 Stories and content in Weird Darkness can be disturbing for some listeners and is intended for mature audiences only. Parental discretion is strongly advised. Welcome, Weirdos. I'm Darren Marlar and this is Weird Darkness. Here you'll find stories of the paranormal, supernatural, legends, lore, crime, conspiracy, mysterious, macabre, unsolved and unexplained. If you're new here, welcome to the podcast and be sure to subscribe so you don't miss future episodes. If you're already a Weirdo, please share the podcast with others. Doing so helps make it possible for me to keep doing the podcast. And while listening, be sure to check out the Weird Darkness website so you can find me on social media and drop me an email. Coming up... To the legend of the Pied Piper, hint at a real horrific event that befell the town of Hamlin more than 700 years ago? Ever woken up suddenly by a loud blast like a gunshot or slamming door, only to wake up and realize there really was no sound at all that was made? This is known as Exploding Head Syndrome and if you've experienced it, you've likely not longed to live. Or maybe you do. In 1944, the small town of Baton, Illinois was terrorized by a man in black who, according to witnesses and testimony, attacked unsuspecting homeowners with a paralyzing gas he would spray through their windows. Who was he? Why did he do it? The man and the motive are still a mystery. But first, when you hear the name Jigsaw, you likely immediately think of the puppet with the creepy voice of a serial killer who sets up elaborate deaths for his victims in a game only he enjoys. But in 1935, another man's brutal deeds earned him the same nickname. Only his story wasn't Hollywood fiction. We begin there. Now, bolt your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights and come with me into the weird darkness. It's fair to say that Britain has had a long line of notorious felons and many of them have by some means secured an ignominious spot in criminal history. Dr. Bukjar Rustamji Rutaji Hakim, better known as Buck Ruxton, is certainly one of them. In the early morning hours of September 15, 1935, Ruxton brutally murdered his common law wife Isabella Kerr and their housemate Mary Jane Rodgerson at their home in Lancaster, England, and then traveled to the Southern Uplands of Scotland to dispose of the remains. The media dubbed him the savage surgeon. The twin murders he committed were together known as the Jigsaw murders due to the mutilation Ruxton inflicted upon the bodies of his victims and the meticulous efforts investigators were forced to take in reassembling and identifying the women who were slain. One of early 20th century England's most shocking crimes, Ruxton is largely forgotten today outside of Northern England where he did his grisly deeds. Ruxton, who anglicized his birth name, was born in Bombay, India on March 21, 1899. He qualified as a doctor and came to England hoping to ply his trade, initially doing well. Ruxton was popular in the local community, especially with his poorer patients. In a time before England's National Health Service provided medical care free to all, Ruxton often would wave his fees if he felt a patient was too poor to pay. All in all, he was a respected, well liked professional man. Yet tragically, Ruxton also had a dark side. He was hot tempered, perpetually jealous, possessive and sometimes violent. He constantly suspected his common law wife Isabella of infidelity. The couple fought badly and often and Isabella had already left him twice. On September 15, 1935, Ruxton's dark impulses turned deadly. Isabella vanished and so oddly did the family's housemaid, Mary Rodgerson. According to Ruxton, Isabella had left him again. He denied knowing anything about Rodgerson's disappearance though. The police believed he knew far more than he was saying and they were determined to find out what. A search for the women was mounted and police discovering Ruxton's jealousy and violent history had him firmly set as the prime suspect. The mystery of the two women's disappearance was soon solved. Susan Haynes was out walking near Garden Home Lynn, a river in the Dumfries area of southern Scotland when she found body parts from two separate people scattered about and wrapped in newspapers. The newspapers used to wrap the remains were The Daily Herald from August 6 and August 31, 1935, The Sunday Chronicle and a special local edition of the Sunday graphic dated September 15 as well. The graphic pages came from a local slip edition distributed only in the Morcom and Lancaster area of Lancashire, not far from Ruxton's medical practice. Noticing that the women had vanished on or around September 15, police examined the subscription list and soon found a familiar name, Dr. Buck Ruxton. Questioned, Ruxton denied having been in Scotland at the time. This might have worked if he hadn't accidentally run down a cyclist near the town of Kendall while returning from dumping the body parts. A traffic cop stopped Ruxton in Minthorpe, due south of Kendall and the officer had noted Ruxton's car description and registration number. Police now had a date, time, car and driver. Now they needed to conclusively piece together the identity of the bodies. They managed that, using, for the time, highly innovative forensic techniques. The body parts were taken to Edinburgh where leading pathologist Sir Sidney Smith and a team of experts used forensic entomology to date the age of the maggots on the body parts. This established a window of time between their deaths and discovery. The researchers then superimposed a photo of Isabella over her skull, thereby identifying her in conjunction with dental records. With Kerr and then Rodgersen identified, it wasn't long before they again visited Dr. Ruxton, this time bringing a search warrant and a pair of