Hello, everyone. Hi. OK, maybe before we start, I always say that this is the most important slice because it will have the link to all the slides. Because I will reference some other blocks and other more research than the other people. So if you're interested to look into it, you can get a whole slide deck. You don't have to take pictures or anything like that. So also, yeah, this talk is quite relaxed, interactive. So when I ask you a question, you have to feel free to just shout out from your seat. Well, if it's a question, maybe wait until the end so we can give you a mic. But if it's just like a pop-up question, you can shout from your seat. It doesn't matter. So let's get started. Sorry, are we ready? OK, no worries. You see, you can shout. It's fine. Yes, of course. Is everybody OK? Just let me know if you haven't got the link to the slice. Right, OK, we go good. Ready, buckle up. OK, good. So yeah, maybe I should read the titles to give you more time. Rereaucracy versus doocracy. So moist doocracy, maybe it's a new term for you and I'll explain a little bit. But before that, I want to ask you a question. Who has been involved in an open source project? You can show me your hands. Yes, most of you, all of you, OK, good. So what's your role in it? Sorry? Managing, wow, that's a good role. What else? Fundraising. Fundraising? Translation. Translation, wow, that's also a very important role. What else? Developer location. Well, that's the first time I heard about it. OK, cool. So yeah, we all kind of involve in open source project a little bit, so that's why we all care about how open source is governance. But before that, I want to tell you that I also care about open source. I contributed to open source project. In the past, I still contribute in other forms. I love organizing events. For example, there's one way of contributing. I'm also the director and fellow of the Python Software Foundation. And right now, I work in the amazing OpenSSF as the community manager. So what is OpenSSF? So we are here because we are part of Linux Foundation. Yesterday, we just have our OpenSSF day. We have a lot of folks to share the insight about open source security. That's great. So we have newsletter and blogs, which welcome everybody to sign up. We also have free courses. So if you are a developer, you care about security, then maybe check that out. So why open source governance is different? Why we talk about it kind of subversely? We say, oh, maybe for you, if you work in a company, if you have worked in a company before, you're kind of familiar with governance in a company, right? You say, oh, I have a boss. I have a manager. And usually maybe they will have their boss. And then at the end, maybe they'll be CEO or the owner of the company or the board of directors or like this, like, I think it's not alien for people about how maybe a company work. But open source is different. So I compare open source with proprietary software, which is usually like a software that is commercial that's offered by a company. So, you know, so proprietary owned by an individual, sometimes just one person or a business or sometimes it's an organization. It's very hard to tell, like, because if they are not making a profit then they're just an organization. But open source, what is open source? Open source, like sometimes, you know, we have a project that maybe started by one person or a group of people. But they're kind of the owner of the project, but maybe time evolves, like maybe they, you know, transfer their project to another ownership or they are like, OK, maybe they kind of, because the project's too big, they take a step back, they don't write every single line of code of that project. There will be people who contribute. Sometimes there's like some community member contribute a lot to that, you know, software then who really actually own that software, right? And open source, a lot of work, like I said, is done by volunteers. So it's like, we can't say that, you know, that, OK, we're like the owners write all the code. But for proprietary software, since it's owned by business, usually like they will hire staff to write it. So if I knew hire staff, you probably will have an employment contract that all the code that they write in their work time is actually belongs to the company. So, well, that's why there's also the clear ownership. So these will be the engineers who work for the company, who is not a volunteer, they got paid. Otherwise, nobody's got to do free work. So in open source, there are some kind of hierarchy. You sometimes, most of the time, you'll have like some people, they will have the right access to the repos, or they will be sometimes called maintainer, or the owner, or actually they're the leader of that project. But it's not really rigid because it depends on each project. They may have different governance. For the bigger project, they may have maybe have a steering console, which is a group of people who made the ultimate decision for the project. But for some smaller project, it may be just like they only have one maintainer and that person will be in charge of everything. So they can say yes or no to everything. For proprietary software, companies are like I said before, everybody kind of understand the hierarchy of a company. It's very clear, you know who is your boss. You know who is actually making all the decisions for the company. So that's actually very clear. For open source, there's less commitment because they're all volunteers, they can come and go. When they have time, they can contribute, and they are busy with other aspects of their life, they could take a post, they could just take some time off without actually applying for time off. But if you have staff, if you work, you know, you're writing code for proprietary software, then because you're hired, you have commitments that you have agreed with that company. So it's a constant responsibility. So if you want to take time off, you have to apply for it. You can't just like, okay, I'm busy, I'm not going to do this now. You can't just like, oh, I want to take a month off because I am a bit busy, you know, you can't do that. So yeah, so that's a different kind of structure here. So open source, a lot of time is user-driven. So a lot of time, how a project evolved depends on a user who may actually be contributing themselves. There may be forums that people discuss, oh, actually, I wish this feature could be implemented, then it will be much easier for my use case. Then people may agree or disagree or they have other opinion or stuff or can, you know, they have discussion. For proprietary software, it's mainly profit-driven. Users also have a say by not buying the, you know, the software or stopping the subscription. But at the end of the day, how a proprietary software company made the decision of what to do or what not to do, they will think about, oh, whether people will like it and spend money on it. So that is profit-driven. So now let's talk about my bureaucracy, how it kind of applies in open source. So I look it up because English is not my first language. So I was like, okay, I heard it a lot. I kind of know what it is, but let's consult a dictionary online. So I look it up and it said that, oh, it's actually a governance followed by the power of people selected according to merit. So I guess this is coming up because it's a kind of a reflection of, for example, like a herocracy, which is, you know, oh, if you, let's say if you're born a royal, then you will have the power, right? Or let's say, for example, again, like comparing open source to a kind of company, commercial company kind of structure, who is leading the company will be maybe the owner or maybe the owner, they hire a CEO who make all the decisions. That's not really people are elected them to do it, right? Merocracy is more like kind of like, for example, like our government work, you know, we have elections. So you can choose who is leading the government or something like that. So that's actually a kind of, born out of, oh, we want something different. So we have a bureaucracy instead. So, yeah, so that's like, and also there's a line here, which I will quote again later is, you know, everyone with skills and imagination can aspire to reach the highest level. So that's the example of bureaucracy, like, okay. Yeah, so everybody can be the leader if you are good. So that's basically what it means. So in open source, there's a lot of cases that bureaucracy is applied. I would say this is like the rise of the BDFL. So imagine now we'll be back like maybe 20, 30 years back in history, back in time, when open source is a new thing. So there are like very smart developers that they are, that they was like, oh, I don't want to be told what to do by the owner of the company who may not know what's the best for that software. So yeah, so maybe they will start their own creating own software and then that's come from there. And BDFL, who haven't heard of this term BDFL? Oh, okay, that's good. So what is BDFL? So BDFL is short for Benevolent Dictator for Life. When I heard about that term, I was like, it's a bit oxymoron, isn't it? Like how can you be a dictator and benevolent? So I was like, but actually they, well, they choose this term because it used to describe a small number of open source software development leaders who actually they have created something maybe usually at the beginning with very less help. So they're basically like a one man band or one person band that own the project. But then they give it, open source give it to everybody to use. So that's why there's like this dictator and benevolent kind of contradiction there. But actually it's not a contradiction. It's describing how this leadership in open source work. So this small number of people who started something that maybe become quite big this day and everybody uses and because this open source is a free gift for everybody. So that's why they also get this benevolent title here. Can you name a few of them? Anyone? Anyone? Maybe you have seen one this morning. Yeah, yes, yes. So yeah, so leaders, of course, like he created Linux which everybody use, everybody love. So I would say that he's a benevolent dictator. Well, maybe he's not like dictating now but he did actually