The Anti-Arcade Initiative New York, 1952 In the 50s, New York was gripped with an anti-gambling mania, and Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia outlawed pinball of all things. He ordered police to raid arcades all over the city and seize thousands of machines. He then personally led a machine smashing frenzy with a sledgehammer, before dumping all the pieces into the ocean.

The Nuns that Bite Europe, 1400s Looks like it’s not only singing that Medieval nuns were into, but biting as well. In an isolated convent, a nun began biting all of her sister nuns, who then turned their teeth on one another. As news of this ‘infection’ began to spread, other nuns started biting their compatriots as well, all over Europe simultaneously. So far there’s no explanation for the vampire nuns.

The Phantom Slasher of Taipei Taiwan, 1956 Police were on the lookout for a mass slasher, after several children came forward with unexplained cuts. There were rumours of a mysterious man who was rampaging throughout the city with razor blades, and some even said they saw him. Most of the injuries, however, were chalked up to scrapes and accidents, or self inflicted. So, basic kid stuff.

The Cat Nun Outbreak France, Middle Ages There were reports in historical texts that revealed that one day, out of the blue, a French nun began meowing like a cat. All of her sisters soon followed and shortly after the entire neighbourhood was subject to a daily cat concert. This continued every day until soldiers, sent by the village, were posted around the convent tho threaten the nuns into stopping. There’s no recorded reason as to why they began doing it in the first place.

Give Me a T for Tourettes United States, 2012 This is a relatively recent event from California. One morning, a cheerleader woke up stuttering, ticcing and twitching. Shortly after, her eleven teammates began exhibiting the same symptoms. After an extensive investigation of medical and environmental reasons, they couldn’t find a cause for the sudden onset of Tourettes, but hoped that it would clear up, which it eventually did.

The Egg Miracle Panic England, 1806 A simple prankster incited the entire village of Leeds to start preparing for doomsday, when her hen began laying eggs inscribed with the phrase “Christ is coming.” After much fear and distress, as well as praying and repenting, she was caught inscribing the messages on the eggs, then placing them back into the chickens (don’t know how she did it; don’t want to know).

The Koro Penis Hysteria Singapore, 1967 There’s been several cases throughout history of men and women suffering from “koro” which is the fear of your reproductive organs shrinking and disappearing. For men it was their penis, while women feared their breasts and external genitalia shrinking. This came to peak in Singapore in the 60’s when a rumour that tainted pork was the culprit, had spread, and thousands of panicked men began boycotting and running to hospitals. It took the Ministry of Health a long time to convince the population that koro didn’t exist and that the meat (and theirs) was fine.

Dungeons & Dragons United States, 1980s Following the suicides of several teens, who had coincidentally been playing Dungeons & Dragons recent, a panic began that the role playing game was a satanic tool to open young minds and make them receptive to demonic possession. Then, of course, the demons will make you kill yourself. Then the authorities couldn’t prove a causal link, the public eventually dropped the moral panic.

The Man Who Cried Quake England, 1761 On February 8th, 1761 there was a small earthquake in London, England. One month later, there was a slightly larger one. So a local lifeguard began telling people that the third April quake was going to be the quake to end them all and destroy the city, and people believed him. Citizens fled, abandoning their homes until the quake never happened, and they returned home sheepishly. As for the lifeguard, he disappeared.

Fainting Sickness England, 1965 After a 3 hour long assembly at an all-girls school that required them to stand for the entirety, 20 girls ended up fainting. The next day, 85 more girls were hospitalized after hyperventilating then fainting. As there was no evident cause, a panic ensued and by the time the epidemic had ended, hundreds of girls had been hospitalized for the same reason.

The Gorbals Vampires of Scotland Scotland, 1954 Due to some schoolyard rumours, school children became terrified of the Gorbals Vampire, who apparently had iron teeth and had eaten two children already. The mass panic culminated one night when hundreds of school kids went to the local graveyard with sharpened sticks and knifes to ambush the vampire. They did this for 3 straight nights before they were convinced that the vampire didn’t exist.

The Monkey-Man of Delhi India, 2001 In the early 2000’s, several men in Delhi claimed to have been attacked by an enormous humanoid monkey, with red eyes, a helmet and claws. Soon a panic spread through the city, and even tall, hairy men were subject to beating and interrogation. It took an official newspaper investigation to put the urban legend to rest.

The Y2K Bug Worldwide, 1999 When it comes to worldwide panic, nothing was greater than this one. As the new millennium approached, engineers weren’t sure if computers would be able to make the change from ’99 to ’00 and would shut off, causing catastrophic meltdowns, confusing financial systems and it would make planes fall from the sky and plunge us into the dark ages. We all waited patiently, for nothing to happen. Sixteen years later, we’re still laughing about it.