handcuffs. Ruxton was arrested on October 13 and charged with Mary Rodgersen's murder. A thorough search of Ruxton's home revealed bloodstains and bloodstained medical instruments. Evidence strongly suggesting the victims had been killed and dismembered there. Ruxton's flimsy explanation for a recent injury leaving his right hand bandaged didn't help him much either. On November 5, 1935, Ruxton was charged with murdering Isabella Kerr as well. Arrested and charged, Ruxton's trial began March 2, 1936. It was a showcase of fine legal minds and big legal names. Ruxton was defended by Norman Burkett KC, KC being King's Council, a senior barrister, and Phil Kershaw KC. Burkett is still considered one of the finest lawyers of his generation with a well-deserved reputation for winning difficult cases. The prosecution were no less distinguished. Joseph Cook C. Jackson was a KC as was David Maxwell Fife later to become Home Secretary, nowadays Minister of Justice. Art Lee Shawcross would later be lead British prosecutor at the Nuremberg War Crime Trials. The presiding judge was Mr. Justice Singleton. With circumstantial evidence so incriminating and forensic evidence so groundbreaking, it was no surprise that Ruxton was convicted of Isabella's murder on March 13, 1936. He is believed to have murdered Rodgerson because she witnessed the crime. The verdict was unpopular locally where Ruxton still remained a popular figure. A petition with over 10,000 signatures went to Home Secretary Sir John Simon. Simon, however, ignored it. Ruxton's petition to the Court of Criminal Appeal was also denied. Unlike the United States where Capitol cases dragged on for years, English law allowed only a minimum of three Sundays between sentencing and execution. On May 12, 1936, he was taken from the special condemned cell at Strangeway's prison at 8 a.m. Only a short walk separated him from hangman Thomas Pierpont, uncle of Albert Pierpont, and Pierpont's assistant Robert Wilson. The formalities lasted only seconds. As Ruxton reached the gallows, the prison clock started chiming the hour before it finished chiming. He was dead. Coming up, ever woken up suddenly by a loud blast like a gunshot or slamming door, only to wake up and realize there really was no sound at all that was made? This is known as Exploding Head Syndrome, and if you've experienced it, you've likely not long to live. Or maybe you do. But first, could the legend of the Pied Piper hint at a real horrific event that befell the town of Hamlin more than 700 years ago? That story is up next when Weird Darkness Returns. If you or someone you know struggles with depression or dark thoughts, I'd like to recommend the Hope in the Darkness page at WeirdDarkness.com. There, I've gathered resources to help fight depression with the Seven Cups app, connecting you with people who've also struggled with depression and are there to lift you up, even professional listeners there to listen at all hours of the day. If you're having dark thoughts of harming yourself or worse, there's the suicide prevention lifeline that you can either call or chat online with anytime 24-7. The folks at ifred.org are doing what they can with research and education on depression to give us the tools we need to fight against it in the days ahead. These resources are absolutely free and there when you need them on the Hope in the Darkness page at WeirdDarkness.com. If you watch enough horror movies, sooner or later, you'll hear a character utter a variation on the phrase, every legend has a basis in fact. But whether or not that statement is true, it is a fact that many of our most outlandish fables and fictions are rooted, at least somewhat, in actual history and that truth often is stranger than fiction. Chances are most of us have encountered some variation on the fairy tale of the Pied Piper of Hamlet. It's one of many folk tales recorded by the Brothers Grimm and has appeared in the writings of Robert Browning and Johann Wolfgang von Geth, not to mention worked its way into popular culture from a nightmare on Elm Street to Bill Willingham's fables tie-in novel Peter and Max to the TV show Lost Girl. Alleged sexual predator R. Kelly has even called himself the Pied Piper of R&B. The story generally goes that the town of Hamlin was plagued by an unusual number of rats and a stranger from out of town wearing multicolored or pied clothes showed up and offered to get rid of the rats in exchange for payment. A stranger then produced a flute or a pipe and began playing a tune, at which time all the rats in town followed him out through the gates of the city and either to a nearby mountain or into the river, depending on which version you encounter. When the townsfolk saw how easily the Piper had rid the town of the rats, they regretted the amount of money that they had offered him and reneged on their deal. The Piper vowed revenge and later, according to one brother's grim account, it was June 26th 1284 and he returned and once more walked through the town playing his pipe. This time all the town's children, 130 of them, according to one of the earliest written accounts of the event, followed him out through the town's east gate and up to the nearby mountain which, in most accounts, opened wide to swallow them up and they disappeared, never to be seen again. The details of the story vary with the telling, as these sorts of tales are want to do, and given that the story of the Pied Piper has been retold hundreds of times since 1284, so many in fact that there are two different Wikipedia pages devoted to adaptations of the legend, there are numerous variations, not to mention plenty of disagreement as to the meaning of the Pied Piper figure himself. The tale has been retold by the likes of Robert Browning and Johan Wolfgang von Geth, who also incorporated elements of the Pied Piper