The demented love child of Scarecrow and Harley Quinn. I'm reminded of the depiction of doctor boys in the Golden Age Wonder Woman comics. She was an extremely unfeminine Japanese chemist
I'll never forget as a kid, my dumbass parents giving their dog spoiled milk. Two of my buddies and I were in the living room playing Nintendo that night, when suddenly we would hear, "Puh-sssssst", followed by the dog standing up, grumbling, then leaving the room. The smell was like a skunk sprayed the insides of a rotting cow carcass then crawled in, wrapped itself in sulfur and died. Funny thing is, he left left them multiple presents to clean up all over the house.
"The Mad Gasser" - basically everyone's little punkass brother who let's one out in the car and chuckles to himself while everyone's like "who the F did that!?"
The escaped German POW that was mentioned, was never caught until 1984, after he turned himself in. He turned himself in because he went to use the post office, and saw a wanted poster of himself, with a computer enhancement of his age.
@@alexkaiser2839 Thanks for that, googled the name and that is one *fun* ass story. "This guy is one of the most wanted fugitives in the country!" "Here he is." "Actually, on second thought, we don't have anything to charge him with."
Did he really just never attempt to go back home after the war? Just chill in a foreign land for 40 years until you find a wanted poster of you and realize you should probably go home I guess.
Wearing high heels to go on an attack strikes me as a pretty dumb thing to do, even if I did grow up reading comic books in which superheroines wore high-heeled boots.
It’s possible there was a sexual bend to these attacks but somehow I doubt it. However I did notice that the attacker was actually in the room of one of the victims whereas in other instances the attacker was always outside. So it is possible that the attacker was escalating or wanted a closer look because the boys body fell out of line of sight...?
Probably yeah, or at least the desire to feel "in control" of people. A lot of psychopaths or crazies have that desire, but it's possible this person had a morals enough to not want to kill, so this was a second best for them. If the story with the boy was near the end of their reign then it was likely they were escalating too so that's... horrifying. Brain chemistry is incredibly troubling...
Incredibly important to point out that anesthetic gas like ether was waaaaaaay easier to get back then than it is now. My grandfather was an MD and just had a bottle of the stuff at home, just in case. Ether, coincidentally, is blue. Some sort of doctor or assistant having a very disturbing obsession with gassing people seems pretty possible.
Excellent observation. The suspect did seem to know quite a bit about chemicals. otherwise, they wouldn't have brought the protective suit. They also seem to have a strange obsession with seeing people paralyzed.
They're still really easy to make if you have some basic chemistry knowledge. For ether you need sulfuric acid and alcohol, chloroform requires acetone and bleach. The person making it would need a distillation apparatus too. The thing is that neither knock people out easily or quickly. It takes about 5 minutes. Ether is only blue if it's dyed.
When I was a kid this story was was often told along with our ghost stories....I had no idea it had a kernel of truth until I was much older. Truth is stranger than fiction.
I had never heard of these incidents until now. As usual, great work on the art, music and narration. I especially loved that portrait of the Gasser coupled with animation. Creepy!
You never really know who's out there, all kinds of kooks and nuts looking to do weird things or worse. Some people get a charge out watching people suffer or freak out, keep those security cameras on!
This story sounds eerily similar to what happened here in Zambia last year. There were a series of gas attacks across several towns that lasted up to 3 months. Victims reported a sweet smelling fragrance that quickly became overpowering and left them struggling to breath with severe vomiting. At its peak, as many as 36 households would be attacked in one night despite extensive patrols by local law enforcement and neighbourhood watch groups. One attacker who was caught claimed they had been hired by "powerful people" to gas residents before breaking in to draw a pint of blood from the victims once they were incapacitated. They would then deliver the blood to their employers for which they'd get K5000 (US$500) a litre. The police never confirmed the guy's claims but several victims were found with marks on their body that may have been made by a hypodermic needle. And a few other suspects arrested later on were found carrying containers with a liquid that was suspected to be human blood. The police never did release the lab test results of the liquid though. The incidents ended rather abruptly after the army was diploid to assist the police with night patrols but not until several people had died either from gassing or being beaten and burned to death by vigilante mobs that set upon any unfortunate soul that happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
It's wrapped around the Men In Black story. I read a book on the subject of the MIB phenomenon several years ago, and the Mad Gasser was mentioned as a probable precursor.
As a historian from Botetourt County, VA, it surprised me to hear my small county mentioned, and what's more, in a story I'd never heard about! Going to do some digging into this later, for sure. Big props for pronouncing Botetourt correctly!
Wait…you know about the earlier gas attacks? If you find anymore information on those attacks a person could look to see if there are any commonalities shared between the attacks besides the usage of gas.
