Hey everybody! Welcome back to another episode of Cryptic Cocktail Party, a show where we have a few drinks, share a few laughs, take a dive into the unknown. I'm your host Dave and today I'm joined by someone who is a self-described Southie 2 Sarge of Destroyer. What's going on bud? I am a Southie 2. That's fair. I heard you say that yesterday when I was listening to your new episode and I was like I gotta use that as the intro. It's so fucking good. But hey, to me, you're a P-Town 8.
I'm a Nashua 10. That's so fucking true. Manchester 9 maybe. I'll give you a Manchester 9. Yep, Manchester 9. Oh my god, Portsmouth, I'm a 1 if I'm lucky. Oh dude, so I lived in Dover right next to Portsmouth. Even I don't feel good going there. Yeah, yeah. What's going on bud? How you doing? I'm good. I just came back from a midsummer festival. Yeah?
Yeah, I saw my daughter making one of those flower crowns and I decided maybe this would be a good time to leave, to move on before we start burning down a large wooden building and pushing old people off a cliff. Yeah dude, it's a spoiler alert by the way for those of you who haven't seen a movie that came out 10 years ago. I was going to say, I think people will be fine. I loved that movie the first time I watched it.
I was like, oh yeah, no, this sounds very Scandinavian, everything that's happening like throughout the entire movie, I was like very Scandinavian. Yeah. My, my father is Norwegian and Swedish, so it's very. The one thing about those like 824 like horror movies though, like hereditary midsummer, I think the witch is also like one of those is that you can only watch them once.
Like I mean, I've watched, I've watched, I've watched midsummer a few, I can't watch, I can't watch the descendants more than, is it descendants? The descent? Which is, which is the one where the little kid gets decapitated like four seconds in. Hereditary? The little sister? Hereditary. I don't know why I'm saying descendants. Hereditary, I can only watch. Hereditary descendants is kind of like, it's kind of the same in a way. Kind of, right? So I can only watch her hereditary once.
I mean, you can watch them multiple times, but you're going to, you, but once you know what's going on, it's like, meh. I don't know. I really love the ending and midsummer. I just think it's like the coolest ending. I loved the witch. I thought that was a phenomenal movie. I love the witch. If we're going to talk about amazing endings to horror movies, there's only one that actually matters and I've been saying this for fucking years. The best ending to any horror movie ever is The Mist.
Hands down. Oh yeah. The best. Like the ending is so fucking just like, oh, you're so close. You were so close and you just fucking murdered everyone. The ending of The Mist is like the story of my life. Just in terms of like, I'm almost always fucking myself over. Yeah, but are you fucking yourself over to the point where you're metaphorically murdering everyone in the fucking car? Because I'm afraid of them being enveloped by a mist. No, I haven't done that yet, but there's still time.
Dude, I remember when that movie first came out. I went to theaters to see it and when they're driving down like 95 and I kept seeing signs like, I know that highway sign. I know that highway sign. But then they re-released it in black and white and I don't know why, but for some reason, so much better. Oh yeah. So much better. Oh yeah. I think it's because the CGI doesn't look as trash. Like there's that one scene where the tentacle comes out underneath like the door and it just looks so bad.
But anyways. I know we've got a whole podcast to record, but while we're on the subject of horror movies, I have an unpopular opinion and I think we're probably going to lose some followers for this, but I have to say it. The 1990 remake of Night of the Living Dead is as good as the original. I'll take it. It is. It's just as good. It's not better, but there's no way it's worse. No, but also, yeah, I don't. I mean, Romero was involved with it. Toby Hooper directed it. I mean, it's just so good.
I'm going to be honest. I liked Zack Snyder's Dawn of the Dead. I thought that was really good. I didn't mind that the zombies ran. I didn't give a fuck. The one, the fucking- Yeah, that didn't bother me at all. That made them scarier to me because they move faster. Yeah. And then the pregnant lady who fucking dies because the zombie baby was inside of her and fucking- Oh, holy shit. Yeah. So good. That was horrifying.
And like, I think people get mad about fast zombies and I'm like, you're mad that they're scarier? I don't understand. Yeah. Way more terrifying. And it also makes way more sense. But also- Yeah. And if you watch like South Korean, there's a good South Korean zombie movie called Train to Busan. Oh, man. That sounds crazy to me. Those zombies. It's so good. There's a sequel that I haven't seen because I can't find it anywhere. I'm sure it's just because I'm lazy and don't want to pay for it.