create something that is amazing and everybody use. So this term like is more emphasis on highlighting the excellence contribution to the open source system. And where lots of developers are inspired by them, they may want to, oh, I want to create an open source project that is used by many people. I was one of those people who was like, oh, maybe I can create but I'm too far from it right now. But I was actually when I was just like learning or this like coding and stuff. I was inspired that, oh, it's so cool. Everybody can create something and share with people. Or maybe I can create something and share with people and that's the inspiration. But when I look at it online or like do some research, it's very hard to find women or people of color who bear this title that like in my point of view, I have met a lot of amazing women or people of color or people are not like your generic programmer type that I think I'm inspired by them. I think that I learn a lot from them. I want to be like them but they are not like a company known as BDFL. So that's the difference here then. I feel a little bit, that's why I also feel that, oh, I'm very hard from that goal. I'm very far away from that goal because I am a woman. And so maybe it's very hard for me to reach that. In my bureaucracy, so what we do is that, so this is how I sum it up myself, right? We believe in elites. We think that, oh, who is good can lead us to a better place, right? We trust them, they are the best people because we elect them, right? We choose them. So we trust them that they will do the best for us. They know how to do the best for us. And we think that they are the, you know, who are just out of us. We just choose who is the best. They can be the leader, right? So again, like I quoted again, and everyone with the skills and imagination may aspire to reach the highest level. So it seems like everybody can get a chance to be there, right? You just have to be good. You just have to be good. Then you can be a BDFL or someone who is the best and leading the whole community. But is everybody given the same resources and opportunity to reach that level? It's a thing that I reflect on a lot of times because like I said, why there isn't a lot of BDFL that looks like me, a lot of them that doesn't look like me. So I want to tell you a story about my friend, Marlene here.  So she is, she's from Zimbabwe. She's a software engineer. And she's also the previous director and vice chair of the Python Software Foundation. So it's kind of like, you know, she is kind of my senpai, you know, she was the director of the Python Software Foundation. She founded a symbol pie, which is a nonprofit that helps in women, in tech, especially young women. So, oh, by the way, I use a lot of women as an example in my presentation. It's an example. It also, I hope the general kind of, you know, reasons also apply for other underrepresented groups. But because I'm a woman, I relate to, you know, being a woman, so that's why I use them as an example. But if you, you know, I'm not saying that it's limited to women. So I just want to clarify that upfront. So, so why I tell you about Marlene. So, months ago, she gave a keynote at Python Italy and in Python Italy, so after a keynote, we should talk about diversity and inclusion. I really enjoy that keynote, it's really good. But then a male Italian, well, I tell from his accent, but, you know, I hope I get that right.   So he asked, oh, I don't see how we are different, right? So he's talking to Marlene, I don't see how we're different. I, in, he said that in his eyes, he see them as equal. And so why, you know, we have to put effort in diversity and inclusion in it. So, so for me, like, I remember I was sitting at the front with a few friends. We are all like kind of women in the community and we go like, you know, crutching our fists. It's like, wow, this is a really challenging question.  But we can't, I can't tell you why, but like, I feel a little bit angry, but I can't tell why.  It kind of defuse the bomb. It explains everything very clearly. It kind of, you know, these uneasiness in us, like she kind of explained very well out there. So this is what she said. Not exactly her quote, but I'm trying to summarize. So she said that we are not given the same access to resources. So she said that when she was young, she don't have an access to computer. She only start having like, you know, kind of using computer and do some programming when she was studying in university when she was 20. So she said, compared to you, she did not grow up in an environment that was supporting her career as a software developer. So at that time, I was like, suddenly I realized that, oh, actually I was the lucky one because I was lucky that my dad is a computer geek. And so we have computer at home. So when I was young, while all my classmates doesn't have a computer at home, I do have a computer. So I was the lucky one compared to Marlene. I also think that, oh, yes. Actually, you know, that's the difference. That's how we can't assume everybody get the same chance to be good, right? We are not on the same level playing field. I think a lot of times when I explain to people, so some people sometimes like, you know, I feel like everybody can be an airline. It's just that they need to understand, you know, because, you know, how to let them understand and step into our shoes and see, oh, how a woman in the tech community feels. Sometimes, you know, you just need time to explain on that. So it's not about one's ability. It's not like, so maybe that question from that Italian developer, like, he's on a good intention, saying like, oh, I don't see that ability-wise. We are different, right? But there are differences on other aspects. For example, social expectation. So, for example, again, I was lucky in some aspect, but I was also like a girl who grew up in Hong Kong in the East Asian culture.  So yeah, social expectation nobody inspired you to become a developer. No one inspired you to be good at that view. Also access to resources, I'm one of the lucky ones, but I can imagine, for example, my classmate who may be from a family that like, maybe not having a very high income, they would have very, you know, they don't have access to a computer at home. So at that time, I remember, there's like the government trying to improve the computer literacy of the general public. So you can go to a library and use a computer, but that's very limited, you know, those computer tend to be very dated. So imagine that if you grow up, the only way for you to play games or is to either during the computer class or go to a library, so that's very limiting. Compared to someone who is like as lucky as me that your family got a computer at home, you can access it whenever your parents give you permission, which is very convenient. So we are not giving the same opportunity. So even nowadays, I'm talking about, for example, I'm talking about when I was young, which is like 20 years ago, 20, some years ago, giving up my age now, but even nowadays, if you think about some countries, they may actually still, you know, when I do some workshops in an African country, sometimes they will bring a very dated laptop, they may have to share with someone because they don't have one. So imagine it's still a problem nowadays that not everyone were given the same opportunity that access to all these technology and things like that.  So will something else work? So recently I learned a term from my colleague that, oh, there's something called bureaucracy. What is it? This is like a funny name, right? Like you stick two words together, look, okay, let's have a look. So bureaucracy means that it's an organization structure that each person will choose their role, basically they put their hands up and volunteer themself and say, I can do it, I will do it, and then they got to do it, and nobody will say, oh, no, no, no, like, we have to make sure that you are the best person for that job, you know, it's not work that way. So an example in this blog post that, again, I found this definition from somewhere is the community wiki, so if you're interested, you can have a look later. So they use an example of like a group of friends, actually quite big group of friends are going for camping. So someone put their hands up in a mailing list, say, oh, let's cook together, and I will organize everything. So she did, but then if a new person joined, and he or she being a bit rude and say like, oh, but why she decided, she got to say, like, decide on what we eat and why we do it this way, why we all cook together and do this. And well, because she is the only person who volunteer herself to arrange the meal for everybody, nobody else say a thing or volunteer themselves, maybe someone, you know, if you are in that group, you can be like, oh, actually I want dessert, maybe I'll provide dessert, then you got to choose the dessert, right? So whoever put their hands up and volunteered themselves got to do it, like nobody say like, oh, for example, you're offered to bring some cake, nobody say, wait a second, I don't know if your cake is good, you know, nobody say that. So that's the bureaucracy, you know, governance or community model. So now, bureaucracy, right? You don't have to reach the highest level, you don't have to prove that you're the best person to arrange the food or make the cake or, you know, so we just let you do it. Everybody given a chance, so maybe you in charge of the cake, then maybe I can in charge of something else, maybe I can in charge of like, oh, I could make some salad, I don't know. So, you know, if you want to do it, then nobody's stopping you, you're given the chance to do it. There's no gatekeeping, you know, you don't have to do a taste test before we let you to prepare the cake or salad or anything for everybody. Is it good? So, is that a thing that we can use to, you know, remove all these like, inequality and bias in the bureaucracy model? Let's look deeper into it. I would say the open source is kind of bureaucracy, it's not absolute bureaucracy because there is always a case that you would come across that you think, yeah, I still haven't get the trust from the community, so I can't do it. There is the case like that, but open source is always