The Indiana Cyclone: America's First Munchausen Case with Sarah Marshall of 'You're Wrong About'

American Hysteria

W!ZARD Studios

Society & Culture

4.4 • 3.1K Ratings

🗓️ 15 January 2024

⏱️ 77 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode I tell podcaster Sarah Marshall a truly wild story I uncovered about the first recognized case of Munchausen Syndrome (Factitious Disorder) in the United States. An alleged professional wrestler and American folk anti-hero called the Indiana Cyclone faked symptoms of injury and illness while blowing through hospitals across the country from the 1950s to the 1970s, leaving a bizarre kind of terror in his wake. Catch Sarah and I at SF SketchFest on Feb 2nd and Feb 3rd! Make sure you listen to You're Wrong About and You Are Good (duh duh duh!) Check out our new merch line Folk Devils United Become a Patron to support our show and get early ad-free episodes and bonus content Or subscribe to American Hysteria on Apple Podcasts Leave us a message on our Urban Legends Hotline Hosted Chelsey Weber-Smith Produced and Edited by Miranda Zickler Music direction by Riley Swedelius-Smith Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:00.0	Dung dung dung
0:02.0	dung as we've long covered on American hysteria
0:06.0	a folk devil is a person or a group of people
0:09.0	unfairly blamed for society's problems
0:12.0	the focus of those pesky moral panics.
0:16.7	It's safe to say that most of you, dear listeners, know what it's like to be deemed a cartoonish, salacious, and satanic villain for no reason at all.
0:27.3	So we've created our merch series, Folk Devils United,
0:31.9	with the motto, Skate scapegoats against scapegoating.
0:36.3	The image shows three radical doubles from different periods of American history,
0:42.1	joining hands the way our show hopes we all can, united in rag tag solidarity.
0:49.0	We got t-shirts, baseball teas, totebags, all available now at American hysteria.com slash
0:55.8	merch, shipping out in early January. We have limited stocks so make sure you head
1:01.2	to American hysteria.com slash merge today.
1:07.0	If the shoe fits, if the snake bites, if I'm feeling sad.
1:17.0	Yeah, exactly.
1:19.0	Yeah, I simply remember my favorite things.
1:21.5	Going to the hospital and attacking people.
1:23.6	Demreel, Demreel, Demreel.
1:29.6	Sarah Marshall. Sarah Marshall is the host of the podcasts You're wrong about and you are good as
1:36.9	well as my partner in deeply obscure research on my favorite website of all time, newspapers.com.
1:46.4	Sponsor us.
1:48.0	Today I'm telling Sarah the story that I uncovered of the very first Munchhausen patient in the United States, an alleged
	...

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