An 1835 illustration shows the lunar animals supposedly discovered by John Herschel from his observatory in South Africa.
Credit: Wikimedia
Before the 20th century, most reports of mass delusions or hysterical outbreaks - known to sociologists and psychologists as 'mass sociogenic illness' - involved people exposed to strict discipline for a long time.
Between the 15th and 19th centuries a popular belief in witches and demons, along with a growing strictness in some European convents, triggered dozens of hysterical outbreaks among nuns.
This is not surprising. Young girls were often coerced into joining isolating religious orders, practicing rigid discipline in confined, all-female living quarters.
Along with vows of chastity and poverty, many endured near-starvation diets, repetitious prayer rituals and lengthy fasts. Flogging and incarceration resulted from even minor transgressions. When hysteria arose, it could last for months; or wax and wane for years.
While European nunneries might have been a perfect breeding ground for mass delusions and hysteria, they are by no means the only places. And while much has been written about individual hysteria, little attention has been directed towards delusional or hysterical outbreaks among groups. Yet evidence of past episodes abound.
MIDDLE AGES
MEOWING NUNS
During the Middle Ages, dozens of outbreaks of hysterical fits were reported among repressed nuns in cloistered European Christian convents. At the time it was widely believed that certain animals, such as wolves, could possess people and in France cats were particularly despised and were considered familiar with the Devil.
In the 1844 book Epidemics of the Middle Ages, J. F. C. Hecker describes how a nun, in a very large convent in France, began to meow like a cat; shortly afterwards other nuns joined her. Eventually all the nuns meowed together daily at certain times, often for hours.
This troubled the surrounding Christian neighbourhood, who finally called a company of soldiers, who were placed at the entrance of the convent. They were provided with rods, and the nuns were told they would whip them until they promised to meow no more.
15TH CENTURY
BITING EPIDEMIC
A nun in a German nunnery fell to biting all her companions. Soon after, all the nuns in the convent began biting each other. The news of this infection among the nuns soon spread, and it now passed from convent to convent throughout a great part of Germany, principally Saxony and Brandenburg. The biting mania then visited the nunneries of Holland, and even travelled as far as Rome.
1630
POISONING BY THE DEVIL
A poisoning scare terrorised Milan, Italy, in 1630, coinciding with pestilence, plague and a prediction that the Devil would poison the city's water supply. On one April morning people awoke and became fearful upon finding "that all the doors in the principal streets of the city were marked with a curious daub, or spot," reported Charles Mackay in his 1841 book Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.
Soon there was alarm that the sign of the awaited poisoning was at hand, and the belief spread that corn and fruit had also been poisoned. Many people were executed. One elderly man was spotted wiping a stool before sitting on it, when he was accused of smearing poison on the seat. He was seized by an angry mob of women and pulled by the hair to a judge, but died on the way.
In another incident, a pharmacist and barber named Mora was found with several preparations containing unknown potions and accused of being in cahoots with the Devil to poison the city. He eventually confessed, after prolonged torture on the rack, admitting to cooperating with the Devil and foreigners and to poisoning the city and anointing the doors.
Under duress he named several accomplices who were eventually arrested and tortured. They were all pronounced guilty and executed. "The number of persons who confessed that they were employed by the Devil to distribute poison is almost incredible," says Mackay. "Day after day persons came voluntarily forward to accuse themselves."
1639
SATANIC IMPS
Mackay also reported that in 1639, at an all-girls' school in Lille, France, 50 pupils were convinced by their headmistress that they were under Satanic influence. Antoinette Bourignon had the children believing that little black angels were flying around their heads, and that the Devil's imps were everywhere.
Soon, each of the students confessed to witchcraft, flying on broomsticks and even eating baby flesh. The students came close to being burned at the stake but were spared when blame shifted to the headmistress, who escaped at the last minute. The episode occurred near the end of the Continental European witch mania of 1400 to 1650, when at least 200,000 people were executed following allegations of witchcraft.
1691-1693
WITCHES OF SALEM
Probably the most famous case of mass delusion was Salem Village (now Danvers, Massachusetts). In 1692, the village was the scene of a moral panic that led to trials, torture, imprisonment and executions. Some died in jail or during torture and at least 20 residents lost their lives. Social paranoia was such that two dogs were even accused and executed. All convictions were based on ambiguous evidence.