So I haven't found it because I wasn't looking in the right places. The first one is usually on Netflix and it is fucking terrifying. All right. I'll have to check that. In the ending, it's just a kick in the balls. It's almost as difficult as the mist. See, I love- That's the thing with me. I love horror movies that end on just the most bummer of notes. You know what I mean?
Not even to horror movies, just movies in general where you think the good guy is going to win and they're almost there and then it's just, nope, fucking donezo. I'm not talking about the end of Freddy movies when everyone's driving away and then the mom gets ripped through the- I'm talking about real life fucking consequences that are just dumb. Like fucking Midnight Meat Train. You ever see that movie? It sounds like the name of a sex tape. It kind of is.
It's got fucking Bradley Cooper and that's all you need to know. And there's Mole Men under this dude. It's bonkers, but- Now I need to see this. You really do. Now I need to know about this movie. So good. Midnight Meat. And it also has- Who's that dude from like, I think it's Gone in 60 Seconds, the one that's always quiet, big, tall, lurch looking motherfucker. Oh God, that's everybody in Hollywood. I'll send you a pic. We'll figure it out. But he's the Midnight Meat Train guy.
I'm not going to explain the whole movie. I'm going to look it up. I'm going to look it up on IMDB. I was about to explain the whole movie to you, but I realized we're like eight minutes in and we haven't even come close to starting to talk about what we're talking about. Not what this podcast is about. People are tuning in for the first time like, I thought this was supposed to be about cryptids. What is happening right now? We could do a podcast where it's us half remembering horror movies.
And trying to explain the plot. A brief synopsis based on what I remember after a night of drinking. It's got Bradley Cooper and the guy from Gone in 60 Seconds. And there's a train and then there's meat. It's fucked up. That's all you need to know. Well, I mean, like the worst part is Gone in 60 Seconds has like 20 guys and you just described half of them. He's the one that doesn't talk. Like they call him up on the phone and he answers the phone and they're like- Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I know who you're talking about now. I couldn't, I don't know what else he's in. But I mean, I feel like it's always Vinnie Jones. I think that's who it is. That like British soccer player. That's who it is. Yes. Yeah. I didn't know he was a soccer player, but I always expected him to be like a hooligan. Like you could see him just fucking someone up after a game. I'm pretty sure he used to be a soccer player, but excuse me. He played footy as they say in England. All right.
Well, we're in America so why don't you fucking tighten it up, bud? Get your house in order. Calm down. Now that our women's team is the best in the world, we can call it whatever we want. Exactly. Oh, I was about to go into the tangent. I can't do it. We're not doing this now. All right. No, we're not doing this. So I have to get back to the. This is a show about cryptids. I promise you. It is.
But unfortunately for you today, we're going to be moving away from cryptids and we're going to cover something a little different. This is a show about weird shit and we're doing it. We're going to be covering a case of possible mass hysteria. Now mass hysteria is a word thrown around a lot and I'm not quite sure a ton of people know what it means. I think I like dumb people on the Internet use it to like explain it like Covid. It's like the far right things.
Covid was a case of mass hysteria with the mass and all that shit. Or even like right when there was like all the the protests, like the George Floyd protests, like that was just a case of mass hysteria, not people wanting basic human rights. But dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria.
But in reality, that's not what it is, mass hysteria or mass psychogenic illness is defined as the spreading of illness like symptoms through a population where there is no infectious agent responsible for the contagion. Basically meaning one person sees something doing something weird and a lot of anxiety in the town and then they just fucking do the same thing. Some prime examples of mass hysteria would be the dancing plague of 1518. We're in Strasbourg, France, a man named Frau Trofea.
I think I pronounced that right. He just started dancing in the streets and then within a month over 400 people joined in like day and night couldn't stop dancing, just fucking cutting a rug until they physically couldn't anymore. With some even dying due to strokes, heart attacks and exhaustion. Yeah, my understanding is they had boogie fever. Another example is the Tanganyaka laughing epidemic of 1962 in the area now known as in Tanzania or what is now Tanzania.
This happened a year after Tanzania gained its independence from England, which is fucking wild that that was in the 60s because I assumed the entire fall. It blows my mind like how long England hung on to some places like Canada. They're still involved with Canada and Australia. The Queen is on their money. I think yeah. But anyways, schools there had to be shut down sometimes for weeks when dozens of schoolgirls started laughing and couldn't stop.
