10 Bizarre Cases Of Mass Hysteria

A few people show up with little cuts on them and before you know it all the businesses in town have shut down and a vigilante group of locals are hunting down an imaginary killer.

It all started on 16 November 1938, in Halifax, England, where two women, Mary Gledhill, and Gertrude Watts, claimed to be attacked by a mysterious man with a mallet and bright buckles on his shoes. Less than a week later Mary Sutcliffe reported that she was attacked by a mysterious man with a knife or a razor.

With three women in one week, the papers had a story and conjured the nickname, “The Halifax Slasher”, giving birth to a myth and inspiring vigilante attacks on suspects and then the involvement of the police.

But then, on 29th November, Percy Waddington, who had reported one of the attacks admitted that he had injured himself and blamed The Halifax Slasher. Others soon made similar admissions. Scotland Yard concluded that there had been no “Slasher” attacks and the whole episode was an example of mass hysteria.