# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
An ‘Epidemical Distemper’: Conversion and Disorder, then and now - Commonplace

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
As opposing groups fight to defend antagonistic beliefs, their accounts take on a life of their own, such that the women’s existence becomes most important not in and of itself but rather as a register of broader cultural struggles.

# data[].attributes.body
Mad Gasser of Mattoon Illinois

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Mad Gasser of Mattoon – History, Philosophy, and Newspaper Library – U of I Library

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In September of 1944 the front pages of the Daily Illini were covered with updates about the ongoing war. The newspaper readily chronicled major developments in the war as well as the deaths of young men who, just a few short years before, had once walked the university’s halls. Given the amount of bloodshed that was unfolding around the world, it is easy to miss the newspapers’ coverage of one particularly strange event, one that would come to be called the Mad Gasser of Mattoon.

# data[].attributes.body
At a convent in medieval France, a Nun started meowing one day. Other nuns started copying her until they were all meowing nonstop. It got so severe that groups were sent to the convent to shut them up.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In sociology and psychology, mass hysteria is a phenomenon that transmits collective illusions of threats, whether real or imaginary, through a population and society as a result of rumors and fear.[1][2] In medicine, the term is used to describe the spontaneous manifestation—or production of chemicals in the body—of the same or similar hysterical physical symptoms by more than one person.[3][4]

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Hollinwell incident refers to an unexplained event in July 1980 when around 300 children suffered fainting attacks, nausea and other symptoms. The incident happened at the Hollinwell Showground in Kirkby-in-Ashfield, in Nottinghamshire, England, and the exact cause has never been determined. The two leading theories relate to mass hysteria and the use of pesticides in nearby fields.

In 1980, the Hollinwell Show, an annual event at the Hollinwell Showground near Kirkby-in-Ashfield, took place on Sunday 13 July. As part of the event the Forest League of Juvenile Jazz Bands decided to hold a charity show, creating a Junior Brass and Marching Band competition, with entrants coming from across the East Midlands. Around 500 children from 11 marching bands were in attendance, many of them brought in by coaches from up to 40 miles (65 kilometres) away. With the show scheduled to begin at 9am, many of the children were tired from their journeys and nervous about performing.

At around 10:30, band members began to collapse without any apparent explanation and the fainting seemed to be contagious. Children began "[falling] down like nine pins" according to one witness and soon the numbers of ailing children reached into the hundreds. Symptoms also included vomiting, sore eyes and throats, and dizziness. One girl described her symptoms: "My legs and arms felt as if they had no bones in them and I had a bad headache".

The estimated number of victims was around 300, including children, adults, and babies, and 259 people were taken to four nearby hospitals including the Queen's Medical Centre in Nottingham, with nine children kept in overnight.

A Fortean Times investigation reported that several horses were also taken ill, but admits that any link to the incident is conjecture.

The exact cause of the widespread illnesses is still disputed. Initial investigations by Ashfield District Council looked into a variety of possible causes, including contaminated water supplies, food poisoning, radio waves, and crop spraying of the nearby fields. The use of pesticides became the favoured explanation, with a 2003 episode of the BBC news and current affairs programme revealing the local use of the pesticide tridemorph. Banned by the British government in 2000, tridemorph was discovered to be a harmful substance described by the World Health Organization (WHO) as "moderately hazardous". However, these investigations took place over 20 years after the event and disagree with the official findings. The official inquiry did reveal the use of Calixin, a pesticide that contains tridemorph, but it was not considered to be dangerous at the time.

The official inquiry ruled that mass hysteria was the likely cause, with the symptoms experienced by the children demonstrating some of the characteristics of such an outbreak. People present at the event were adamant that the symptoms were real and not the result of imagination or hysteria. They also expressed their frustration at never having received a satisfactory explanation. In 2003 the council had no plans to revisit the incident or reopen the inquiry.

An episode of on BBC Radio 4, in which Steve Punt investigated the incident, was broadcast on 24 August 2013. Prior to the broadcast, radio researchers had reached out through the Mansfield local newspaper appealing for any locals to come forward at their expected visit into the area on 25 June. They also confirmed that an official report into the incident was produced but could not be traced afterwards.

This was followed by a further examination during the second episode of Mystery Map on ITV on 27 November 2013.