some work to work, more work to work on. So, a lot of open source projects, you can see how many issues they have in there, GitHub or whatever, Ripple, that there's always some more work, even if it's not there, then if you offer your help, if you talk to someone, they may be like, oh, I think you can help this. I think you can help that. So, there's always something to work on. Or, if let's say you suggest this new feature and the community was like, no, we are not sure, we are not going to pull that in and stuff, well, you can derive your own project, you can make a clone and they're like, okay, I think that feature is essential, so I would make a clone, add that feature and see if people are using mine. It was kind of like, if you want to do it, you can do it, nobody's stopping you to clone it. And less gatekeeping, there's still some gatekeeping, like I said, sometimes like, for example, I want an incremental feature, you need to get the consensus, the agreement from the maintainer, from the user, there's still some gate, but compared to a proprietary software, which if you want to change a proprietary software, you either need to apply for a job in that company over that software, or you have to write a business proposal to convince the owner of the project to adopt your idea. So it's less gatekeeping, but it's open source, open to women. So this is a question that I have in my mind, and oops, sorry, I have it in my mind, and I think about it a lot, and I saw a very good analysis of it here in this. So this is, again, it's a blog post, there's a link there. So what they do is that they do a little bit of statistical analysis, they do it on GitHub, it may not take it with a grain of salt because not everything is on GitHub, not every contribution open source is on GitHub. So, but, well, GitHub is a popular place to put your project, so it's kind of like a general reflection of how it is. So the result is only 5.4% of the GitHub user who have over 10 contribution from the random sample are female. So what they do is that they use a tool to check the profile of the users or maybe they kind of check their social media to see if they put a pronoun, whatever. I don't know how it works, but you can dig into it. But they're using a tool to check, like, to identify whether that user is a male or female or other gender. So that's what they do, it's only 5.4% and they counted, there's an other number, I think it's around six for all the users who made a contribution, but this is like over 10 contributions. So anybody, I would say anybody make over 10 contribution are active contributors. So only 5.4% active contributor for any open source are female, so according to this study. So, wow, it's alarmingly low rate. So inside the article also mentioned one thing which I also resonate a lot, is the amount of women who joined the tech industry, 56% leave a mid-career, which is double the tuition wage for men. So imagine if you look at the industry, right? The more senior you go, the less women there will be because there's more women leaving than men. That's one women that I will mention later that she also kind of take a break from her career, but I can tell you a story later. But I want to tell you about the Python core devs because again, my background is in Python, so I'm very familiar with the community and so I think that I would tell you an example I'm familiar with, but it's not limited to Python. So Python core devs, who are the Python core devs? So they are defined as developer who have commit rights to the Python project, C Python project itself, which is the standard distributor of Python interpreter on GitHub. So who have the commit rights to that project? There are eight women in it. Do you know how many out of eight? Like how many, like out of how many there are eight? Any guess? No idea? Out of 87 active ones. So these are only the active ones. There's I think there's 120 something in the whole history of Python core devs. So it's less than 10%. Well, it's better than the 5.4, but still very, very no number. Why? Again, when I just started in the Python community, I was inspired to be a Python core dev. But then I was like, oh, look at that number. It's very hard, it's very hard for me. But the community is a bureaucracy community. Whenever I try to offer some help, there's always something to do. People will be like, oh, you can do this, you can do that, you know. There's a lot of issues. If you look at Python, there's a lot of issues.  Yeah, if you look at the number, I don't have to explain more on that. So why are there so few female core devs? So what it's lacking here. I noticed this because like we always, when we organize events, there's always like a panel that we invite some core devs or it's like, we always like, we don't want it to be an all male panel, but it's very hard because of this. So meet Marietta, this is my friend. Marietta is the first female Python core dev. So wow, one of that age and she's the first. And she's also the Python chair of 2023 to 2024. She has 10 years, 10 plus years experience in tech. So she's, in terms of merit, she is very high, right? She's highly technical, also lots of contribution to the community. So I asked her why there are few female core devs out there. I keep waking you up with my mic, sorry. Also there are a few points she mentioned. So maybe if you are women in tech, then maybe you resonate, if you're not maybe talk to someone who identifies women in tech. So a woman has to work very hard in a job to get recognition compared to their male peers. So like Lena said this morning, if you want to be achieving something in open source, you have to spend long and committed time for a contribution that could be outside of your job because a lot of company will let you spend time in your work hours to contribute to open source projects. So this is extremely hard when you have to sometimes maybe work extra hours in your job and then you have to work on top of that for open source project. It's even harder when you have families or Marietta she got two kids I was like, how can you manage? I don't know. So another factor is that there are COC enforcement there, the Code of Conduct Enforcement, make sure that it's a safe environment but still my aggression still happened. Those are instances that are very hard to report. It may be just like a attitude that is not very nice that it doesn't make you feel very welcoming but still it's not an absolute thing that you could report. So that's still a problem there. So what went wrong with DNI effort? Nowadays a lot of tech communities put effort in DNI but why? Why we still have problems? Why we are like still having this microaggression or maybe oh why there's still a few women in there? Anybody heard of this one? This treat, sorry it's a bit small but it's about a conference that has been discovered by this, I followed, he's a tech reporter, I follow him on Twitter or X whatever. So yeah, it's a tech conference that he discovered they don't do CFPs, they don't do cover proposals, they only invite speakers and all of the free women that they invite actually two of them are not actual person that's what this generalist discovered. So what had the problem here? Why people need to fake, fake female speaker profile? It's the first time I've heard of that. Is it because for some company or organization they think that diversity and inclusion is just a slogan, right?  I suspect it's a thing that happened a lot in a lot of company when they write the report, diversity and inclusion report, they try to up the number, they try to maybe include some non-tech roles, employee us, you know, oh we have a lot of female in our company or we have a lot of like, you know, non-male in our company. Or so it's just, they would just want to make the number looks good but actually, for example, let's say, oh they don't do all this thing, it's like how many non-male developer out there but that counts all levels.   So, we just can't find enough women, there's not enough women out there that we think there's enough marriage. Which again, like I got angry sometimes when I heard this, these are excuse.  They're just avoiding the fact, they're just trying to like, you know, ignore. They don't even ask for help, which is also like, again, make me angry. It's like, talk to me, I can try to help you, you know. What can we do? We have to acknowledge the problem.  So I was like, oh, if I touch the bell, it will ring. So I cover my ears, so I don't hear it, so it will be fine. Okay, so it's kind of like that, right? It's like, well, avoiding the problem, pretend that it's not there. So, acknowledge the problem is the first step. So it's the first step that we have to do it. We don't avoid it, we acknowledge it. We understand it, how to understand, talk to underrepresented folks. So a lot of times, like, again, like, I'm a woman, I can only resonate with the problem women are facing. But then maybe, for example, if I want to know someone, let's say someone with a disability, how, like, how tough they are. I don't know, I have to talk to them and, like, be honest and be humble and ask them how we can help you, how we can make it better for you, right? Effort to work on it. Again, like, it's an investment. You don't know, like, the return doesn't come immediately. You know, I've organized conference that we provide childcare, nobody was using it. We provide, like, human speech-to-text translation to help maybe folks who can't hear or, like, or can't understand English or to help, but you have to keep working on it, even though you don't see the results immediately. Continue, constant effort. It, you know, you can't just, like, try it once. It doesn't work. Let's give up, you know. No, you have to keep doing it. We go from a conference that, like, nobody used the childcare, we just provide it to now we have to book extra childcare because everybody's bringing the whole family there. They bring their kids, they bring their spouse, so the spouse can learn about tech and, wow, that's amazing. So we have to keep on doing that. Support those efforts. So if you, you know, you can support, you can, like, some financial support, you know, those accessibility things are not cheap, so financial support is a good support, but other support is also welcome as well, volunteer or, you know, anything. So I would call that suppro, supproquacy model, so support, I put the accuracy ideas of supproquacy model. So this is the model that I made up. I think we have to provide opportunity and support that underrepresented groups need to be successful in leadership and community.  