Feeling anxious? Feeling stressed about war, terrorism, inflation, pollution, infection, shortages?
If so, you’re not alone. But…what’s that smell? Sort of chemical-like… You’re feeling a bit nauseous and your head is starting to spin…
And down you go. And then someone else bites the dust. And then another….They’re dropping like flies… Could this be a terrorist poison gas attack?
Call the police. The men in hazmat suits rush in. Evacuate. Lockdown. Investigate…
Then nothing.
Funny smell fears are fuelling fainting fits across the country… What’s going on?
On 30 April 2026, a funny chemical smell was noticed by some passengers at Farringdon station on the Elizabeth Line in London. The station was evacuated and emergency services rushed to the scene including armed police. Fourteen passengers received medical treatment and two were taken to hospital.
Tests found no elevated levels of chemicals.[i]
On 8 May, a funny chemical smell was noticed by customers in a branch of the NatWest Bank in Golders Green, London. Several people became unwell. Cue emergency services, men in hazmat suits, evacuation, hospitalisation and investigation.
A few people were given medical treatment, but no unexpected chemicals were found. A police spokesman said: “A number of people were experiencing a range of symptoms which could indicate exposure to a chemical or other substance. Crews carried out a thorough search of the area using detection, identification and monitoring equipment and have now confirmed there are no elevated levels of hazardous materials present.”[ii]
A third incident occurred not in London but in Manchester. On Monday 11 May, police received reports of a chemical smell coming from a hotel on Canal Street, the heart of Manchester’s gay village. Nobody was reported as needing treatment, but emergency services cordoned off the street. The hotel and nearby bars were evacuated, and a man was taken into custody. Police said there was no terrorist threat and no risk of explosion.[iii]
On 12 May, emergency services were called to a Norwich ambulance control centre as staff complained of a ‘mysterious odour’. The centre was evacuated though nothing unusual was found.[iv]
Something Smells Funny
Concern, anxiety, panic, nausea, shortness of breath and fainting are all common reactions to a funny smell in tense times such as the ones we’re living through. Often the episode starts when someone notices an unusual odour – perhaps from a cleaning fluid, someone’s perfume or even a surreptitiously deployed stink bomb. In 2023, a number of poison gas panics in Iran were indeed started by stink bombs.[v]
When people are suffering from free-floating anxiety, they can become hypervigilant of their surroundings and pick up details they would normally miss. A strange smell can be misinterpreted as dangerous and then the nocebo effect takes over – people start to feel unwell because they believe they have been in contact with a noxious substance, even though they have not. The nocebo effect is the evil twin of the famous placebo effect. One’s mind and one’s expectations create a self-fulfilling prophecy. You expect to feel sick. Then you do feel sick.
Typically, the symptoms spread form person to person. When one person complains about an odd smell and a headache before fainting, it’s likely that others nearby will behave in a similar fashion.
Media amplify these episodes with footage and photos of police cordons, medical personnel, sick people on stretchers and scary-looking investigators in protective clothing. This feeds the flame of the panic and it spreads…
These panics are a normal part of the human reaction to anxiety and stress. It’s called mass psychogenic illnesses, though is perhaps better known by the more politically incorrect term, mass hysteria.
Mass hysteria occurs when emotional conflict or anxiety lead to the simultaneous development of physical or mental conditions in a group of people when there is no organic cause. It’s socially contagious and spreads easily between individuals.
Mad Gassers
The classic instance of funny smell mass hysteria was the Mad Gasser of Mattoon panic of 1944. Dozens of residents of Mattoon, Illinois reported the smell of a sweet gas that they thought had been sprayed into their homes. The victims immediately began to suffer from nausea, paralysis, dizziness and other symptoms. Some were sure they’d seen a shadowy figure at their window.
There was intense and sensational media coverage as more and more cases of alleged gas poisonings were reported. However, no evidence of any poison gas or a mysterious prowler materialised. Newspapers had been filled with claims that the Nazis were planning gas attacks on the US, so when people in a hypervigilant state noticed a smell, they took normal smells (blocked chimneys, bug spray, flowerbeds) for poisonous fumes.[vi] The apparent attacks were a hysterical reaction to wartime anxiety and fear that chemical weapons would be deployed by the Germans.
Similar panics took place in Palestine in the 1980s, in Afghanistan in the 2000s and Iran in 2023. All were against a backdrop of conflict and fear of chemical weapons.[vii]
Of course, contributing to the Golders Green incident of May 2026 is concern after several attacks on synagogues in the area as well as the knife attack on two Jews and a Muslim by a deranged Somali man on the 29 April.[viii]
Epilogue
We are cursed to live in interesting times, and interesting times fuel hysterical outbreaks. I don’t think these are the last funny smell panics that we’ll see in the coming months, so keep your eyes open…and hold your nose…
[i] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/travel-chaos-as-gas-leak-closes-londons-farringdon-station-with-passengers-feeling-unwell/ar-AA224M1b?ocid=BingNewsVerp
[ii] https://metro.co.uk/2026/05/11/police-people-chemical-suits-swarm-evacuated-north-london-bank-28321415/
[iii]https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/businesses-evacuated-over-fears-chemical-33928546 ; https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgz890vempo
[iv] https://www.edp24.co.uk/news/26097646.norwich-ambulance-centre-evacuated-fire-crews-called/
[v] Robert Bartholomew and Paul Weatherhead Social Panics and Phantom Attackers (Palgrave Macmillan: 2024) p.218
[vi] Bartholomew and Weatherhead (2024) pp.16-21
[vii] Bartholomew and Weatherhead (2024) pp.217-223
[viii] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Golders_Green_attack
Paul Weatherhead 