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Hi Crime House Community. It's Heidi Wong looking for another Crime House original podcast to add to your rotation. You will love Clues with Morgan Abshur and Kaylan Moore. Every Wednesday, Morgan and Kaylin dig into the world's most notorious crimes, clue by clue. From serial killers to shocking murders. They follow the trail of clues, breaking down the evidence and debating the theories. It's like hanging out with your smart and true crime obsessed friends. Listen to Clues on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
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This is crime house.
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A group of villagers who fall prey to the devil's tricks against a town in France where people literally dance themselves to death. An Illinois community convinced they were under attack by a phantom. You might think deadly delusions like these only belong in horror movies, but the truth is these stories are very real and they all prove the same terrifying thing. All it takes is one person for everyone to lose their minds. Welcome to Twisted, a Crime House Original. I'm Heidi Wong. Every week I'll take you deep into the true stories behind horror's biggest legends. From vengeful ghosts to bloody slashers to alien encounters and more, these real life accounts are guaranteed to keep you up at night. But scary stories aren't any fun if you're telling them alone. If you've had a haunted moment or a twisted tale of your own, I want to hear about it. Drop it in the comments. The creepier the better. Crime House is made possible by you. Follow Twisted Tales and subscribe to Crime House plus on Apple Podcasts for ad free early access. And if you're into true crime as well as horror, go search and follow Crime House daily. Our team's twice a day show bringing you breaking cases, updates and unbelievable stories from the world of crime that are happening right now. Today. I'm talking about Ari Aser's Midsommar, which came out in 2019. Most horror movies hide their scares in the shadows. Not this one. Midsommar takes place almost entirely in broad daylight, surrounded by flowers and folk music. But what makes it truly unsettling isn't just the sunshine and smiles. It's the shared delusions. Everyone in the fictional community in Midsommar believes in the same things, follows the same rituals, and creates a shared reality where the twisted and absurd is normal. And as you'll find out, the film draws on some genuinely creepy folklore and real causes where entire groups of people descended into madness.
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If you haven't seen Ms. Samar, here's what you need to know. The movie starts with a tragedy. A young woman named Dani loses her entire family in a horrific accident. She's devastated, barely holding it together. Her boyfriend Christian, not exactly supportive. He's checked out emotionally and was actually planning to break up with Dani before her family died. And now he's stuck. Christian and his grad school buddies are headed to a special midsummer festival in rural Sweden. One of them is from a commune named the Harga, and this particular celebration only happens once every 90 years. Dani wasn't invited, but at the last minute, Christian asks her to come with, probably because he felt guilty. At first, everything seems weirdly perfect. The commune is beautiful. Rolling green hills, flower crowns, traditional folk costumes. Everyone's friendly and welcoming. They eat communal meals, drink special tea and participate in dances. It's all very wholesome and picturesque, but that special tea? Yeah, it's drugged. The people of the Harga spike their food and drinks with hallucinogens throughout the festival. They don't tell the visitors this, of course. So while Dani and the others think they're just participating in quaint folk traditions, they're actually, actually tripping hard. Their perception of reality gets increasingly warped as the days go on. But then things get even more uncomfortable. The festival has some traditions that are, let's say, not exactly tourist friendly. For instance, there's a ceremony where two elderly members of the community voluntarily jump off a cliff. It's supposed to be an honor, completing your life cycle at the right time. The visitors are horrified, but the Harga commune members, they're totally fine with it. This is just how things are done. But it only gets weirder from here.
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The festival goes on for days. More rituals, more strange customs. The visitors keep trying to leave, but for some reason, they just can't. Instead, some disappear. Others are chosen for special ceremonies. Meanwhile, Dany's pushed deeper into the commune's traditions. She's grieving, vulnerable, and the Harga women embrace her in a way. Her boyfriend Never did. When she cries, they cry with her. When she feels pain, they feel it too. Eventually, Dani is crowned the May Queen, the festival's highest honor. But this isn't a feel good moment, because by the end, nearly all the outside visitors who came to the Harga are dead, including Christian. They were all sacrificed as a part of the commune's rituals. And Dani watches it all happen with a smile on her face. Now, the director Ari Aster said that Midsommar isn't about the actual Swedish Midsummer Festival, which is a totally normal, family friendly celebration of the summer solstice. The Harga commune is fictional, the brutal rituals made up. But the movie does pull from real Swedish folklore, Specifically an old story about what happens when you dance with the devil. Literally. The festival is called Horgo Latten, which roughly translates to the hare's tune, or the devil's fiddle. And it goes a little something like this.
