The Mad Gasser of Mattoon, the Phantom Who Attacked an Illinois Town in 1944
Over two weeks in 1944, dozens of residents of Mattoon, Illinois reported a prowler spraying a sickly-sweet gas through their windows at night, causing nausea, paralysis, and terror. Armed patrols roamed; the police found nothing, and the attacker dissolved on inspection. The case became the textbook study of mass psychogenic illness — with a stubborn residue of the unexplained.
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