January 22, 2024 • 12 mins
Ever wondered if the tales of the Mad Gasser of Mattoon were steeped in paranoia or if there was a genuine prowler on the loose? Your hosts, Smarticus and Phoenix, promise to guide you through the misty contours of this perplexing story, dissecting each element from mass hysteria to environmental anomalies. But that's not all we have on our plate – we're also tossing into the mix our pizza-making saga, contrasting the craftsmanship of homemade Chicago-style deep-dish with the ease of the store-bought variety, with a special nod to the gluten-free challenges that Phoenix encountered.
As we navigate the murky waters of the past, we shine a light on how fear and the unknown can cast long shadows over our collective memories. The Mad Gasser's legend persists, a testament to the unsolved riddles of history that intrigue and confound us. And while we're peeling back the layers of mystery, we're also kneading our way through the fun and frustrations of perfecting pizza dough. So, join us for a banquet of the bizarre and the delectable, sprinkled with our personal tales and seasoned with a dash of humor. Hit subscribe and drop us a review if you find yourself craving more historical feasts and culinary capers.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Smart against.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hell's History.
Alright, enough with the Echoand Fanfare.
You're here for history, right,and not that boring crack you
learned in high school.
This stuff's actuallyinteresting, like things you've
never heard about the Civil War,cleopatra, automobiles,
monopoly, the Black Plague andmore Fascinating stories,
(00:23):
interesting topics and somedownright weird facts from the
past.
It's a new twist on somestories you may know and an
interesting look at some thingsyou may have never heard.
So grab a beer, kick back andenjoy.
Here's your host, smarticus.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Hello and welcome to this week's episode of Smart
against Hell's History.
I'm your host, smarticus,accompanied by my co-host,
phoenix.
Hello, today we're diving intoa chilling and mysterious
chapter of history, the MadGasser of Mattoon.
A story of possible masshysteria, a means for attempted
theft, or was it just gardenvariety pollution?
But first food, food.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
We are eating pizza.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
We are eating pizza.
Because there wasn't hardly anyrecipes in Mattoon, illinois,
so we went with Chicago's deepdish style pizza.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Yeah, it was either that or we had to have hot dogs.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Yeah, hot dogs are great too.
Dogs are the wrong, but I can'treally make a hot dog.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
No.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
I mean I guess I could, but then that would
involve me going out and havingto find a pig to slaughter and
yadda, yadda, yadda and.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
I don't have the equipment.
Yeah, I don't, I mean well, Ican slaughter a pig, but you
know, grinding up casing, Idon't have the ability to do
that.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
But anyway.
So I made my Chicago deep dishstyle pizza.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
I had to buy mine.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
She had to buy hers.
Mine is sausage with all thepeppers and green peppers, red
peppers, onions.
There's basil.
I made every bit of it thesauce, the bread, the flour,
everything.
Well, except for the sausageand the onions, you let it rise.
(02:21):
Yeah, and it rose quite a bit.
It rose almost an inch, maybejust under an inch the dough did
, so it's got a really thickbottom layer dough on it, but
it's really good though.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
I bought mine at Whole Foods.
No.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
There's no rule in here saying we have to make
every dish.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
That's all I could do Because, honestly, trying to
figure out how to make otherthings while using gluten-free
flour is one of the biggestpains in the rear end I've ever
had to deal with.
It doesn't rise correctly, it'salways too dense.
Yeah, I had one recipe.
(03:08):
My daughter and I were workingon a cookie recipe, which you
know was chocolate chip cookiesthe most American thing in the
world, right.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
And it required like two sticks of butter and maybe a
cup and a half of flour andthey were the flattest, most cow
pat looking things you've everseen and we couldn't eat a
single one.
Wow Ahem, it was a terriblerecipe.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
I was a little worried that when I made this um
, I had props, so I don't have amixer.
Um, mm, hmm, I don't have astand mixer, oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
The hand ones don't work the same.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
I didn't use it, I just mixed it all by hand.
Um and the dough, because thestand mixers they have a dough
hook, I guess.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
I looked them up.