Not everybody have the same amount of time they can spare. So especially for underrepresented groups, we have to give them support if we want a diverse community. So this, again, is a picture I found from a book post. They mentioned all the things that we have been doing, or maybe we haven't been doing, but we can think of doing, for example, like code of conduct or empathize the group. For example, we have the diversity lunch that we just had for the women and non-binary folks. So that is like promote awareness of the presence of peers. So that's like one of the things that we have been doing it here. So there's also a lot of other things, some of them we are doing, some of them we can do better, some of them we can now start doing it. So you can have a deeper look in it. Last, I want to introduce you to this woman, Buanna. She is Indian. She actually was a former O'Reachy intern for, she's a former O'Reachy intern for Apache Airflow. So O'Reachy is an internship program that they pay, they get funding, and they pay these underrepresented folks to be working in open source projects. So she's still now, even though her intern finished, she's still an active contributor to Airflow, and that actually helped her to restart her career as a software engineer. She stopped her career because she feel that she is not catching up with her husband's career, even though they were both software engineers. So at some point she took a break, but O'Reachy and Apache for this project helped her to restart her career. So, kudos to that. And this is a few points I want to tell you to take home because I'm running out of time. So not everybody has the same access to resources. Remember that we have that. I acknowledge that and remember that. Pay developers in open source, not just the maintainers in all levels, like O'Reachy, pay some interns so they get the chance to learn and to be good. To provide education for those who have less access. Sometimes you have to give them to folks in other countries, maybe emphasize the success, put them on my presentation like this and provide a safe environment code of conduct for them. So, last thing, what shall we do? Maybe try support policy, maybe that's the way to do it. So thank you very much for this presentation. This is our last chance to grab the slide. So thank you.


Stories and content in Weird Darkness can be disturbing for some listeners and is intended for mature audiences only. Parental discretion is strongly advised. Welcome, Weirdos. I'm Darren Marlar and this is Weird Darkness. Here you'll find stories of the paranormal, supernatural, legends, lore, crime, conspiracy, mysterious, macabre, unsolved and unexplained. If you're new here, welcome to the podcast and be sure to subscribe so you don't miss future episodes. If you're already a Weirdo, please share the podcast with others. Doing so helps make it possible for me to keep doing the podcast. And while listening, be sure to check out the Weird Darkness website so you can find me on social media and drop me an email. Coming up... To the legend of the Pied Piper, hint at a real horrific event that befell the town of Hamlin more than 700 years ago? Ever woken up suddenly by a loud blast like a gunshot or slamming door, only to wake up and realize there really was no sound at all that was made? This is known as Exploding Head Syndrome and if you've experienced it, you've likely not longed to live. Or maybe you do. In 1944, the small town of Baton, Illinois was terrorized by a man in black who, according to witnesses and testimony, attacked unsuspecting homeowners with a paralyzing gas he would spray through their windows. Who was he? Why did he do it? The man and the motive are still a mystery. But first, when you hear the name Jigsaw, you likely immediately think of the puppet with the creepy voice of a serial killer who sets up elaborate deaths for his victims in a game only he enjoys. But in 1935, another man's brutal deeds earned him the same nickname. Only his story wasn't Hollywood fiction. We begin there.  It's fair to say that Britain has had a long line of notorious felons and many of them have by some means secured an ignominious spot in criminal history. Dr. Bukjar Rustamji Rutaji Hakim, better known as Buck Ruxton, is certainly one of them. In the early morning hours of September 15, 1935, Ruxton brutally murdered his common law wife Isabella Kerr and their housemate Mary Jane Rodgerson at their home in Lancaster, England, and then traveled to the Southern Uplands of Scotland to dispose of the remains. The media dubbed him the savage surgeon. The twin murders he committed were together known as the Jigsaw murders due to the mutilation Ruxton inflicted upon the bodies of his victims and the meticulous efforts investigators were forced to take in reassembling and identifying the women who were slain. One of early 20th century England's most shocking crimes, Ruxton is largely forgotten today outside of Northern England where he did his grisly deeds. Ruxton, who anglicized his birth name, was born in Bombay, India on March 21, 1899. He qualified as a doctor and came to England hoping to ply his trade, initially doing well. Ruxton was popular in the local community, especially with his poorer patients. In a time before England's National Health Service provided medical care free to all, Ruxton often would wave his fees if he felt a patient was too poor to pay. All in all, he was a respected, well liked professional man. Yet tragically, Ruxton also had a dark side. He was hot tempered, perpetually jealous, possessive and sometimes violent. He constantly suspected his common law wife Isabella of infidelity. The couple fought badly and often and Isabella had already left him twice. On September 15, 1935, Ruxton's dark impulses turned deadly. Isabella vanished and so oddly did the family's housemaid, Mary Rodgerson. According to Ruxton, Isabella had left him again. He denied knowing anything about Rodgerson's disappearance though. The police believed he knew far more than he was saying and they were determined to find out what. A search for the women was mounted and police discovering Ruxton's jealousy and violent history had him firmly set as the prime suspect. The mystery of the two women's disappearance was soon solved. Susan Haynes was out walking near Garden Home Lynn, a river in the Dumfries area of southern Scotland when she found body parts from two separate people scattered about and wrapped in newspapers. The newspapers used to wrap the remains were The Daily Herald from August 6 and August 31, 1935, The Sunday Chronicle and a special local edition of the Sunday graphic dated September 15 as well. The graphic pages came from a local slip edition distributed only in the Morcom and Lancaster area of Lancashire, not far from Ruxton's medical practice. Noticing that the women had vanished on or around September 15, police examined the subscription list and soon found a familiar name, Dr. Buck Ruxton. Questioned, Ruxton denied having been in Scotland at the time. This might have worked if he hadn't accidentally run down a cyclist near the town of Kendall while returning from dumping the body parts. A traffic cop stopped Ruxton in Minthorpe, due south of Kendall and the officer had noted Ruxton's car description and registration number. Police now had a date, time, car and driver. Now they needed to conclusively piece together the identity of the bodies. They managed that, using, for the time, highly innovative forensic techniques. The body parts were taken to Edinburgh where leading pathologist Sir Sidney Smith and a team of experts used forensic entomology to date the age of the maggots on the body parts. This established a window of time between their deaths and discovery. The researchers then superimposed a photo of Isabella over her skull, thereby identifying her in conjunction with dental records. With Kerr and then Rodgersen identified, it wasn't long before they again visited Dr. Ruxton, this time bringing a search warrant and a pair of handcuffs. Ruxton was arrested on October 13 and charged with Mary Rodgersen's murder. A thorough search of Ruxton's home revealed bloodstains and bloodstained medical instruments. Evidence strongly suggesting the victims had been killed and dismembered there. Ruxton's flimsy explanation for a recent injury leaving his right hand bandaged didn't help him much either. On November 5, 1935, Ruxton was charged with murdering Isabella Kerr as well. Arrested and charged, Ruxton's trial began March 2, 1936. It was a showcase of fine legal minds and big legal names. Ruxton was defended by Norman Burkett KC, KC being King's Council, a senior barrister, and Phil Kershaw KC. Burkett is still considered one of the finest lawyers of his generation with a well-deserved reputation for winning difficult cases. The prosecution were no less distinguished. Joseph Cook C. Jackson was a KC as was David Maxwell Fife later to become Home Secretary, nowadays Minister of Justice. Art Lee Shawcross would later be lead British prosecutor at the Nuremberg War Crime Trials. The presiding judge was Mr. Justice Singleton. With circumstantial evidence so incriminating and forensic evidence so groundbreaking, it was no surprise that Ruxton was convicted of Isabella's murder on March 13, 1936. He is believed to have murdered Rodgerson because she witnessed the crime. The verdict was unpopular locally where Ruxton still remained a popular figure. A petition with over 10,000 signatures went to Home Secretary Sir John Simon. Simon, however, ignored it. Ruxton's petition to the Court of Criminal Appeal was also denied. Unlike the United States where Capitol cases dragged on for years, English law allowed only a minimum of three Sundays between sentencing and execution. On May 12, 1936, he was taken from the special condemned cell at Strangeway's prison at 8 a.m. Only a short walk separated him from hangman Thomas Pierpont, uncle of Albert Pierpont, and