“It Tolls for Thee”

Albert Lea, MN

The afternoon of July 5, 1938 was hot and muggy. Courthouse custodian Bill Brotcke climbed a ladder to the clock tower with the intentions of resetting the time. It had been pointed out earlier in the day the it was running forty minutes slow. Working his way through a flock of pigeons he opened the trap door and was overcome by a thick stench. Turning as he pushed the door back his eyes met with the a gaped mouth face of man whose eye bulged from the sockets. A well dressed man hung from a new rope over a wooden two by four in front of cast face of the clock.

The sheriff and coroner retrieved the body with assistance of Botcke and a block and tackle. It was estimated that the body had been there for five days. The identity of the man a mystery. He had taken meticulous care in cutting all tags and labels from his clothes, the brand off his glasses, and only thing found in his pockets was an eyeglass case.

The body was at first identified as a musician who had disappeared after a ten day stint with a traveling orchestra. After notifying that man’s family he was discovered playing for a another orchestra in the Chicago area. The second identification was that of a man who had been an assistant to the custodian, but finger prints from that man’s prison stint did not match. He was also discovered alive and well in another corner of the country.

In an interview with Botcke some eleven years later he said the identity of the man had never given him a second thought, however he often wondered what made the man stop the clock for forty minutes and restart it.

The identity of the man is still a lingering mystery in Albert Lea. And according to some he still walks the halls of the Freeborn County courthouse slamming doors, mysterious footsteps, and occasional appearance in empty halls.

What Lurks Beneath…

Lake Minnetonka

Hennepin County, Minnesota

On the morning of Saturday May 29, 1887 the offices of the St. Paul Globe received the following letter:

“Inclosed we send you picture of the lake serpent as seen by a party of fishermen in Lake Minnetonka on the evening of the 23^rd. The immensity of the strange amphibious animal frightened the party from the lake. We have the names of about fifteen persons that have seen the serpent.”

The letter was signed by Martin V. Henry who stated he was one of the party.

The picture included with the letter was a hand drawing depicting a giant snake like creature. The creature had two flippers, a forked tail, and two gigantic fins. The dimensions given as a length of thirty feet and the width of a grown man. The letter intrigued the editors enough to dispatch a representative to the city of Wayzata to track down the witness and record their stories.

Shortly after the reporters arrival he found his first witness. A gentleman named A.P. Dickey who at the time was engaged in building a bridge across Shafer’s narrows. Mr. Dickey stated that several days earlier, in the company of coworkers George McLean and Jacob Snow, he noticed what he believed to be a log moving along the lake from Cedar point. At a distance of about 200 yards the creature lifted its head from the water and then began to thrash and roll exposing a white underbelly. Dickey stated “Closer inspection made it look like the head and shoulders of an alligator, for it came within six or seven rods (about 100 feet) of the bridge before it finally dived out of sight, and we did not see it rise again.” A group attracted by a reporter and notebook gathered to listen. When the story was concluded one onlooker recalled a woman named Thurston had also said something about seeing a monster the prior Saturday.

The reporter located Mrs. Thurston in a small cottage on a bluff overlooking the lake and countryside. Mrs. Thuston stated on Saturday the 21^st she went to the edge of the bluff to look for her children. While she was listening for them she heard a thrashing sound below the bluff and a foam forming on the surface. She saw two flippers splashing as a snake like creature writhed and turned over in the water. As it turned she estimated the creature to be approximately thirty feet long. She watched for several minutes and was disappointed that there were no boats on the water nor anyone to call out to. She relayed the the story to her husband who asked that she not tell anyone in fear they think her delusional. Mrs. Thurston ended by stating “I saw the reptile, or whatever you might term it, as plainly as I ever saw anything in my life. It was fully thirty feet long and as large round as a man’s body. Mrs. Gallagher, up on the hill, has also seen the monster but she was closer to it than myself and saw its outline better.”

The reporter then made his way up to the Arlington Hotel which was under the charge of Mrs. Mary A. Gallagher. She told of an afternoon near their boathouse watching her children play in the water. Something floating in the water grabbed her attention and she urged the children to get out of the water.