I have one.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
I can't use it, but I have it.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
Yeah and um.
So while I was making the doughthough I was, I was a little
concerned, because it wasn'treally wanting to stick to each
other or stick to itself.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Mm, hmm.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
Um so, but I just kept needing it and eventually
it all just kind of worked in.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Mm, hmm.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
Um and uh.
So I got a little concernedthat maybe it was going to.
Some of the pieces were stilllike wanting to like fall apart
or whatever.
It was just kind of wanting toseparate Gotcha, um.
But I just kind of made it work.
I mean it turned out fine.
I mean I split it into twodifferent pieces.
Um, the recipe told me to Ididn't have a nine inch skillet
(04:59):
cast iron skillet that you wouldnormally use on you know.
So I used the?
Um, my cast iron lasagna trayinstead and, uh, I mean it
worked just fine.
That's what it was.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
I was looking at that , thinking what in the world did
he send me a picture of what isthe thing that's in?
That's funny.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
My enamel coated cast iron lasagna tray, nice, um.
So I just made it in that Umand it worked great.
I mean, and uh, it's stillcooked just fine.
Um, but you can see in the inthe pizza, where the dough is
still kind of like separating,but it still rose just fine.
(05:38):
That's good.
So, anyways, it turned outreally good.
I was surprised how well itturned out.
Um, some of the dough in themiddle um is probably even
thicker than that, because theum Michael's saying so it, um,
it's still kind of like um, soit.
It was enough recipe to splitinto two different pieces.
Uh, for two nine inch pans iswhat it called for.
Um, and I put both of those inthat lasagna pan.
(06:02):
So I spread it out and it fitin there just fine.
But right in the middle um iswhere it overlapped a little bit
.
Um, it overlapped by about twoinches.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Um, so it's not just a fat bottom girl, it's a thick
girl.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Yeah, especially in the middle part there, gotcha,
um, it's probably really thick.
I haven't gotten to that partyet, so I'm sure the bread or
the dough, that bottom layerdough, is probably pretty thick
in there, because I had twolayers of it.
I just kind of laid it, laidthem all around top of it, and I
was like, yeah, it'll be fine.
So it's all good, it's fine,it'll be fine.
All right, so we're going toget back here to the story the
(06:42):
delving Yep.
We're going to delve into thestory here.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Our tale takes us to small town of Mattoon, illinois,
in the late summer of 1944.
World War II was ragingoverseas, but the residents of
Mattoon were about to face adifferent kind of terror on
their own doorstep.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
It all began on the night of August 31st, when a
local resident named Urban Rafereported a strange odor in his
bedroom.
He described it as a sweet,sickly smell that made him and
his wife feel nauseous andcaused their throats to burn.
Rafe's wife found that her legswere paralyzed as she lay in
her bed, unable to move.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Soon.
After a mere couple of days, infact, similar reports started
pouring in from all over Mattoon.
Residents claimed they hadsomeone lurking outside their
homes who released a noxious gasin through their windows,
causing nausea, vomiting,swelling of the face and throat,
burning lips and throats andalso paralysis.
One man said he saw a prowleroutside his house that he gave
(07:47):
chase to but never caught.
The description he gave thepolice was of a tall man dressed
in a black suit, in a tightfitting cap.
That sounds real descriptive,doesn't it?
It's okay.
Yeah, that was the generalconsensus for everyone was.
There was always someone tall,wearing a black suit and a tight
fitting cap, but there was likeno distinguishing features
(08:08):
about this man and any account.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
What did he look like ?
He looked like a man.
He looked like a man Iliterally said that last night.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
That's so funny.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
Oh, if you know, you know.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
Plenty of evidence started popping up, most of
which were false.
This only baffled the localauthorities and served to spread
panic like wildfire through thetown.
People began barricading theirwindows and doors, and some
people even slept with gas masksby their bedside.
But despite all the fear andparanoia, there was no actual,
concrete evidence to prove theexistence of this gas-wielding
(08:49):
phantom.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
The newspapers quickly dubbed the perpetrator
the Mad Gasser of Mattoon, andthe legend began to take shape.
