Inside the ridiculous media panic that scared parents silly. By Michael Z. Newman.

The artwork, said U.K. tabloids of the time, was haunted. By Natalie Zarrelli.

Please do not buy into her bullshit. By Yvette d'Entremont.

Flakka was believed to be behind two cannibalistic attacks in Florida that left one man blind and a married couple dead. It wasn't so. Here‘s why we need facts, not myths, about dangerous drugs. By Joseph Palamar. (Nov. 28, 2016)

Or, Why I Teach “the Yellow Wallpaper.” By Terri Kapsalis.

The “Strawberries With Sugar” outbreak is just one example of mass hysteria, which goes back centuries. By Lorraine Boissoneault.

Two hundred years after the Salem witch trials, farmers became convinced that their relatives were returning from the grave to feed on the living. By Abigail Tucker.

A 1992 broadcast of a supposedly haunted house led to documented cases of PTSD in young viewers. By Jake Rossen.

White House defers to FBI. Stephen King hits ‘hysteria.’ By Ben Guarino.

An outbreak of chronic hiccups in teens in Danvers, Massachusetts, site of the Salem Witch Trials, spurred a big investigation. Health officials suspected the culprit was a group psychological phenomenon, but kept that out of the final report. By Dan Vergano.

It’s got to be a little disconcerting to find out that despite your best efforts, a solid upbringing, and any evidence to the contrary, the court has legally determined that you are a witch. That’s the sort of thing one hopes to be aware of...

Modern experts still don't agree on what caused plagues of compulsive dancing in the streets. By Marissa Fessenden. (June 24, 2016)

Witch hunts and panic among communities are nothing new, but what happens when cyberspace intensifies the frenzy? By Amelia Tait.