The witch mania began in December 1691, when eight girls living in the vicinity of Salem exhibited strange behaviours including disordered speech, convulsive movements, and bizarre conduct. Explanations for the 'fits' range from outright fakery to hysteria to fungal poisoning of the food supply. Soon, hundreds of residents were accused of witchcraft, and witch trials were held. The madness ended in May 1693, when Governor William Phips ordered all suspects released.
1761
LONDON PANIC
On 8 February 1761 a minor earthquake hit London. Another tremor occurred in March, and the coincidence became the subject of widespread discussion. A man named William Bell then predicted that London would be destroyed in a third quake on April 5. "As the awful day approached, the excitement became intense, and great numbers of credulous people resorted to all the villages within a circuit of 20 miles, awaiting the doom of London," Mackay wrote of the hysteria. People paid exorbitant fees to temporarily board out of London or camped in fields. When the designated time arrived, nothing happened.
1806
END OF THE WORLD
In 1806 a panic spread through Leeds and the surrounding communities, where people believed the end of the world was at hand. It began when a hen from a nearby village began to lay eggs inscribed with the message, 'Christ is coming'. Large numbers of people flocked to the site to examine the eggs and see the 'miracle' firsthand. Many were convinced that the end was near and became devoutly religious. Mackay describes how the excitement quickly turned to disappointment when a man "caught the poor hen in the act of laying one of her miraculous eggs" and soon realised "that the egg had been inscribed with some corrosive ink, and cruelly forced up again into the bird's body."
1835
BAT-MEN ON THE MOON
During the final week of August 1835, a long article appeared on the front page of the New York Sun. It bore the headline "Great Astronomical Discoveries Lately Made By Sir John Herschel, At the Cape of Good Hope".
A series of six reports caused a worldwide sensation. Attributed to journalist Richard Adams Locke, the paper claimed that astronomer Sir John Herschel had perfected the world's most powerful telescope in a South African observatory and had discovered various life forms on the Moon: a two-legged beaver, a horned bear, miniature zebras and colourful birds among them. His most astonishing observation, though, was the human-like forms on the Moon, flying about with bat-like wings. The creatures were given the scientific name of Vespertilio-homo, or bat-man.
The beings were described with angelic innocence, peacefully coexisting with their fellow creatures in an environment apparently absent of carnivores. Great excitement prevailed in New York City and spread around the world; most newspapers had been hoodwinked, including The New York Times. Locke published the articles in a pamphlet and sold 60,000 copies within a month. The New York-based Journal of Commerce eventually unmasked the hoax. It was only much later that Herschel heard of the observations he had supposedly made.
1937
THE NIGHT-TIME HEADHUNTERS
During March 1937, Sutan Sjahrir, Indonesia's first prime minister, was living on the Moluccan island of Banda when he described a panic that swept through his village. It coincided with rumours that a tjoelik (someone who collects human heads for the government) was operating in the area and searching for a head to be placed near a local jetty that was being rebuilt.
According to tradition, government construction projects would crumble without such an offering. Sjahrir wrote that "people have been living in fear" and were "talking and whispering about it everywhere", and after dark the streets were deserted, and there were many reports of strange noises and sightings. "Every morning there are new stories, generally about footsteps or voices, or a house that was bombarded with stones, or an attack on somebody by a tjoelik with a noose, or a cowboy lasso. Naturally, the person who was attacked got away from the tjoelik in a nick of time," Sjahrir wrote, describing the scare as "mass psychosis".
1938
INVASION OF EARTH
On Halloween 1938, a live fictional radio drama - based on the book War of the Worlds by British author H.G. Wells - was adapted to an American setting, broadcast live across much of the U.S. on CBS by The Mercury Theatre on the Air. It depicted an invasion by Martians who had landed in Grovers Mill, New Jersey, and soon began attacking with heat rays and poison gas.
In 1940, Princeton University psychologist Hadley Cantril concluded that an estimated 1.2 million listeners became excited, frightened or disturbed. Subsequent reviews by sociologists in the 1980s concluded there was little evidence of widespread panic - few examples of the mobilisation of arms or fleeing of towns - but a collective delusion did ensue.
1944
MAD GASSER OF MATTOON
During the first two weeks of September 1944, residents of Mattoon, Illinois, were thrust into the media spotlight after a series of imaginary gas attacks by a 'phantom anaesthetist'.
