In the 1950s, this small French town went insane. What happened and who was behind it?
The Dark Side of Pont-Saint-Esprit: A Story of Poison and Paranoia
August 16 1951. on a summer afternoon in the south of France the town doctors receive a patient complaining of stomach pain nausea low blood pressure and cold sweats then another and then another the influx of patients continued on for hours as more piled in experiencing the same symptoms as night fell the vomiting and chills gave way to far scarier symptoms one resident stated it was as though the apocalypse suddenly struck the town the doctors were shocked as Disturbed Town folks began to suffer intense hallucinations once sane individuals claiming to be attacked by swarms of bees snakes tigers and imaginary beasts patients in straight jackets were being held down to their bed as they fought against Hospital staff soon there would be no more beds in the hospital or the local insane asylum the excess tormented being held in a barn nearby I have seen healthy men and women suddenly become terrorized ripping their bed sheets hiding themselves beneath their blankets to escape hallucinations the mayor stated excited delirium gripped the town with the unfortunate side effect of insomnia not allowing any breaks from the agitated and often combative villagers they would scream gnash their teeth and attempt to flee from their haunting Visions the Visions often dark had townsfolk running from imaginary Flames husbands and wife chasing each other with knives a man destroying his home in an attempt to fend off monsters an old woman seeing her children and be ground into sausage a postman claimed to be shrinking one man broke both legs but continued to walk on them a young boy in a fit of rage attempted to strangle his mother to death another man leapt to his death believing he was an airplane even the animals weren’t immune as a dog began to chew rocks breaking off its teeth in the process ducks began to contort their bodies in unnatural ways this terrifying chaos went on for over a week in the small French town of Pon Santos spree leaving 250 unfortunate Town folks scattered throughout the streets hospital and insane asylum when it would all end seven people are pronounced dead it seemed as if overnight the entire town had lost its mind but what could lead to this Collective Insanity was this Mass poisoning somehow a natural occurrence or something far more sinister accusations begin to fly as angry citizens formulated their theories conspiratorial townspoke wondered if a local madman was behind the attack did local police poison the water supply could fuel have seeped into the water there’s no evidence to support these claims but a few days into the mass hysteria the town doctors began to pull on a Common Thread all patients had visited a specific Bakery bread is a staple of the French diet but more than a food item it was a source of power for the French government the French state was built on its total control of the wheat and rice Supply dating back to the mid-1600s fast forward to the food shortages of World War II the government remained in control taking excess grains from the Richer Northern regions to disperse amongst the poorer regions in the south of France that excess ended up in the small rural town of ponson espari and it was considered surplus of a very poor quality that grain would end up being the primary culprit and how the town went mad the most prevalent theory behind the scary occurrence is ergot of fungus that grows on rye crops and particularly damp fields and France had unusually high rainfall that year ingesting low amounts of ergot ground up in flour can cause mild symptoms such as headaches vomiting and diarrhea and this all lines up with the food poisoning symptoms the doctors noted from the townspeople in the early stages of the event but what could account for the disturbing seizures and grandiose hallucinations ergotism can have far scarier effects when ingested in higher doses the initial stages of acute ergot poisoning begins with gastrointestinal pain in the stomach but if the dose is high enough painful convulsions and spasms followed with intense painful itching of the skin these symptoms can progress into catatonic effects placing the affected in a coma but hours after the exposure the sickness can lead to disturbing psychological effects like Mania or even full-blown psychosis ergot poisoning’s common name is Saint Anthony’s fire dating back to the Middle Ages when monks of Saint Anthony would attempt to cure medieval Town folks of the Affliction and the fire refers to the painful itching or burning sensation felt in the extremities an ever-present ailment during the Middle Ages it can still persist there’s even a common theory that ergot was the cause of the strange events leading up to the Salem Witch Trials where women were thought to be possessed due to their convulsions and intense hallucinations on August 23rd seven days after the initial outbreak an investigation ensued and Brienne the baker was brought in for questioning he stated he had run out of flower in the middle of his baking that day and then he went to two other local Bakers to purchase more flour the first batch of bread made that