The children turned and saw the object which was now several feet above the water and began to scream. The shrieks had seemed to scare it off she said “..the serpent, for such it appeared to be, having a large flat head with what appeared to be, bushy black hair , and it splashed the water violently and disappeared.” A group of fisherman alarmed by the screams looked up in time to see it pass their boat. One of the party stated it was close enough to hit with a long stick as it passed. He gave the following account. “I distinguished its eyes to be light. Its belly glistened as it turned over apparently, and the color seemed to be that of a catfish, and I should say it was between twenty five and thirty feet long. This was my first, and I hope my last, look at the serpent or whatever it was.”

As of that time no fishing party in Wayzata considers itself complete unless there is a heavily loaded gun in the bow of the boar ready to use.

Source: St Paul Globe May 31, 1887

Balsam Lake Bear Boy?

Balsam Lake, WI

January 29, 1871

Today I am going to cheat just a bit and go slightly east of the Minnesota border to Balsam Lake, WI. This story is from the Minneapolis paper of the same date relayed from the Taylor’s Falls Gazette.

The article reports that a band of Native Americans captured an unusual ‘creature’ and that was currently being kept in their encampment.

The article describes it as follows:

“It has the semblance of human form; is fleet of foot and has surpassing strength. It is about four feet in height; its skin is hard, bronzed and as tough as an elephant’s. In appearance throughout it much resembles average humanity save that it has a head like unto a bear’s, and fingers and toes of four to five inches in length, with nails thereon proportionately long. Its utterances are incoherent and unintelligible and yet, it can now make what it wants passably understood by signs and motions.”

The creature was kept continuously bound but seemed to offer little or no trouble to its captors. It is noted that the creature would become extremely agitated on the approach of a white man.

It seems that the creature was not entirely strange to its captors as they recounted a narrative regarding such a being. It was told that some twenty five years prior a young Chippewa woman was to be united to a young man of that tribe until a white man appeared and became her ruin. A child was born with the hideous deformity of a bear’s head coupled with elongated fingers and toes. Shortly after the birth mother and child disappeared. The body of the dead mother was found in the woods but the child was never located. Since that time there had been sightings of the being in the woods but mostly at a distance and was unapproachable. The party was still unsure of what the final disposition of the creature would be.

Not So Pain Free Dentistry

New Ulm, MN 1904

It was a Tuesday evening, November 1, 1904, and Asa Brooks sat at his desk in the offices of the New Ulm Review. While going through correspondence Brooks hears noises coming from the office space above him. The first thought was that furniture was being moved about but it quickly sparked his curiosity. He sped up the steps of the office building and found a light coming from the dental office of Dr. Louis Gebhardt. Brooks climbed onto the banister and peered in through the transom window above the door. He saw Dr. Gebhardt sprawled on the floor in a pool of blood and a young man withdrawing a knife from the skull of the young dentist. Brooks gasped as the blank gaze of the knife wielding man turned up towards the window. In fear for his own life Brooks fled down the steps to seek help.

Brooks returned a short time later with help. They broke through the locked door to find scattered furniture, blood spattered walls, and the doctor laying in a pool of blood. The perpetrator appeared to have cut the screen to the second story window and escaped.

Dr. Gebhardt had succumbed to several hammer blows to the head and approximately twenty stab wounds. The only evidence at the scene was broken clawed hammer with a homemade handle, a pencil, and a handkerchief all covered in the blood of the victim. The only clue was the monogram “G.R.K” on the handkerchief. The office safe was left open but its contents appeared to be undisturbed.

Soon after the murder another dentist from New Ulm came to the police with information on a possible suspect. Dr. George R. Koch stated that just days earlier a young man paid a visit to his practice claiming to be down on his luck dentist, and who the doctor suspected of being a cocaine addict. Dr. Koch said the young man sat on the couch of his office for about three hours. Koch also noted that his coat was hanging directly above the young man and it was likely that he stole a handkerchief from him. Police informed Dr. Koch that a blood covered pencil found on scene was imprinted with an advertisement for his office.