By the time the epidemic had subsided, over 1000 people were laughing uncontrollably with some of the students also suffering from rashes, fainting and respiratory problems. I'm assuming because if you're just laughing constantly, your fucking whole shit is going to get ruined. I don't know. Yeah. Oh yeah. No, you're going to you're going to suffocate. Your muscles are going to hurt after a while. Your face. I mean, your your cheeks are going to hurt from smiling.
Yeah, I'm sure the capillaries in your eye, like you just fucking like everything. But also at the same time, it could have been one of those things. And I don't know why I was like, you know, when you were like 12 at a sleepover and you're trying to sleep and then one person starts laughing and then you start laughing and then just game over. But then like everyone stops laughing. But then you start laughing again because of the laugh. It's like one of those things. It could have been that.
Yeah. Yeah. Laughter is contagious. It's entirely possible. It makes us all happy, you know, and this one instance laughter was not the best medicine. No, no, because people almost died. People got hurt. Now, the most the most famous case of mass hysteria and one that hits close to home to both Sarge and I is, of course, the Salem witch trials. Citizens guide to the supernormal. We did like three episodes on it. One of them's real boring and I apologize, but we covered it in depth.
We did fucking research. Yeah. So I'm not going to go. Which is rare. I'm not going to go and bore everyone with the details of this because I'm like, I'm a hundred percent sure that everyone listening to this is probably familiar with the Salem witch trials, but it was super fucked up and resulted in the deaths of 14 women and five men. Now, luckily, the story we're going to cover today, no one died or suffered from any long term effects, at least not like physically.
I'm sure like mentally this kind of fucked everything up. Today we're going to be covering the Mad Gasser of Mattoon, the name given to the person or persons that were responsible for over a dozen gas attacks that took place in Mattoon, Illinois in 1944. Are you familiar with this? Were they just going with the most cartoony sounding name possible? Well, the Mad Gasser of Mattoon. Well, it's Mattoon, Illinois where it took place. He was called the Mad Gasser.
He was also called the Mad Anesthesiologist, which I think is kind of fucking cool. It is, but it's too many syllables. True. And also I feel like you could have made it in the alliteration. Like I feel like there's something there. You could have done better. But yeah, the angry anesthesiologist. Actually, that might be what it was. I don't know. I don't think it was. I didn't write it down. The Mad Gasser of Mattoon to me is the best name, so I chose that one.
What's killing me about the original name though is that they were one letter away from just a great, great name. The Mad Gasser of Mattoon would have been so much better. You know what I mean? Like just. Oh, good to start a change. Or just kiss. Change that petition to name change the name of Mattoon to Mattoot. I think I think we're just go there immediately after the name change and open up a Boston's baked bean shop. But not the actual food.
I'm going to sell just those those candy coated peanuts. That's all it's going to be. You don't like those. Whatever. You're an idiot. That's not my thing. I you know, they're from here that we have all these like things that we're like, oh, you know, Boston's famous for this. No one likes Necco wafers, bro. No one likes them. Yeah, they're disgusting. But growing up, growing up in New England, that was a staple in every Easter basket I've ever gotten in my entire life for some reason.
And Halloween, because nothing says safe candy to eat like something wrapped in wax paper. Well, I mean, we also. I was about to go into candy brand, but we got a lot to cover today. Sarge got that. You got to get back into it. We got to get back into the game. So are you familiar with the Mad Gasser? I am moderately familiar with this. Yes. But I'm sure you're going to tell me things I didn't know about it. I only really remembered it because it was just such a hilarious name to me.
Yeah. It basically just sounds like someone farting in people's bedrooms, like someone's like fucking Dutch oven. So the first attack, the cereal crop duster, the first attack took place in the early morning hours of August 31st at the Grant Avenue home of Urban Rafe. Rafe claims that he was woken up by a strange odor in his bedroom, thinking it was a gas leak in the house, which was probably my first thought too.
His wife tried to go check the kitchen stove, but found she was partially paralyzed and wasn't able to get out of bed. On that same day, an unnamed young woman reported a similar incident where she was awoken by the sound of her daughter coughing in the next room, but was unable to check on her because she too was suffering from partial paralysis. So far, this is kind of weird. The two incidents happened fairly close to one another, so with like similar symptoms.