story into his famous play, Foust, but it has also found its way into plenty of less renowned art. The Pied Piper himself appears as a character in one of the Shrek sequels, while the legend is recounted in a song by the band Demons and Wizards. Variations of the Pied Piper story have even found their way into anime with the violinist of Hamelin replacing the Piper's flute with a very large violin, and the project, Problem Children Are Coming From Another World, aren't they? Suggesting that the Piper is actually the personification of natural disasters. This highlights one of the many things that we see in various adaptations of the story into other forms, disagreements about as to who the Pied Piper really is, what his motivations are, and what he represents. The recent TV series, Once Upon a Time, for example, posited that the Pied Piper was really Peter Pan and that he was using his magic pipes to lure potential lost boys away from their homes. A great example of this confusion as to the particulars of the story can be found in the seedy, low-rent 1995 horror comedy film Ice Cream Man starring Clint Howard as the homicidal driver of an ice cream truck. The film makes heavy use of the Pied Piper story with one of the kids who act as the film's protagonists reading a book of the story throughout the film and making frequent illusions to it. In one scene he is explaining the story to some of the other kids on the playground when an old man who is picking up trash approaches. As our protagonist gets to the part about the Piper luring away the rats, the old man gleefully says, then he got the kids. That's what happens when you don't pay the Piper, the old man later adds. The kids disagree, however, informing him that the children got away. Kids always get away, one of them tells him. Besides an example of varying takes on the specifics of the legend, this is also an example of how the Pied Piper story is entered into our everyday lexicon. To pay the Piper is usually defined as to pay a debt you owe or else face unsavory consequences and its idiomatic use goes back at least as far as 1831 in the United States. While it has been connected to the longer phrase, who pays the Piper calls the tune, meaning that whoever is footing the bill for something gets to decide how it's done, the idiom pay the Piper is generally linked with the legend of the Pied Piper of Hamlin. In fact, in its advice on how to use the phrase, the website Grammarist actually recounts the legend in brief, stating that the moral of the story was to pay the Piper or keep up your half of the bargain. Grammarist also points out that the phrase usually has a pejorative connotation, pointing out that when it is time to pay the Piper, it is time to accept the consequences of a thoughtless or rash action or to fulfill a responsibility or promise usually after the fulfillment has been delayed already. Both of these meanings probably tie back to the legend of the Pied Piper. Even the words Pied Piper have entered into common usage to mean everything from a charismatic person who attracts followers to a leader who makes irresponsible promises to one who offers strong but delusive enticement, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary entry for Pied Piper meaning. Pied piping is also a phrase used to describe a certain phenomena in linguistics in which some words drag others along with them when moved to the front of a sentence. In this way, the meaning of Pied Piper has gone beyond the original story to become a frequently used metaphor that shows up in common speech every day. One thing that every variation seems to agree upon is that the Pied Piper is almost always someone who lures people, usually rats at least since 1559, and then children, but sometimes other individuals depending on the use that the metaphor is being put to. From there, variations are the rule, with some accounts even forgetting the actual meaning of the Pied part of the Pied Piper's name and not depicting him in multi-colored clothes at all. The story is a familiar one, but what most of us probably don't know is that it has its feet, at least somewhat, planted in an apparently true event that took place in the real-life town of Hamelin, Germany in 1284. The earliest accounts of the story don't include the rats, which would not show up until around the year 1559, but they do include the Piper dressed in his clothing of many colors. Our first clue about what really happened in the town of Hamelin comes from a stained glass window that stood in the town's market church until it was destroyed in 1660. Accounts of the stained glass say that it alluded to some tragedy involving children, and a recreation of the window shows the Piper in his colorful clothes and several children dressed in white. The date is set by an entry in Hamelin's town Chronicle, which was dated 1384, and said simply and chillingly, it is 100 years since our children left. While there is not enough historical data to ascertain for certain what happened in the town of Hamelin in 1284, there is little doubt that something occurred there which left a heavy mark on the town and on world folklore. Theories advanced over the years include that many of the town's children died of natural causes that year, or possibly drowned in the nearby river or were killed in a landslide, thus explaining the recurring motif of the rats being led into the water or the mountain opening up and swallowing the children. The Piper himself is considered a symbolic figure of death. One other explanation is that the children may have died of the Black Plague, which could be why the rats were later added into the story, though the Black Plague didn't hit Germany until the 1300s, making its arrival probably too late to be the true source of the legend. Other theorists told that the story of