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One Saturday evening in the summer, a group of young people gather for a party. It's warm, it's festive, everyone's having a great time. They eat, drink, and most importantly, they dance. The musicians play folk tunes. Late into the night, people are spinning and laughing, completely caught up in the celebration. But as midnight approaches, most of the partygoers start heading home. The musicians pack up their instruments. The more sensible guests call it a night. Except for a few. There's always that group, right? The ones who aren't ready for the party to end. They're still full of energy and still want to keep dancing. And that's when he shows up. A stranger appears. A fiddle player they've never seen before. He's dressed nice and seems really confident. So when he offers to continue playing and keep the party going, everyone's thrilled. But here's the thing. If they looked down, they would have noticed something strange about this mysterious musician. He has hooves instead of feet. Yup. They just made a deal with the devil. And it turns out he's pretty good on that fiddle. The most enchanting music any of them have ever heard. The kind of melody you can't resist. So they dance and dance and dance. They spin faster and faster, unable to stop. The music has them completely under its spell. Their feet move on their own. They're exhausted, gasping for air. But they can't quit. The devil keeps playing. The sun rises and still they dance. Finally, the church bells ring. On Sunday morning, when people come to check on the group, they find a horrifying scene. The only thing left of the dancers is their heads, which are rolling around on the Floor in time to the music. Now, there are totally different versions of this story. In some, the dancers turn to stone. In others, they simply dance until they die of exhaustion. In one version, the devil is a handsome young man who charms his way into the party. In another, he's an old fiddler who seems harmless until it's too late. Some people say the dancers bodies disappeared entirely, leaving only their heads. Others think their corpses were found still twitching to the rhythm of the music no one else could hear. The details change, but the message is the same. Don't let yourself get so caught up in the celebration that you lose control.
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These kinds of stories were incredibly common in Scandinavia during the 16th and 17th centuries. Midsummer in particular was seen as a dangerous time. It's the summer solstice, the longest day of the year when the sun barely sets. In Scandinavian folklore, this is when the boundary between the natural and the supernatural world is the thinnest. Spirits could cross over more easily. Magic was more powerful, and the devil was always looking for souls to claim. Well, people really leaned into these old pagan beliefs. It made for some wild midsummer celebrations. Lots of dancing, drinking and shenanigans that lasted all night. But not everyone was a fan. The Christian church, which was pretty popular in Sweden by then, did not like this. They saw these pagan traditions as dangerous and sinful. So parents and priests told stories like hor gelatin to keep young people in line during midsummer celebrations. Don't stay out too late. Don't dance with strangers. Don't lose yourself in the revelry, because if you do, you might not come back. Ms. Amar taps into this exact fear. Dany and the other visitors get swept up in the commune's rituals. The dancing, the drugs, the communal experiences. It all pulls them deeper and deeper. And just like in Jorge Latten, by the time they realize what's happening, it's already too late. But this idea of shared delusions, of literally dancing yourself to death, isn't just folklore in a city. In France, it actually happened.
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In July 1518, something odd happened In Strasbourg, France. A woman named Frau Trofea stepped into the street and started dancing right there in the middle of the road, all by herself. At first, people probably thought she was drunk. In New York, that's normal. But here's the thing. She didn't stop. She danced for hours, then days. She actually danced so hard and for so long that her feet began to bleed. She danced until she collapsed from exhaustion. And when she regained consciousness, she just got up and kept going. Witnesses said she looked terrified, like she wanted to stop, but couldn't. She reportedly begged onlookers for help while her body kept moving. These weren't graceful, joyous movements. This was frantic, desperate, uncontrollable motion. Weird, right? But it gets weirder. Within a week, around 34 other people joined her. A month later, the number had swelled to around 400 people, all seized by this uncontrollable urge to dance. They couldn't stop. Even when they were exhausted, even when their feet were bloody and swollen, they kept moving. Some danced until they literally died from heart attacks, strokes, or sheer exhaustion. The authorities were baffled. This wasn't normal. This wasn't explained. So what did they do? They called in musicians. I know that seems counterintuitive, right? People are dancing themselves to death, so you bring in more music. But at the time, there was a theory that the dancing sickness was caused by hot blood. Dancing plagues were apparently common enough in medieval Europe that physicians had actually started protocols for treating them. The thinking was that if you let people dance it out of their system, they'll eventually tire themselves out and return to normal. Well, it didn't work. The authorities set up stages and hired professional musicians and dancers. People were hired to help prop up the exhausted dancers when they started to collapse. Basically, human crutches kept the dancing going, but instead of helping, it just made everything worse and more people joined in.
