Post by Joanna on Oct 8, 2016 20:05:32 GMT -5
Witch fits at Salem
Infamous Cases of Mass Hysteria
Mass hysteria is basically when a large group of people becomes so collectively upset by a threatening delusion – whether real or imaginary – that it essentially takes over. It's like a horrible game of telephone ... but with fear. The result is basically Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds ... without any actual birds. Following are some of the strangest cases of mass hysteria, which show how quickly society can become consumed.
Meowing Nuns. In France during the Middle Ages, a nun began inexplicably meowing like a cat. Other nuns soon joined her in the meowing until the entire convent was making kitty noises for several hours. It got so out of hand that the village had to call in soldiers, who threatened to whip the nuns if they didn't stop. Back then, it was commonly believed that some animals, especially cats, had the power to possess people.
The Dancing Plague of 1518. A woman known as Mrs. Troffea living in Strasbourg, Alsace (in what is now France), began dancing in the streets. She danced for multiple days alone, but by the seventh day, 34 others had joined her. By the end of the month, four hundred people were dancing with Mrs. Troffea. They never rested and as many as 15 died per day of heart attack, stroke or exhaustion.
The Salem Witch Trials. This is perhaps the most famous case of mass hysteria. In 1692, four young girls, Abigail Williams, Betty Parris, Ann Putnam, Jr., and Elizabeth Hubbard all started having strange fits, which the clergy assumed was a sign they had been fraternizing with the devil. And so the witch trials began. In total, approximately 150 people were arrested on suspicion of witchcraft, 19 were hanged and one, Giles Corey, was pressed to death.
Writing Tremor Epidemic. The first outbreak of this hysteria happened in Gross-Tinz when a 10-year-old school girl’s hand started trembling in class. The tremor spread to her whole body and eventually spread to other students in her class: 15 to be exact. The same year, 20 children in Basel, Switzerland, suffered from the same shaking episodes. Twelve years later, 27 more kids suffered from tremors in Basel, most likely due to hearing stories of the first outbreak.
The Halifax Slasher. In 1938, two women in Halifax, England, claimed they were attacked by a strange man with a mallet who had “bright buckles” on his shoes. Soon, more people came forward saying they were attacked by a similar man, only this time, he had a knife. It didn’t take long before there were so many reports that Scotland Yard became involved. Eventually, many of these “victims” came forth and admitted they had fabricated the stories and some of them were sent to prison for “public mischief.”
The Mad Gasser of Mattoon. He was alternatively known as the “Anesthetic Prowler,” “Friz,” or the “Phantom Anesthetist,” but most knew him as the Mad Gasser. In 1944 in Mattoon, Illinois, a woman named Aline Kearney claimed she smelled something terrible outside her window which caused her throat to burn and her legs to go numb. She said she caught a glimpse of a shadowy figure as well. Soon the entire town was freaking out over this biochemical attacker, but no actual evidence of his existence was ever found.
Seattle Windshield Pitting Epidemic. On March 23, 1954, reports appeared in Seattle newspapers of damaged automobile windshields in a city 80 miles to the north. Vandals were the initial suspects, but then the reports moved closer to Seattle. According to a study by Nahum Medalia of the Georgia Institute of Technology and Otto Larsen of the University of Washington (1958), by nightfall April 14, the mysterious pits reached Seattle, and by the end of the following day, people were reporting tiny pit marks on more than 3,000 vehicles.
Charlie Charlie Challenge
Tanganyika Laughing Epidemic. In 1962 in what was once Tanganyika (now Tanzania), three girls in boarding school began laughing uncontrollably and the joy was infectious. Soon, 95 of the 159 pupils had joined in the merriment. Some laughed for only a few hours, others as long as 16 days. The school had to be closed, but that didn’t stop the laughter from spreading to the next village. Months later, another laughing outbreak occurred, this time affecting 217 people.
The June Bug Epidemic. In 1962, around 62 workers in the dressmaking department at a textile factory in the Carolinas, suddenly came down with a mysterious illness that caused numbness, nausea, headache and vomiting. The employees believed the resulted from June bug bites, even though June bugs don’t bite, leading doctors to believe this was a case of mass hysteria.