On the 42nd anniversary of the incident at "the Fainting Field", a BBC local radio reporter created a podcast recounting the events, and investigating what could have happened by consulting a forensic science lecturer from Nottingham Trent University, who hypothesised that different cleaning products could have been used in a temporary toilet block. When combined, these could have created chlorine gas, which can produce similar symptoms to those reported.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Hollinwell incident refers to an unexplained event in July 1980 when around 300 children suffered fainting attacks, nausea and other symptoms. The incident happened at the Hollinwell Showground in Kirkby-in-Ashfield, in Nottinghamshire, England, and the exact cause has never been determined. The two leading theories relate to mass hysteria and the use of pesticides in nearby fields.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Murky Truth About the Meowing French Nuns

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The idea of an outbreak of nuns trading their hymns for the sounds of wailing felines – especially in a medieval French convent – is not only creepy but it also feels like the premise o…

# data[].attributes.body
The June Bug Epidemic of 1962

In June of 1962, 60 workers in a U.S. textile mill began to come down with bizarre symptoms: rashes, nausea and numbness. The media quickly latched onto the story, naming it the “June Bug Plague” for the insects the workers believed were making them sick. Yet entomologists called to the scene found no trace of June bugs.

Psychologists who interviewed the sick workers found that more than 90 percent of victims worked the same shift, most worked overtime hours and that 50 of them only began reporting their symptoms after they had seen media coverage of the outbreak. Stress, coupled with the power of suggestion, were the likely culprits.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
7 Mysterious Mass Illnesses That Defied Explanation | HISTORY

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
From a dancing plague to a laughing epidemic, the symptoms were clear—but the culprit was not.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The nationwide weirdness that was the Windshield-Pitting Mystery began in the spring of 1954. Looking back at the events today may give us a window - OK, a windshield - on the makeup and the mindset of mid-20th-century America.

The epidemic's epicenter, according to HistoryLink - an online compendium of Washington state history - was the town of Bellingham, where "tiny holes, pits, and dings ... seemingly appeared in the windshields of cars at an unprecedented rate" in late March.

"Panicked residents," the website reports, suspected "everything from cosmic rays to sand-flea eggs to fallout from H-bomb tests."

In his Introduction to Collective Behavior and Collective Action, David L. Miller writes that "the testing of nuclear weapons and the threat of nuclear war" have been viewed as one source of the anxiety. The Huffington Post later called it "mass hysteria."

The glass-pocking was soon noted in other Washington communities, including Anacortes and Oak Harbor. In mid-April 1954, the strange wave of windshield-dinging reportedly swept through the city of Seattle.

The governor of Washington, a team of university scientists and even President Dwight D. Eisenhower were notified of the mass mystery.

Was it hyped-up hysteria? Copycat vandalism? Bizarre repercussions from nuclear testing?
The Pits And The Pendulum
After all, America has been host to all three phenomena.

Historically, mass hysteria in this country is often associated with the 17th century witch trials in Salem, Mass. In the mid-19th century, graveyard vandalism was prevalent in communities from Pennsylvania to Tennessee to Ohio. And in the 1960s, children all over the country were warned not to eat snow because of possible radiation from nuclear tests.

In Washington state, law enforcement officials scrutinized the windshields of 15,000 cars during the 1954 episode and, according to HistoryLink, discovered that more than 3,000 had been damaged.

Upon investigation, law enforcement officials ruled out vandalism and radioactive fallout. A representative of Seattle's police crime laboratory, according to HistoryLink, "declared that all of the damage reports were composed of '5 per cent hoodlum-ism, and 95 per cent public hysteria.' Puget Sound residents had unwittingly become participants in a textbook example of collective delusion. By April 17, 1954, pitting incidents abruptly ceased."
No Pocks On Any Houses
Sightings waned in Washington. But - despite Seattle receiving most of the attention - reports continued to come in from around the country.

As International News Service noted on April 19, 1954, pitted windshields were reported in at least nine states and Canada, all told. Residents of California, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Oregon and Wisconsin - as well as Washington - told authorities about mysterious marks on their car windshields. In Mount Pleasant, Mich., pockmarks were found on the glass panes of greenhouses. In other places, airplane cockpit glass appeared to be affected.

"Anywhere from 10 to 20 blue-edged pits first appear in the glass, although as many as 50 'craters' may be discernible later," the reporter observed. "The tiny holes do not pierce the glass, but pit depth of 1/16th of an inch have been reported."

