Mar 09 2007
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The Mad-Gasser
Over at the website of Fortean Times, an excellent article courtesy of my good friend at the Center for Fortean Zoology, Jon Downes, has just been posted. The subject matter: the Mad Gasser of Mattoon.
As Jon states: “In September 1944, a series of peculiar events rocked the town of Mattoon, Illinois. For almost two weeks, the town’s police department received dozens of reports from terrified residents that a mysterious prowler, dressed entirely in black, was haunting the streets and squirting anæsthetising gas into the faces of his victims. The reports got weirder. One described the mysterious felon as wearing a strange metal helmet or mask; another spoke of a Bigfoot-type creature. Although the attacks petered out in mid-September, the events of that fortnight have since achieved near-mythical status. Like the incidents reported from London and Aldershot over half a century before, the real events that unfolded in Mattoon underwent a fortean sea change to become items of myth and folklore, and a local lunatic, more to be pitied than censured, became a figure of legend: if 19th-century London hatched ‘Spring-heeled Jack’, then 1940s Illinois gave birth to ‘The Mad Gasser of Mattoon.’”
Anyone with interests in Forteana, Men in Black, how and why rumors spread, and even aliens, should take a close look at Jon’s article. Definitely not one to be missed.
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March 9th, 2007 at 11:51 am
I was just about to say the only mad gasser who went ’round anaesthetising people against their will I’m aware of was this guy I used to work with who was overly found of curried baked beans and beer…
…then I spotted the reference to a metal mask, which immediately brought to mind my mysterious chum the man ‘in the wall’ at Vine Street (Mixed) Infants’ boys’ toilets, so I’m off to follow the link you provided.
ta-ta for now!
March 9th, 2007 at 3:40 pm
Speaking of yourself and Jon Downes, let me congratulate you Nick on the sale of the movie rights to “3 Men Seeking Monsters”!
One of those synchronistic things, but just yesterday (while mowing the lawn…where I do all my best thinking!) I was thinking to myself that 3 Men would make a wonderful documentary ‘reality’ (or ‘unreality’, as the case may be) TV show - although probably best made by a British production company, who I think are the best in the world at bringing substance to documentaries. Guess I wasn’t alone in seeing what a great book (and overall idea) 3 Men is.
If I had an entrepreneurial bone in my body, I’d probably be dangerous.
Best of luck with it!
Kind regards,
Greg
March 10th, 2007 at 8:21 am
Thanks Greg; we’ll see what happens…
March 10th, 2007 at 9:01 am
What’s amazing about the ‘mad gasser’ case is that physical evidence was recovered, i.e. high-heel footprints and a rag soaked in some unknown chemical. (it evaporated before tests could be run to discover just what it was.)
The most popular theory involving the only speculated suspects was a mentaly-disturbed chemist and his sister. The theory goes that after the chemist came under heat for the incidents, his sister stepped in to make it seem he wasn’t involved. (witnesses reported seeing a woman dressed as a man flee the scene)
Now here’s the weird part, unknown to the people of Mattoon, residents of a, I believe, Virgina town complained about similiar incidents a few years prior. Those incidents never achieved any sort of ‘national coverage’, so it is doubtful Mattoon residents ever heard of them.
March 13th, 2007 at 4:14 am
Nick is it true that the guy from “napoleon dynamite” is going to be playing you in that feature film?
If so, how does that casting strike you?
Jess
March 13th, 2007 at 6:21 am
Jess
LOL yes I saw that on the Net. I’m sure he could do a decent job - provided he gets his head shaved! Can he do a British accent though…?
April 1st, 2008 at 6:24 pm
In the same time period,people in West Bainbridge, Georgia, experienced the same type of attacks. It was late 1944 I believe. No one ever found out who or what it was here, either.