The Seattle Windshield Pitting Epidemic Of 1954
The Seattle Windshield Pitting Epidemic Of 1954
Have you ever heard of the Seattle Windshield
Pitting Epidemic of
1954? When thousands of cases of mysterious small holes in car
windshields began being
reported in Washington State?
"On April 15, 1954, Bellingham, Seattle and other Washington
communities are in
the grip of a strange phenomenon -- tiny holes,
pits, and dings have seemingly appeared in the windshields of cars
at
an unprecedented rate. Initially thought to be the work of vandals,
the pitting rate grows so quickly that
panicked residents soon suspect
everything from cosmic rays to sand-flea eggs to fallout from H-bomb
tests. By
the next day, pleas are sent to government officials asking
for help in solving what would become known as the
Seattle Windshield
Pitting Epidemic. "
Tiny windshield holes were first noticed in Bellingham, Washington.
Soon residents 25 miles south of Bellingham began reporting the same
phenomenon. Police set up roadblocks
believing hoodlums were involved,
but none were ever caught.
It continued to spread, reaching a Marine camp,
prompting 75 marines
to make an intensive 5 hour search for the culprits, but to no avail.
As it appeared to
approach Seattle, after more than 2,000 reports to
police from other areas, the city of Seattle went into a panic.
This
was apparently not the work of vandals after all. But nobody could
explain it.
"...On the morning of
April 14, 1954, Seattle newspaper subscribers
read frontpage reports of the events that had transpired to the
north.
The afternoon papers carried similar stories. At 6 p.m. a report came
in to Seattle police that three
cars had been damaged in a lot at 6th
Avenue and John Street. At 9 p.m., a motorist reported that his
windshield
had been hit at N 82nd Street and Greenwood Avenue. Then
the floodgates opened."
"Motorists began stopping
police cars on the street to report
windshield damage. Parking lots and auto sales lots north of downtown
were
hit, as well as parked cars as far west as Ballard. Even police
cars parked in front of precinct stations suffered
damage. Extra
clerks were brought into the stations to answer the flurry of calls
from angry and perplexed car
owners. By the next morning, windshield
pitting had reached epidemic levels."
The sheriff's office stated that
"no human agency" could have created
the scars left on the glass.
There were all sorts of theories from the
Navy's new million-watt
radio transmitter to cosmic rays to supersonic sound waves to nuclear
fallout. Some
people suspected sand fleas were somehow laying eggs in
the glass because some people said they could actually see
the glass
bubble up right before their eyes.
In all, some 3,000 windshields in Seattle were reported to police
as
having been damaged.
Here comes the science.
University of Washington scientists (from the "environmental
research
laboratory, the applied physics laboratory, and the chemistry,
physics, and meteorology departments)
did a quick survey of 84 cars on
the campus. They found the damage to be "overly emphasized," and most
likely
"the result of normal driving conditions in which small objects
strike the windshields of cars." The fact that
most cars were pitted
in the front and not the back lent credence to their theory.
"Further investigation by
the City of Seattle Police Department showed
that most dings pitted older car windshields. In cases where auto
lots
were involved, brand new cars were unpitted, whereas used older cars
showed signs of pitting. Police found
rare instances of "copycat"
vandalism, but most of the cases had a simple explanation: The pits
had been there
all along, but no one had noticed them until now."
"Sergeant Max Allison of the Seattle police crime laboratory
declared
that all of the damage reports were composed of "5 per cent
hoodlum-ism, and 95 per cent public
hysteria." Puget Sound residents
had unwittingly become participants in a textbook example of
collective
delusion. By April 17, 1954, pitting incidents abruptly
ceased."
"The Seattle pitting incident contains many
key factors that play a
part in collective delusion. These include ambiguity, the spread of
rumors and false but
plausible beliefs, mass media influence, recent
geo-political events, and the reinforcement of false beliefs by
authority figures (in this case, the police, military, and political
figures)."
" This combination of
factors, added to the simple fact that for the
first time people actually looked "at" their windshields instead of
"through" them, caused the hubbub. No vandals. No atomic fallout. No
sand-fleas. No cosmic rays. No electronic
oscillations. Just a bunch
of window dings that were there from the start. "