The Blackburn Faintings. In 1965, several girls from a school in Blackburn, England, began complaining of dizziness and many fainted. Within a few hours, 85 girls had fainted and were rushed to the hospital. A year later, it was determined a recent polio outbreak had caused mass hysteria amongst the girls of Blackburn.
Mount Pleasant ‘Hexing.’ In 1976, 15 students at a school in Mount Pleasant, Mississippi, fell to the ground and began writhing in pain. School officials and police suspected they might have all tried the same drug, but there was no evidence to confirm this. The students believed their illnesses had been brought on as the result of some sort of curse and the following day, a third of the students were absent because they were afraid of being “hexed.”
West Bank Fainting Epidemic. A whopping 943 Palestinian girls and women randomly fainted in the West Bank in 1983. Israel was accused of using chemical warfare on the females. Israel, in turn, blamed the Palestinians for poisoning their own people in order to frame the Isralies. In reality, it was determined only around 20% may have breathed something toxic and the remaining 80% were consumed by hysteria.
Mass Delusion by Proxy in Georgia. A rarely reported form of what could be described as mass delusion by proxy occurred at a Georgia elementary school near Atlanta in 1988. It began during a routine social gathering of parents and students at the school cafeteria in early September at which a student’s mother commented that ever since the term began, her child had experienced numerous minor health problems and looked pale. Other mothers noted similar signs and symptoms in their children since the beginning of the school term such as pallor, dark circles under the eyes, headaches, fatigue, nausea and occasional vomiting. Before long, they were all convinced something in the school building was to blame and on October 11, the school was evacuated after a minor natural gas leak. The leaks and parents picketed the school and appealed to local media, which highlighted their fears. Following negative environmental and epidemiological studies, it was concluded that mothers had redefined common and ever-present childhood illnesses, while the children themselves weren’t complaining.
Mass Sociogenic Illness in Florida. On July 26, 1989, 63 of 150 children attending a summer program in Orange County, Florida, became ill. While eating a lunch consisting of a ham and cheese sandwich, diced pears, chocolate milk and apple juice, a 12-year-old girl remarked her food tasted “bad.” Shortly thereafter, children reported numerous symptoms including abdominal pain, nausea, headache, dizziness, sore throat and simply not feeling well and in excess of half of those with complaints vomited. Samples of the meal were tested and found nothing after which authorities were suffering from MSI (mass sociogenic illness).
Pokémon Panic. In Pokémon’s first season, there is an episode that never aired in the US because of an outbreak of nausea and seizures that affected 12,000 Japanese children after they watched the show in 1997. The episode, “Denno Senshi Porygon” (aka “Cyber Soldier Porygon”) featured bright flashing lights that some believe caused the seizures. Others believe it was nothing more than a case of mass hysteria.
The ‘Strawberries with Sugar’ Virus. In 2006, a Portuguese teen soap opera called “Morangos com Açúcar” aired an episode wherein the characters were afflicted by a terrible disease. Sure enough, more than 300 children who watched the episode began to believe they themselves were suffering from this same illness. Several schools closed to quell the perceived outbreak.
Charlie Charlie Challenge. Though a version of the game had been popular in South America for generations, it really took off recently with the hashtag #CharlieCharlieChallenge. The game involves asking questions of some sort of supernatural being named Charlie. Charlie is supposed to answer by directing the movement of two pencils stacked on top of each other. In 2015, four young people in Tunja, Colombia, were hospitalized because they believed they had been possessed by Charlie. Similar incidents occurred in the Dominican Republic.
As much as we’d probably all like to think we’re too smart for something like this to happen to us, keep in mind, many times this sort of hysteria causes one’s body to actually feel the perceived effects of the mystery illness or spirit possession. The brain figures, “Everyone around me is freaking out, why shouldn’t I be doing the same?”
Sources: Tim Unkenholz, ViralNova, April 24, 2016; Mass Hysteria in Schools: A Worldwide History Since 1566 by Robert E. Bartholomew with Bob Rickard; "Mass Delusions and Hysterias: Highlights from the Past Millennium" by Robert E. Barthlomew and Erich Goode, Skeptical Inquirer, March/June 2000; and Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, May 11, 1990.