Curiously, no pitting occurred on windows of homes, side windows of cars or other vertically positioned glass. "This led one observer to believe that whatever is causing the pitting," the INS reported, "is coming straight down from the sky at probably a high altitude."

In Canton, Ohio, some 1,000 residents notified police that their windshields had been "blemished in a mysterious manner," the Daily Mail of Hagerstown, Md., reported on April 17. And United Press in New York noted on April 20 that "new reports of mysterious windshield pittings came in today almost as fast as theories about what causes them." A Canadian scientist posited that the marks were made by the skeletons of minute marine creatures that had been propelled into the air by hydrogen bomb testing in the Pacific Ocean.

In Utah, someone suggested that acid from flying bugs might be the source of the windshield-denting, but a Brigham Young University biologist disproved the theory, the Provo Daily Herald reported on June 27.

As summer rolled on, reports of pitting decreased everywhere and the country moved on to building backyard fallout shelters.

But the question remains: What about those pitted windshields?
The Pitfalls Of Media
For guidance, we turn to Missouri State University sociologist David Rohall, who has taught courses in social movements and collective behavior for more than a decade.
What was the cause of the windshield-pitting in Seattle and other places?
"Much of what happens in society is a numbers game," Rohall says. "If you have more people, any phenomenon starts to appear more common if you focus on any one event or behavior."

Even something that is very infrequent may start to appear to be a trend, he says, "when you aggregate those events. There are millions of cars in Washington state but thousands of cases of pitting. While thousands sounds like a huge phenomenon, it represents less than 1 percent of cars. If everyone is looking for and reporting it, it would appear to be a conspiracy of some sort."
Since there was physical evidence of windshield-pocking, did that put the incidents in a different category from other invisible phenomena that have triggered collective behavior?
Windshield-pitting, Rohall says, "may be more like crop circles in which there is physical evidence that 'something' happened but no one is certain of the cause. Of course, we have since found evidence that, in some cases, people utilize special equipment to make those crop circles. The cause of the pitting is different because it would be very difficult to capture someone creating them."
Is America still susceptible to a kind of mass hysteria that would lead to similar events?
"Most people in the field no longer believe in mass hysteria as a cause of large-group behavior," Rohall says. "The idea came from Gustave Le Bon, a French theorist trying to explain the strange behavior of large groups during the French Revolution, in which average citizens began killing large numbers of people via the guillotine. What would cause them to do such a heinous thing?"

Even if the theory were true, Rohall says, "it is designed to be applied to situations of heightened emotional arousal - for example: large crowds. While the ideas about pitting may have 'caught on' among people in the region, I doubt it was an emotional contagion that drove them to act in a particular way."
So what was it, exactly, that caused large numbers of people to report pocked windshields?
" War of the Worlds is a wonderful example of how the media emphasizes the few 'real cases' of hysteria without recognizing that the vast majority of people knew that the radio program was fictional and did nothing," Rohall adds. "Like crop circles, we know that some of them are man-made, so might these pits. However, the media may have had people start noticing the pits that had already been there."

He likens the experience to this: "It is very common for people to believe that they have contracted an illness when they hear a doctor describe a medical problem and the symptoms associated with that problem. I suspect that most people already had these pits all along and only attributed it to the mysterious cause when they heard other people doing it. Still others may have resulted from vandalism or new cases from simple accidents - debris from the roads. Is this hysteria or simply logical thinking utilizing information from the media and their own situation - a pitted car? Some research about supposed 'hysteria' really shows that people are not hysterical at all."

Follow me @NPRHistoryDept; lead me by writing lweeks@npr.org

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The nationwide weirdness that was the Windshield-Pitting Mystery began in the spring of 1954. Looking back at the events today may give us a window - OK, a windshield - on the makeup and the mindset of mid-20th-century America.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
wenty-five years ago, at precisely 6.51pm on 16 December 1997, hundreds of children across Japan experienced seizures. In total, 685 - 310 boys and 375 girls - were taken by ambulance to hospital. Within two days, 12,000 children had reported symptoms of illness. The common factor in this sudden mass outbreak was an unlikely culprit: an episode of the Pokémon cartoon series.