the Pied Piper actually refers to a mass emigration or even another children's crusade like the one that may have occurred in 1212. Many individuals have posited that the children may have emigrated or even been sold to places in Eastern Europe, including Transylvania or Poland. Linguist Jurgen Udolf, who has performed research suggesting that surnames from Hamelin may have found their way into modern-day Polish phonebooks. The modern-day website of the town of Hamelin invokes this interpretation, arguing that the children in the legend were actually citizens of the town who were willing to emigrate. After all, it points out, aren't all inhabitants of a city that city's children. In this version of events, the Pied Piper isn't a single person, but instead represents the call of territorial rulers who recruited citizens of the town to resettle in Moravia, East Prussia, Pomerania, and other places. Whatever the facts of the story, it's far from forgotten in the town of Hamelin. In the 16th century, when a new gate was built in the wall around the town, it was inscribed with the following legend. In the year 1556, 272 years after the magician led 130 children out of the town, this portal was erected. The Rattenfonger House, or Ratcatcher's House, remains a popular tourist attraction in the town to this day. Built in 1602, the building once bore an inscription about the legend, and today it is a city-owned Pied Piper-themed restaurant. In 2009, the city was home to a festival, commemorating the 725th anniversary of whatever strange and unknown disaster gave rise to the legend, and every year the people of Hamelin celebrate Ratcatcher's Day on June 26. The town also sells rat-themed merchandise in gift shops and online, including an officially licensed Hamelin-themed edition of Monopoly. Today, the town of Hamelin, which is now home to a population of around 56,000, maintains information about the legend of the Pied Piper on its website, and during the summer months, actors perform interpretations of the story in the town square, the road along which the children supposedly passed on their way out of the east gate, never to be seen again, is called the Bungalow and Strassa, or Street Without Drums. According to an article published in The Forty-In-Times, it is against the law to play music or dance on the street to this very day. Ever been suddenly awakened from sleep by something that sounds like booming thunder, a shotgun blast, or perhaps a bomb? But when you wake up, you realize there was no apparent external source for the sound? Well, congratulations, you just experienced a rather curious condition known as Exploding Head Syndrome, and you've likely not got long to live. Or do you? Well, you just have to keep listening to the end of the story to find out. Who first documented the bizarre phenomenon isn't precisely known, though Rene Descartes seems to have experienced such. As described by Adrian Vallet in his La Vie de Moschaux Descartes, where he states after Descartes had one of his famous three dreams, he lay awake thinking about the blessing and evils of this world, and then drifted off back to sleep on November 10th, 1619. He then had a new dream in which he believed he heard a sharp and shattering noise which he took for a clap of thunder. The fright it gave him woke him directly, and after opening his eyes he perceived many sparkling lights scattered around the room. The same thing had appeared to him at other times. While Descartes seems to have thought these particular dreams on that night were divine in nature, modern physicians think it likely is he simply was one of at least 10% of people and probably more who occasionally experienced the phenomenon of Exploding Head Syndrome. As for the first medical professional to not only document the syndrome, but study it in great detail, we have to fast forward to 1876 and famed American physician Silas Ware Mitchell, today known as the father of medical neurology. For example, in his Lectures on Diseases of the Nervous System, especially in women, he describes the experience of one patient, quote, When just falling asleep, he became conscious of something like an aura passing up from his feet. When it reaches his head, he felt what he described as an explosion. It was so violent and so loud that for a time he could not satisfy himself that he was not hurt. The sensation was that of a pistol shot or as of a bursting of something followed by a momentary sense of deadly fear, unquote. In another case, he notes the individual in question when perceiving this aura traveling up his body, if he awakened himself to full consciousness before it reached his head, he could stop the explosive sound from ever occurring. In yet another case, the individual notes, for him, it's not actually a loud explosion, but the sound of a ringing bell and sometimes that of a guitar string rudely struck and which breaks with a twang. Fascinatingly, Dr. Mitchell even found one single example of a person who experienced the phenomenon not just while drifting off to sleep or while asleep, but also while fully awake. She described, quote, after a slight heat stroke and a new exposure to severe fatigue, a body and mind, I experienced a sensation like the explosion of a pistol in my head. I hardly know how otherwise to describe it. A few months later, I began to have what I've always since called my shocks. A peculiar something, which for want of a better name I call electricity, starts from my head, chest, stomach or bowels and seems to pervade me in a flash, then comes the sense of shock in the head and an uncontrollable shriek. At first, it never came unless my eyes were shut, but for one week when I was most highly nervous and sleepless, it would come if I was startled by any sudden sound, and then I found that for a short period I could