On September 1, Mattoon police received a phone call that a woman and her daughter had been left nauseated and dizzy after being sprayed with a sweet-smelling gas by a mysterious figure lurking near their bedroom window. The woman also said she experienced slight, temporary difficulty in walking. Despite the ambiguous circumstances and lack of evidence, the incident was afforded sensational coverage in the Mattoon Daily Journal-Gazette: "Anaesthetic Prowler on Loose". After seeing the story, two other Mattoon families recounted for police similar 'gas attacks' in their homes just prior to the incident.
Before the reports ceased, police logged more than two dozen calls involving at least 29 victims, most of whom were female. Their transient symptoms included nausea, vomiting, dry mouth, palpitations, difficulty walking and in one instance a burning sensation in the mouth. University of Illinois psychologist Donald Johnson investigated the episode, concluding that it was a case of mass hysteria.
Given the influential role of the Mattoon news media, it may be that victims were redefining mundane symptoms such as a panic attack, chemical smell, pins and needles in one's limbs and the consequences of anxiety such as nausea, insomnia, shortness of breath, shakiness, dry mouth and dizziness as gasser-related.
1947
FLYING SAUCERS
On 24 June 1947, Kenneth Arnold (below) was flying his private plane in Washington state when he saw what appeared to be nine glittering objects flying in echelon-like formation. He kept the objects in sight for about three minutes before they were lost to view.
Worried that he may have observed guided missiles from a foreign power, Arnold flew to Pendleton, Oregon, where he visited the FBI office. Finding it closed, he approached the East Oregonian newspaper.
After listening to Arnold's story, journalist Bill Bequette filed a report for the Associated Press, which eventually appeared in more than 150 newspapers. Arnold described the objects as crescent-shaped, referring to their movement as "like a saucer would if you skipped it across the water". It was headline writers in various newspapers who coined the term 'flying saucer'.
There are a few scattered historical sightings of disc-shaped objects, but no consistent pattern emerges until 1947. It's likely that the global wave of 'flying saucer' reports that followed Arnold's sighting were inspired to use the same 'saucer' motif. Flying saucers are regarded as a media-generated collective delusion unique to the 20th century.
1953
VIRGIN MARY IN PUERTO RICO
At 11:00 am on 25 May 1953, an estimated 150,000 people converged on a well in the community of Sábana Grande, Puerto Rico, to await the appearance of the Virgin Mary as predicted by seven local children.
Over the next six hours, a team of sociologists led by Melvin Tumin and Arnold Feldman mingled in the crowd conducting interviews. During this period, some people reported seeing coloured rings encircling the Sun, and a silhouette of the Virgin in the clouds, while others experienced healings, and a general sense of wellbeing. Others neither saw nor experienced anything extraordinary.
A media frenzy preceded the event, and a local mayor enthusiastically organised the visionaries to lead throngs of pilgrims in mass prayers and processions. Tumin and Feldman found that the majority of pilgrims believed in the authenticity of the children's claim, and were seeking cures for conditions that physicians had deemed incurable.
1954
DAMAGED WINDSHIELD EPIDEMIC
On 23 March 1954, reports appeared in Seattle newspapers of damaged car windshields north of Seattle. Reports spread over the next few weeks, eventually reaching Seattle by nightfall on April 14. By the end of the next day, weary police had answered 242 phone calls from concerned residents, reporting tiny pit marks on over 3,000 vehicles. In some cases, whole parking lots were said to be affected. Soon, reports quickly declined and ceased: on April 16 police logged 46 calls, followed by 10 calls, and then none, according to a study by the University of Washington.
People reported tiny pit marks grew into coin-sized bubbles embedded within the glass; they were typically attributed to atomic fallout from hydrogen bomb tests that had been recently conducted in the Pacific and had received saturation media coverage. At the height of the incident, the Seattle Mayor even sought emergency assistance from the White House.
Subsequent analysis of windshields by University of Washington labs found they contained tiny particles produced by the incomplete combustion of bituminous coal, which had been a common feature of everyday life in Seattle and could not pit or penetrate windshields.
1956
PHANTOM SLASHER OF TAIWAN
For a two-week period in 1956, residents near Taipei, Taiwan, lived in fear that they would be the next victim of a crazed villain prowling the city and slashing people at random with a razor. At least 21 victims were reported, mostly low-income women and children. In his 1965 book The Phantom Slasher of Taipei: Mass Hysteria in a Non-Western Society, Norman Jacobs - who had been teaching in Taipei at the time - conducted a survey of local press coverage and concluded that local rumours, amplified by sensational press coverage, fomented the scare.