Now I'm imagining a staring contest between me and someone wearing a mask that obstructs a clear view of their eyes. Who knew someone who broke into my home and nearly killed me with an illness-inducing chemical agent was such a poor sport? XD
15:24 mass hysteria happens in Malaysian schools A LOT. Most of them barely even make the news. i remembered 6-7 years ago while i was in school, students be like randomly screaming, running, fainting one by one throughout a whole week. Some who didn't would describe seeing apparitions in bathrooms, libraries. Locals would believe it was purely paranormal but i think there is more to it considering the mass hysteria usually happens during exam seasons.
this is by far the most oddly specific horror story ive ever heard of. crazy person wearing high heels and a gas mask gassing sleeping people without motive then walking away. also, props to the artists, their works are always great
I've always been particularly freaked out by crimes like this where the perp(s) never get caught (Villisca, New Orleans Axe Man, Zodiac Killer, Jack the Ripper, Phantom Killer of Texarkana).
Personally I suspect the Gruber patriarch did something so heinous that the killer decided that they needed to wipe out the entire family. A true sins of the father situation. What that sin could have been I suspect it ties in part to his large fortune. Farming doesn’t generate a lot of money unless it’s a massive farm and also the Weimar Republic was going through a recession so the Grubers should have lost money yet they had a large fortune. I suspect the foreign newspaper found at the house is the clue that would explain the killer’s motive.
I used to live in Uganda and believe it or not, gas-facilitated robberies are extremely common there/in the nightly news super frequently. Crazy world we live in.
So, back in the early 1990s, the toyline Monster in My Pocket included a figure of the Mad Gasser of Mattoon, which is so odd that I thought I'd bring it up.
The most terrifying thing, is this is extremely mild, and relaxed compared to the hundreds of thousands of dark twisted stuff you can find and their followers on dark web stuff..
I believe the motivation was to have power over others. The gasser placed his/her victims in a vulnerable state and stared at them to feel dominance and to inflict fear upon their victims. Some people do get a perverse joy out of that stuff without the need to cause further harm. I owe you one for not putting a gas mask at the window at the very end. You'd think I'd be comfortable with masks but this is too much.
Good article; I was especially impressed by the mention of the Botetourt Co., Virginia, attacks. Those usually get forgotten. I wish some mention had been made of an incident involving 'mystery gas' in Coatesville PA from 1947. That one was much more serious then Mattoon, given that three people died in one house.
@@erichinkle7347 Huh. I wonder why more reporting wasn’t conducted at the time. A gas attack that killed three people should have generated more news in the local area.
@@erichinkle7347 With the lack of reporting and only second and third hand references I have to agree with you. Something that big would have generated more articles in the town. I know my hometown wrote an article on the Leatherman (a man who wandered through Fairfield county in Connecticut and part of New York State dressed in leather garb who never talked about his past. He’s still a big mystery because we have no clue about his identity) around the time an excavation of his grave was performed in order to conduct analyses. Unfortunately they only found rusted nails. Apparently the soil was so acidic it caused the bones to break down after the wooden coffin broke down.
"This is Papa Bear. Put out an APB for a male suspect, driving a... car of some sort, heading in the direction of... you know, that place that sells chili. Suspect is hatless. Repeat, hatless"
Great spooky but light hearted story. You hit on a great possible future story, about those Japanese bomb balloons. Saw a show where a family on the US coast found an old wheel and it didn't end well.
Bedtime Stories rocks it again! What a freaky story. I think that Chief of Police had a personal reason to blame it on mass hysteria. Too much physical evidence saying otherwise. Artwork continues to amaze. Love the fireflies!!
Great narration as always! A mysterious and interesting story. There should be a movie about it. In all societies from time immemorial, science was and still is one of the great mysteries. Like any artist, a scientist, aspiring scientist or unsuspecting person just discovers something completely different. And the journey to discovery begins. On that journey, doorways to other discoveries, no matter how trivial or routine, will be opened. There are many variables in science. It all comes down to purpose. It’s not about what it is, it is about how it is used.
Thanks for covering this, I read about it years ago and it's just so weird and doesn't seem to have a lot of coverage or concrete info. I've always been very curious about it. Also, your illustrator is great, I really love all of their sketches. Thanks for such a great channel. (And yes, you ARE my bedtime stories.)
The escaped German pow in Peoria is interesting, he “escaped” from a place called camp Ellis that’s totaled 17,500 acres of land and had 2,200 buildings, basically a city,There was only one successful escape, and that’s because of the POW’s English. “He really didn’t escape,” Cornelius says. “He just picked up the fence, walked out, hitched a ride to Peoria and got a train to Chicago… He didn’t get discovered until 1953, and by that time, he had a family.” Like the other POWs, he was sent back to Germany, but later returned to Chicago.