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This went on for weeks. By some accounts, people were dying at the rate of around 15 per day. At the peak of the outbreak, the dancers were drenched in sweat, their faces pale and twisted in agony. They moved like they were in a trance, their limbs jerking violently. Some cried out for help even as their bodies kept moving. Some historians have suggested it might have been a case of side Denim's chorea, a disease that causes involuntary movements, sometimes called St. Vitus dance. Others pointed to an epidemic, typhus or even deliberate poisoning as possible causes. But none of these theories fully explain why so many people were affected at once, or why it spread so rapidly throughout the population. So what was actually happening here? Modern historians have a few theories.
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Some think it might have been caused by ergot poisoning, a fungus that grows on grain and can cause convulsions and hallucinations. Basically, they might have eaten moldy bread that made them trip really, really hard. But the more accepted theory, mass psychogenic illness, also known as mass hysteria see Strasbourg in 1518 was in crisis. The previous year had seen a particularly harsh winter with lots of failed harvests. Famine was widespread. On top of that, syphilis and the plague were Sweeping through the region, many people had lost family members to disease and starvation. There was also a widespread belief that God was punishing the region for its sins. People felt helpless, terrified, and convinced that death was coming for them one way or another. And in that kind of environment, mass hysteria can take hold. One person starts acting strange, and others, already on edge, already stressed, starts unconsciously mimicking it. It spreads like a contagion, not because of a physical disease, but because of shared psychological trauma. The dancing gave form to their inner terror. It was their bodies expressing what their minds couldn't process. It's not fake. These people genuinely couldn't control themselves. Their bodies were responding to extreme psychological stress in a very physical way. Think about it like this. Have you ever been in a group where one person starts laughing uncontrollably and suddenly everyone's laughing, even though they don't know why? Or when One person yawns and it triggers a chain reaction. Mass hysteria is like that, but cranked up to 11, and instead of yawns, it's uncontrollable dancing or convulsions or whatever behavior that the stressed out brain latches onto.
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Eventually, the plague ended. But it took weeks. That's when the dancers were taken to a chapel dedicated to Saint Vitus, the patron saint of dancers. They were given blessed wine and made to pray for healing. So was it the religious intervention that helped? Or did the ritual situation simply give them permission to stop? A way to break the collective delusion? Historians still debate that question. In midsommar, the Harga commune operates on collective emotion. When Dani cries out, all the women cry with her. When someone screams, they all scream. Individual identity gets swallowed up by the group. That's the terrifying power of mass hysteria, that the group can literally override your sense of self and self. Sometimes it doesn't even take stress or trauma to trigger it. Sometimes all it takes is suggestion and a little bit of panic. Which brings me to our next story.
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Phew.
- [16:27]
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- [17:02]
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You'Re free to discover your way. And that's what running is all about. Run your way@newbalance.com Running.
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In 1944, something spread through a small Illinois town that was more contagious than any virus. A collective belief that a phantom was hunting residents with poison gas. The police investigated, the newspapers covered it. The entire town was in a panic. There was just one problem. The mad gasser that he'd come to be known probably never existed. In September 1944, the small town of Mattoon, Illinois, was dealing with the same thing everyone else in America. World War II. Husbands and sons were overseas. Families were worried. The news was full of stories about enemy attacks and chemical weapons. Everyone was on edge. And then, on the night of September 1st, something terrifying happened. A woman named Aline Kearney was lying in bed when she noticed a strange smell coming through her window. Within minutes, she felt sick. Her legs went numb, and when she tried to scream for help, she could barely make a sound. She later described the smell as sickly sweet, almost floral. As for her symptoms, she said it felt like she was being held down by an invisible force, like her body had turned to lead. She could see and hear everything, but couldn't move or call for help. And when her husband eventually came home, Aline told him what happened. He immediately went outside to investigate and saw a figure running away from their house. The next morning, the Kearneys reported the incident to the police. And that's when things spiraled out of control. The local newspaper, the Mattoon Daily Journal Gazette, ran a story about the attack. The headline was dramatic Anesthetic Prowler on Loose. Suddenly, everyone in Mattoon was on high alert, and within days, more reports started flooding in. Other victims reported similar experiences. One woman said she woke up to the smell and felt her mouth go numb, then her throat, then the rest of her body. A man said he saw a cloth being pressed against the bedroom window and immediately felt dizzy and weak. The descriptions were remarkably consistent, which at the time seemed like proof that something real was happening. And the symptoms were all the same, too. A sweet smell. Nausea, paralysis, difficulty breathing. Some people reported seeing a tall figure in dark Clothing running away from their homes. People all over town claimed they were being attacked by a man dubbed mad gasser who was spraying some kind of paralyzing gas through their windows at night.