But for me, like if I would just heard this, I'd be like, that's nothing crazy. It could just be like an isolated incident. You know, they're pretty much right next to each other. But that all changed on the next day on September 1st at around 11 p.m. that night. Aline Kearney had just put her kids to bed when she reported smelling a strong, sweet odor, thinking nothing of it and assuming it was coming from the flowers outside.
She went about her business, but then that odor grew stronger and she started to feel her legs becoming weak and numb. She starts to panic and yells out for her sister, Martha, who was there at the time. Martha runs over and she too notices the strong odor and determined that it was coming from the bedroom window, which had been open this time at the time. Now the police were called, but when they got there, they found no evidence that there was like a prowler on the loose.
Finally around 1230, Aline's husband, Kurt, he got home from work. He was like a taxi driver and wasn't there during the time that like all this shit went down. But when he when he arrived home, he found an unidentified man snooping around one of the houses, like one of the windows of the house. He gave chase, but was unable to catch him. He described this man as tall, dressed in dark clothing and wearing a tight fitting cap.
And this description would be like the go to description throughout this whole idea, because like their story was the first one of the attacks to be published in the media. Got it. Where you at so far? Because this keeps going. I'm still trying to figure out like what journey. Sent two people on that they would name their son, Urban Rafe. The man was named in a thesaurus. They just opened the thesaurus. We're like, uh, urban. All right, that works.
I honestly, I don't want to name urban, but it reminds me of I don't have a, I don't have a problem with it. I'm just trying to figure out what made you put that word in front of the last name. It's the 1940s. That's all I could go. Let's name my kid after a highly developed area, but let's be nondescript. I call him Dallas or something. Urban sounds good.
So the days following the publication of the Kearney attack, there were another six attacks that were reported, but there wasn't any evidence that a mad gasser had been roaming around fucking shooting gas into people's houses. Nothing physical or you know, odor wise, like the cops would come. They couldn't smell anything. There was nothing there. In fact, there wasn't any real evidence at all that there was a good person doing this.
The only quote unquote evidence was found on September 5th and that night around 10 PM Carl and I don't know how to pronounce this name, but I think it's a bowler. Maybe you'll be a Bula. Probably Bula. Bula cords. That sounds way more right. That's what we'll go with. Carl and Bula cords return home from a night out. After spending some time inside, they noticed what looked like a white men's handkerchief set sitting on their porch right outside their screen door.
Bula. She picked it up and for some fucking reason just put it up to her face and gave it a big ol whiff. Smell like chloroform to you. As soon as she did this, she just became violently ill. Her face swelled up, burning in her mouth and throat, vomiting. Some sources saying that she started bleeding from her nose and mouth and like the other victim started feeling weak and getting partial paralysis of her legs. Dude, why would you like?
I've never seen a strange piece of cloth and be like, what that smell like? Like what? Let me give this a deep sniff. Let me investigate. Along with Bula, mistakes are made. Along with the cloth, a well used skeleton key was also found on the sidewalk in front of the cords home and alongside that a large almost empty tube of lipstick, which I don't see how it's relevant, but okay.
Now the cloth that Bula snorted like a line of Adderall was analyzed by authorities, but they found no chemicals on it that could explain the reaction that she had. Now at this point, obviously people in the community were starting to get a little concerned and the police were severely understaffed because remember this is 1944 in a small town in Illinois. Like a majority of the men were off fighting in World War II.
So people kind of took it upon themselves to police in the only way that us Americans know how and that is armed posses roaming the streets with shotguns and pistols at night. When does this always happen? Because it's America, man. Remember the Providence, the Providence one that you were, I mean the Provincetown, same thing. They're just like, you know, you know, we need, we need everybody with a gun to go outside and make this even less safe. Yeah, that's what, yeah, they did.
It was wild as that in Illinois. They also had the, um, the Murfreesboro mud monster was there. I think there were some people going around with guns there. And then there was the Enfield monster, bunch of people with guns there and they were shooting into bushes and shit. Like whenever something moved in the shadows, they just started fucking blasting. Well, you know, America.
Yeah. Um, but anyway, so yeah, dudes walking around with shotguns, pistols, uh, women carried bats or clubs whenever leaving the house and many residents started staying with friends and family so they didn't have to sleep alone. Uh, eventually the police had to be like, guys, you can't be roaming the streets with guns. Like I know it's fun, but it's like a public safety thing. Call it, call back the posse. We, we, you're not helping.