A couple of guys escaped from one of the POW camps here in Maine once, thinking the woods here were like the woods back home in Germany--i.e., they'd just walk a leisurely couple of miles to the nearest town, hop a train to Boston (which in their minds was like 10 miles away), sneak aboard a ship (how hard can that be?), and be in Europe the next week. After a couple-three days of wandering hopelessly around in the snow (did I mention these two Nobel laureates did this in January?), they found themselves back at the camp, whereupon they asked if they could please come back in, have some hot food, and pretend the whole thing never happened.
Wow, I was born in Mattoon Illinois and have lived in towns within 100 miles of Mattoon Illinois my whole life and this is the first time have heard of this. Thanks
Usually we see these creatures or beings that feel like the kind of thing you'd see Ben 10 or Danny Phantom take on. The Mad Gasser definitely feels more like something Batman or Spider-Man would handle. It feels like Bedtime Stories presented a potential supervillain.
Which is funny because if you try to find real confirmed cases of mass hysteria it's almost impossible. Mass hysteria itself is rare and controversial.
@@Jim-Mc it actually happens all the time because most people are herd-like and easily frightened. There's a book called Outbreak! By Hilary Evans that details most of the notable cases throughout modern history (including the Mad Gasser) and it pretty handily breaks down how groups of people can get caught up in this mania.
@@thebible4484 The real trick is figuring out the edges... mass hysteria is seemingly most common when there is a REAL threat, but one of a much more limited scope than the general public perceives. then the public starts seeing things that aren't there. Like the old spy thing. "I know spies exist! But I don't know where they are." So you go a bit nuts trying to guess who is or isn't. Any out of the ordinary behavior becomes suspicious... Which is the real problem with mass hysteria. There's a source. In this case it'd be believable if it wasn't for a few facts; A: not everyone in the area was affected, B: there were witnesses who were not affected. That makes a large scale chemical leak seem unlikely. The area would be too great unless the leak was MASSIVe.. but if it's that massive why do people only notice it when they're indoors? Also, Where did the IDEA of the Gasser come from? You need a way for a group to share the idea of what they think they're experiencing.
For several decades we should be able to identify and know by now if any known or unknown earthly or unearthly chemicals or gases or something else were possible or impossible to have been used at the time.
Me: "I'm surprised I haven't received a notification from Bedtime Stories today." 10 seconds later: *notification for a new Bedtime Stories video pops up* Also, this was certainly something different. I've never heard of this one before; and I've heard alot of strange/true crime stories. 🤔🤔 I want to know more. 😊😊
Yeah. What’s worse is that I suspect it my have been an attempt by Nazis at an invasion of America using a small town as part of an experiment and the gasser being a scientist or spy.
"The Mad Gasser". This guy sounds like he would make a good Batman villain. In fact, even the thumbnail reminds me of Ratcatcher's design from James Gunn's "The Suicide Squad".
"The Mad Gasser" could easily be a Batman villain.
The demented love child of Scarecrow and Harley Quinn.
I'm reminded of the depiction of doctor boys in the Golden Age Wonder Woman comics. She was an extremely unfeminine Japanese chemist
It could also refer to my friend's girlfriend... haha
I just finished watching"Gotham" (the series) and have to agree completely.
Sounds like my grandmother to me.
@@beeztrapp1612 Is she German?
A dude, coughing up blood with chemical burn: "Does this LOOK like mass hysteria?!"
Doctor: Yes, it does. It's called "psychogenic hemoptysis" and you'll be fine once you stop coughing
A woman in high heels, a gas mask, trying to knock me out? Sounds like a good way to start the night.
Sounds like the beginning of a film noir.
🤣
Sounds like a good time
ShortStop, yep sounds like a blast! 😂🤣. And mad? I always thought women were cuter when they got mad,😂.
@ShortStop ...Is that you, Dennis Hopper? Is this me?
This guy is like a B list Batman villain.
Lmao
Or a girl. The video says a witness thinks the gasser she saw was possibly female.
Discount Scarecrow.
Walmart scarecrow
@@Raccon_Detective. I’m waiting to hear of Dollar Store Scare Crow, the even worst version. So bad that the gas isn’t even noticed.
Title sounds like a Scooby Doo monster.
And he would've gotten away with it too if it wasn't for those darn meddling kids and their talking dog!
"Alright gang, It's time to find out who the Mad Gasser really is...*gasp* Chief Cole?!?!"
😂😂😂
Nah, sounds like someone who ate too much taco bell.
@Chris Crum, That's not Chief Cole. It's a mask! It's really...
*pulls off mask*
Old man Jenkins!?
My dog frequently launches gas attacks that render me incapacitated and vomiting.