In a related note police were informed of a vile of white powder Dr. Gebhardt had received in the mail. The claim in the letter that accompanied it said it contained a miraculous headache powder. When the contents were examined by a local physician it was discovered it actually contained a “virulent poison” and was disposed of.

Suspicion soon fell on Dr. Koch with jealousy and contempt as motive. Dr. Koch came from a highly regarded local family and was suspected of being resentful of the Wisconsin born doctor and his local prominence. The town was as conflicted as the witnesses. Some stated that Dr. Koch was visiting the local barber shop and another said they saw him walk past the office building before hearing footsteps on the stairs going to the office. Another stated they had seen the broken clawed hammer at his home. Asa Brooks said he could only picture the icy, hollow stair of the murder.

Dr. Koch was tried three times without a sustainable verdict. Unable to live down the accusations he moved to Minneapolis and practiced until his retirement. As of today the murder is officially marked as unsolved.

It is rumored that if you visit the Ottomeyer building on the 100 block of Minnesota St. blood still stains the floor where the young doctor’s office was.

“How I Wonder What You Are” or “Pass the Jello, Please”

OWATONNA MN – November 1966

Fifty years ago this month Mrs. Ralph Butler and an unidentified female friend were standing in a field outside of Owatonna MN watching what had become a familiar sight. They called the bright, blinking lights that zipped through the sky nearly nightly – little flashers. On this night one of those lights descended to the opposite end of the field and hovered a few feet off the ground. At that point Mrs. Butler’s companion fell to her knees immobilized in a trance like state.

“What is your time cycle?” the entranced friend asked in a strange metallic voice. When Mrs. Butler recovered from her shock she tried to explain that we use minutes, hours, and days. “What constitutes a day and what constitutes a night?” she continued.

“A day is approximately twelve hours long and night is twelve hours long.” Mrs. Butler replied. There were a few other trivial questions and the trance was broken and the object shot upwards. Both women were excited believing that they had just telepathically communicated with a flying saucer. Later on when they tried to discuss it with each other both came down with blinding headaches.

This story was recounted by John A. Keel in the book “Operation Trojan Horse”. He received a letter from Mrs. Butler after she read one of his articles in a magazine.

But there is a bit more to this story..

Mrs. Butler also reported unusual telephone problems and strange voices coming over her citizen’s band radio. Then in May of 1967 she received a visit from a man who stated he was Major Richard French. He wore a new gray suit, white shirt, and black tie. He drove to the residence in a white Mustang which proved to be a rental car out of Minneapolis. He told her that he had an interest in CB radios and UFOs. He mentioned to Mrs. Butler that his stomach was bothering him and she offered him some Jello. He stated that if it kept up he would come back for some. She reported that Major French returned the next day and asked for Jello. When a large bowl was placed in front of him she stated he tried to drink it from the bowl. “Well that’s what he did,” she stated. “he acted like he never seen any before. He picked the bowl up and tried to drink it. I had to show him how to eat it with a spoon.”

Major French spoke with no one else in the area and it is still a mystery why he singled out the Butlers. She reported that later the same man paid a visit to close family friends in Forest City, IA.

Mr. Keel claims to have looked in to airmen named Richard French and found one in Minnesota that didn’t even remotely match the description given by the Butlers. Keel goes on in “Operation Trojan Horse” and “The Mothman Prophecies” to state that Major French was a fraud and should be put in the ranks of the infamous Men in Black. Recently I discovered the video interview with a Lt Col Dick French (USAF Retired) recounting his activities with military intelligence. If you would like to pick up his book mentioned in the video you can find it on Amazon with a price tag of $211. Let me borrow it when your finished.

Phantom Airships of 1897

Between 1896 and 1897 there was an outbreak of strange sightings in the night sky across the United States. From San Francisco to New York newspaper accounts tell recount tales of large lighted floating craft performing aerial acrobatics and on occasion landing in desolate farm fields. The few that encountered the occupants of the craft reported they were human with some stating they looked to be Asian. Some witnesses state the pilots of the craft claimed to be ‘Martians’.

