# Cases where a populace has panicked **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 23, 2019, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cases-where-a-populace-has-panicked/832937 "2019-04-23T14:08:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Enilno](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/58f4c7/32.png) [@Enilno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enilno)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2019, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cases-where-a-populace-has-panicked/832937/21 "2019-04-23T21:08:43Z")
I think the [false missile alert](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Hawaii_false_missile_alert) message in Hawaii in 2018 would qualify. There were some amounts of fear and confusion, although it seems to have been cleared up relatively quickly. There was also a similar [false alert of a major earthquake](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/01/false-alert-of-huge-earthquake-triggers-panic-in-japan) in Tokyo in 2016. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2019, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cases-where-a-populace-has-panicked/832937/22 "2019-04-23T21:21:32Z")
This might count as an attempt to avoid a panic rather than the results of one, but a near-panic situation brought down the Berlin Wall. From [Cracked.com:](https://www.cracked.com/article_22044_6-tiny-mistakes-that-changed-course-history.html) > [@](#): > > After nearly 30 years and no sign of the wall coming down, East Germany had decided to show their people how charitable they were by slightly loosening travel restrictions for a little while. Gunter Schabowski was an East German politician charged with holding the press conference that would alert Germany to the new, minor changes to the travel code. On Nov. 9, 1989, Schabowski was handed a piece of paper that he expected to be so business-as-usual that he didn’t even read it before he approached the podium. > > As expected, the speech was so tedious and uninteresting that it nearly put the crowd to sleep, until ears perked up at references to relaxing travel between the borders. Through either poor wording or boredom-induced lapse of concentration, some journalists got the impression that Schabowski was implying they were to drop the restrictions entirely. > > When someone asked him when this was to take effect, Schabowski flipped through the speech he hadn’t read, and unable to find the answer, and probably feeling like his fly was undone in front of the world’s press, he shrugged and said, “Immediately, right away.” The press ran back to their typewriters and visors and declared to the world that East Germany had just canceled the Berlin Wall, effective, like, right fucking now. > > The resulting frenzy at the border was too much for authorities to handle, and although they considered firing on the crowd, they decided that doing so would escalate the situation to an all-out heads-in-guillotines revolution. So the military fell back, the wall came down, communism ended, David Hasselhoff sang a song, and politicians everywhere learned how important it was to read the goddamn speech before a press conference. ---
**Author:** ![swampspruce](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/swampspruce/32/261_2.png) [@swampspruce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/swampspruce)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2019, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cases-where-a-populace-has-panicked/832937/23 "2019-04-23T21:26:11Z")
Yeah, I think the false missile alerts and the Battle of LA would qualify. It amazes me how fast the rumour and misinformation flows. Ohh Good one, **Ethilrist**! ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2019, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cases-where-a-populace-has-panicked/832937/24 "2019-04-23T21:54:11Z")
> [@Colophon](#): > > I really hate it when people use Y2K as an example of “panic over nothing”. Very little went wrong _precisely because_ millions of dollars and huge amounts of time were spent on fixing the problem. :smack: Amen. Some of my seniors and peers at work keep bringing this up every time I try to argue that preparation and planning is required for some future event (most recently, the risk of a no-deal brexit). We avoided a Y2K crisis not because it was imaginary, but because we worked to fix the problems. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2019, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cases-where-a-populace-has-panicked/832937/25 "2019-04-23T21:58:01Z")
Examples of human panic though, probably include things like [bank runs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bank_runs) and [panic buying](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_buying) - admittedly, these are not on the global catastrophe scale that the OP is perhaps looking for, but they are indicators of how people may behave in the face of a perceived crisis. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2019, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cases-where-a-populace-has-panicked/832937/26 "2019-04-23T22:33:55Z")
In 1973, Johnny Carson caused a run on toilet paper by joking about a report he had read which indicated there might be a shortage some time in the future. His joke was seen by many more people than the report was, so the next day everybody went out to buy toilet paper, which used up all the paper in the stores, so people were looking at empty shelves, so… panic. He had to issue a retraction. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2019, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cases-where-a-populace-has-panicked/832937/27 "2019-04-23T22:36:13Z")
We can also include market panics. Even if we allow that some of them involved computer program trading that didn’t know when to stop, there were no computers in October 1929. ---