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The investigation was thorough. Police dusted for fingerprints at every reported attack site. They analyzed cloth samples from windows where the gas was supposedly sprayed. They interviewed dozens of witnesses and took statements from every victim. Even the FBI got involved. And yet there was nothing. No chemical residue, no physical evidence of any intruder who was tall and wearing dark clothes. Still, the reports kept coming. At the peak of panic, there were multiple attacks reported every single night. The town was in a frenzy. People were scared to sleep with their windows open. Some families left town entirely. Armed vigilante groups patrolled the streets at night looking for the mad gasser. Newspapers ran increasingly sensational headlines, which only made residents more worried. Each article included detailed descriptions of the attacks and speculation about the gasser's identity. Was it a mad scientist? An escaped mental patient? But slowly, officials started to realize something. This might not be a real attacker at all. The police chief eventually put out a statement suggesting the attacks were likely imaginary, A case of mass hysteria fueled by wartime anxiety and media coverage. And you know what happened when he said that? People got mad, really mad. The community accused the police of not taking them seriously and of covering up the truth. How dare they suggest this wasn't real? People were experiencing symptoms. They saw the attacker with their own eyes. But the thing is, mass hysteria doesn't mean people are lying or making things up. It means that their brains are genuinely creating physical symptoms in response to fear and suggestion. Think about it. Everyone in mattoon was already stressed out about the war. Then they hear about a mysterious gas attack in their town. Suddenly, they're hyper aware of every strange smell, every weird feeling in their body. Someone sees a shadow outside their window. Is it a prowler? Or is it just a neighbor being a little creepy? When you're that on edge, your brain can fill in the blanks. And when everyone around you is experiencing the same thing, it reinforces the belief that it's real. But it turns out the police chief might have been onto something. Because once the theory of mass hysteria was flipping, the attacks just stopped.
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By late september, less than a month after the first attack, there were no more reports of the mad gasser, as if breaking the collective belief was all it took to make him vanish. Did the police pop the balloon and snap the town out of their trance? Maybe. But to this day, some people in mattoon insist the mad gasser was real. But Most historians and psychologists agree that it was a textbook case of mass psychogenic illness. In the aftermath, some residents were embarrassed. Others remained convinced that the mad gasser was real and the police had simply failed to catch him. A few even claimed to have seen the gasser again. In later years, the case became a cautionary tale in psychology textbooks, an example of how fear, suggestion and media coverage can create a shared delusion that feels absolutely real to those experiencing it. And there are lots of other examples of this throughout history.
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In 1962, dozens of workers at a factory in South Carolina suddenly developed mysterious symptoms. Nausea, dizziness, and fainting. Investigations found no toxins or contaminants. It was mass hysteria triggered by workplace stress. In 2011, more than a dozen teenage girls in Leroy, New York started experiencing weird tics, sudden outbursts and seizure like symptoms that spread throughout their friend group at school. At first, environmental factors were blamed, but eventually doctors figured out that it was mass psychogenic illness. And of course, there's the Salem witch trials. In 1692, a group of girls in Massachusetts started having fits, convulsions, weird visions, wild outbursts. The Puritan community immediately blamed witchcraft, and the girls started pointing fingers. The accusations snowballed fast, fueled by everyone's fears about the devil and sin. By the time it was over, 20 people were dead and over 200 had been accused. Today, most scholars agree it was mass psychogenic illness, real symptoms, but no actual witches. Another community wound so tight with fear and stress that they needed someone to blame for their problems. In Midsommar, the visitors to the Harga experienced something similar. They're isolated, drugged, and surrounded by people who all believe the same things. A stressed pressure cooker. That's when reality starts to blur. What's real, what's ritual, what's just in their heads. By the end, Dani genuinely believes she's found her true family in this Swedish death cult. Her sense of self has been completely warped by the group. That's the terrifying thing about mass hysteria. In groupthink, your brain can be convinced of almost anything when everyone around you believes it too. Whether it's Frau trofea dancing in 1518, the people of Mattoon fleeing from a phantom in 1944, or a Swedish folktale about selling your soul to keep the party going. They're all about the same fear. The fear of losing control, of being swept up in something bigger than yourself, of the group overriding your individual will. Midsommar understands this fear perfectly. It shows how easy it is to get pulled into a collective delusion when you're vulnerable, isolated and desperate to belong. Dany starts the movie broken and alone. She ends up crowned as the May Queen, smiling as her boyfriend burns alive. Completely absorbed into the Harga's commune's twisted worldview, she's lost herself entirely. But that's what's really scary about how happy she looks like staying in this delusion is better than dealing with the real world.
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Thanks so much for joining me on this episode of Twisted Tales, a crime house original. I'd love to hear from you. What did you think about today's stories? Have you seen Midsommar? Did you love it as much as I did? Leave a comment or review wherever you're tuning in and be sure to follow Twisted Tales so we can keep building this community together. I'll be back next week with another unbelievable true story. Until then, stay curious and remember, there's no reason to fear the dark unless you try to hide from it.