Yeah. They also issued a statement that you shouldn't linger in residential areas because one of these roving bands of vigilantes just might straight up fucking kill you. So many reasons, so many reasons you could get shot. So eventually the FBI was called in to help with the investigation as well as five squads of Illinois straight state troopers to help with like just patrolling the streets since the police force in Mattoon was basically cut in half during this time period of extra policing.
Uh, more physical evidence did pop up like a footprint in a flower bed under a window, uh, tears and screens, but nothing that really pointed anyone in any direction of like who the perpetrator could be. But like I said, there were dozens of attacks with most of them being false alarms. Uh, there are some credible ones though, like the Rafe and Kearney attacks that I mentioned earlier as well as the Bula cords one kind of on September 6th, Fred gobble.
So he believed to be the gasser on September. Now you just make it up names on September 7th. And this one's my favorite one. Uh, someone claimed they saw blue vapor and heard a motorized buzzing sound that they believed to be from a quote unquote gassing machine. Uh, September 13th, you're going to think I made this up.
Uh, Bertha Birch claimed to have seen the gasser and claimed it was actually claimed it was actually a woman dressed as a man and the footprint that I had found that they had found earlier that I mentioned, uh, that this is the footprint that they found. They found a woman's footprint. Um, that explains the lipstick.
I mean, kinda now eventually on September 12th, the day before that Bertha saw the gasser that was a woman dressed as a man, the police issued a statement saying that they were going to reduce their priority, uh, that was afforded to gasser reports and announced that the entire incident was a result of totally explainable happenings that were just being exacerbated by public fears. And it was a sign of the anxiety felt. This is such a gaslighting thing to say.
It's a sign of the anxiety felt by women while the local men were off at war. Oh man. This is the most American episode ever. We got, we got roving bands with guns, a dude with a fart problem and good old misogyny. Dude, just, I mean, talk about hysterical. Am I right? Hey, let's get this. All right. No, what's weird is that after there's this announcement though, the gasser reports kind of just faded away.
So was it mass hysteria or was there actually a madman going around gassing people in their homes just for thrills? Well, there are a couple of theories on what actually happened. One, there was an actual assailant. Some researchers have come to the conclusion that at least some of the attacks were the work of the mad gasser of Mattoon and they did carry out a series of gassings as reported. The second obviously mass hysteria.
So two weeks after the supposed attacks began, Thomas V. Wright, the local public health commissioner announced that yes, there had undoubtedly been a few gassing incidents, but a majority of them were likely due to hysteria. People hearing about a sensationalized attack in the press and then panicking whenever they quote unquote were confronted by an out of place odor or a shadow in the night.
And most of the symptoms that had been reported due to the gassings like weakness, temporary paralysis, swallowing of mucous membranes, things like that, they're all symptoms of like mass hysteria. And it didn't help that the first headline to come out during the attacks were Mrs. Kiernan and daughter first victims, which led the public to like at large to assume that there's going to be more attacks.
If you label someone as the first victim, you're kind of putting it in people's heads that they're just going to fucking keep going. Now, I know if only they had, if only they had not called it world war one, we wouldn't have had the second one. Whatever dude, fucking back to back world war champs, bro. Come on, dude. Come on, America, bro. Now another theory is toxic waste and pollution from war manufacturing.
The Mattoon was a pretty big manufacturing like town even before the war and even up until like basically they were like the Detroit of Illinois, if that makes sense. Yeah, yeah. I mean, and it only got worse after we opened the bean shop. Exactly. So during this time they were fucking making a bunch of shit for the war effort in the press conference that took place on September 12th.
Police Chief Cole told the press that the odors and symptoms could have been the result of pollutants or toxic waste released by nearby plants, specifically Atlas Imperial. And he theorized that carbon tetrachloride or trichloroethylene, both chemicals having a sweet smell and can produce the same symptoms that were being reported may have been released from the plant and spread to the town. Well, Atlas Imperial, they did not like getting called out like that.
And they fucking clap back with their own statement, basically saying, sit down, shut the fuck up. You don't know what you're talking about. Saying in their own statement that they only had five gallons of carbon tetrachloride in stock and they were all contained in firefighting equipment.
