Seattle Windshield Pitting Epidemic

The Seattle windshield pitting epidemic is a phenomenon that affected Bellingham, Seattle and other communities in Washington state in April 1954, considered an example of mass panic; it was characterized by widespread observation of previously unnoticed windshield holes, pits and dings, leading residents to believe a common causative agent was at work, at first suspected to be vandals before the rate of pitting grew so great that residents began attributing it to everything from sand flea eggs to nuclear bomb testing. Originating in Bellingham in March, the pitting was soon reported in nearby Sedro Woolley, Mount Vernon and Anacortes and reached metropolitan Seattle within a week, with motorists stopping police cars to report damage and car lots and parking garages reporting particularly severe cases; proposed causes ranged from a nearby naval radio transmitter's waves causing physical oscillations in glass, to cosmic rays, to sand fleas forming glass bubbles before observers' eyes. By April 15 close to three thousand windshields had been reported affected, prompting Seattle's mayor to seek help from the Washington governor and the president, and Seattle police sergeant Max Allison eventually attributed the reports to five percent hoodlumism and ninety-five percent public hysteria; the pitting stopped abruptly by April 17, and the following week hundreds of similar reports emerged in British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario. The episode has become a textbook case of collective delusion rather than true mass hysteria, since natural windshield pitting had long been occurring but only drew attention once media coverage prompted people to look closely at their own windshields.