LMFAO!
my Cat does the samething
It happens to the best of us mate
I'll never forget as a kid, my dumbass parents giving their dog spoiled milk. Two of my buddies and I were in the living room playing Nintendo that night, when suddenly we would hear, "Puh-sssssst", followed by the dog standing up, grumbling, then leaving the room. The smell was like a skunk sprayed the insides of a rotting cow carcass then crawled in, wrapped itself in sulfur and died. Funny thing is, he left left them multiple presents to clean up all over the house.
Tip: Don't feed him Hormel Chili.
"The Mad Gasser" - basically everyone's little punkass brother who let's one out in the car and chuckles to himself while everyone's like "who the F did that!?"
Nah, that's just "The Gasser". "The *MAD* Gasser" is your brother who's driving the car, lets one out, and then locks the window controls.
Had a brother-in-law who would cropdust random people at Wal-Mart. I think that qualifies.
Lol 🤣
Lol
Hilarious 😐😐😐
I wondered did anybody ever check the long-term health effects of these victims?
Good question.
This would actually make a great follow up video
According to googling I did no victim had long-term symptoms.
@@current9300 Good work, I still find it strange victims had long-term symptoms
@@Pembroke1 nitromethane gas
The escaped German POW that was mentioned, was never caught until 1984, after he turned himself in. He turned himself in because he went to use the post office, and saw a wanted poster of himself, with a computer enhancement of his age.
@@alexkaiser2839 Thanks for that, googled the name and that is one *fun* ass story. "This guy is one of the most wanted fugitives in the country!" "Here he is." "Actually, on second thought, we don't have anything to charge him with."
Did he really just never attempt to go back home after the war? Just chill in a foreign land for 40 years until you find a wanted poster of you and realize you should probably go home I guess.
@@redeye4516 given what was happening in post war Germany I don't know that I can blame him...
@@redeye4516 idk how to break it to u..but Germany wasn't exactly a very fun place to be after the war
@@redeye4516 I think it was cuz he would have been returning to East Germany under the Soviets.
Oh look one of the Ghost People escaped the Sierra Madre!
Spreadin that Cloud everywhere...
They just want you to join them...
They're just hoping to... Begin again
Quick, get some cosmic knives.
Someone grab my holo rifle
Wearing high heels to go on an attack strikes me as a pretty dumb thing to do, even if I did grow up reading comic books in which superheroines wore high-heeled boots.
Nicely recalled and noted there! Hah! :-)
And he or she even dropped their silver tube of lipstick! Wth...
@@Janellabelle and wet rag someone smelled for some reason
Can’t do sh** in high heels. I’m impressed.
Well said!! I also enjoy superheroin...
War always brings out the strangest of things
What about the ones before the war? It happened in Florida and Virginia well before ww2.
@Abraham Lincoln You ain’t lyin’!
Big Pharma testing side effects of their petroleum products on small town victims.
@@gotdangedcommiesitellyahwa6298 lmfao
@@isaacgidd Governments and industries do this shit all the time.
I'll speculate on his/her motivation. Sexual gratification from rendering others helpless and terrified.
What a troubling thing chemistry can be.
It's a good thing they didn't escalate.
Hopefully.
It’s possible there was a sexual bend to these attacks but somehow I doubt it.
However I did notice that the attacker was actually in the room of one of the victims whereas in other instances the attacker was always outside. So it is possible that the attacker was escalating or wanted a closer look because the boys body fell out of line of sight...?
As with most things chemistry isn' t inherently troubling. It's how PEOPLE choose to USE it that is the problem, not chemistry itself.
Honestly wouldn't put it past some weirdo just doing it for fun or personal enjoyment. It isn't that hard to make weird stuff in your basement.
Probably yeah, or at least the desire to feel "in control" of people. A lot of psychopaths or crazies have that desire, but it's possible this person had a morals enough to not want to kill, so this was a second best for them.
If the story with the boy was near the end of their reign then it was likely they were escalating too so that's... horrifying.
Brain chemistry is incredibly troubling...
Incredibly important to point out that anesthetic gas like ether was waaaaaaay easier to get back then than it is now. My grandfather was an MD and just had a bottle of the stuff at home, just in case. Ether, coincidentally, is blue. Some sort of doctor or assistant having a very disturbing obsession with gassing people seems pretty possible.
Excellent observation. The suspect did seem to know quite a bit about chemicals. otherwise, they wouldn't have brought the protective suit. They also seem to have a strange obsession with seeing people paralyzed.
They're still really easy to make if you have some basic chemistry knowledge. For ether you need sulfuric acid and alcohol, chloroform requires acetone and bleach. The person making it would need a distillation apparatus too. The thing is that neither knock people out easily or quickly. It takes about 5 minutes. Ether is only blue if it's dyed.
You friggin' beauty!
Was literally just thinking of going to bed.
Me too 🤣
When I was a kid this story was was often told along with our ghost stories....I had no idea it had a kernel of truth until I was much older. Truth is stranger than fiction.