Rumors and theories about theidentity and motive of the Mad
Gasser ran rampant.
Some believed it was a lonecriminal, while others
speculated that it might be agovernment experiment gone awry.
There were also the suggestionsthat it might be pollution from
the nearby industrial plants,and that, by the way, actually
(09:15):
was what the I can't rememberhis name the sheriff of Mattoon.
He was really big into thinkingthat was what it was he was
like no, no it's got to be.
It's got to be from the chemicalplant.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
I think he had beef.
I mean well, I mean it could be, though he might have had beef,
though You're right, yeah, hemight just not have liked.
You know that the plant wasthere, or whatever.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
And the manager was sleeping with his wife.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
Yeah yeah, that's very possible too.
Yeah Well, maybe if he spentmore time at home, you know,
maybe I wouldn't have Runningaround chasing phantoms.
Yeah, I know.
Yeah.
As the weeks passed, thereports of gas attacks continued
and a few victims even claimedto have seen a mysterious figure
(10:04):
fleeing the scene Paul Darkinhandsome.
Paul Darkin handsome, that'sright.
But despite extensiveinvestigations by local police
and even the FBI, no one wasever apprehended or charged in
connection with the attacks.
Because of this, the localpolice dropped priority on all
gas-related calls and chose notto feed the panic-fueled beast
roaming their city streets.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
The panic gradually subsided and by the end of
September, the gas attacksceased just as mysteriously as
they had begun.
To this day, the identity ofthe mad gasser of Mattoon
remains a mystery, and the caseremains one of the most
perplexing and debated unsolvedmysteries in American history.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
Some theories suggest that mass hysteria may have
played the most predominant role, with people imagining the
attacks due to fear and anxietyover what they heard.
Others, for instance the chiefof police C E Cole, believe
strongly in the theory ofpollution from the nearby
industrial plants.
After some researchersinvestigated, they believe that
they had to have been a realculprit to begin with, as some
of the first victims eye-witnessaccounts suggested.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Regardless of the truth, the legend of the mad
gasser of Mattoon lives onreminding us that history is
often filled with enigmas thatdefy explanation.
It's a chilling tale thatserves as a testament to the
power of fear and the mysteriesthat can still lurk in the
corners of our world.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
We hope you've enjoyed learning about this
fascinating aspect of history.
Thank you for joining us forthis episode of Smarticus Tells
History.
If you enjoyed this episode,please subscribe and leave us a
review.
We'll be back with more storiesfrom the past.
Until then, keep exploring.
Welcome to.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Smart against.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hell's History.
Alright, enough with the Echoand Fanfare.
You're here for history, right,and not that boring crack you
learned in high school.
This stuff's actuallyinteresting, like things you've
never heard about the Civil War,cleopatra, automobiles,
monopoly, the Black Plague andmore Fascinating stories,
(00:23):
interesting topics and somedownright weird facts from the
past.
It's a new twist on somestories you may know and an
interesting look at some thingsyou may have never heard.
So grab a beer, kick back andenjoy.
Here's your host, smarticus.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Hello and welcome to this week's episode of Smart
against Hell's History.
I'm your host, smarticus,accompanied by my co-host,
phoenix.
Hello, today we're diving intoa chilling and mysterious
chapter of history, the MadGasser of Mattoon.
A story of possible masshysteria, a means for attempted
theft, or was it just gardenvariety pollution?
But first food, food.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
We are eating pizza.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
We are eating pizza.
Because there wasn't hardly anyrecipes in Mattoon, illinois,
so we went with Chicago's deepdish style pizza.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Yeah, it was either that or we had to have hot dogs.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Yeah, hot dogs are great too.
Dogs are the wrong, but I can'treally make a hot dog.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
No.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
I mean I guess I could, but then that would
involve me going out and havingto find a pig to slaughter and
yadda, yadda, yadda and.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
I don't have the equipment.
Yeah, I don't, I mean well, Ican slaughter a pig, but you
know, grinding up casing, Idon't have the ability to do
that.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
But anyway.