They also deny that any quantity of trichloroethylene that they had at the plant could be responsible as you would need so much of it to make the town sick and that factory workers would have experienced similar or even worse symptoms long before anybody on the outside of the factory would have been even remotely affected by it. Another theory and sorry, I don't know how this dude keeps cropping up in our fucking stories even once not about cryptids.
But this was featured in Lauren Coleman's book, Mr. Mysterious America, where a description of an illustration of the Mad Gasser reads, quote, the artist depicts them as a not quite human possibly extraterrestrial being, end quote. So we know that one's not real. Settle down, Lauren Coleman. This is bullshit. It made me so angry, I muted myself by accident. Go back to your grasshopper menu, dick.
Yeah. So in the end, since no one was ever caught and with such a little evidence, like who knows what really happened in this town or if the gasser is real or not. But there you have it. That's the case of the Mad Gasser of Mattoon. You got any theories? Because I got I got a theory and I don't know about this makes me just the whole story is amazing. I I was right. I didn't remember all of it. And so my theory is you're in a town in the 1940s. Sounds awful. Your windows are always open.
You know, you picked up some smells. Somebody what time of year was this again? It was September. So it's like pretty much summer. Pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, your windows are still open. People feel probably passing out because it's hot. Yeah. You know, back then they didn't exactly hydrate. I mean, well, I remember coffee in the morning, whiskey at night. I was going to say everyone, everyone like they were just eating just the rawest of red meats and just whiskey. I've seen mad men.
I know it's not the 40s, but like it might as well be like I just picture everything pre 70s is just mad men. Yeah. Their idea of salad was like a garnish next to a stick. No, it wasn't their idea of salad fucking like a jello. We're jello. Jello salad. I'm glad we both got that. So they're also rationing. So people are not getting nutritious food. There's like a whole thing. If you want to go down a crazy rabbit hole, look up FDR's his rationing recipes that like his wife put together.
Oh, God, dude. Basically, people are eating like weird versions of hot dog casserole. I think I think it probably was just kind of a stinky town. And then it just it sort of expanded once, you know, hysteria set in and everybody just went a little, you know, a little looney tunes, which is it makes sense for a town called Mattoon. So I have a theory and. I think this might be a theory that was actually positive at the time. I don't really know.
I think that at the beginning, there was something going on. I do think that there was someone gassing the town. But you got to think the police was at half manpower and they were in a town at the town of like at the time, I think like fifteen thousand people. It's like a small city. You know what I mean?
Like so they probably they probably didn't have the resources to like really look into it and they didn't put the full effort into trying to find the quote unquote Mad Gasser when the initial attacks began. But then once like the population started like freaking out about it and then the actual mass hysteria started like really running rampant.
I think when by the time they took it seriously, the Mad Gasser was already done doing his thing and they had no chance of like they waited way too long to actually take it seriously before they could actually. So I think it's like column A column B thing. Like I do think there might have been someone, but I do think that it caused mass hysteria and no help to the media because they were just fucking like, of course, the media has never done a good job with things like that.
No. And plus in the 40s, every headline back then was a fucking like it. I saw a newspaper article. I saw a newspaper article. I was like Hitler in Germany. Then I was like Mad Gasser of Mattoon. It's like you can't put those two things side by like that's going to cause the anxiety of people. There was no what if it was like a rogue Nazi spy, right? Well, I mean, rogue German spy and he's just been living off a cabbage soup for two weeks. Then he's like, I'm going to guess everyone is his town.
Open your windows. Here comes my butt. Dude, there was fucking U-boats in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, like by the imports with New Hampshire. You know what I mean? Like they got there was a plot. It was. Yeah, there was a plot to blow up a bridge in New York. And the only reason it got foiled is because the Germans got like shit faced and they kept bragging about what they were going to do. Yeah, like, like, like, I mean, I don't think it was someone just eating fucking.
I mean, if anything, it would be the Irish corned beef and cabbage farting in your windows. But also Germany loves their sauerkraut and that is made from cabbage. But also during the 40s, I feel like I think I read something during this where the Irish were used for some things and it was not good. So that's true. But anyway, so popular guys. That's my theory. I think that initially there may have been something. I mean, I work near a chemical plant every once in a while.
You will get a whiff of something. Yeah. I work at a print shop, which is right next to fucking Dow Chemicals. Yeah. Which is why mostly your mustache just falls off. Yeah. So you'll get a whiff of something. But I mean, so that could be happening in this town, too. But I do believe that there was something happening. I don't believe that lady that that lady saw a fucking blue mist and heard the hum of a fucking vaporizer.