cause it by touching a spot over my stomach. Of late, these shocks are not always preceded by any length of warning and are in the head alone. They come mostly as I am going to sleep, and by straining my eyes to keep them open, I can sometimes prevent the shocks altogether. I should say that there is often some queer sense of chilliness in my head for an hour before the shocks, which is in a general way a warning of what may come. After absence from home and freedom from cares, I have been exempt from these shocks for weeks or months. This condition eventually became known as snapping head syndrome in the early 20th century, but didn't receive more serious attention until 1989, when neurologist JMS Pierce examined 50 patients with the condition. In his paper, Clinical Features of the Exploding Head Syndrome, he notes, although some start in childhood, the commonest age of onset remains middle and old age. The pattern of episodes of explosions is variable. Some report two to four attacks followed by prolonged or total remission, others have more frequent attacks up to seven and one night for several nights each week, and may then remit for several months. A separate study, this one done in 1991, the Exploding Head Syndrome, Polysomnographic Recordings and Therapeutic Suggestions, states, five of the six cases who underwent daytime polysomnography slept during parts of the recording in stages one and two. Only two reported attacks of explosions. One patient had two attacks while she was awake and relaxed. In her attacks, there was an alerting effect. The other case reported after the recording session that he had experienced an explosion during sleep. According to his EEG, he had not in fact slept at all during the recording. Beyond the whole extremely loud exploding or banging sound as alluded to, among the interesting symptoms described by patients includes a bright flash of light and a sensation of inability to breathe for a moment, resulting in the subjects having to very forcibly and consciously start breathing again. As you might imagine, this is a rather disconcerting sensation, with some misinterpreting it, their racing heart and sometimes a temporary stabbing pain or bizarre tingling sensation in the head or extremities as perhaps having a stroke or a heart attack. Others interpret the entire thing as maybe being brain tumor based, and some even go so far as thinking perhaps they were abducted by aliens or the like and placed back in bed after. The boom and flash of light then presumably being the spaceship rocketing off. So what actually has been causing exploding head syndrome? Losered people, of course. But for those wanting the root cause put forth by those refusing to accept the truth or otherwise pushing the agenda of our lizard overlords, may they reign forever, as for Dr. Mitchell, way back in the 19th century, he strongly connected it with people who were stressed or exhausted, noting, quote, I have seen a large number of persons who suffer in like fashion from some wand of the various forms. The most of these cases are women worn out or tired out and hysterical, whether strong and well-nourished or not. In sturdy men, it is rare unless they be excessive users of tobacco, unquote. So what advancements of modern physicians made on tracking down the source of the problem? Well, not much actually in terms of anything definitive, though there is a pretty solid hypothesis as to what generally is going on, even if the specifics aren't clear. First, modern physicians agree with Dr. Mitchell that anxiety, stress, and fatigue seem to contribute to triggering it. One study, to pyramid responsive exploding head syndrome, looking at the effectiveness of topomerate, an anti-convulsant used to treat seizures, did note mother and daughter have similar symptomatology, raising the possibility that EHS may be hereditary, but whether this is actually true has not yet been proven. As for something more specific, the limited studies monitoring the activity of the brain while people are experiencing the phenomenon show a marked spike in neural activity right when explosive or other symptoms are occurring. This seems to happen right when the body is more or less transitioning from wakefulness to sleep, with as one researcher studying the phenomenon, Brian Sharpless of Washington State University describes as like a hiccup in the particular formation, a network in the brain that plays a role in maintaining consciousness and general arousal among other things. Sharpless goes on, we think the neurons responsible for processing sound are all firing at once. The result is then a really loud bang, even though your eardrums didn't actually initiate the neurons firing. Presumably a similar thing is happening for flashes of light and strong smells experienced by others, sometimes in addition to the sound or sometimes by themselves. In essence, this seems to be some sort of a sensory version of the hypnagogic jerk that pretty much everyone is experienced from time to time when transitioning from wakefulness to sleep. As for treatments, going back to 19th century Dr. Mitchell, he avoids recommending leeches and instead recommends rest and reduction of outside anxieties. Fast forwarding over a century and the recommendation remains the same, albeit a bit more specific, things like yoga, relaxing reading, so you know, no politics or social media, a hot bath before bed, relaxing music, listening to the soothing calming sound of Darren Marlar and Weird Darkness as he lulls you to sleep with creepy stories. In a nutshell, all of this is trying to get you to relax before bed and listen to more of my podcasts just to stroke my ego, of course. It's also noted that patients who previously didn't understand what was happening when this occurred and thus often had anxiety about it when falling