The instalment in question, Dennō Senshi Porygon (Electric Soldier Porygon), was the 38thin the Pokémon anime 's first season - and initially, at least, it sparked a medical mystery. Twenty minutes into the cartoon, an explosion took place, illustrated by an animation technique known as paka paka, which broadcast alternating red and blue flashing lights at a rate of 12Hz for six seconds. Instantly, hundreds of children experienced photosensitive epileptic seizures - accounting for some, but far from all, of the hospitalisations.

Ten-year-old Takuya Sato said: "Towards the end of the programme there was an explosion, and I had to close my eyes because of an enormous yellow light like a camera flash." A 15-year-old girl from Nagoya reported: "As I was watching blue and red lights flashing on the screen, I felt my body becoming tense. I do not remember what happened afterwards."

The condition is perhaps best understood as the placebo effect in reverse. People can make themselves ill from an idea

The phenomenon, headlined "Pokémon Shock" by Japanese media, became big news - it was reported around the world. The cartoon's producers were questioned by police, while the ministry of health, labour and welfare held an emergency meeting. The share price of Nintendo, the company behind the Pokémon games, dropped by 3.2%.

To medical experts, the figure of 12,000 children requiring medical treatment made no sense. The programme had been watched by 4.6 million households. About one in 5,000 people has photosensitive epilepsy: 0.02%. The number of children reporting symptoms seemed out of all proportion.

The mystery persisted for four years, until it piqued the attention of Benjamin Radford, a research fellow at the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry in the US, and co-host of the podcast Squaring the Strange. "The investigation had just stalled, the mystery sort of faded away without an explanation," he says. "I wanted to see if I could solve the case."

Along with Robert Bartholomew, a medical sociologist, he set about examining the timeline of events, and unearthed a key detail. "What people missed was that it wasn't just a one-night event but instead unfolded over several days, and the contagion occurred in schools and over the news media."

Orson Welles rehearsing The War of the Worlds in 1938. Photograph: World History Archive/Alamy

What Radford and Bartholomew discovered was that the vast majority of affected children had become ill after hearing about the programme's effects. Although the cartoon's transmission on 16 December did indeed cause hundreds of children to experience symptoms resulting from photosensitive epilepsy, something else was at play in the subsequent cases. The next day, in playgrounds and classrooms, in news bulletins and at breakfast tables, all the talk was of Pokémon Shock. At which point, more children began to feel unwell. This was exacerbated when, astonishingly, some news shows actually screened the offending clip. But this time, the symptoms (headaches, dizziness, vomiting) were, says Radford, "much more characteristic of mass sociogenic illness [MSI] than photosensitive epilepsy".

MSI, also known as mass psychogenic illness (MPI), and more colloquially as mass hysteria, is a well-documented phenomenon with cases spread throughout history, from meowing nuns and dancing epidemics in the middle ages to an outbreak of uncontrollable laughter in Tanzania in 1962. According to Radford: "MSI is complex and often misunderstood, but basically it's when anxiety manifests itself in physical symptoms that can be spread through social contact. It is often found in closed social units such as factories and schools, where there is a strong social hierarchy. The symptoms are real - the victims are not faking or making them up - but the cause is misattributed." The condition is perhaps best understood as the placebo effect in reverse. People can make themselves ill from nothing more than an idea.

The Pokémon Shock event wasn't the only case of a broadcast programme triggering an outbreak of MSI. In May 2006, the Padre António Vieira secondary school in Lisbon reported 22 cases of an unknown virus spreading rapidly in its halls. Students complained of difficulty breathing, rashes, dizziness and fainting. The school shut down as news of the virus spread. Before long, it had affected more than 300 students in 15 Portuguese schools, many of which closed.

Students complained of difficulty breathing, rashes, dizziness and fainting. The school shut down

Doctors were baffled, and could find no evidence of the virus, beyond the students' symptoms. One medic, Dr Mario Almeida, said at the time: "I know of no disease which is so selective that it only attacks schoolchildren."

Then the strange truth began to emerge. Just before the outbreak, the popular teen soap Morangos com Açúcar (Strawberries with Sugar) had aired a storyline in which a terrible disease had struck a school. While working on an experiment with a virus (not a noted part of the high-school syllabus, one imagines) a character inadvertently released it and students were immediately struck down, the sickness spreading mercilessly through the fictional school of Colegio Da Barra.

Back in the real world, with the end of the academic year approaching, and many students stressed about exams, the story simply had a more dramatic effect on its young audience than had been intended.