day didn’t have any ill effects but somewhere between the second and third batch suspected ergot contaminated flour was used townsfolks were questioned about Bran’s bread giving conflicting statements some said the bread was perfectly normal others said it smelled of gasoline and looked grayish the investigation of the flower led to a distributor who stated they sourced the flour from two Mills one of which had been the subject of complaints of poor quality in the previous months the owner of the suspect Mill Maurice Maya was interrogated further he later confessed to an arrangement made with another breaker guybriere who would bring in leftover grain to the mill wheat was not the culprit as our God is a fungus found on rye Maye admitted to large proportions of Rye in the grain bags he received from the other Baker also confessing to the presence of weevils mites and dust in the Grain on August 31st 16 days after the initial poisoning were arrested and charged with involuntary manslaughter with further arrests coming in the following days for other employees of the mill and the bakery Brier owned and then Brion the baker who initially sold detained bread not to be confused with the arrested Briere shut down his Bakery due to the unfortunate events but locals say Brienne Had No Malice and was unaware of the circumstance the daughter of the shrinking Postman earlier stated the baker did not deliberately poison his clients he was doing well and people liked his bread so why would he poison them but because of the suspicions he had to close the bakery his life was totally destroyed but he went on living here these arrests didn’t satisfy some of the town’s residents who claimed the government did a poor job of gathering evidence and following all potential leads some believe the exposure of the true Source would lead to proof of governmental ineptitude so they were not incentivized to find the truth a less sensationalist view suggests investigative techniques at the time were far less sophisticated educated so failure to track a clear Source was likely due to incompetence not malice one issue with the ergot theory is that if it was bad grain it stands to reason that many other towns in the area would have experienced a similar fate and they didn’t either way lacking hard proof from the government other theories persist the first was mercury poisoning and Mercury was present in a common fungicide called panagen and panagen was later discovered to be toxic and was removed from the market in 1970. a French Civil Trial stemming from the incident was able to craft a theory that would account for only specific bags being contaminated the theory states the bags of flour came in contact with a residual panagen left in Railway cars that had previously transported the chemical but they tested contaminated flour with panagen and found the bread wouldn’t even rise making it likely a baker would not be able to sell the bread in 1982 another theory proposed that a toxic fungus and grain silos could be the cause but once again that would have appear to have larger effects than just infecting a few batches of bread but there’s a far darker controversial theory that has emerged recently turns out ergot has another use as a precursor in synthesizing LSD in 2009 an American journalist was working on a book about a secret CIA campaign and subsequent cover-up he claims to have come across documents proving the CIA had a role to play in the incident and studies that later went on to birth the infamous MK Ultra experiments the CIA was dosing on winning participants with LSD to see if they would have any Merit and interrogations as a truth serum the project titled project span was part of a wider biological weapons test orchestrated by the CIA and this is the project that allegedly targeted the small French town the journalist puts forward that the citizens of the Town were Lab Rats with the CIA secretly releasing LSD over the town which then found its way into the food supply it’s certainly the most Fantastical of the theories but it is widely criticized as an ineffective explanation the foremost expert on the cursed bread incident States the CIA theory is clinically incoherent LSD takes effects in just a few hours whereas the inhabitants showed symptoms only after 36 hours or more furthermore LSD does not cause the digestive ailments or the vegetative effects described by the town’s people that expert Stephen Kaplan put forth his own theory in his book covering the incident he believed the poisoning might have been caused by nitrogen trichloride used to artificially and illegally bleach the flower at the time ultimately we don’t know what caused this horrific incident on August 16 1951 leaving many townsfolk traumatized for the remainder of their lives with some losing their lives entirely the mayor looking back on those days of Terror States the affair still arouses great emotion in people here but slowly over time it is becoming a distant memory part of the history of this place the current residents are eager to turn a new page to create an identity separate than just that town with the cursed bread believing it’s time to move on from the the incident many are sure will never be solved thanks for watching