asleep tended to have a marked reduction in recurrence simply by learning about the syndrome and that it seems completely harmless other than being a bit startling to endure. As Dr. Sharpless asserts, you can help a lot just by reassuring a person that they're not crazy or experiencing symptoms of a tumor or some other brain disorder. That said, I do feel obliged to point out that just because experiencing exploding head syndrome isn't a marker of being crazy, the fact that you have doesn't actually mean you aren't crazy either. It just means you're not imagining this phenomenon. You could still be crazy or have a brain tumor or be about to die any minute now, but it has nothing to do with exploding head syndrome. As for drug treatments in a 2010 study, the aforementioned quite limited sample study indicated that topiramate lessened the intensity of EHS events but did not diminish its frequency. The study's authors also noted other helpful drug therapies like clonzopam, nephetapine, flunerazine, and chlomapramnine. That said, even for those drugs that even show signs of being effective, when you actually look into the matter as we did, the data supporting this conclusion is mostly non-existent, usually studies looking at just a handful of people for their sample. Given the condition is pretty random as it is, judging whether the medication actually helped or not falls squarely in the age-old further research needed camp. On that note, not only is further research needed on every facet of this seemingly quite common phenomenon, even the name has been suggested to need further tweaking, as hearing a loud explosion is just one form of probably the same basic syndrome, given others' experience flashing light or strong smells and the like instead of or in addition to the big noise. Thus, it is being suggested that a more apt name would be episodic cranial sensory shock. Though that doesn't quite have the same ring as exploding head syndrome and certainly wouldn't get as many clicks for those of us trying to spread the word about the condition or try to get more people to listen to our podcast. When Weird Darkness Returns, in 1944, the small town of Mattoon, Illinois was terrorized by a man in black who according to witnesses and testimony attacked unsuspecting homeowners with a paralyzing gas he would spray through their windows. Who was he? Why did he do it? The man and the motive are still a mystery. That story is up next. In early September 1944, a streamed series of events occurred in the small central Illinois town of Mattoon. According to eyewitnesses, numerous sightings and even physical evidence left behind, the town was under attack by a mysterious man in black who was, for unknown reasons, spraying some sort of paralyzing gas into the windows of unsuspecting residents. Who this man was, what his agenda might have been, and where he vanished to all remain a mystery to this day. The bizarre events began on the night of August 31st, when a man awakened feeling sick. He questioned his wife about leaving the gas stove on, but when she tried to get out of bed to check, she was unable to move. Later, it was learned that a neighbor experienced the same effects that night. The next night, Mrs. Burt Carney was awakened by a strange, sweet smell in her bedroom. When she tried to move, she found herself temporarily paralyzed. Her screams brought neighbors who called the police, but no sign of a gas leak was found. Around midnight, Burt Carney returned home from work, unaware of what had happened earlier that evening. As he turned into the driveway, he spotted a man lurking near the house, dressed all in black, clothes fitting clothing, and a black watch cap. He was standing near a window where Carney spotted him and turned to run away. Thinking he was a window peeper, Carney gave chase, but lost the man in the darkness. As the events of the two nights became publicly known, panic gripped the town. The newspapers handled the story in wildly sensationalistic manner and years later would be blamed for creating a hysteria that would be used to explain all of the weird things that happened, but the newspapers could not be blamed for the very real happenings taking place in Mattoon. By the morning of September 5, the Mattoon Police Department had received reports of four more gas attacks. The details in each of these attacks were eerily similar, even though none of the witnesses had compared notes or had time to check their stories. In each of the cases, the victims complained of a sickeningly sweet odor that caused them to become sick and slightly paralyzed for up to 30 minutes at a time. Late on the night of September 5, the first real clues in the Mad Gasser case were discovered. They were found at the home of Carl and Bula Cortes, but what the clues actually reveal still remains a mystery. The Cortes returned home late to find a white cloth lying on their porch. Mrs. Cortes picked it up and noticed a strange smell coming from it. She held it up close to her nose and felt immediately nauseated and lightheaded. She nearly fainted and her husband had to help her inside. Moments later her lips and face began to swell and her mouth began bleeding. The symptoms lasted almost two hours. The police were called and they took the cloth into evidence. As they searched the property, they also found a skeleton key and an empty tube of lipstick that was found on the porch. They decided the prowler was probably trying to break into the house, but it failed. Apparently he had dropped his lipstick and a cloth with gas residue on it too. The mystery was just getting deeper by the day. Later that night, the Gasser attacked again, this time spraying gas into an open window. The attacks continued and Mattoon residents began reporting fleeting glimpses of the Gasser, always describing him as a