A very weird case, people getting sick from a gas,, but no one died, and no lingering effects. really quite bizarre.
Well that's what Home Gas Corp. Says.
Everyone in neighborhood: Reports shadows in windows, running away, and leaving footprints.
Police: Hmm, clearly a gas leak.
Yikes! What a terrifying experience for those folks affected.
These stories are alot freakier when you live close to were they take place
Right? I live in Decatur, Illinois. This was genuinely the most terrifying episode yet.
What about the Lee-Enfield Monster?
@@NodDisciple1 I told you once, ask me about it!
I grew up 20 miles from Sleepy Hollow
I live in Mattoon, Il its interesting to know the history of the area
“what’s in the canister”
-smonk
“This is my vape.”
"I'd tell you, but then I'd have to kill you."
@@scottydo5282 'relax im just mucking around'
"Drugs"
Probably zyklon B
The title truly is a title of a scary bedtime story legend.
I had never heard of these incidents until now. As usual, great work on the art, music and narration. I especially loved that portrait of the Gasser coupled with animation. Creepy!
You never really know who's out there, all kinds of kooks and nuts looking to do weird things or worse. Some people get a charge out watching people suffer or freak out, keep those security cameras on!
Got to love the small town Law Enforcement, coming in with a weak cover story.
Well atleast My small town was able to bust a drug house....I think....I'm going to go look up those mjrders dad talked about.....
This story sounds eerily similar to what happened here in Zambia last year. There were a series of gas attacks across several towns that lasted up to 3 months. Victims reported a sweet smelling fragrance that quickly became overpowering and left them struggling to breath with severe vomiting. At its peak, as many as 36 households would be attacked in one night despite extensive patrols by local law enforcement and neighbourhood watch groups. One attacker who was caught claimed they had been hired by "powerful people" to gas residents before breaking in to draw a pint of blood from the victims once they were incapacitated. They would then deliver the blood to their employers for which they'd get K5000 (US$500) a litre. The police never confirmed the guy's claims but several victims were found with marks on their body that may have been made by a hypodermic needle. And a few other suspects arrested later on were found carrying containers with a liquid that was suspected to be human blood. The police never did release the lab test results of the liquid though. The incidents ended rather abruptly after the army was diploid to assist the police with night patrols but not until several people had died either from gassing or being beaten and burned to death by vigilante mobs that set upon any unfortunate soul that happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
This story has seriously creeped me out since hearing it as a kid, many years ago. Probably not sleeping much tonight 😳
Hahahaha
Me, too! Saw it in some magazine with eerie stories. Very, VERY weird! 😱
This is why I own an AR-15. I sleep pretty well every night.
It's wrapped around the Men In Black story.
I read a book on the subject of the MIB phenomenon several years ago, and the Mad Gasser was mentioned as a probable precursor.
@@truthseeker2321 u gotta think bout thought forms, tulpas
As a historian from Botetourt County, VA, it surprised me to hear my small county mentioned, and what's more, in a story I'd never heard about! Going to do some digging into this later, for sure. Big props for pronouncing Botetourt correctly!
Wait…you know about the earlier gas attacks? If you find anymore information on those attacks a person could look to see if there are any commonalities shared between the attacks besides the usage of gas.
Gasser:*Appears to be looking at me*
Me:"Don't blink... Don't.. Blink.."
Don’t blink don’t look away blink and you’re dead
Are you my mummy?
ARE YOU MY MUMMY?
Now I'm imagining a staring contest between me and someone wearing a mask that obstructs a clear view of their eyes. Who knew someone who broke into my home and nearly killed me with an illness-inducing chemical agent was such a poor sport? XD
That was the Weeping Angles, not the 'Are you my Mummy?' boy 😉
15:24 mass hysteria happens in Malaysian schools A LOT. Most of them barely even make the news. i remembered 6-7 years ago while i was in school, students be like randomly screaming, running, fainting one by one throughout a whole week. Some who didn't would describe seeing apparitions in bathrooms, libraries. Locals would believe it was purely paranormal but i think there is more to it considering the mass hysteria usually happens during exam seasons.
I like how they're content to be chill and leave off with a creepy vibe at the end instead of resorting to jump scares. Best channel on YT.
this is by far the most oddly specific horror story ive ever heard of. crazy person wearing high heels and a gas mask gassing sleeping people without motive then walking away. also, props to the artists, their works are always great
I've always been particularly freaked out by crimes like this where the perp(s) never get caught (Villisca, New Orleans Axe Man, Zodiac Killer, Jack the Ripper, Phantom Killer of Texarkana).
What about Hinterkaifeck? That one chills me to the bone....