So I made my Chicago deep dishstyle pizza.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
I had to buy mine.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
She had to buy hers.
Mine is sausage with all thepeppers and green peppers, red
peppers, onions.
There's basil.
I made every bit of it thesauce, the bread, the flour,
everything.
Well, except for the sausageand the onions, you let it rise.
(02:21):
Yeah, and it rose quite a bit.
It rose almost an inch, maybejust under an inch the dough did
, so it's got a really thickbottom layer dough on it, but
it's really good though.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
I bought mine at Whole Foods.
No.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
There's no rule in here saying we have to make
every dish.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
That's all I could do Because, honestly, trying to
figure out how to make otherthings while using gluten-free
flour is one of the biggestpains in the rear end I've ever
had to deal with.
It doesn't rise correctly, it'salways too dense.
Yeah, I had one recipe.
(03:08):
My daughter and I were workingon a cookie recipe, which you
know was chocolate chip cookiesthe most American thing in the
world, right.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
And it required like two sticks of butter and maybe a
cup and a half of flour andthey were the flattest, most cow
pat looking things you've everseen and we couldn't eat a
single one.
Wow Ahem, it was a terriblerecipe.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
I was a little worried that when I made this um
, I had props, so I don't have amixer.
Um, mm, hmm, I don't have astand mixer, oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
The hand ones don't work the same.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
I didn't use it, I just mixed it all by hand.
Um and the dough, because thestand mixers they have a dough
hook, I guess.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
I looked them up.
I have one.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
I can't use it, but I have it.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
Yeah and um.
So while I was making the doughthough I was, I was a little
concerned, because it wasn'treally wanting to stick to each
other or stick to itself.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Mm, hmm.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
Um so, but I just kept needing it and eventually
it all just kind of worked in.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Mm, hmm.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
Um and uh.
So I got a little concernedthat maybe it was going to.
Some of the pieces were stilllike wanting to like fall apart
or whatever.
It was just kind of wanting toseparate Gotcha, um.
But I just kind of made it work.
I mean it turned out fine.
I mean I split it into twodifferent pieces.
Um, the recipe told me to Ididn't have a nine inch skillet
(04:59):
cast iron skillet that you wouldnormally use on you know.
So I used the?
Um, my cast iron lasagna trayinstead and, uh, I mean it
worked just fine.
That's what it was.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
I was looking at that , thinking what in the world did
he send me a picture of what isthe thing that's in?
That's funny.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
My enamel coated cast iron lasagna tray, nice, um.
So I just made it in that Umand it worked great.
I mean, and uh, it's stillcooked just fine.
Um, but you can see in the inthe pizza, where the dough is
still kind of like separating,but it still rose just fine.
(05:38):
That's good.
So, anyways, it turned outreally good.
I was surprised how well itturned out.
Um, some of the dough in themiddle um is probably even
thicker than that, because theum Michael's saying so it, um,
it's still kind of like um, soit.
It was enough recipe to splitinto two different pieces.
Uh, for two nine inch pans iswhat it called for.
Um, and I put both of those inthat lasagna pan.
(06:02):
So I spread it out and it fitin there just fine.
But right in the middle um iswhere it overlapped a little bit
.
Um, it overlapped by about twoinches.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Um, so it's not just a fat bottom girl, it's a thick
girl.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Yeah, especially in the middle part there, gotcha,
um, it's probably really thick.
I haven't gotten to that partyet, so I'm sure the bread or
the dough, that bottom layerdough, is probably pretty thick
in there, because I had twolayers of it.
I just kind of laid it, laidthem all around top of it, and I
was like, yeah, it'll be fine.
So it's all good, it's fine,it'll be fine.
All right, so we're going toget back here to the story the
(06:42):
delving Yep.
We're going to delve into thestory here.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Our tale takes us to small town of Mattoon, illinois,
in the late summer of 1944.
World War II was ragingoverseas, but the residents of
Mattoon were about to face adifferent kind of terror on
their own doorstep.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
It all began on the night of August 31st, when a
local resident named Urban Rafereported a strange odor in his
bedroom.
