Just a word of warning before we begin. This episode discusses some incidents of assault,

and while they are very much paranormal in nature, some may find the details to be disturbing.

Listener discretion is advised.

The streets of London were a place of fear in 1790. There had been dozens of attacks all reported

by women. A man, it seems, had been stepping out of the shadows or from around corners,

and pricking them with a pin. Sometimes he was covert about it. There are reports

that he fitted a bouquet of flowers with a sharp object and would ask women if they'd like to smell it.

Who could resist? Others say he attached small blades to his knees and then used them to stab women

in the backs of the legs. Then as the story spread, so too did the panic. They called him the London

Monster, and within weeks, the entire city was on alert. In the autumn of 1803, the people of

London were obsessed with a new story. It seemed that a ghost had been seen in the Hammersmith area

of the city. There were whispers that he was the victim of a suicide, doomed to haunt our world

forever, and many people claimed to have seen him. After months of hysteria and rumor, a police

officer actually witnessed the ghost while on patrol. Francis Smith pulled his gun, called for

the fiend to stop and fired upon it. His shot was true, and the ghost fell limp to the ground.

It fell because it was, after all, just a man. Thomas Millwood had been a plasterer by trade,

and because of this he wore all white clothing. Officer Smith was tried for murder and found guilty.

Few things can unite a city like fear. Histeria spreads in much the same way the plague moved

across Europe in the 17th century, but that's not the unusual part. What's truly odd is the

depths to which people will go to believe these fears, how easily they fall in with a public

outcry and believe whatever it is they're told. For as horrible as the London Monster and the

Hammersmith ghost stories sound, a new fear swept the city decades later. This fear permeated so

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