Ep. 148 - The Haunting of Girlstown

The Conspirators Podcast

History, Society & Culture

4.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 22 February 2021

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Between 2006 and 2007, something strange was happening in a girls school in Mexico. More than 600 students began complaining of phantom pains in their legs and other mysterious ailments. But what was even stranger was the fact that the girls also began to believe their school was cursed by evil spirits. Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theconspiratorspodcast Merchandise Store: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/the-conspirators-podcast?ref_id=13696 Notes: https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/14117464.flashback-hundreds-blackburn-pupils-hit-fainting-frenzy/https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-1962-laughter-epidemic-of-tanganyika-was-no-jokehttps://www.vox.com/the-highlight/21242299/outbreak-girlstown-chalco-world-villages-villa-de-las-ninashttps://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/16/world/americas/16mexico.htmlhttps://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/volume-22/edition-7/dancing-plagues-and-mass-hysteriahttps://www.vice.com/en/article/exqyzp/how-does-mass-hysteria-take-over-a-school Music: Dexter Britain, The Tea Party https://dexterbritain.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello all, Eric Rivenus with the most notorious podcast here. Each week I
0:05.4	interview an author or historian about a historical true crime tragedy or
0:10.2	disaster. Subject matter ranges from gunslingers to
0:14.4	gilded-age murder to gangsters to fires to pirates to wild prison breaks. My
0:20.2	guests bring their incredible knowledge directly to you. Please subscribe to
0:24.7	Most Notorious on your favorite podcast app, cheers and have a safe tomorrow.
0:35.8	Back in 1962, there once was a boarding school in the village of Kashasha, a
0:40.4	small community in Tanganyika, which we know is Tanzania today. It all began one
0:48.0	afternoon when two girls were talking to one another in class. One of them
0:52.8	told the other a joke. Before long, both girls were giggling. Soon that giggling
0:58.8	erupted into a full-blown fit of laughter. At first there was nothing particularly
1:03.9	strange about this incident. That is until another girl joined in the
1:08.1	laughing bit, and then another, and another, and another. And none of them could
1:15.0	stop laughing. The wave of uncontrollable laughter spread throughout the school
1:19.7	quickly. Soon it was estimated anywhere from 95 to 159 of the students were caught
1:25.7	up in this wave of hysterical laughter. The teaching staff seemed immune to the
1:30.9	laughing plague, but it soon became impossible for them to resume work, so the school was
1:37.2	forced to close down months later. Only it didn't end there. Eventually the
1:42.3	laughing plague would spread to 14 other schools. Many of the records of the incident have
1:47.1	since been destroyed, but it's believed the laughter epidemic went on anywhere from
1:50.9	six to eighteen months, and affected at least a thousand people.
1:56.4	To this day no one knows for certain what causes epidemic. Perhaps the best hypothesis
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