@@PatSporrerMusic77 agree
Personally I suspect the Gruber patriarch did something so heinous that the killer decided that they needed to wipe out the entire family. A true sins of the father situation. What that sin could have been I suspect it ties in part to his large fortune. Farming doesn’t generate a lot of money unless it’s a massive farm and also the Weimar Republic was going through a recession so the Grubers should have lost money yet they had a large fortune. I suspect the foreign newspaper found at the house is the clue that would explain the killer’s motive.
you forgot spring heeled jack and mad gasser virginia
but this waa gasser was local.chemistry student farley
The title of this makes me wanna know more..and more about whats reallly goin on out there
As someone who lives 30minutes from Mattoon, this was talked about in my deviant behavior class lol.
I used to live in Uganda and believe it or not, gas-facilitated robberies are extremely common there/in the nightly news super frequently.
Crazy world we live in.
So, back in the early 1990s, the toyline Monster in My Pocket included a figure of the Mad Gasser of Mattoon, which is so odd that I thought I'd bring it up.
Well done! I have lived in Mattoon my entire life and always curious what people from outside of the area have to say about the case.
Mattoon is close to my hometown, well done on this story!
What about the Lee Enfield Monster?
@@NodDisciple1 The what now?
Why don't you ask Lee about it?
Mine was a spittoon.
My broham lives outside mattoon and I live about a hour from Enfield it closer to mt. Vernon
"A reminder for you to close your windows before going to bed at night."
Me: "Are you implying that I ever open my windows at all?" :P
Alot of sick and deranged people out there. We live in a nightmarish world!😱
The most terrifying thing, is this is extremely mild, and relaxed compared to the hundreds of thousands of dark twisted stuff you can find and their followers on dark web stuff..
@@Cramblit I'm fully aware of that there's a lot of sick s*** out there
A scary nightmare!!! Keep hoping I'll wake up!!!
Maybe the gasser was just someone out to scare the hell out of Matoon's citizens.
The David Pumpkins of his day, if you will
@@zackakai5173 Exactly.
TBH I'd totally do the same, just to scare people
@@ksoundkaiju9256 Maybe not the best idea in history.
I think it was some hippie dude puffing incense stick smoke into people's homes
Yo I grew up a town or so over from Mattoon. Some of my buddies still live there and in Charleston. Was NOT expecting this to be THAT Mattoon.
Idk high heeled footprints leaving an unconscious boys window sounds like physical evidence that he or she existed.
Yep.
man, i have missed new content from this channel. thank you so much for this episode, glad to have you back!
I love this one. I used to read it on "Ghosts of the Prairie" and it was a chilling story.
I believe the motivation was to have power over others. The gasser placed his/her victims in a vulnerable state and stared at them to feel dominance and to inflict fear upon their victims. Some people do get a perverse joy out of that stuff without the need to cause further harm.
I owe you one for not putting a gas mask at the window at the very end. You'd think I'd be comfortable with masks but this is too much.
idk about the Mad Gasser of Mattoon, but the Mad Gasser of My house is my dog.
Thats what you tell your guests ;)
@@Nefville shhhhhhh! xD
In mine, it's my boyfriend. 💩
Bless you
I am in my house. My wife would testify to that.
This one is true, I was born and raised in Mattoon. We all grow up hearing this story.
Good article; I was especially impressed by the mention of the Botetourt Co., Virginia, attacks. Those usually get forgotten. I wish some mention had been made of an incident involving 'mystery gas' in Coatesville PA from 1947. That one was much more serious then Mattoon, given that three people died in one house.
Yikes! Never heard of that one. I heard of the Virginia attacks that came before the attacks in Mattoon.
@@mirandagoldstine8548 I wish I could find more about the Coatesville business. There seems to be nothing online other than passing references.
@@erichinkle7347 Huh. I wonder why more reporting wasn’t conducted at the time. A gas attack that killed three people should have generated more news in the local area.
@@mirandagoldstine8548 You'd think so, yes. After searching and finding nothing for so long I'm beginning to suspect it's only an urban legend.
@@erichinkle7347 With the lack of reporting and only second and third hand references I have to agree with you. Something that big would have generated more articles in the town. I know my hometown wrote an article on the Leatherman (a man who wandered through Fairfield county in Connecticut and part of New York State dressed in leather garb who never talked about his past. He’s still a big mystery because we have no clue about his identity) around the time an excavation of his grave was performed in order to conduct analyses. Unfortunately they only found rusted nails. Apparently the soil was so acidic it caused the bones to break down after the wooden coffin broke down.
I was accused of being this entity after I ate a chili mac MRE.
I'm cackling in bed here 😂
Ouch!!!
this title is gotta be one of the most badass and villainous titles of a character out there!
Was that Mattoon's Police Chief the former Police Chief from Springfield, from The Simpsons?