Pierpont's assistant Robert Wilson. The formalities lasted only seconds. As Ruxton reached the gallows, the prison clock started chiming the hour before it finished chiming. He was dead. Coming up, ever woken up suddenly by a loud blast like a gunshot or slamming door, only to wake up and realize there really was no sound at all that was made? This is known as Exploding Head Syndrome, and if you've experienced it, you've likely not long to live. Or maybe you do. But first, could the legend of the Pied Piper hint at a real horrific event that befell the town of Hamlin more than 700 years ago? That story is up next when Weird Darkness Returns. If you or someone you know struggles with depression or dark thoughts, I'd like to recommend the Hope in the Darkness page at WeirdDarkness.com. There, I've gathered resources to help fight depression with the Seven Cups app, connecting you with people who've also struggled with depression and are there to lift you up, even professional listeners there to listen at all hours of the day. If you're having dark thoughts of harming yourself or worse, there's the suicide prevention lifeline that you can either call or chat online with anytime 24-7. The folks at ifred.org are doing what they can with research and education on depression to give us the tools we need to fight against it in the days ahead. These resources are absolutely free and there when you need them on the Hope in the Darkness page at WeirdDarkness.com. If you watch enough horror movies, sooner or later, you'll hear a character utter a variation on the phrase, every legend has a basis in fact. But whether or not that statement is true, it is a fact that many of our most outlandish fables and fictions are rooted, at least somewhat, in actual history and that truth often is stranger than fiction. Chances are most of us have encountered some variation on the fairy tale of the Pied Piper of Hamlet. It's one of many folk tales recorded by the Brothers Grimm and has appeared in the writings of Robert Browning and Johann Wolfgang von Geth, not to mention worked its way into popular culture from a nightmare on Elm Street to Bill Willingham's fables tie-in novel Peter and Max to the TV show Lost Girl. Alleged sexual predator R. Kelly has even called himself the Pied Piper of R&B. The story generally goes that the town of Hamlin was plagued by an unusual number of rats and a stranger from out of town wearing multicolored or pied clothes showed up and offered to get rid of the rats in exchange for payment. A stranger then produced a flute or a pipe and began playing a tune, at which time all the rats in town followed him out through the gates of the city and either to a nearby mountain or into the river, depending on which version you encounter. When the townsfolk saw how easily the Piper had rid the town of the rats, they regretted the amount of money that they had offered him and reneged on their deal. The Piper vowed revenge and later, according to one brother's grim account, it was June 26th 1284 and he returned and once more walked through the town playing his pipe. This time all the town's children, 130 of them, according to one of the earliest written accounts of the event, followed him out through the town's east gate and up to the nearby mountain which, in most accounts, opened wide to swallow them up and they disappeared, never to be seen again. The details of the story vary with the telling, as these sorts of tales are want to do, and given that the story of the Pied Piper has been retold hundreds of times since 1284, so many in fact that there are two different Wikipedia pages devoted to adaptations of the legend, there are numerous variations, not to mention plenty of disagreement as to the meaning of the Pied Piper figure himself. The tale has been retold by the likes of Robert Browning and Johan Wolfgang von Geth, who also incorporated elements of the Pied Piper story into his famous play, Foust, but it has also found its way into plenty of less renowned art. The Pied Piper himself appears as a character in one of the Shrek sequels, while the legend is recounted in a song by the band Demons and Wizards. Variations of the Pied Piper story have even found their way into anime with the violinist of Hamelin replacing the Piper's flute with a very large violin, and the project, Problem Children Are Coming From Another World, aren't they? Suggesting that the Piper is actually the personification of natural disasters. This highlights one of the many things that we see in various adaptations of the story into other forms, disagreements about as to who the Pied Piper really is, what his motivations are, and what he represents. The recent TV series, Once Upon a Time, for example, posited that the Pied Piper was really Peter Pan and that he was using his magic pipes to lure potential lost boys away from their homes. A great example of this confusion as to the particulars of the story can be found in the seedy, low-rent 1995 horror comedy film Ice Cream Man starring Clint Howard as the homicidal driver of an ice cream truck. The film makes heavy use of the Pied Piper story with one of the kids who act as the film's protagonists reading a book of the story throughout the film and making frequent illusions to it. In one scene he is explaining the story to some of the other kids on the playground when an old man who is picking up trash approaches. As our protagonist gets to the part about the Piper luring away the rats, the old man gleefully says, then he got the kids. That's what happens when you don't pay the Piper, the old man later adds. The kids disagree, however, informing him that the children got away. Kids always get away, one of them tells him. Besides an example of varying takes on the specifics of the legend, this is also an example of how the Pied Piper story is entered into our everyday lexicon. To pay the Piper is usually defined as to pay a debt you owe or else face unsavory consequences and its idiomatic use goes back at least as far as 1831 in the United States. While it has been connected to the longer phrase, who pays the Piper calls the tune, meaning that whoever is footing the bill for something gets to decide how it's done, the idiom pay the Piper is generally linked with the legend of the Pied Piper of Hamlin. In fact, in its advice on how to use the phrase, the website Grammarist actually recounts the legend in brief, stating that the moral of the story was to pay the Piper or keep up your half of the bargain. Grammarist also points out that the phrase usually has a pejorative connotation, pointing out that when it is time to pay the Piper, it is time to accept the consequences of a thoughtless or rash action or to fulfill a responsibility or promise usually after the fulfillment has been delayed already. Both of these meanings probably tie back to the legend of the Pied Piper. Even the words Pied Piper have entered into common usage to mean everything from a charismatic person who attracts followers to a leader who makes irresponsible promises to one who offers strong but delusive enticement, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary entry for Pied Piper meaning. Pied piping is also a phrase used to describe a certain phenomena in linguistics in which some words drag others along with them when moved to the front of a sentence. In this way, the meaning of Pied Piper has gone beyond the original story to become a frequently used metaphor that shows up in common speech every day. One thing that every variation seems to agree upon is that the Pied Piper is almost always someone who lures people, usually rats at least since 1559, and then children, but sometimes other individuals depending on the use that the metaphor is being put to. From there, variations are the rule, with some accounts even forgetting the actual meaning of the Pied part of the Pied Piper's name and not depicting him in multi-colored clothes at all. The story is a familiar one, but what most of us probably don't know is that it has its feet, at least somewhat, planted in an apparently true event that took place in the real-life town of Hamelin, Germany in 1284. The earliest accounts of the story don't include the rats, which would not show up until around the year 1559, but they do include the Piper dressed in his clothing of many colors. Our first clue about what really happened in the town of Hamelin comes from a stained glass window that stood in the town's market church until it was destroyed in 1660. Accounts of the stained glass say that it alluded to some tragedy involving children, and a recreation of the window shows the Piper in his colorful clothes and several children dressed in white. The date is set by an entry in Hamelin's town Chronicle, which was dated 1384, and said simply and chillingly, it is 100 years since our children left. While there is not enough historical data to ascertain for certain what happened in the town of Hamelin in 1284, there is little doubt that something occurred there which left a heavy mark on the town and on world folklore. Theories advanced over the years include that many of the town's children died of natural causes that year, or possibly drowned in the nearby river or were killed in a landslide, thus explaining the recurring motif of the rats being led into the water or the mountain opening up and swallowing the children. The Piper himself is considered a symbolic figure of death. One other explanation is that the children may have died of the Black Plague, which could be why the rats were later added into the story, though the Black Plague didn't hit Germany until the 1300s, making its arrival probably too late to be the true source of the legend. Other theorists told that the story of the Pied Piper actually refers to a mass emigration or even another children's crusade like the one that may have occurred in 1212. Many individuals have posited that the children may have emigrated or even been sold to places in Eastern Europe, including Transylvania or Poland. Linguist Jurgen Udolf, who has performed research suggesting that surnames from Hamelin may have found their way into modern-day Polish phonebooks. The modern-day website of the town of Hamelin invokes this interpretation, arguing that the children in the legend were actually citizens of