VAULT - ODDITIES

A lonely monument preserves memories of little-known 1897 circus lightning tragedy

Matthew Von Pinnon — Wed, 02 Apr 2025 19:30:00 GMT

EDITOR'S NOTE: This archival article was first published on June 8, 2002.

WAHPETON, N.D. — It stands on a large plot, dwarfing headstones of what was once called the Bohemian Cemetery.

It resembles a broken pole, wound with a rope and pulley system. The likenesses of a hammer and tent stake protrude from the structure's base.

Etched into that base reads: "Erected by the employees of Ringling Bros. Circus. Charles Smith, June 10, 1897; and Chs. E. Walters, Sept. 15, 1870 — June 10, 1897."

It's a monument in Wahpeton, North Dakota, to two men and a strange little episode in North Dakota history — one many residents have never heard and some circus workers will never forget.

Lightning crashes

Wahpeton was buzzing the morning of June 10, 1897.

The Ringling Bros. Circus train was pulling into the Great Northern Depot, having just finished shows in Fargo, Grand Forks and Devils Lake.

White horses and wild animals never seen by many people in the area were unloaded, according to newspaper articles.

Edward Williams, a 12-year-old boy at the time, recalled his own special circumstances about the day 63 years later:

"That was the first time I saw a hippopotamus," he said. "The animal was lying in its cage like a big hog.

"I was up before dawn that day. I wanted to be one of the first to get a job."

Ringling Bros. used to give free show tickets to kids who would help set up the grounds and tents.

Williams and several other boys were hired to help hoist the big top tent, a mammoth task given the persistent rains that began that morning.

The crew foreman cut holes in the canvas folds to free the water and lighten the load, but the boys still couldn't muster the strength to leverage the ropes of the tent into place, Williams recalled.

A dozen or so circus workers stepped in.

"I was pulling on the rope when one fellow pushed me aside and said, 'This is a man's work,'" Williams said.

Just at that moment, lightning struck the main tent pole, instantaneously killing Smith and Walters, gravely injuring foreman Charles Miller — who would die from his injuries a year later — and knocking unconscious at least a dozen other nearby circus roustabouts and performers.

In its June 10, 1897, afternoon edition, the Wahpeton Times reported: "While Ringling Bros.' canvas forces were at work putting up the main tent this morning, a thunder shower came up and a shock of lightning struck one of the main poles, killed two men outright, and severely stunned three others."

Historian Lowell Torgerson wrote: "Other people affected by the lightning bolt were revived by circus employees who tore off the shoes of those that were unconscious and pounded the bottom of their feet and the palms of their hands."

In 1960, Williams couldn't recall if any of the other boys were harmed, "But my family always said I was as white as a sheet for two days afterwards," he said.

The show goes on

Despite the tragedy, it was felt the afternoon circus and its preceding parade should be held.

"The parade was the largest and finest ever seen in the city," according to Wahpeton's Richland County Gazette on June 11, 1897.

This, despite the hard rains, which mired the parade route and forced elephants to push out horse-drawn carriages and cages that became stuck in the gumbo on their way to the circus grounds, also the site of the former Rosemead Pottery building.

The Gazette reported the parade was made up of "205 beautiful horses, 51 carriages, 31 small ponies, 12 elephants, 5 camels, 4 bands, 1 calliope and 1 chime of bells."

More than 7,000 people were reported to have attended the circus' afternoon show.

"This was really the golden age of the circus," said Meg Allen, an assistant librarian at Circus World Museum in Baraboo, Wisconsin.

Baraboo was the winter quarters of the five Ringling brothers — Al, Alf, Auto, John and Charles — from 1886 to 1918. The circus would begin its nationwide summer train tours in Baraboo and, at each stop, would entice people to attend the shows with its spectacular parade.

"The parade was the culmination of the advertising campaign," Allen said. "It was a very big deal."