**Author:** ![dorvann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df705f/32.png) [@dorvann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dorvann)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2019, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cases-where-a-populace-has-panicked/832937/28 "2019-04-23T22:56:12Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > Amen. Some of my seniors and peers at work keep bringing this up every time I try to argue that preparation and planning is required for some future event (most recently, the risk of a no-deal brexit). > > We avoided a Y2K crisis not because it was imaginary, but because we worked to fix the problems. I am curious though. If nothing was fixed, was the Y2K crisis really serious enough that people would have to hoard a year supply of food and thousands of round of ammo? Because some people were doing that. How serious a problem was it actually? It could still warrant a panic if they were was overreacting to a real problem. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2019, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cases-where-a-populace-has-panicked/832937/29 "2019-04-23T23:01:13Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Someone is bound to bring up the War of the Worlds Broadcast, with Orson Welles. Certainly there was some over-reaction, but the rumors of widespread panic are apparently unfounded. > > [Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds panic myth: The infamous radio broadcast did not cause a nationwide hysteria.](https://slate.com/culture/2013/10/orson-welles-war-of-the-worlds-panic-myth-the-infamous-radio-broadcast-did-not-cause-a-nationwide-hysteria.html) > \*The supposed panic was so tiny as to be practically immeasurable on the night of the broadcast. Despite repeated assertions to the contrary in the PBS and NPR programs, almost nobody was fooled by Welles’ broadcast. > > How did the story of panicked listeners begin? Blame America’s newspapers. Radio had siphoned off advertising revenue from print during the Depression, badly damaging the newspaper industry. So the papers seized the opportunity presented by Welles’ program to discredit radio as a source of news. The newspaper industry sensationalized the panic to prove to advertisers, and regulators, that radio management was irresponsible and not to be trusted.\* I’ve heard the original broadcast several times; a college station in my town broadcasts it every Halloween. Among other things, it was not in “real time” so unless someone got in on it somewhere in the middle and didn’t tune into other stations, I couldn’t imagine panic, mass or otherwise. There was a lot of panic in the fall of 2014 as an offshoot of the African Ebola outbreak. Remember some of that? One of the people who became fearful was my friend’s then-15-year-old daughter, who came to her in tears, afraid that we were all going to die from Ebola. My friend flipped open her laptop and explained why we didn’t have to worry about that here in the Midwest, and that mutated into a long conversation about AIDS, something people really DID fear in the early 1980s, and some of that fear was not unjustified, because at first, we had no clue what caused it, how it was spread, who was REALLY at risk, how to treat it, etc. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2019, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cases-where-a-populace-has-panicked/832937/30 "2019-04-23T23:03:35Z")
> [@dorvann](#): > > I am curious though. If nothing was fixed, was the Y2K crisis really serious enough that people would have to hoard a year supply of food and thousands of round of ammo? Because some people were doing that. How serious a problem was it actually? It could still warrant a panic if they were was overreacting to a real problem. Some people STILL do that. The Mormons do believe in food storage, although they rotate it if they’re doing it properly. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2019, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cases-where-a-populace-has-panicked/832937/31 "2019-04-23T23:07:38Z")
> [@dorvann](#): > > I am curious though. If nothing was fixed, was the Y2K crisis really serious enough that people would have to hoard a year supply of food and thousands of round of ammo? Because some people were doing that. How serious a problem was it actually? It could still warrant a panic if they were was overreacting to a real problem. No. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2019, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cases-where-a-populace-has-panicked/832937/32 "2019-04-23T23:09:25Z")
> [@Hermitian](#): > > I guess **Exapno Mapcase** maybe had a different interpretation of public panic than I did after reading the OP. If there is a killer asteroid or imminent alien invasion, I would expect PANIC. Ya know, widespread riots and lawlessness, regular folks hunkered down in their houses gripping their firearms and crying, martial law declared. I am not aware of that happening in US history. Does that EVER happen? Hollywood would seem to imply that as soon as the [EAS buzzer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsvQBahmRU0)sounds people run out into the street to flip over cars and set them on fire. ---