The spoof Ghostwatch documentary from 1992. Photograph: BBC

It is not only schoolchildren who are susceptible, however. On 31 October 1992, a Halloween broadcast caused mass panic across the UK. Ghostwatch adopted many of the tropes of Orson Welles' The War of the Worlds - a radio drama that caused mass panic in the US when it aped a news report of a Martian invasion. Ghostwatch involved a supposedly live factual broadcast (actually recorded and scripted) of events as they took a terrifyingly sinister turn. Featuring familiar faces including Michael Parkinson, Sarah Greene, Mike Smith and Craig Charles, the programme purported to be an investigation into paranormal activity in a house in Northolt, west London.

The show began slowly, before ramping up the tension with a series of ever more chilling incidents, culminating in Greene, reporting live from the house, being dragged through a cellar door. The in-studio paranormal expert reported that the poltergeist, nicknamed Mr Pipes, was using the broadcast to create a nationwide séance circle, invading the public's homes. The show concluded with Pipes taking over the studio, and the crew all fleeing, leaving Parkinson wandering around, seemingly possessed by the spirit.

In the immediate aftermath, more than 30,000 terrified or angry callers - including Parkinson's elderly mother - bombarded the BBC's switchboard. The following day's newspapers featured heavy criticism of the show. Six cases of children aged 10-14 exhibiting symptoms of PTSD were recorded, and the BBC was later criticised by the Broadcasting Standards Commission for involving children's presenters Greene and Smith, whose presence "took some parents off-guard in deciding whether their children could continue to view".

The cases of Ghostwatch and The War of the Worlds may not exactly meet the textbook definition of mass sociogenic illness, as they do not involve people developing symptoms. But, says Radford, they are in the same ballpark. "The panics were not, strictly speaking, MSI, but they are related. That is, there was an element of social contagion, where fears were legitimised and compounded in the context of uncertainty. Many people, quite sincerely, reported seeing and experiencing all sorts of strange phenomena that simply were not happening. Like mass hysteria, these are classic examples of when mundane events were reinterpreted as extraordinary within a certain context."

Most people assume they would react differently in such circumstances. For them, Radford has this salutary message: "It's important to recognise that the people affected weren't stupid, very gullible, or crazy - any of us might react in the same way." In other words, we are all capable of succumbing to MSI. Bear that in mind next time you are deciding what to watch. Countryfile all round, then?

This article was amended on 19 December 2022. A figure of 920 audience members potentially at risk of photosensitive epileptic reactions was removed because it was mistakenly based on 4.6 million viewers of the Pokémon episode. The audience was, as stated, 4.6 million households.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
'There was an explosion, and I had to close my eyes': how TV left 12,000 children needing a doctor

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
wenty-five years ago, at precisely 6.51pm on 16 December 1997, hundreds of children across Japan experienced seizures. In total, 685 - 310 boys and 375 girls - were taken by ambulance to hospital. Within two days, 12,000 children had reported symptoms of illness.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Toggle the table of contents

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Tanganyika laughter epidemic of 1962 was an outbreak of mass hysteria-or mass psychogenic illness (MPI)-rumored to have occurred in or near the village of Kashasha on the western coast of Lake Victoria in Tanganyika (which, once united with Zanzibar, became the modern nation of Tanzania) near the border with Uganda.[1]

The laughter epidemic began on January 30, 1962, at a mission-run boarding school for girls in Kashasha. It started with three girls and spread throughout the school, affecting 95 of the 159 pupils, aged 12-18.[2][3] Symptoms lasted from a few hours to 16 days, averaging around 7 days.[4] The teaching staff were unaffected and reported that students were unable to concentrate on their lessons. The first outbreak in Kashasha lasted roughly 48 days. The school was forced to close on March 18, 1962.[5] When it reopened on May 21, a second phase of the outbreak affected an additional 57 pupils. The all-girl boarding school reclosed at the end of June.[4][3]

The epidemic spread to Nshamba of the Muleba District, a village 55 miles west of Bukoba, where several of the girls lived.[5] In April and May 1962, 217 mostly young villagers had laughing attacks over the course of 34 days. The Kashasha school was sued for allowing the children and their parents to transmit it to the surrounding area. In June, the laughing epidemic spread to Ramashenye girls' middle school, affecting 48 girls.[2] Additional schools and the Kanyangereka village were also affected to some degree.[5] The phenomenon died off 18 months after it started. All areas affected were within a 100-mile radius of Bukoba.[4] In all, 14 schools were shut down and 1000 people were affected.[6]