I don't think that was no, no, no, that was just somebody's vibrator to cure the hysteria. But yeah, I think it's too far. I think initially there was and then I think the cops dicked around too much. And then when shit got real, they couldn't do anything about it. So like, oh, no, you're all fucking making it up. Yeah. Like their whole idea solving crime back then was just finding the nearest minority.
Well, yeah, well, it's like that fucking that that old John Mulaney joke was like, like CSI is now like they're like fucking Dustin for fingerprints and collecting blood back then like there's a dead body draw a chalk line around it. So remember where it was. That's all they had to go. Exactly. They're like, well, there's no brown people in this town. Let's blame the Italians. But even then, like there was no suspects and I and I. Well, yeah, I mean, that's a tough thing.
Like, you know, there's no stereotype that involves creating gases. I mean, there could be. But also, I guess if you it could be warfare. I'm not I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to I'm not going to go down the road of being like it's women being hysterical because the men aren't around. But I do think that like during like during World War One and World War Two, like gas warfare was a big thing. You're probably reading about that in the newspaper.
You smell something weird during a heightened time of like tension in America. Like you smell a weird smell that you've never smelled before. You might be thinking it is a chemical attacker or something. You know, I mean, like it was like back in like 2002. And if you saw white powder anywhere, it was immediately anthrax. You know what I mean? Like so I don't want to get canceled here, but if because we look this up. I know I'm going to get canceled. And then I said it.
Nothing has ever come from the statement. Yeah. But look, I do. You might as well. You might as well said like, I'm not racist. But when I was doing research on the Salem witch trials, one of the things that we came across in the research was studies that being to fucking DJ that you got to give her a vibrator and send her to the seaport to the coast. No, what what we came across was that women were slightly more susceptible to mass hysteria than men. Fucking tell me about it. Am I right?
Women can't spell overreact without ovary. In real life, though, that was that was what we came across. And I still don't think this is mass hysteria. I think the police would definitely gaslighting the women in a super fucked up way like, oh, your husband's away at war. Must be a vagina getting in the way. I don't think that was the case at all. You know what I mean? But I'm just saying like, did I hate when my vagina gets in the way? Dude. Oh, man. I love that internal plumbing.
But bottom line, what I'm trying to say is there is some truth to just like pointing it at a bunch of women victims and going mass hysteria only because that was a commonly held belief that was somewhat backed up statistically, like a little bit slightly better than chance. However, coming back to this, it's not a big enough group, not a big enough sample size to be able to say, oh, it's just mass hysteria. What do we talk about? What? Twelve people, maybe? Yeah, they were affected by this.
And some of them. So some of them were men. Yeah. So how is the argument? Oh, your husband's away at war, except for Jim, because he couldn't get married to a dude back then. Well, I think what it was that if you were a man in America in 1944 and you weren't at war, you're pretty much a woman at that point. What are you doing? Here's a fucking pussy. I don't know what to do with it, but I'm going to the seaside anyway. This is well, I mean, technically, they'd have to go to a Great Lake, right?
Isn't Illinois? Oh, yeah. Good call. Good call. It's a long drive to get to the ocean that way. They'd have to go to New Jersey, I think. Illinois. Dude, I don't know where. I just realized. The nearest waterway would be Illinois is where is. So you've got Illinois, a little bit up is Michigan. Next to it is Indiana. OK. And then I believe Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York. I'm drawing this out on a map for those of you listening in an audio thing. I don't want you to be like, oh, such things.
Pennsylvania is right next to anyway. This has been Sarge's geography corner. Thank you pointing. The only reason I'm doing that is because I've been to some of these places. My brother lives in Michigan and I know that Illinois is right below. I've been to every single one of these states. I couldn't fucking tell you where. So that's the Mad Gasser. I mean, it's not like it's not much. It's not like a big story. It's not crazy, but like there's weird shit going on. It's a great story.
Anyways, so that's it. Sarge, you got anything else you want to add before we plug our shit and do our thing? Yeah. Yeah. I think this story is amazing. It reminds me of another story of a slasher who was going around slashing ladies and stabbing them in the butt. Oh, I remember the bus. That was recent, wasn't it?