the town who were willing to emigrate. After all, it points out, aren't all inhabitants of a city that city's children. In this version of events, the Pied Piper isn't a single person, but instead represents the call of territorial rulers who recruited citizens of the town to resettle in Moravia, East Prussia, Pomerania, and other places. Whatever the facts of the story, it's far from forgotten in the town of Hamelin. In the 16th century, when a new gate was built in the wall around the town, it was inscribed with the following legend. In the year 1556, 272 years after the magician led 130 children out of the town, this portal was erected. The Rattenfonger House, or Ratcatcher's House, remains a popular tourist attraction in the town to this day. Built in 1602, the building once bore an inscription about the legend, and today it is a city-owned Pied Piper-themed restaurant. In 2009, the city was home to a festival, commemorating the 725th anniversary of whatever strange and unknown disaster gave rise to the legend, and every year the people of Hamelin celebrate Ratcatcher's Day on June 26. The town also sells rat-themed merchandise in gift shops and online, including an officially licensed Hamelin-themed edition of Monopoly. Today, the town of Hamelin, which is now home to a population of around 56,000, maintains information about the legend of the Pied Piper on its website, and during the summer months, actors perform interpretations of the story in the town square, the road along which the children supposedly passed on their way out of the east gate, never to be seen again, is called the Bungalow and Strassa, or Street Without Drums. According to an article published in The Forty-In-Times, it is against the law to play music or dance on the street to this very day. Ever been suddenly awakened from sleep by something that sounds like booming thunder, a shotgun blast, or perhaps a bomb? But when you wake up, you realize there was no apparent external source for the sound? Well, congratulations, you just experienced a rather curious condition known as Exploding Head Syndrome, and you've likely not got long to live. Or do you? Well, you just have to keep listening to the end of the story to find out. Who first documented the bizarre phenomenon isn't precisely known, though Rene Descartes seems to have experienced such. As described by Adrian Vallet in his La Vie de Moschaux Descartes, where he states after Descartes had one of his famous three dreams, he lay awake thinking about the blessing and evils of this world, and then drifted off back to sleep on November 10th, 1619. He then had a new dream in which he believed he heard a sharp and shattering noise which he took for a clap of thunder. The fright it gave him woke him directly, and after opening his eyes he perceived many sparkling lights scattered around the room. The same thing had appeared to him at other times. While Descartes seems to have thought these particular dreams on that night were divine in nature, modern physicians think it likely is he simply was one of at least 10% of people and probably more who occasionally experienced the phenomenon of Exploding Head Syndrome. As for the first medical professional to not only document the syndrome, but study it in great detail, we have to fast forward to 1876 and famed American physician Silas Ware Mitchell, today known as the father of medical neurology. For example, in his Lectures on Diseases of the Nervous System, especially in women, he describes the experience of one patient, quote, When just falling asleep, he became conscious of something like an aura passing up from his feet. When it reaches his head, he felt what he described as an explosion. It was so violent and so loud that for a time he could not satisfy himself that he was not hurt. The sensation was that of a pistol shot or as of a bursting of something followed by a momentary sense of deadly fear, unquote. In another case, he notes the individual in question when perceiving this aura traveling up his body, if he awakened himself to full consciousness before it reached his head, he could stop the explosive sound from ever occurring. In yet another case, the individual notes, for him, it's not actually a loud explosion, but the sound of a ringing bell and sometimes that of a guitar string rudely struck and which breaks with a twang. Fascinatingly, Dr. Mitchell even found one single example of a person who experienced the phenomenon not just while drifting off to sleep or while asleep, but also while fully awake. She described, quote, after a slight heat stroke and a new exposure to severe fatigue, a body and mind, I experienced a sensation like the explosion of a pistol in my head. I hardly know how otherwise to describe it. A few months later, I began to have what I've always since called my shocks. A peculiar something, which for want of a better name I call electricity, starts from my head, chest, stomach or bowels and seems to pervade me in a flash, then comes the sense of shock in the head and an uncontrollable shriek. At first, it never came unless my eyes were shut, but for one week when I was most highly nervous and sleepless, it would come if I was startled by any sudden sound, and then I found that for a short period I could cause it by touching a spot over my stomach. Of late, these shocks are not always preceded by any length of warning and are in the head alone. They come mostly as I am going to sleep, and by straining my eyes to keep them open, I can sometimes prevent the shocks altogether. I should say that there is often some queer sense of chilliness in my head for an hour before the shocks, which is in a general way a warning of what may come. After absence from home and freedom from cares, I have been exempt from these shocks for weeks or months. This condition eventually became known as snapping head syndrome in the early 20th century, but didn't receive more serious attention until 1989, when neurologist JMS Pierce examined 50 patients with the condition. In his paper, Clinical Features of the Exploding Head Syndrome, he notes, although some start in childhood, the commonest age of onset remains middle and old age. The pattern of episodes of explosions is variable. Some report two to four attacks followed by prolonged or total remission, others have more frequent attacks up to seven and one night for several nights each week, and may then remit for several months. A separate study, this one done in 1991, the Exploding Head Syndrome, Polysomnographic Recordings and Therapeutic Suggestions, states, five of the six cases who underwent daytime polysomnography slept during parts of the recording in stages one and two. Only two reported attacks of explosions. One patient had two attacks while she was awake and relaxed. In her attacks, there was an alerting effect. The other case reported after the recording session that he had experienced an explosion during sleep. According to his EEG, he had not in fact slept at all during the recording. Beyond the whole extremely loud exploding or banging sound as alluded to, among the interesting symptoms described by patients includes a bright flash of light and a sensation of inability to breathe for a moment, resulting in the subjects having to very forcibly and consciously start breathing again. As you might imagine, this is a rather disconcerting sensation, with some misinterpreting it, their racing heart and sometimes a temporary stabbing pain or bizarre tingling sensation in the head or extremities as perhaps having a stroke or a heart attack. Others interpret the entire thing as maybe being brain tumor based, and some even go so far as thinking perhaps they were abducted by aliens or the like and placed back in bed after. The boom and flash of light then presumably being the spaceship rocketing off. So what actually has been causing exploding head syndrome? Losered people, of course. But for those wanting the root cause put forth by those refusing to accept the truth or otherwise pushing the agenda of our lizard overlords, may they reign forever, as for Dr. Mitchell, way back in the 19th century, he strongly connected it with people who were stressed or exhausted, noting, quote, I have seen a large number of persons who suffer in like fashion from some wand of the various forms. The most of these cases are women worn out or tired out and hysterical, whether strong and well-nourished or not. In sturdy men, it is rare unless they be excessive users of tobacco, unquote. So what advancements of modern physicians made on tracking down the source of the problem? Well, not much actually in terms of anything definitive, though there is a pretty solid hypothesis as to what generally is going on, even if the specifics aren't clear. First, modern physicians agree with Dr. Mitchell that anxiety, stress, and fatigue seem to contribute to triggering it. One study, to pyramid responsive exploding head syndrome, looking at the effectiveness of topomerate, an anti-convulsant used to treat seizures, did note mother and daughter have similar symptomatology, raising the possibility that EHS may be hereditary, but whether this is actually true has not yet been proven. As for something more specific, the limited studies monitoring the activity of the brain while people are experiencing the phenomenon show a marked spike in neural activity right when explosive or other symptoms are occurring. This seems to happen right when the body is more or less transitioning from wakefulness to sleep, with as one researcher studying the phenomenon, Brian Sharpless of Washington State University describes as like a hiccup in the particular formation, a network in the brain that plays a role in maintaining consciousness and general arousal among other things. Sharpless goes on, we think the neurons responsible for processing sound are all firing at once. The result is then a really loud bang, even though your eardrums didn't actually initiate the neurons firing. Presumably a similar thing is happening for flashes of light and strong smells experienced by others, sometimes in addition to the sound or sometimes by themselves. In essence, this seems to be some sort of a sensory version of the hypnagogic jerk that pretty much everyone is experienced from time to time when transitioning from wakefulness to sleep. As for treatments, going back to 19th century Dr. Mitchell, he avoids recommending leeches and instead recommends rest and reduction of outside anxieties. Fast forwarding over a century and the recommendation remains the same, albeit a bit more specific, things like yoga, relaxing reading, so you know, no politics or social media, a hot bath before bed, relaxing music, listening to the soothing calming sound of Darren Marlar and Weird Darkness as he lulls you to sleep with creepy stories. In a nutshell, all of this is trying to get you to relax before bed and listen to more of my podcasts just to stroke my ego, of course. It's also noted that patients who previously didn't understand what was happening when this occurred and thus often had anxiety about it when falling asleep tended to have a marked reduction in recurrence simply by learning about the syndrome and that it seems completely harmless other than being a bit startling to endure. As Dr. Sharpless asserts, you can help a lot just by reassuring a person that they're not crazy or experiencing symptoms of a tumor or some other brain disorder. That said, I do feel obliged to point out that just because experiencing exploding head syndrome isn't a marker of being crazy, the fact that you have doesn't actually mean you aren't crazy either. It just means you're not imagining this phenomenon.  