Case file · High strangeness
Seattle windshield pitting epidemic
In spring 1954, drivers first in Bellingham and then in Seattle reported thousands of tiny pits suddenly appearing in their car windshields.
1954 CE · 47.61, -122.33 · status: explained
The account
Theories ranged from H-bomb fallout to cosmic rays and sand-flea eggs. Seattle's mayor asked the governor and President Eisenhower for help, and the governor named a committee of University of Washington scientists.
The sceptical view
The scientists concluded the pits were ordinary wear that people had never noticed until they began looking through, rather than at, their windshields: a classic case of mass suggestion.