This was also a time when tensions were escalating in what would soon be known as the Spanish-American War. H. G. Wells and Jules Verne stories injected thoughts of life on the ‘Red Planet’ into the imagination of Americans. Nikola Tesla introduced ideas of how to communicate with possible Martians by using elaborate displays of generated lightning. With this said it is easy to assume that the public experienced a mania from headlines and perhaps military maneuvers. It is important to remember that ‘balloon technology’ was in it’s infancy, still forty years away from the Hindenburg disaster. I have included a couple of newspaper clips from the time period referring to balloon experimentation.

Minnesota had its share of airship sightings, the majority occurring in April of 1897. There are around forty sightings the I could account for spreading the entire width and breadth of the state. There was speculation that the path of the sightings followed the railroads, a theory I have not had the time to look into. Below are a couple of news accounts followed by a list of sightings collected from newspapers and the book “The M-Files: True Reports of Minnesota’s Unexplained Phenomena” by Jay Rath (Wisconsin Tales and Trails, ©1998).

Date		Location
8-Apr		Albert Lea
9-Apr		Waseca
10-Apr		Minneapolis
10-Apr		Albert Lea
10-Apr		Anoka
10-Apr		Lake Crystal
11-Apr		Winona
11-Apr		Minnetonka
11-Apr		Montgomery
11-Apr		Preston
11-Apr		St Paul
11-Apr		Anoka
11-Apr		Excelsior
12-Apr		Virginia
12-Apr		Duluth
12-Apr		Janesville
13-Apr		Stillwater
13-Apr		Young America
13-Apr		Lake Elmo
13-Apr		Lake Lillian
13-Apr		Madison Lake
13-Apr		Mankato
13-Apr		Minneapolis
13-Apr		Norwood
13-Apr		Royalton
13-Apr		St Paul
13-Apr		Bigelow
13-Apr		Hastings
13-Apr		Lac Qui Parle Lake
14-Apr		Windom
14-Apr		Mankato
15-Apr		Sleepy Eye
15-Apr		Essig
16-Apr		Sleepy Eye
16-Apr		Minneapolis
18-Apr		Elbow Lake
19-Apr		Mankato
19-Apr		New Ulm
21-Apr		Fergus Falls

Hunting Up Legends..

Perhaps it’s some type of personality disorder, but as long as my memory serves I have been drawn to the incredible, the unexplained, and the extraordinary. It manifested in childhood daydreams and continues to this day in what one might call a type of attention deficit disorder. I am sure that some therapist would say this is some form of escapism, I am pretty sure that is true. I prefer to believe there is something instilled deep in my psyche that holds a disdain for the mundane, and a longing for something that dwells slightly below the surface of everyday reality.

From a young age I loved to explore, imagining that a manhole cover discovered in a meadow on the edge of town was actually an entrance to a secret base. I remember after hearing the term ‘parapsychology’ on some television show, running to that dusty set of encyclopedias and pulling the proper volume. There were also plenty of 1970’s UFO and Bigfoot documentaries and television shows like That’s Incredible, In Search Of, and later Sightings all whipping up my curiosity and wonder. All of those culminated into a longing to explore all the Fortean adventures the world had to offer.

On my 12^th birthday I received a book entitled “Murder in Minnesota” from my grandma. The stories were somewhat interesting but an appendix is what caught my attention. It was titled “Those who were hanged”, a listing of all public hangings in Minnesota history. There was one listing for my county, a murder that had occurred right outside my hometown. The snippet told of an immigrant farmer who murdered his wife and four of five stepchildren. I was dumbstruck. Not only had a murder occurred in my small town, but a mass murder. I was amazed that I had never even heard whispers of such an event. Needless to say I needed to know more. I will leave that story for another time. My point is that I realized I didn’t need to travel to Tibet, Roswell, or the Caribbean to delve into the mysterious and strange.

As an adult with a family time and money was usually limited. Our vacations consisted of Sunday afternoon drives and wherever a tank of gas could take us. Our destinations were drawn from stories we had heard or read. Whether it was checking a local haunt on a Sunday afternoon or a day trip to the Kensington Ruinstone, the important thing was we were together learning, wondering, and enjoying the company.

I hope you enjoy the stories you find on here and our Facebook page and they inspire you to start adventures of your own

– J.C.