As for drug treatments in a 2010 study, the aforementioned quite limited sample study indicated that topiramate lessened the intensity of EHS events but did not diminish its frequency. The study's authors also noted other helpful drug therapies like clonzopam, nephetapine, flunerazine, and chlomapramnine. That said, even for those drugs that even show signs of being effective, when you actually look into the matter as we did, the data supporting this conclusion is mostly non-existent, usually studies looking at just a handful of people for their sample. Given the condition is pretty random as it is, judging whether the medication actually helped or not falls squarely in the age-old further research needed camp. On that note, not only is further research needed on every facet of this seemingly quite common phenomenon, even the name has been suggested to need further tweaking, as hearing a loud explosion is just one form of probably the same basic syndrome, given others' experience flashing light or strong smells and the like instead of or in addition to the big noise. Thus, it is being suggested that a more apt name would be episodic cranial sensory shock. Though that doesn't quite have the same ring as exploding head syndrome and certainly wouldn't get as many clicks for those of us trying to spread the word about the condition or try to get more people to listen to our podcast. When Weird Darkness Returns, in 1944, the small town of Mattoon, Illinois was terrorized by a man in black who according to witnesses and testimony attacked unsuspecting homeowners with a paralyzing gas he would spray through their windows. Who was he? Why did he do it? The man and the motive are still a mystery. That story is up next. In early September 1944, a streamed series of events occurred in the small central Illinois town of Mattoon. According to eyewitnesses, numerous sightings and even physical evidence left behind, the town was under attack by a mysterious man in black who was, for unknown reasons, spraying some sort of paralyzing gas into the windows of unsuspecting residents. Who this man was, what his agenda might have been, and where he vanished to all remain a mystery to this day. The bizarre events began on the night of August 31st, when a man awakened feeling sick. He questioned his wife about leaving the gas stove on, but when she tried to get out of bed to check, she was unable to move. Later, it was learned that a neighbor experienced the same effects that night. The next night, Mrs. Burt Carney was awakened by a strange, sweet smell in her bedroom. When she tried to move, she found herself temporarily paralyzed. Her screams brought neighbors who called the police, but no sign of a gas leak was found. Around midnight, Burt Carney returned home from work, unaware of what had happened earlier that evening. As he turned into the driveway, he spotted a man lurking near the house, dressed all in black, clothes fitting clothing, and a black watch cap. He was standing near a window where Carney spotted him and turned to run away. Thinking he was a window peeper, Carney gave chase, but lost the man in the darkness. As the events of the two nights became publicly known, panic gripped the town. The newspapers handled the story in wildly sensationalistic manner and years later would be blamed for creating a hysteria that would be used to explain all of the weird things that happened, but the newspapers could not be blamed for the very real happenings taking place in Mattoon. By the morning of September 5, the Mattoon Police Department had received reports of four more gas attacks. The details in each of these attacks were eerily similar, even though none of the witnesses had compared notes or had time to check their stories. In each of the cases, the victims complained of a sickeningly sweet odor that caused them to become sick and slightly paralyzed for up to 30 minutes at a time. Late on the night of September 5, the first real clues in the Mad Gasser case were discovered. They were found at the home of Carl and Bula Cortes, but what the clues actually reveal still remains a mystery. The Cortes returned home late to find a white cloth lying on their porch. Mrs. Cortes picked it up and noticed a strange smell coming from it. She held it up close to her nose and felt immediately nauseated and lightheaded. She nearly fainted and her husband had to help her inside.  The symptoms lasted almost two hours. The police were called and they took the cloth into evidence. As they searched the property, they also found a skeleton key and an empty tube of lipstick that was found on the porch. They decided the prowler was probably trying to break into the house, but it failed. Apparently he had dropped his lipstick and a cloth with gas residue on it too. The mystery was just getting deeper by the day. Later that night, the Gasser attacked again, this time spraying gas into an open window. The attacks continued and Mattoon residents began reporting fleeting glimpses of the Gasser, always describing him as a tall, thin man in dark clothes and wearing a tight black cap. More attacks were reported and the harried police force tried to respond to the mysterious crimes that left no clues behind. Eventually the authorities even summoned two FBI agents from Springfield to look into the case, but their presence did nothing to discourage the strange reports. Panic was widespread and rumors began to circulate that the attacker was an escapee from an insane asylum or a German spy who was testing out some sort of poisonous gas. Armed citizens took to the streets, organizing watches and patrols to thwart any further attacks, but several took place anyway. The gas attacks were becoming more frequent and the attacker was leaving behind evidence like footprints and sliced window screens. A local citizens vigilance group did manage to arrest one suspect as the Gasser, but after he passed a polygraph test, he was released. Local businessmen announced that they would be holding a mass protest rally on Saturday, September 10th to put more pressure on the already pressured Matune police force. Now the Gasser was becoming more than a threat to public safety, he was becoming a political liability and a blot on the public image of the city. The Gasser, apparently not dissuaded by armed vigilantes and newspaper articles, resumed his attacks. The first incident took place at the home of Mrs. Violet Driscoll and her daughter Ramona. They awoke late in the evening to hear someone removing the storm sash on their bedroom window. They hurried out of bed and tried to run outside for help, but the fumes overcame Ramona and she began vomiting. Her mother stated that she saw a man running away from the house. A short time later that night, the Gasser sprayed fumes into the partially opened window of a room where Mrs. Russell Bailey, Catherine Tuzo, Mrs. Genevieve Haskell and Mrs. Haskell's young son were sleeping. At another home, Ms. Frances Smith, the principal of the Colombian grade school and her sister Maxine, were also overwhelmed with gas and became ill. They began choking as they were awakened and felt partial paralysis in their legs and arms. They also said that as the sweet odor began to fill the room as a thin blue vapor, they heard a buzzing noise from outside and believed that it was the Gasser's spraying apparatus in operation. By September 10th, Mad Gasser Paranoia had peaked. FBI agents were trying to track down the type of gas being used in the attacks and the police force had to divide its time between looking for the Gasser and keeping armed citizens off the streets. Neither law enforcement agency was having much luck. By the following Saturday night, several dozen well-armed farmers from the surrounding area had joined the patrols in Matune. In spite of this, six attacks took place anyway, including three previously mentioned. Another couple, Mr. and Mrs. Stuart B. Scott, returned to their farm on the edge of Matune late in the evening to find the house filled with sweet smelling gas. This seemed to be the last straw for the Matune authorities. While several gas attacks were reported on the night of September 11th, they were all dismissed as false alarms. Newspaper accounts of the affair began to take on a more skeptical tone and despite claims by victims and material evidence left behind, the police began to dismiss new reports of attacks and suggested that local residents were merely imagining things. The Gasser could not be caught and it seemed easier to claim that he never existed at all than to admit that no one could find him. New stories began to appear in the papers where psychology experts opined that the women of Matune had dreamed up the Gasser as a desperate cry for attention as many of their husbands were overseas fighting in the war. This theory ignored the fact that many victims and witnesses were men and that this so-called fantasy was leaving