The Mattoon gasser
On 31 August 1944 a Mattoon, Illinois couple reported a strange smell, sickness and a paralysed wife, the first of the gasser incidents.
On 31 August 1944, at a house on Grant Avenue in Mattoon, Illinois, Urban Raef woke in the early hours to a smell he found faintly sweet. Wikipedia and Discovery UK report that he felt sick and weak, vomited, and had a burning throat. His wife thought a fault in the kitchen stove might be the cause and wanted to check the pilot light. She found she was partly paralysed and stuck in bed.
The University of Illinois Press calls this the first visit of the gasser, with the country at war, and says the couple reported the same symptoms that later victims did. At the time, Discovery UK adds, it looked like an isolated event.
Almost two weeks after the Mattoon reports began, Thomas V. Wright, the Commissioner of Public Health locally, said some gassing incidents had certainly happened. He said many cases were likely hysteria: residents who had heard alarming stories panicked at an odd smell or a shadow at a window.
"The first of the 1944 gasser incidents occurred at a house on Grant Avenue, Mattoon, on August 31, 1944. Urban Raef was awakened during the early hours of the morning by a strange odor. He felt nauseated and weak, and suffered from a fit of vomiting. Suspecting that he was suffering from domestic gas poisoning, Raef's wife wanted to check the kitchen stove to see if there was a problem with the pilot light, but found that she was partially paralyzed and unable to leave her bed.[5][3][7][8]"
- 200 Years of Illinois: They Haunt By Night, University of Illinois Press blog (2017)
- Panic on the Pavement: The Mad Gasser and the City That Held Its Breath, Discovery UK (2026)
- Mad Gasser of Mattoon (explanations), Wikipedia