Symptoms[7] of the Tanganyika 'laughter epidemic' included:

laughter

crying

general restlessness

general pain

fainting

respiratory problems

rashes

General mass hysteria causes:

Many of the symptoms experienced during the 'laughter epidemic' were stress-induced due to various external factors. The stress and anxiety that provokes mass hysteria outbreaks are reactions to perceived threats, cultural transitions, instances of uncertainty, and social stressors.[4] Due to the majority of the population affected by this epidemic being young and adolescent children, the outbreak has been attributed to the young not having the appropriate coping skills to manage such stresses and anxieties. Coinciding with this, adolescents have a need for acceptance and are eager to blend into a group, making them vulnerable to influence contagion.[8]

Linguist Christian F. Hempelmann has theorized that the episode was stress-induced. In 1962, Tanganyika had just won its independence, he said, and students had reported feeling stressed because of higher expectations by teachers and parents. MPI, he says, usually occurs in people without a lot of power. "MPI is a last resort for people of a low status. It's an easy way for them to express that something is wrong."[4]

Sociologist Robert Bartholomew and psychiatrist Simon Wessely both put forward a culture-specific epidemic hysteria hypothesis, pointing out that the occurrences in 1960s Africa were prevalent in missionary schools and Tanganyikan society was ruled by strict traditional elders, so the likelihood is the hysteria was a manifestation of the cultural dissonance between the "traditional conservatism" at home and the new ideas challenging those beliefs in school, which they termed 'conversion reactions'.[9]

Map of the Tanzania-Uganda border. Demonstrates the location of Bukoba in relation to the border.

The laughter epidemic was one of three sequential behavioral epidemics that occurred in the vicinity of Lake Victory.[4] These three major epidemics were classified as events of mass hysteria or mania. According to Benjamin H. Kagwa's observations in the East African Medical Journal, a notable characteristic is the prevalence of typical symptoms within specific ethnic groups, where the occurrence and propagation of comparable symptoms are aligned with tribal boundaries.[10] As with the hysteria epidemic in Tanganyika, these 'manias' are attributed to the radically shifting culture that began to stray away from the traditional cultural beliefs of local tribes and communities.

"We must not, however, think for one moment that this is peculiar to Africans. There is much historical evidence to prove that emotional upheavals associated with hysteria occur whenever a people's cultural roots and beliefs become suddenly shattered" -Benjamin H. Kagwa[10]

Location

Start Date

Type of 'Manias'

Symptoms

Bukoba, Tanganyika (now Tanzania)

January 1962

laughter mania

laughter, crying, restlessness, pain, fainting, respiratory problems, rashes, and anxiety/stress

Kigezi, Uganda

July 1963

running mania

running, chest pain, agitation, talkativeness, violence, anorexia, exhaustion, quietness, and depression

Mbale, Uganda

November 1963

running mania

running, chest pain, agitation, talkativeness, violence, anorexia, exhaustion, quietness, and depression

1. ^ Jeffries, Stuart (21 November 2007). "The outbreak of hysteria that's no fun at all". The Guardian. Guardian News and Media Limited.

2. ^ Provine, Robert R. (January-February 1996). "Laughter". American Scientist. 84 (1): 38-47. Archived from the original on 19 January 2009.

3. ^ Rankin, A.M.; Philip, A.P.A. (May 1963). "An epidemic of laughing in the Bukoba district of Tanganyika". Central African Journal of Medicine. 69: 167-170. PMID 13973013.

4. ^ Hempelmann, Christian F. (2007). "The Epic Tanganyika Laughter Epidemic Revisited". Humor: International Journal of Humor Research. 20 (1): 49-71. doi:10.1515/HUMOR.2007.003. S2CID 144703655.

5. ^ Radiolab (25 February 2008). "Laughter". WNYC Studios.

6. ^ Bartholomew, Robert E. (2001). Little Green Men, Meowing Nuns and Head-Hunting Panics: A Study of Mass Psychogenic Illness and Social Delusion. Jefferson, North Carolina: Macfarland & Company. p. 52. ISBN 0-7864-0997-5.

7. ^ Sebastian, Simone. "Examining 1962's 'laughter epidemic'". Chicago Tribune.