In one case, a man told police in detail how he had been slashed by a man carrying a mysterious black bag; but when a doctor determined the wound was made by a blunt object, the man admitted he could not recall exactly how he was wounded, but assumed he had been slashed "because of all the talk going around".
Police eventually concluded the 'slashings' came from inadvertent, everyday contact that would normally have gone unnoticed. Of the 21 slashing claims examined, "five were innocent false reports, seven were self-inflicted cuts, eight were due to cuts other than razors, and one was a complete fantasy."
1968-1971
APPARITIONS OF THE VIRGIN MARY
From April 1968 to May 1971, more than 100,000 people reported observing Virgin Mary apparitions above a Coptic Orthodox Church at Zeitoun, Egypt.
Witnesses' descriptions varied between two main types: small, bright, short-lived lights nicknamed 'doves'; and more enduring, less intense, diffuse patches of glowing light.
Canadian neuropsychologist Michael Persinger of Laurentian University and his American colleague John Derr analysed seismic activity in the region from 1958 to 1979, and found a peak in the number of earthquakes during 1969, and evidence of microseismic activity between apparitions.
They attributed the 'doves' to earthquake lights: luminous aerial phenomena often reported near areas of seismic activity or volcanic eruptions, but for which there is no established explanation - theories range from a form of gas discharge to a local disruption of the Earth's ionosphere. The scientists concluded that those who reported sightings were predisposed by their religious background to interpreting the light displays as appearances of the Virgin Mary.
1975-1996
EL CHUPACABRA
Between February and March 1975, reports circulated around Moca, Puerto Rico, of a mysterious creature attacking farm animals, draining their blood and scooping out chunks of their flesh, and residents reported hearing loud screeches or flapping wings coinciding with the attacks. Academics and police examined the carcasses, and put the attacks down to everything from humans to snakes and vampire bats; it was dubbed 'el vampiro de Moca'.
In November 1995, similar attacks were reported in the area, by then attributed to chupacabras or 'goatsuckers', a mythical animal of Spanish lore. They were described as a "bristly, bulge-eyed rat with the hind legs of a kangaroo, capable of escaping after its crimes in high speed sprints" and exuding a sulphur-like stench. At its height, one emergency services officer in a small city in the area reported spending "half his time responding to chupacabras calls".
A specialist chupacabras website spread the story, and by May 1996, the site was ranked in the top 5% of all sites. Attacks were reported across the Caribbean, as far south as Argentina and Chile and as far north as the United States. The chupacabras flap ended abruptly in mid-1996, and almost nothing has been reported on it since.
1990
VANISHING GENITALS
During 1990, an episode of 'vanishing' genitalia caused widespread fear across Nigeria. Accusations were usually triggered by incidental body contact with a stranger in a public place, after which the male 'victim' would feel strange scrotum sensations and grab their genitals to confirm that they were still there. Then they would confront the person as a crowd would gather, accusing them of being a 'genital thief', before stripping naked to convince bystanders that their penis was really missing.
Many 'victims' claimed that their penis had been returned once the alarm had been raised or that, although the penis was now back, "it was shrunken and so probably a 'wrong' one or just the ghost of a penis".The accused were often threatened or beaten until the penis had been "fully restored", and in some instances, the accused was beaten to death.
Psychiatrist Sunny Ilechukwu described the scene in one city: "Men could be seen in the streets of Lagos holding on to their genitalia either openly or discreetly with their hands in their pockets. Women were also seen holding on to their breasts directly or discreetly by crossing the hands across the chest. It was thought that inattention and a weak will facilitated the 'taking' of the penis or breasts. Vigilance and anticipatory aggression were thought to be good prophylaxis."
The belief in vanishing genitalia was not only plausible but also institutionalised; many influential Nigerians expressed outrage when police released suspected genital thieves. A Christian priest even claimed that a Bible passage where Jesus asked "Who touched me?" because the "power had gone out of him," referred to genital theft.
Robert Bartholomew is a New Zealand-based writer; his latest book is Outbreak! The Encyclopaedia of Extraordinary Behaviour. Erich Goode is a sociologist at the University of Maryland, and author of Paranormal Beliefs: A Sociological Introduction.
This is an edited extract of an article which first appeared in Skeptical Inquirer magazine.
