Weirdness comes out of the woodwork in Wisconsin
Book says we're in a strange state
By JACKIE LOOHAUIS
[email protected]
Last Updated: April 17, 2005
Good, ol' Wisconsin. So normal here - not someloony-lair like The Left Coast. Nothing odd ever happens in the warm and fuzzy Badger State.
Nothing like, say, attacks of reptile creatures, ghost materializations, dragon burials or assaults by alien space phenomena.
If you believe that, then hang onto your cheesehead, because it turns out that our home ranks as one of the most bizarre places in the country.
Evidence? The new book "Weird Wisconsin" (Barnes & Noble Books, $19.95) compiled by two writers who know "weird."
Elkhorn author Linda S. Godfrey has written two non-fiction books, "The Poison Widow," about a notorious Whitewater murderess, and "The Beast of Bray Road: Trailing Wisconsin's Werewolf." Co-author Richard Hendricks of Madison has been a student of weirdology for years. He's the creator of the Weird Wisconsin Web site,
http://www.weird-wi.com, and news editor at The Anomalist, a daily review of world news on mysteries and "maverick science" (
anomalist.com).
Together these two have compiled dozens of aberrant, atypical and anomalistic items from Wisconsin. But why go after weirdness?
"For Rich and me, weirdness is where we're at," Godfrey says by phone. "It's not a bad term. It encompasses originality and the stubborn Wisconsin ethic that makes people do their own thing. It's the wonderful thing that sets people and places apart from the mundane."
So just how weird a state is Wisconsin?
"It's among the weirdest," Godfrey says. She notes that the book's publisher is doing a "weird states" series, and Wisconsin was chosen to be among the first four volumes.
"That puts us in the top four," she says. "We have so many ghosts and so many legends and such a rich ethnic mix. Add a long winter with nothing to do but tell stories, and you end up with a state that's not afraid to be non-traditional."
Hendricks ranks Wisconsin No. 1.
"We are the weirdest state," he says. "We're outside the mainstream. The early settlers here were a motley crew running away from somewhere else. Malcontents came here for the chance to live the life they wanted to live. That individuality hasn't been stamped into conformity like in some other places."
So the authors found plenty of peculiar people, places and things to fill their pages, from Wisconsin psychic Jeane Dixon, who supposedly foresaw the JFK assassination, to the legendary Lake Mendota Sea Serpent. (There's even a mention of something truly strange: this reporter's boxing match with a kangaroo.)
But which ones wigged out the authors themselves? For Hendricks, it was "Dr. Evermor's Sculpture Park" near Baraboo, home of the world's largest scrap metal sculpture and the theoretical lift-off point for the doctor's planned trip to Mars.
For Godfrey, it was a personal encounter with the entity in a Sparta soap-store basement.
"They have an 1800s-era headstone in the basement wall. I think I saw the ghost when I was there. It looked like a white torso floating about - the shape of a human figure."
And there is plenty of other strangeness between these book covers. Weirdness in "Weird Wisconsin" includes:
• The reptile man. A "shiny, green-scaled, man-size figure" with wings allegedly loomed in front of a Department of Natural Resources warden on Highway 13 near Medford one day in the mid-1990s. The creature also supposedly appeared to a group of highway workers before flying off.
Really? Says Hendricks: "Reptile Man was reportedly seen during the day. In broad daylight, it's kind of hard not to see something green. Still, I looked for it but didn't find it."
• The dragon tower. A stone tower perches atop a mound overlooking the village of Elk Mound, built to commemorate deceased rural mail carriers. It may be the only one of its kind in the country. But it's what allegedly lies beneath the tower and the mound that is more interesting. Rumor has it that this is the burial site of a dragon.
Hendricks says: "It's thin topsoil there, and you can see rocks pointing out and it looks like the back of a stegosaurus. Now there are many ancient legends around the world associating dragons with mounds. Where did this story come from? Is there something there?"
• The dollhouse grave. In a North Woods cemetery stands perhaps the saddest headstone in the state. It belongs to a little girl named Bertha who owned a lovely blond bisque doll with a long white dress.
In 1912, at the age of 5, Bertha drowned. At her gravesite, her relatives erected a small dollhouse with a glass front and placed her doll inside. The doll keeps its tragic watch there to this day.
• The Grant Park Seven Bridges ghost. Walk the paths of Milwaukee's Grant Park between 9:30 p.m. and midnight when there's a full moon, and you may encounter more than a seagull. Allegedly a ghost woman floats down these paths looking for her dead sons.
Hendricks says that "sound carries strangely here. Mist rises off the stream." But are the moanings from a ghost or teen tricksters? Visitors must decide for themselves.
• Wisconsin werewolves. "There are far more sightings of werewolves here than in any other contemporary location," Godfrey says. "I've counted at least 50 now. It's not just a rural thing. Whatever this thing is - and the description is very consistent - it doesn't seem to be bothered by population, which is kind of creepy."
Creepy indeed, especially when you read those descriptions: "a shaggy wolf-headed creature" the size of a man.
• The orange ghost ball. According to the "Weird Wisconsin" account, a farm boy strolling past the Old Forest Home Cemetery near Fifield in 1938 was amazed to see an orange ball of fire about two feet in diameter fall from the treetops and hover a few feet off the ground. It then spun down a lane, circled a barn and returned to the cemetery where it disappeared.
"It doesn't seem to be explainable," says Godfrey.
• UFO landing pods. There are so many UFO sightings in Wisconsin that three different towns - Elmwood, Belleville and Dundee - compete for the title "UFO Capital of Wisconsin," says "Weird Wisconsin."
That last burg may be the weirdest, according to the "WW" authors. It boasts a heritage that includes not only space visitations but appearances by leprechauns, angels and a 45-foot lake monster.
And during UFO-themed festivals, Dundee residents sport headgear that is decidedly you-know-what: Hershey's Kiss hats made of tin foil to prevent aliens from reading their minds.
But this is not the weirdest place in Wisconsin. That would be . . .
"The State Capitol," says Hendricks.
He reports that ancient Indian mounds were destroyed to build it. One former building was torn down because it fell apart. The second one burned to the ground. Several workers were killed during the construction of the current building. The ghost of Moses Strong, a former lobbyist, reportedly roams the Capitol's marble corridors.
And then there's the legislation that has materialized out of the Capitol's ozone, like the anti-vampire bill introduced in 2000.
As Hendricks says: "Welcome to Transylvania." It's all too weird.
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Appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on April 18, 2005.