He described it as a sweet,sickly smell that made him and
his wife feel nauseous andcaused their throats to burn.
Rafe's wife found that her legswere paralyzed as she lay in
her bed, unable to move.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Soon.
After a mere couple of days, infact, similar reports started
pouring in from all over Mattoon.
Residents claimed they hadsomeone lurking outside their
homes who released a noxious gasin through their windows,
causing nausea, vomiting,swelling of the face and throat,
burning lips and throats andalso paralysis.
One man said he saw a prowleroutside his house that he gave
(07:47):
chase to but never caught.
The description he gave thepolice was of a tall man dressed
in a black suit, in a tightfitting cap.
That sounds real descriptive,doesn't it?
It's okay.
Yeah, that was the generalconsensus for everyone was.
There was always someone tall,wearing a black suit and a tight
fitting cap, but there was likeno distinguishing features
(08:08):
about this man and any account.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
What did he look like ?
He looked like a man.
He looked like a man Iliterally said that last night.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
That's so funny.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
Oh, if you know, you know.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
Plenty of evidence started popping up, most of
which were false.
This only baffled the localauthorities and served to spread
panic like wildfire through thetown.
People began barricading theirwindows and doors, and some
people even slept with gas masksby their bedside.
But despite all the fear andparanoia, there was no actual,
concrete evidence to prove theexistence of this gas-wielding
(08:49):
phantom.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
The newspapers quickly dubbed the perpetrator
the Mad Gasser of Mattoon, andthe legend began to take shape.
Rumors and theories about theidentity and motive of the Mad
Gasser ran rampant.
Some believed it was a lonecriminal, while others
speculated that it might be agovernment experiment gone awry.
There were also the suggestionsthat it might be pollution from
the nearby industrial plants,and that, by the way, actually
(09:15):
was what the I can't rememberhis name the sheriff of Mattoon.
He was really big into thinkingthat was what it was he was
like no, no it's got to be.
It's got to be from the chemicalplant.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
I think he had beef.
I mean well, I mean it could be, though he might have had beef,
though You're right, yeah, hemight just not have liked.
You know that the plant wasthere, or whatever.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
And the manager was sleeping with his wife.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
Yeah yeah, that's very possible too.
Yeah Well, maybe if he spentmore time at home, you know,
maybe I wouldn't have Runningaround chasing phantoms.
Yeah, I know.
Yeah.
As the weeks passed, thereports of gas attacks continued
and a few victims even claimedto have seen a mysterious figure
(10:04):
fleeing the scene Paul Darkinhandsome.
Paul Darkin handsome, that'sright.
But despite extensiveinvestigations by local police
and even the FBI, no one wasever apprehended or charged in
connection with the attacks.
Because of this, the localpolice dropped priority on all
gas-related calls and chose notto feed the panic-fueled beast
roaming their city streets.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
The panic gradually subsided and by the end of
September, the gas attacksceased just as mysteriously as
they had begun.
To this day, the identity ofthe mad gasser of Mattoon
remains a mystery, and the caseremains one of the most
perplexing and debated unsolvedmysteries in American history.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
Some theories suggest that mass hysteria may have
played the most predominant role, with people imagining the
attacks due to fear and anxietyover what they heard.
Others, for instance the chiefof police C E Cole, believe
strongly in the theory ofpollution from the nearby
industrial plants.
After some researchersinvestigated, they believe that
they had to have been a realculprit to begin with, as some
of the first victims eye-witnessaccounts suggested.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Regardless of the truth, the legend of the mad
gasser of Mattoon lives onreminding us that history is
often filled with enigmas thatdefy explanation.
It's a chilling tale thatserves as a testament to the
power of fear and the mysteriesthat can still lurk in the
corners of our world.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
We hope you've enjoyed learning about this
fascinating aspect of history.
Thank you for joining us forthis episode of Smarticus Tells
History.
If you enjoyed this episode,please subscribe and leave us a
review.
We'll be back with more storiesfrom the past.
Until then, keep exploring.
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