The Mad Gasser of Mattoon: The Phantom Who Poisoned a Town — or Didn't
In the final days of August 1944, with the Second World War still raging overseas, the quiet railroad town of Mattoon, Illinois became the stage for one of America's strangest home-front panics. On the night of September 1, a young mother named Aline Kearney reported a cloying, sweet odor drifting through her open bedroom window — followed by a creeping numbness in her legs and throat. The local newspaper ran the story under a sensational headline about an "anesthetic prowler" on the loose, and a legend was born.
Over the following two weeks, roughly two dozen residents reported similar attacks. The pattern was remarkably consistent: a strange sweet smell at the window, sudden nausea, dizziness, and brief episodes of weakness or partial paralysis that faded within the hour. Some witnesses described a tall, thin figure in dark clothing fleeing into the night. Frightened families sat up with shotguns, and armed citizen patrols roamed the streets looking for the gasser.
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