"This is Papa Bear. Put out an APB for a male suspect, driving a... car of some sort, heading in the direction of... you know, that place that sells chili. Suspect is hatless. Repeat, hatless"
Either Chief Wigham, or Officer Barbrady. "Okay, move along folks. There's nothing to see here!"
You mean Cheif Wiggum?
And the principal of the school was Stan Smith's wife Francine.
I'm glad someone finally did this story.
I read about it a few times
Another excellent account. Anybody else get excited when they get a notification from Bedtime Stories. Got to be my favourite channel. Thanks dudes. X
Oh my stars perfect timing i was just looking for something spooky to listen to.
Great spooky but light hearted story. You hit on a great possible future story, about those Japanese bomb balloons. Saw a show where a family on the US coast found an old wheel and it didn't end well.
First Bob Gymlan uploads... Now you guys... This day can't get better.
What Bob uploaded!?!
I know where I'm off to next
@SonofEyeAboveAll effoff @riddell26 Yes he did! Go check him!
@formless777 You are welcome!
Shit! No notification! Thanks Diego!
Was just talking about that one. Still don't know what the devil that dude saw
Bedtime Stories rocks it again!
What a freaky story. I think that Chief of Police had a personal reason to blame it on mass hysteria. Too much physical evidence saying otherwise.
Artwork continues to amaze. Love the fireflies!!
Intriguing, interesting and exciting!.. what a story and what a narration!.. loved it!.!.
Time to sleep soon, better watch a bedtime story...
3AM ......What was that!
Great narration as always! A mysterious and interesting story. There should be a movie about it.
In all societies from time immemorial, science was and still is one of the great mysteries. Like any artist, a scientist, aspiring scientist or unsuspecting person just discovers something completely different. And the journey to discovery begins. On that journey, doorways to other discoveries, no matter how trivial or routine, will be opened.
There are many variables in science. It all comes down to purpose.
It’s not about what it is, it is about how it is used.
Another amazing episode. Better than Unsolved Mysteries, IMO
I love the old episodes of unsolved . How did u reply 5 days ago when this was just uploaded?
^
@@Mrmachinegunner131 Just another 'unsolved mystery'.
Thanks for covering this, I read about it years ago and it's just so weird and doesn't seem to have a lot of coverage or concrete info. I've always been very curious about it. Also, your illustrator is great, I really love all of their sketches. Thanks for such a great channel. (And yes, you ARE my bedtime stories.)
That is my hometown! I am stoked that this one is being highlighted!!
The mad gasser of mattoon. Reminds me of the phantom raspberry blower of old London Town.
Another awesome vid as always leaving us wanting more vids everytime 😎🤟
Happy Holidays from Northern AZ USA 🎁🎉🪅🎊 been watching your videos since The missing lighthouse keepers video 🙏🏼 Much Respect
The escaped German pow in Peoria is interesting, he “escaped” from a place called camp Ellis that’s totaled 17,500 acres of land and had 2,200 buildings, basically a city,There was only one successful escape, and that’s because of the POW’s English. “He really didn’t escape,” Cornelius says. “He just picked up the fence, walked out, hitched a ride to Peoria and got a train to Chicago… He didn’t get discovered until 1953, and by that time, he had a family.” Like the other POWs, he was sent back to Germany, but later returned to Chicago.
A couple of guys escaped from one of the POW camps here in Maine once, thinking the woods here were like the woods back home in Germany--i.e., they'd just walk a leisurely couple of miles to the nearest town, hop a train to Boston (which in their minds was like 10 miles away), sneak aboard a ship (how hard can that be?), and be in Europe the next week. After a couple-three days of wandering hopelessly around in the snow (did I mention these two Nobel laureates did this in January?), they found themselves back at the camp, whereupon they asked if they could please come back in, have some hot food, and pretend the whole thing never happened.
@@ZGryphon I would have probably asked to be let back in too lol
I really like the background music. Really eerie.
There is something in Mattoon.
Just a few hours from me! Never thought I’d see Mattoon featured on this (freaking awesome) channel! Awesome!!!
A Bedtime Stories that's local-ish to me. That leaves me with...mixed feelings.
I live Brooklyn however these stories give me a local town or suburb feeling such as the Amityville debacle
Wow, I was born in Mattoon Illinois and have lived in towns within 100 miles of Mattoon Illinois my whole life and this is the first time have heard of this. Thanks
A very interesting and mysterious case. Particularly given the description of the Mad Gasser as female, which is pretty unusual among such things.
I used to Live in Champaign, IL from from 2008 to just recently. Champaign, is 52 minutes away by from Mattoon by car.
The fart jokes in the comment section aren't funny but the shear AMOUNT of them is hilarious....
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣..... You win the internet, today.....
Farts, or jokes?
Sickeningly sweet...