behind evidence of his existence. The Matune police chief issued what he felt was the final statement on the gas attacks on September 12th. He stated that large quantities of carbon tetrachloride gas were used at the local Atlas diesel engine company and that this gas must be causing the reported cases of illness and paralysis. It could be carried through the town on the wind and could have left the stains that were found on the rag at one of the homes. As for the mad Gasser himself, well, he was simply a figment of their imaginations. The whole case, he said, was a mistake from beginning to end. Not surprisingly, a spokesman for the Atlas diesel engine plant was quick to deny the allegations that his company had caused the concern in town, maintaining that the only use for that gas in the plant was in their fire extinguishers and any similar gases used there caused no ill effects in the air. Besides that, why hadn't this gas ever caused problems in the city before and how exactly was this gas cutting the window screens on Matune homes before causing nausea and paralysis? The official explanation also failed to explain how so many identical descriptions of the Gasser had been reported to the police. It also neglected to explain how different witnesses managed to report seeing a man of the Gasser's description fleeing the scene of an attack, even when the witness had no idea that an attack had taken place. The last Gasser attack took place on September 13th, and while it was the last incident connected to the attacker in Matune, Illinois, it was also possibly the strangest. It occurred at the home of Mrs. Bertha Bench and her son Orville.  The next morning, footprints that appeared to have been made by a woman's high-heeled shoes were found in the dirt below the window. After this night, a mad Gasser of Matune was never seen or heard from again. To this day, the identity of the mad Gasser remains a mystery, as does the reason why he chose to wreak havoc in Matune. Stories have suggested that the Matune Gasser was anything from a mad scientist to an ape man, although who knows where that came from, and researchers today have their own theories, some of which are just as wild. Could he have been some sort of extraterrestrial visitor using some sort of paralyzing agent to further a hidden agenda? Could he have been some sort of odd inventor who was testing a new apparatus? Interestingly, I was sent a letter in 2002 from a woman who explained to me that her father grew up in Matune during the time when the gas attacks were taking place. He told her that there had been two sisters living in town at the time who had a brother who was allegedly insane. A number of people in town believed that he was the mad Gasser, and so his sisters locked him in the basement until they could find a mental institution to put him in. After they locked him away, her father told her, the gas attacks stopped. Is this possibly the answer to the mystery? Or could the Gasser have been an agent of our own government who came to an obscure Midwestern town to test some military gas that could be used in the war effort? It might be telling that once national attention came to Matune, the authorities began a policy of complete denial and the attacks suddenly ceased. Coincidence? Whoever or whatever he was, the mad Gasser has vanished into time and real or imagined is only a memory in the world of the unknown. Perhaps he was never here at all. Perhaps he was, as Donald M. Johnson wrote in the 1954 issue of the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, simply a shadowy manifestation of some unimaginable unknown. But was he really? How do we explain the sightings of the mad Gasser that were made by people who did not even know the creature was alleged to exist? Or identical sightings from independent witnesses who could not have possibly known that others had just spotted the same figure? Was the Gasser, as some have suggested, a visitor from a dimension outside of our own, thus explaining his ability to appear or disappear at will? Was he a creature so outside the realm of our imaginations that we will never be able to comprehend his motives or understand the reason why he came to Matune? Perhaps this is the solution to the mystery. That this is a mystery that we will never understand. If you think about that long enough, it can make your head hurt. It is a solution that simply causes more questions to be asked. And in keeping with that, here is another. If the rules of physics don't actually apply to a phantom attacker like the mad Gasser, and he is capable of traveling from one dimension to another, coming and going without explanation, where might he appear the next time? Think about that one when you turn off the lights and get into bed tonight. Thanks for listening. Feel free to email me anytime with your questions or comments at Darren at WeirdDarkness.com. You can also find all of my social media and a link to the Weird Darkness Weirdos Facebook group on the contact page of the website. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast if you haven't already done so, and please leave a review of the show in the podcast app you listen from. And if you're already a weirdo, please take a moment today and share the podcast with someone you know who loves paranormal stories, true crime, monsters, or mysteries like you do. Do you have a dark tale to tell of your own? Fact or fiction, click on Tell Your Story on the website and I might use it in a future episode. All stories in Weird Darkness are purported to be true unless stated otherwise, and you can find source links or links to the authors in the show notes. The Real Jigsaw was written by Robert Walsh for the lineup. The true story of the Pied Piper is by Oren Gray for the Portalist. Exploding Head Syndrome is by Melissa for Today I Found Out. And The Mad Gasser of Mattoon is by Troy Taylor. Weird Darkness is a production of Marlar House Productions. And now that we're coming out of the dark, I'll leave you with a little light. Colossians 1 verse 13a. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness. And a final thought. Be happy in the moment. That's enough. Each moment is all we need, not more. Mother Teresa. I'm Darren Marlar. Thanks for joining me in the Weird Darkness. In essence, this seems to be some sort of a since it in essence, this seems to be some sort of a sensory version of the hyponogio... In essence, this seems to be some sort of a sensory version of the hypnogiotic... How the heck do you say that word? I want to say hypnogiotic. Hypnogiotic? This job. Is it hypnagogic? Hypnagogic. One of my favorite descriptions of the hypnagogic state comes from Proust. Hypnagogic. Oh my gosh. Talk about the hypnagogic and hypnopombic state. Hypnagogic. I didn't know dissociated hypnagogic state.  So I could say hypnagogic, hypnagogic, hypnagogic, hypnogotic... Oh for crying out loud. I'm just going to make it up as I go. You kind of love a word that there really is no actual pronunciation for. In essence, this seems to be some sort of a sensory version of the hypnagogic jerk that pretty much everyone is experienced from time to time when transitioning from wakefulness to sleep.   Want to receive the commercial free version of Weird Darkness every day? For just $5 per month, you can become a patron at WeirdDarkness.com. As a patron, you get commercial free episodes of Weird Darkness every day. Bonus audio. And you also receive chapters of audiobooks as I narrate them, even before the authors and publishers hear them. But more than that, as a patron, you're also helping to reach people who are desperately hurting with depression and anxiety. You get the benefits of being a patron, and you also benefit others who are hurting at the same time. Become a patron at WeirdDarkness.com.


My name is Dr. Mishuki Maena. I am a pediatrician and health systems researcher based at the Cambry Wellcome Trust research program and I'm also a doctoral research student based at the Cambry Wellcome Trust. So my research is mainly based looking at infection prevention and control and stewardship of antibiotics in Kenyan public hospitals and how that can help us improve and reduce resistance to antimicrobial agents, what is usually referred to as antimicrobial resistance. So patients go to hospitals to get better but unfortunately depending on the structure of the hospitals they can actually acquire infections in hospitals. So my work is hope is trying to reduce these hospital acquired infections when the patients present to hospital with any tropical illness so that they can get treatment and get well and go home. Part of the work in trying to look at infection prevention and control we've developed a tool that can be used to survey water, sanitation and hygiene as a structure of infection prevention and control in these hospitals and we're hoping that this survey tool can be used by hospitals to find out how well or poorly they are doing in terms of infection prevention and control. Here the Cambry Wellcome Trust research program, the health systems and ethics unit has been quite keen to engage hospitals in the last 10 years to improve the quality of care provided in these facilities and part of improving quality is making sure that the structures in these hospitals are conducive to prevent infections so that the quality care that has been provided is done together with the hospitals that are keen to provide. So antimicrobial resistance is becoming a global challenge and if we are not careful the rate of resistance is increasing and the drug development and discovery is not as fast as how much resistance is happening and so some of the interventions that have been found to reduce resistance to antimicrobial agents is having infection prevention and control strategies in hospitals. So this is where I feel my work would play a big role in preventing infections and resistance in limited resource settings. So part of our work is engaging government and policy makers to try and develop treatment guidelines and so my work and having developed a tool that can be used to survey infection prevention and control we hope that this can be taken up by the Ministry of Health or county governments to assess tool for public hospitals to assess infection prevention and control.