation. Any policeman or fireman will tell you that helping out in an emergency is fine, but when the professionals arrive let them do their job and don’t make yourself part of the problem they have to deal with.
And interfering with a police investigation is a crime… barging into a scene under police control, especially when you are armed, can certainly qualify as such. And the officers only need to ask you to leave once – if you show up at another scene doing the same thing, they shouldn’t have to even ask once. At the very least it would be disturbing the peace, despite their possible good intentions. The road to hell is paved with good intentions they say….
Mass hysteria during wartime would not be unlikely. A farmer shot his own water tower as a suspected Martian war machine during Orson Welles’ famous WAR OF THE WORLDS broadcast. (I imagine the way it was stomping around in the dark could have fooled him.)
Thanks for the article. I was born in Mattoon a long time after this happened. I had never heard this story, but I will be sure and pass it on to family members. It was interesting, Thanks again.
I was born in Mattoon as well. I’m going to have to start interviewing family members to see if anyone remembers this. Seems like this is the kind of story you would pass on to the next generation, doesn’t it?
This is reminiscent of the Washington windshield pitting scare of 1954.
…least for now, Mattoon is known as the “bagel capital of the world”. Any after taste can only be attributed to the ingrediants used for making flavored bagels.
…please pass the cream cheese, lox and onions….thank you.
I know this person. I was married to her. Every time she ate seafood she would attack – there would be a “buzzing sound” under the covers, followed by “blue vapors.” There would be a “sickly sweet odor,” I would “feel ill,” the “roof of my mouth would burn,” and I finally had to divorce her. She’s currently gassing a fine young national guardsman – a man who likely had a bit of training in dealing with chemical weapons. Poor sodder.
And I didn’t know anything at all about Mattoon – is it really the Bagel Capitol? How cool! And I’m surprised at the number of people who posted who were from there.
Kidding aside – that was a odd little story – thanks, Alan.
The reason why the cops arrested the vigilantes – they might get in the way, and get angry, and shoot stuff. The Beslan tragedy was due in large part to the vigilante citizens getting in the way and actually shooting a bunch of the police & army forces. Most of the dead who were shot and not blown up were directly credited to the vigilantes that stormed the building when the bombs went off and the police moved in.
Along with spring heeled jack, the matton gasser gets onto my MSN comment list of favorite criminals. Did they ever establish a link between all the victims? If so i’d like to hear it.
lol spring heeled jack and the mad gasser would have made a great team.
Bucky said: “That’s a gas.”
Is there some kind of rule for Damn Interesting where the first comment has to be a terrible pun? I’m not complaining or anything, I like bad puns, but this just happens way too much to be a coincidence.
Oh, but you’ve missed the creepiest thing about the Mad Gasser, the newspaper illustration! It’s quite probably the best rendering of a boogeyman EVER.
This type of robbery has occured, and still occurs today. In Malaysia, poor medical students often use bundles of cloth soaked in chloroform or other gas form anesthetics, placed near windows or near bed sides, and with a gentle breeze or fan, induced the owners to sleep, while robbing their house.
In France, Footballer Patrick Viera recently had all his wife’s jewellery stolen when thieves pumped gas anesthetic into his home.
These types of attacks do occur, so it might not be that far-fetched to believe the Mad Gasser.
Around these parts, my son is known as the Mad Gasser… though rarely is the odour sweet.
That’s crazy. I go to school at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston (a few miles from Mattoon) and it’s not really talked about, although I had heard something about it my freshman year.
How could the chemical be unknown if “Mrs. Carl Cordes reported finding a small wet cloth on her porch, and when she picked it up she was overcome by an odor”? Why wouldn’t they test it to see if she was making it up and if not what was the chemical? I guess it’s just another case of the lazy-ass pigs not doing a thorough job.
Living only 30 minutes from Mattoon and making frequent trips to Eastern Illinois Unviersity, i was still unfamiliar with the story…DI!
John Saveley
I grew up in Mattoon and my grandmother had told me about the Mad Gasser. She said she wasn’t afraid and slept many nights with her bedroom window open and nothing ever happened to her. It was a very interesting story especially for a young boy who was scared of the dark.
Re: BenKinsey and lack of testing of cloth.
The cloth was tested and nothing was found; however, it was not tested immediately but 60 hours later.
Considering all that is happening today, the Mattoon Gasser seems almost quaint.