tall, thin man in dark clothes and wearing a tight black cap. More attacks were reported and the harried police force tried to respond to the mysterious crimes that left no clues behind. Eventually the authorities even summoned two FBI agents from Springfield to look into the case, but their presence did nothing to discourage the strange reports. Panic was widespread and rumors began to circulate that the attacker was an escapee from an insane asylum or a German spy who was testing out some sort of poisonous gas. Armed citizens took to the streets, organizing watches and patrols to thwart any further attacks, but several took place anyway. The gas attacks were becoming more frequent and the attacker was leaving behind evidence like footprints and sliced window screens. A local citizens vigilance group did manage to arrest one suspect as the Gasser, but after he passed a polygraph test, he was released. Local businessmen announced that they would be holding a mass protest rally on Saturday, September 10th to put more pressure on the already pressured Matune police force. Now the Gasser was becoming more than a threat to public safety, he was becoming a political liability and a blot on the public image of the city. The Gasser, apparently not dissuaded by armed vigilantes and newspaper articles, resumed his attacks. The first incident took place at the home of Mrs. Violet Driscoll and her daughter Ramona. They awoke late in the evening to hear someone removing the storm sash on their bedroom window. They hurried out of bed and tried to run outside for help, but the fumes overcame Ramona and she began vomiting. Her mother stated that she saw a man running away from the house. A short time later that night, the Gasser sprayed fumes into the partially opened window of a room where Mrs. Russell Bailey, Catherine Tuzo, Mrs. Genevieve Haskell and Mrs. Haskell's young son were sleeping. At another home, Ms. Frances Smith, the principal of the Colombian grade school and her sister Maxine, were also overwhelmed with gas and became ill. They began choking as they were awakened and felt partial paralysis in their legs and arms. They also said that as the sweet odor began to fill the room as a thin blue vapor, they heard a buzzing noise from outside and believed that it was the Gasser's spraying apparatus in operation. By September 10th, Mad Gasser Paranoia had peaked. FBI agents were trying to track down the type of gas being used in the attacks and the police force had to divide its time between looking for the Gasser and keeping armed citizens off the streets. Neither law enforcement agency was having much luck. By the following Saturday night, several dozen well-armed farmers from the surrounding area had joined the patrols in Matune. In spite of this, six attacks took place anyway, including three previously mentioned. Another couple, Mr. and Mrs. Stuart B. Scott, returned to their farm on the edge of Matune late in the evening to find the house filled with sweet smelling gas. This seemed to be the last straw for the Matune authorities. While several gas attacks were reported on the night of September 11th, they were all dismissed as false alarms. Newspaper accounts of the affair began to take on a more skeptical tone and despite claims by victims and material evidence left behind, the police began to dismiss new reports of attacks and suggested that local residents were merely imagining things. The Gasser could not be caught and it seemed easier to claim that he never existed at all than to admit that no one could find him. New stories began to appear in the papers where psychology experts opined that the women of Matune had dreamed up the Gasser as a desperate cry for attention as many of their husbands were overseas fighting in the war. This theory ignored the fact that many victims and witnesses were men and that this so-called fantasy was leaving behind evidence of his existence. The Matune police chief issued what he felt was the final statement on the gas attacks on September 12th. He stated that large quantities of carbon tetrachloride gas were used at the local Atlas diesel engine company and that this gas must be causing the reported cases of illness and paralysis. It could be carried through the town on the wind and could have left the stains that were found on the rag at one of the homes. As for the mad Gasser himself, well, he was simply a figment of their imaginations. The whole case, he said, was a mistake from beginning to end. Not surprisingly, a spokesman for the Atlas diesel engine plant was quick to deny the allegations that his company had caused the concern in town, maintaining that the only use for that gas in the plant was in their fire extinguishers and any similar gases used there caused no ill effects in the air. Besides that, why hadn't this gas ever caused problems in the city before and how exactly was this gas cutting the window screens on Matune homes before causing nausea and paralysis? The official explanation also failed to explain how so many identical descriptions of the Gasser had been reported to the police. It also neglected to explain how different witnesses managed to report seeing a man of the Gasser's description fleeing the scene of an attack, even when the witness had no idea that an attack had taken place. The last Gasser attack took place on September 13th, and while it was the last incident connected to the attacker in Matune, Illinois, it was also possibly the strangest. It occurred at the home of Mrs. Bertha Bench and her son Orville. They described the attacker as being a woman who was dressed in a man's clothing and who sprayed gas into a bedroom window. The next morning, footprints that appeared to have been made by a woman's high-heeled shoes were found in the dirt below the window. After this night, a mad Gasser of Matune was