I recently came across an episode of Mass Hysteria that bears a close resemblance to the current climate craziness. Briefly, mysterious pits began appearing in windshields beginning in the State of Washington. It spread until it became a regional panic.

Source: https://www.npr.org/sections/npr-history-dept/2015/05/28/410085713/the-windshield-pitting-mystery-of-1954

The epidemic's epicenter, according to HistoryLink — an online compendium of Washington state history — was the town of Bellingham, where "tiny holes, pits, and dings ... seemingly appeared in the windshields of cars at an unprecedented rate" in late March.

"Panicked residents," the website reports, suspected "everything from cosmic rays to sand-flea eggs to fallout from H-bomb tests."
A mere ten seconds of rational thinking would tell any sane person exactly what was going on and that there was NOTHING AT ALL to the hysteria, but it was big news for a while. Roads are filled with detritus, some of it hard, and gradually this junk pits windshields as cars ram into it. It was just another episode of mass delusion.

https://www.mentalfloss.com/posts/mass-hysteria-events-from-history
7 of History’s Strangest Mass Hysteria Events




The best book on the subject is "Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds" by Charles Mackay" It can be read online free at:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24518