The Mary’s of Zeitoun Egypt, 1968 In Zeitoun, Egypt people began seeing patches of glowing light over a Coptic Orthodox Church. Hundreds of thousands of faithful, flocked to the church, claiming to see a vision of the Virgin Mary and worrying about the beginning of the end. Instead, scientists chalked it up to seismic activity and some sort of luminescent gas.

The Laughter Epidemic Tanzania, 1962 Shortly after Tanzania gained independence, students throughout the country began laughing uncontrollably. The fits would last hours, with periods of intense crying and fidgeting, and led to 14 schools being closed.

The Roaming Anesthetist United States, 1944 On an unremarkable night in Mattoon, Illinois, a woman called the police, saying that a mysterious prowler had stood outside her home and sprayed a strange gas through the window, while wearing a mask. The news made the front page, and for weeks people were on guard for a stranger in a gas mask, but nothing ever happened. There was no one caught and no proof that the event actually happened.

Italian Well-Poisoning Panic Milan, Italy, 1630 One April morning, the people living in Milan woke up to find dark spots dabbed on their doors. They soon became convinced that the devil had poisoned the water supply, and they began a citywide witch hunt. Eventually the majority of citizens had turned themselves in, far more than could have been involved.

The Great Moon Hoax United States, 1835 In 1835, the New York Sun published a series on astronomy, with illustrations of what the surface of the moon looked like. According to reports, there was a brand new and powerful telescope that could see the surface and they described a moonscape of crystal-studded jungles, populated by unicorns, bats and two-legged alien beavers. This caused a panic throughout the nation, thinking that some day these things were going to invade us. After the 6-part series was over, the paper admitted that it was a hoax.

Ouija Board Panic Mexico, 2006 This one might be the only story with a worthy basis. I don’t like to mess with Ouija Boards; they’re legit. In Mexico, a girl at a strict girls school was expelled for using an Ouija board to try to influence a basketball game. As she was escorted out, she cursed the school and over the next few weeks, hundreds of students began reporting strange symptoms, and supernatural events. Eventually, the phenomenon was chalked up to mass fear.

Backmasking Panic United States, 1980s Panicked parents and educators all over the county were convinced that rock musicians were recording satanic messages backwards and hiding them in songs, so obviously, they had to be destroyed. Concerned adults held record-smashing parties, formed watchdog groups and tried to pass legislation preventing artists from hiding messages in their music. The irony was that musicians WERE doing it including the Beatles, Led Zeppelin and Back Sabbath, but the messages were pretty benign.

The Windshield Pitting Epidemic United States, 1954 In the spring, car owners in Seattle began noticing an unusual amount of dings on their windshields. They blamed acidic bugs, H-Bomb fallout, cosmic rays, manufacturers, hail; everything. Except there was no cause for it, no reasons found. Experts just figured that the people were over-eager in their pit spotting. Or, of course, aliens.

The Ban on Horror Comics United States, 1950s It seems like anything that’s outside of the norm or a bit progressive, becomes the lynchpin of blame for a moral panic. In this case, comic books, named horror books were the cause of the breakdown of moral fibre. Psychologist Fredric Wertham published a book in the mid-50s that declared that comics inspired violent, depraved thoughts in children. This book “The Seduction of the Innocent” inspired the Comics Code Authority, banning crime, monsters, zombies and anything deemed to be too scary and out-there. This caused hundreds of artists to leave the field and led to the end of the golden age of comics.

The Alligators in the Sewers United States, 1960s All of a sudden, legends began spreading in New York City that the sewers were full of alligators that had grown to large proportions after being dumped by pet owners. Although there have been verified reports of an actual alligator or two, they aren’t obscenely large and there aren’t hundreds of them, and they definitely won’t come crawling up your toilet.

The June Bug Epidemic United States, 1962 A worker in a Georgia textile plant found herself covered in a vile rash one day. Over the next 4 days, 64 other workers complained of the same rash, and they blamed June bugs for their inflammation, claiming that the latest shipment of fabric was full of them. On the verge of a riot, the management inspected the entire facility to find only two biting bugs in the entire factory.

All the UFO Sightings Worldwide Since we could draw, we could pretend to see lights in the sky and claim it was aliens. No matter where you are in the world, there are hundreds of unexplained and unidentified flying objects that are inciting panic and mass hysteria. Amateur UFO experts flock and theories are given that they come in peace or it’s the end of the world.

The Salem Witch Trials Colonial Massachusetts, 1692 This has to be the most well-known incident of mass hysteria. After the young relatives of a local reverend began acting strange, Salem began to accuse their disenfranchised of witchcraft, and putting them on trials. If you were too smart, too outspoken, and didn’t fit into the norm, they found a reason to put you on trial. By the end of the hysteria, twenty people had been executed on trumped up charges.