**Author:** ![Mnemnosyne](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mnemnosyne/32/3347_2.png) [@Mnemnosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mnemnosyne)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2019, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cases-where-a-populace-has-panicked/832937/33 "2019-04-23T23:18:21Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > it was more like billions of dollars spent to fix the Y2K bug, and that was not a panic; it was a necessary effort. Considering how bad humans tend to be at spending money in an appropriate timeframe to avert disaster even when they’ve been well-warned of it, I always found it surprising that the Y2K stuff was actually dealt with in a reasonable and timely manner. Of course, that does lead to the irony of people acting like this was wasted time and effort, because nothing happened. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2019, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cases-where-a-populace-has-panicked/832937/34 "2019-04-23T23:21:35Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > Two worlds: Satanic panic. That’s what I came here to post. Unlike most of the examples here, there was really _nothing_. And people’s lives were ruined, because of some crazy stories, absurd beliefs, an overzealous, publicity-conscious court and law enforcement system, and people who refused to admit they were wrong. Joseph McCarthy was an asshole, but at least there actually \*was \*a communist conspiracy in the U.S. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2019, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cases-where-a-populace-has-panicked/832937/35 "2019-04-23T23:25:48Z")
> [@swampspruce](#): > > Yeah, I think the false missile alerts and the Battle of LA would qualify. It amazes me how fast the rumour and misinformation flows. Ohh Good one, **Ethilrist**! How about the Bowling Green Massacre? > **[Bowling Green massacre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_Green_massacre)** > > The Bowling Green massacre is a fictitious incident of Islamic terrorism mentioned by Kellyanne Conway, then–counselor to President Donald Trump, in interviews with Cosmopolitan and TMZ on January 29, 2017, and in an interview on the MSNBC news program Hardball with Chris Matthews on February 2, 2017. Conway cited it as justification for a travel and immigration ban from seven Muslim-majority countries enacted by United States president Donald Trump. However, no such massacre occurred. The day ... I also remember the swine flu scare in the fall of 1976, although even then, as an adolescent, I understood it somewhat because it came on the heels of the identification of Legionnaire’s disease, which is terrifying but we know now that it is not transmissible person-to-person. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2019, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cases-where-a-populace-has-panicked/832937/36 "2019-04-23T23:26:54Z")
So, **every** consequential disaster of the Y2K bug, globally was diverted? Every single program in the world that could have had catastrophic consequences was fixed before midnight 12/31/99? Not buying it. If the problem was as bad as it was purported there should have been one single town or municipality in the world whose power infrastructure failed and stayed down for months. There was not. The magnitude of the potential problems were exaggerated. Were there issues? Yes. Did developers fix a lot of annoying issues that would have happened? Yes. Was the world in danger? No way. > **[Some Perspective 5 Years After Y2K](https://www.eweek.com/security/some-perspective-5-years-after-y2k/)** > > Opinion: Did Richard Clarke and all those Y2K remediation efforts avert a disaster? No. Let's keep this experience in mind as we evaluate expert advice. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2019, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cases-where-a-populace-has-panicked/832937/37 "2019-04-23T23:46:17Z")
i heard there were some problems in parts of asia and africa where they were still using apple 2/e or win 3.0 486’s type of stuff but nothing horrible that wasnt solved ina few weeks ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2019, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cases-where-a-populace-has-panicked/832937/38 "2019-04-24T00:37:09Z")
> [@dorvann](#): > > I am curious though. If nothing was fixed, was the Y2K crisis really serious enough that people would have to hoard a year supply of food and thousands of round of ammo? Because some people were doing that. How serious a problem was it actually? It could still warrant a panic if they were was overreacting to a real problem. Lots of things were fixed. My ex-wife was a mainframe programmer at the time, and she said that people had been changing their coding habits for years. There were still a ton of computers out there that weren’t compliant; I remember reading of one state that was told it had to swap out all its mainframes or the payroll system would choke. They did the swap, and left four of them up and running just to see what would happen. They died. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2019, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cases-where-a-populace-has-panicked/832937/39 "2019-04-24T03:12:44Z")
> [@dorvann](#): > > I am curious though. If nothing was fixed, was the Y2K crisis really serious enough that people would have to hoard a year supply of food and thousands of round of ammo? Because some people were doing that. How serious a problem was it actually? It could still warrant a panic if they were was overreacting to a real problem. Thats a maybe. Experts have said it was overblown, but that it could have been bad, just not world ending bad. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2019, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cases-where-a-populace-has-panicked/832937/40 "2019-04-24T03:14:29Z")
> [@F.U.Shakespeare](#): > > That’s what I came here to post. > > Unlike most of the examples here, there was really _nothing_. And people’s lives were ruined, because of some crazy stories, absurd beliefs, an overzealous, publicity-conscious court and law enforcement system, and people who refused to admit they were wrong. > > Joseph McCarthy was an asshole, but at least there actually \*was \*a communist conspiracy in the U.S. Except that altho it was horrible, it was quite small scale. I mean, I dont know anyone who was affected by it. The articles i read were pretty small numbers, maybe like what 100 victims? Yeah, and a surprisingly large number. Altho it seems like he had no real idea, it was the old Blind Squirrel. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cases-where-a-populace-has-panicked/832937.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cases-where-a-populace-has-panicked/832937.md?page=3)