Yeah. And that was no, no, no. I think like this was back in the, I want to say 19 early 1900s as well, because this is when hat pins were a thing and women were carrying around hat pins for weapons. And it turned out that was also attributed to mass hysteria. You know what I was thinking of? Gaddafi. If ever anyone was stabbed, deserved to get stabbed in the butt. It was Omar Gaddafi. All right. But yeah, there you have it. That's the story.
Uh, sorry, do you want to plug anything before we sign up? Yes. I got a comic book, not a comic book, a coloring book. I keep saying comic book because my brain's broken. I think that means we just need to write a comic book. We do need to write a comic book. Ready? The Adventures of Sgt. Dave. It's us paranormal investigators. Yes. But we never find anything, but we're always terrified. It's like Scooby Doo, but we never. Oh yeah. We're just too scared to go in 90% of the time.
So we're sitting in a car out front drinking. Just the windows defrosting because it's cold outside. We can't, we can't go outside. I'll just do my best Zach Baggins impression and just scream the whole time. Just immediately want to fight demons. But cry and scream every time I hear like a pipe settle. Fuck you demons. What the fuck was that? I mean, I mean, so it's good. Um, so you got a color. So I got, I got a coloring book. I'm very excited about this coloring book.
It's um, if you go to sarges super normal.com, that is, uh, Sarge and then an S and then another S for super normal. So Sarge is super normal. Gotcha. Two S's in the middle. Don't let that throw you off. Um, it's, it's going to be released on July 5th. Everybody should buy it on July 5th. Um, because then we can become a number one bestseller and then fucking take that random house. You've been saying that, but I don't understand.
Does that like, if it's, does that mean like because it's all bought on a single day, you're a bestseller or because there's like a cutoff and it's like on September on January. So basically there's categories, there's these categories that books fall into. Um, and, and you don't really see that. Like when, so when you see something on the bestseller list, there's probably a number of reasons why it's there. A bunch of factors.
Yeah. So in this case it's, you know, it's an adult coloring book that is being released on July 5th. So let's say I sell 25 of them and no one else sells any or everybody else sells one or two. I'm a bestseller for that day. So Amazon slaps a bestseller sticker on there and says, Hey, boom, you did it. I actually did that accidentally with a short story I wrote on Amazon and it was a bestseller for one, one like 15 minute period, but it's still considered a bestseller. That's fucking hilarious.
And I'm not even, that wasn't even deliberate. That was an accident and it still worked out in my favor. Uh, I have written a couple of short stories. When you try to buy this book, this coloring book on July 5th, you'll see my author page on Amazon and I have two short stories that you can only get digital and then you can get the coloring book in, in real life. And uh, and then you can find me on the street and I'll sign it for you for no reason.
Yeah. If you're just roaming the streets of Massachusetts, you can find me, follow the clues on my Tik Tok and you'll find me somewhere. Just fucking just stand outside the fucking palladium dude. He's he'll be there. Yeah. Metal. He's going to go see fucking a monomar. Chances are if a modern Martha's in is somewhere playing near Massachusetts and you go to that show you will find me. So uh, all right. So yeah. So sarges super normal.com go that. I just super normal.com.
It'll be, oh my God, I'm dying. The Mad Gaster is coming for me. Uh, if you want to follow us on Instagram, it's at crypto cocktail. Uh, there's a link in the description that you could find all these links and sarges super normal be in there as well. Uh, if you want to follow him, all those links are in there where to find us. I mean, you're listening to us. You already know where to find us there. Yeah. Uh, come and find us more, more finding us. Follow me on everything just for the fun of it.
Everything. Listen to us on Patreon, I guess. I don't know. Yeah. Just the thing is $5 a month. Just give us your money. And I basically respond to every DM. So if you ever have a question or want me to appear at the opening of a shopping mall in your neighborhood, just show me a DM on Instagram. I'm going to respond to you at least once. Yeah. At least at the bare minimum once at the bare minimum once. And sometimes I respond more than you want me to.
And then you block me, but that's not my fault. That's on you. That was just me being friendly. Um, I do, I can make the promise that you're not going to see pictures in my wiener because I don't do that. Well, you're going to pay for that kind of action. I was going to say now people aren't going to DM you. So yeah, uh, follow us, follow him. Patreon $5 a month, patreon.com slash crypto party. And then I think that's it. Sarge, say goodbye and that you love everyone. Hey, I love you.