@@boxelderinitiative3897 you're thinking of death, not gastric phenomena
It's a gas
Usually we see these creatures or beings that feel like the kind of thing you'd see Ben 10 or Danny Phantom take on. The Mad Gasser definitely feels more like something Batman or Spider-Man would handle. It feels like Bedtime Stories presented a potential supervillain.
The demented love child of the Scarecrow and Harley Quinn
I want to congratulate and thank you for using a hyphen in Spider-Man’s name. It’s not “Spiderman”, people!
@@jackalope2302 Or the real-life inspiration perhaps? This was the 40s after all....
I’m so glad that you guys are back with an interesting story. Keep it up! 😁😆
Thank you bedtime stories! Love from Lisa UK X ❤️
I wonder what modern toxicology might have revealed?
The Joker: ( *laughs* ) That's what I call a REAL GASSER!
That echoed in my head with with the Hamill joker voice perfectly
You're the Joker baby?
@@hadrakir4098 Sorry, nope.
Excellently done, but I think having the silhouette of the Mad Gasser appearing in the window at the end was a missed opportunity.
Hi im from mattoon thanks for covering the story! your team did a awesome job!!!
I grew up around mattoon and never heard about this till now
Wasn't expecting to see a story on my feed about the area where I went to high school and college! Nicely done.
Mass hysteria is a favorite go to when intellectuals experts can't find an explanation for what's happening.
Which is funny because if you try to find real confirmed cases of mass hysteria it's almost impossible. Mass hysteria itself is rare and controversial.
@@Jim-Mc it actually happens all the time because most people are herd-like and easily frightened. There's a book called Outbreak! By Hilary Evans that details most of the notable cases throughout modern history (including the Mad Gasser) and it pretty handily breaks down how groups of people can get caught up in this mania.
@@thebible4484 Not a fan of her or Robert Bartholomew.
@@thebible4484 The real trick is figuring out the edges... mass hysteria is seemingly most common when there is a REAL threat, but one of a much more limited scope than the general public perceives. then the public starts seeing things that aren't there.
Like the old spy thing. "I know spies exist! But I don't know where they are." So you go a bit nuts trying to guess who is or isn't. Any out of the ordinary behavior becomes suspicious...
Which is the real problem with mass hysteria. There's a source. In this case it'd be believable if it wasn't for a few facts; A: not everyone in the area was affected, B: there were witnesses who were not affected. That makes a large scale chemical leak seem unlikely. The area would be too great unless the leak was MASSIVe.. but if it's that massive why do people only notice it when they're indoors?
Also, Where did the IDEA of the Gasser come from? You need a way for a group to share the idea of what they think they're experiencing.
@@marhawkman303 Gossip was the way rumours spread before the internet came. Plain face to face and telephonic gossip.
For several decades we should be able to identify and know by now if any known or unknown earthly or unearthly chemicals or gases or something else were possible or impossible to have been used at the time.
A female villain, wow, and she was serving looks while watching people choke “femme fatale” at its finest
Yes!!🐍🐍
Plague Doctor ❤️
Villainess. 📕
This is one of my fav channels. You guys are awesome.
That's funny they call me the mad Gasser after I've had too many bean burritos 🤣
Taco Bell hits hard, doesn't it?
Ha ha ha...how clever.
I bet we won't hear that joke again.
I eat my Burritos with Maple Juice in it.
Have you ever heard the legend of...King Ass Ripper??🤔
@@sorcierenoire8651 it's better with hot sauce, that'll Let er Rip even harder! 😆🤣
Great to see this was just uploaded! Perfect before bed 🖤
Me: "I'm surprised I haven't received a notification from Bedtime Stories today."
10 seconds later: *notification for a new Bedtime Stories video pops up*
Also, this was certainly something different. I've never heard of this one before; and I've heard alot of strange/true crime stories. 🤔🤔 I want to know more. 😊😊
Thank you. I've been requesting this for some time with little bopee of seeing it here. Thanks again.
This incident has always especially creeped me out for some reason, it just seems too real.
Yeah. What’s worse is that I suspect it my have been an attempt by Nazis at an invasion of America using a small town as part of an experiment and the gasser being a scientist or spy.
Wearing high heels could also help reaching higher windows.....it is also a good way of confusing the witnesses
Damn, that final line! Now I'm terrified of opening windows! (Not that I wasn't before)
I was expecting the Gasser to either suddenly or slowly pop into view at the corner of the window or to dash across the window from left to right
8:58 "Francine Smith?" Her husband works for the CIA. It's a good thing Steve and Haley weren't home...
It was Roger!! He did it!
"The Mad Gasser". This guy sounds like he would make a good Batman villain. In fact, even the thumbnail reminds me of Ratcatcher's design from James Gunn's "The Suicide Squad".
Yeah, whoever they were they certainly left a lasting missing.
Thanks for the upload Bedtime crew. UK.