8. ^ Zhao, Gang; Cheng, Quinglin; Dong, Xianming; Xie, Li (13 December 2021). "Mass hysteria attack rates in children and adolescents: a meta-analysis". Journal of International Medical Research. 49 (12). doi:10.1177/03000605211039812. PMC 8829737. PMID 34898296.

9. ^ Bartholomew, Robert; Evans, Hilary (2014). Outbreak! The Encyclopedia of Extraordinary Social Behavior. McFarland & Company. ISBN 978-0-7864-7888-0.

10. ^ "The Problem of Mass Hysteria in East Africa by Benjamin H. Kagwa. East African Medical Journal, 41 (December 1964), 560-565". Transcultural Psychiatric Research Review and Newsletter. 3 (1): 35-37. April 1966. doi:10.1177/136346156600300113. S2CID 46332096.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Tanganyika laughter epidemic - Wikipedia

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Toggle the table of contents From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The Tanganyika laughter epidemic of 1962 was an outbreak of mass hysteria-or mass psychogenic illness (MPI)-rumored to have occurred in or near the village of Kashasha on the western coast of Lake Victoria in Tanganyika (which, once united with Zanzibar, became the modern nation of Tanzania) near the border with Uganda.[1] The laughter epidemic began on January 30, 1962, at a mission-run boarding school for girls in Kashasha.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Great Fear | Revolution, Peasants & Terror

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Great Fear, (1789) in the French Revolution, a period of panic and riot by peasants and others amid rumours of an "aristocratic conspiracy" by the king and the privileged to overthrow the Third Estate. The gathering of troops around Paris provoked insurrection, and on July 14 the Parisian rabble

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Monkey Man of New Delhi ( English: The Face Scratcher, Hindi: मुंहनोचवा, Urdu: منھ نوچوا) aka Kaala Bandar is an unknown anomaly which was reported to be roaming Delhi in mid-2001. The entire incident has been described as an example of mass hysteria in India.

In May 2001, reports began to circulate in the Indian capital New Delhi around a strange monkey-like creature that was appearing at night and attacking people. Eyewitness accounts were often inconsistent, but tended to describe the creature as about four feet (120 cm) tall, covered in thick black hair, with a metal helmet, metal claws, glowing red eyes and three buttons on its chest. Some reports also claim that the monkey-man wore roller-skates. Others, however, described the Monkey-man as having a more vulpine snout, and being up to eight feet tall, and muscular; it would leap from building to building.[citation needed ] Over 350 sightings of the Kala Bandar were reported, as well as around 60 resulting injuries. Two (by some reports, three) people even died when they leapt from the tops of buildings or fell down stairwells in a panic caused by what they thought was the attacker. At one point, exasperated police even issued artist's impression drawings in an attempt to catch the creature.

The appearance of Monkey Man in Old Delhi is the centre-point of the 2009 Bollywood Hindi film directed by Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra. In the film, the creature, called in Hindi as "Kala Bandar (Black Monkey)" is used as an allegory to represent the evil that resides inside every man alongside God (virtue). The monkey man has never actually been caught on tape.[clarification needed ]

In the 2011 graphic novel Munkeeman by Tere Bin Laden director Abhishek Sharma, the creature is interpreted as a misunderstood superhero, who was the result of a science experiment gone wrong. The first edition, Munkeeman Vol 1 chronicled the creatures brief appearance in Delhi, and the second edition will feature the creature in Kanpur, based on the incidents reported in February 2002.[citation needed ]

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The Monkey Man of New Delhi ( English: The Face Scratcher, Hindi: मुंहनोचवा, Urdu: منھ نوچوا) aka Kaala Bandar is an unknown anomaly which was reported to be roaming Delhi in mid-2001. The entire incident has been described as an example of mass hysteria in India.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Miracle of the Sun (Portuguese: Milagre do Sol), also known as the Miracle of Fátima, is a series of events reported to have occurred miraculously on 13 October 1917, attended by a large crowd who had gathered in Fátima, Portugal, in response to a prophecy made by three shepherd children, Lúcia Santos and Francisco and Jacinta Marto. The prophecy was that the Virgin Mary (referred to as Our Lady of Fátima) would appear and perform miracles on that date. Newspapers published testimony from witnesses who said that they had seen extraordinary solar activity, such as the Sun appearing to “dance” or zig-zag in the sky, advance towards the Earth, or emit multicolored light and radiant colors. According to these reports, the event lasted approximately ten minutes.