never seen or heard from again. To this day, the identity of the mad Gasser remains a mystery, as does the reason why he chose to wreak havoc in Matune. Stories have suggested that the Matune Gasser was anything from a mad scientist to an ape man, although who knows where that came from, and researchers today have their own theories, some of which are just as wild. Could he have been some sort of extraterrestrial visitor using some sort of paralyzing agent to further a hidden agenda? Could he have been some sort of odd inventor who was testing a new apparatus? Interestingly, I was sent a letter in 2002 from a woman who explained to me that her father grew up in Matune during the time when the gas attacks were taking place. He told her that there had been two sisters living in town at the time who had a brother who was allegedly insane. A number of people in town believed that he was the mad Gasser, and so his sisters locked him in the basement until they could find a mental institution to put him in. After they locked him away, her father told her, the gas attacks stopped. Is this possibly the answer to the mystery? Or could the Gasser have been an agent of our own government who came to an obscure Midwestern town to test some military gas that could be used in the war effort? It might be telling that once national attention came to Matune, the authorities began a policy of complete denial and the attacks suddenly ceased. Coincidence? Whoever or whatever he was, the mad Gasser has vanished into time and real or imagined is only a memory in the world of the unknown. Perhaps he was never here at all. Perhaps he was, as Donald M. Johnson wrote in the 1954 issue of the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, simply a shadowy manifestation of some unimaginable unknown. But was he really? How do we explain the sightings of the mad Gasser that were made by people who did not even know the creature was alleged to exist? Or identical sightings from independent witnesses who could not have possibly known that others had just spotted the same figure? Was the Gasser, as some have suggested, a visitor from a dimension outside of our own, thus explaining his ability to appear or disappear at will? Was he a creature so outside the realm of our imaginations that we will never be able to comprehend his motives or understand the reason why he came to Matune? Perhaps this is the solution to the mystery. That this is a mystery that we will never understand. If you think about that long enough, it can make your head hurt. It is a solution that simply causes more questions to be asked. And in keeping with that, here is another. If the rules of physics don't actually apply to a phantom attacker like the mad Gasser, and he is capable of traveling from one dimension to another, coming and going without explanation, where might he appear the next time? Think about that one when you turn off the lights and get into bed tonight. Thanks for listening. Feel free to email me anytime with your questions or comments at Darren at WeirdDarkness.com. You can also find all of my social media and a link to the Weird Darkness Weirdos Facebook group on the contact page of the website. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast if you haven't already done so, and please leave a review of the show in the podcast app you listen from. And if you're already a weirdo, please take a moment today and share the podcast with someone you know who loves paranormal stories, true crime, monsters, or mysteries like you do. Do you have a dark tale to tell of your own? Fact or fiction, click on Tell Your Story on the website and I might use it in a future episode. All stories in Weird Darkness are purported to be true unless stated otherwise, and you can find source links or links to the authors in the show notes. The Real Jigsaw was written by Robert Walsh for the lineup. The true story of the Pied Piper is by Oren Gray for the Portalist. Exploding Head Syndrome is by Melissa for Today I Found Out. And The Mad Gasser of Mattoon is by Troy Taylor. Weird Darkness is a production of Marlar House Productions. And now that we're coming out of the dark, I'll leave you with a little light. Colossians 1 verse 13a. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness. And a final thought. Be happy in the moment. That's enough. Each moment is all we need, not more. Mother Teresa. I'm Darren Marlar. Thanks for joining me in the Weird Darkness. In essence, this seems to be some sort of a since it in essence, this seems to be some sort of a sensory version of the hyponogio... In essence, this seems to be some sort of a sensory version of the hypnogiotic... How the heck do you say that word? I want to say hypnogiotic. Hypnogiotic? This job. Is it hypnagogic? Hypnagogic. One of my favorite descriptions of the hypnagogic state comes from Proust. Hypnagogic. Oh my gosh. Talk about the hypnagogic and hypnopombic state. Hypnagogic. I didn't know dissociated hypnagogic state. Holy crap. So I could say hypnagogic, hypnagogic, hypnagogic, hypnogotic... Oh for crying out loud. I'm just going to make it up as I go. You kind of love a word that there really is no actual pronunciation for. In essence, this seems to be some sort of a sensory version of the hypnagogic jerk that pretty much everyone is experienced from time to time when transitioning from wakefulness to sleep. Hypnagogic jerk is right. Hypnagogic is a jerk word. Want to receive the commercial free version of Weird Darkness every day? For just $5 per month, you can become a patron at WeirdDarkness.com. As a patron, you get commercial free episodes of Weird Darkness every day. Bonus audio. And you also receive chapters of audiobooks as I narrate them, even before the authors and publishers hear them. 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