"Mad Gasser of Mattoon"

The book tells a brief story about a woman, Mrs. Kearney, who believed she had been gassed after feeling paralysis in parts of her body. She believed while this was occurring that a strange odor overcame her bedroom. After local news broke the story, many other "victims" in town came forward having similar stories. The town of Mattoon began to suspect a a mad person was out gassing locals homes. The book reveals that many psychologists believe these events never happened, rather they were coincidences and only believed after Mrs. Kearney came forward that they too had been attacked, which is considered "social influence".

However, many websites believe that there truly was an attacker and that Mattoon was not the first city to be attacked. There in fact had been many cities prior to Mattoon that had gas attacks.

Prairieghosts.com tells many stories about attacks that took place over and over again and also says that many believe Mattoon's mad gasser was either a scientist or an ape like creature, or even something that was outside of our dimension. To this day, no one knows the truth about any of the so-called "mad gasser" attacks.