Wahpeton's North Dakota Globe newspaper reported on the circus one week after the tragedy:

"Everything was under control, no swindling games were allowed, almost no profanity was heard. That the management has the interest of the workmen at heart was shown in the concern felt at the death of two by lightning bolt."

Paying last respects

Following the afternoon show, circus workers gathered their earnings to pay for Smith and Walters' burial.

Friends and families of the two circus workers asked that the two be laid to rest in Wahpeton, where they died.

More than $500 was raised — enough to cover funeral expenses and a granite monument to the men. It's unclear if the money came solely from circus workers or from those attending the shows that day.

From June 10 to Sept. 29, 1897, a makeshift marker of the lightning-shattered tent pole overlooked the gravesites, with part of the rope and pulley system used to hoist the canvas big top.

Nobody knows who made the granite marker, but it is said to be patterned off a photo of the makeshift one.

Circus workers nationwide have been known to visit the site on occasion — especially when a circus comes to the Richland County area.

While honoring Smith and Walters, some are taken aback by another much-smaller monument less than three yards away.

It marks the gravesite of Herbert "Duke" Joseph Walker, a Lafayette, Louisiana, man who worked with the Daily Bros. circus and died of a ruptured appendix while putting on a show in Wahpeton in 1948.

"I know there's definitely truth to that pilgrimage thing," said Allen.

She cites Wahpeton's entry in the Ringling Bros. route book of 1897:

"At this town the saddest accident of the season occurred," it states, then goes on to explain the tragedy and the monument later placed over the graves.

"The monument represents a shattered center-pole, upon a substantial base, and is properly inscribed to commemorate the sad affair, as well as to perpetuate the memories of those whose lives went out at the lightning's flash."

As for Williams' free pass to the circus, he never got it. The man who was in charge of his crew that day died.

During the parade, Williams recounted how he saw an important-looking man astride a white horse.

"I worked at the tent, but I didn't get my ticket," Williams shouted up to the man.

"Well," said the horseman, "where's your foreman?"

"He's dead," Williams said.

"That's hard luck," remarked the horseman, who then rode away.

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Famous Darwin Twine Ball had its start 75 years ago this month

Jennifer Kotila — Tue, 25 Mar 2025 17:00:00 GMT

DARWIN, Minn. — It has been 75 years since Francis A. Johnson wound the first piece of baler twine around two fingers to form a ball and for 29 years he kept winding, creating the largest ball of twine in the world made by one man.

Johnson, a bachelor farmer and carpenter, started winding the twine in March of 1950 and by all accounts spent one to four hours each day methodically wrapping the twine as perfectly symmetrical as possible.

When the ball of twine became too large for Johnson to wind and move manually, he began using railroad jacks — the kind used to lift boxcars — to move the ball around and keep it symmetrical as he continued adding twine.

The history of Johnson and the Darwin Twine Ball is widely known, and the Darwin Twine Ball Museum also maintains a pamphlet about the history. Various local and regional newspaper articles are on display at the museum, and many more can be found on the online newspaper archive at Newspapers.com.

Johnson completed his ball of twine in 1979 and it was recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records as being the World’s Largest Ball of Twine, holding that title until 1994 when a twine ball formed by J.C. and Elsie Payne of Mountain Springs, Texas, overtook it.

But Johnson’s ball of twine is special — it is the largest ball of twine created by one man and is made completely of brown sisal twine. It weighs 8.7 tons, is 11 feet tall and measures about 40 feet around.

Another man, Frank Stoeber of Cawker City, Kansas, started winding a twine ball in 1953 to compete with Johnson, but he died in 1974, according to an Aug. 12, 2001, Star Tribune article. However, starting in the 1980s, residents of Cawker City held annual “Twine-a-thons” eventually surpassing Johnson’s record.

The Payne ball of twine in Texas that currently holds the record is a little more than 13 feet tall and a little more than 41 feet around. It was formed with the help of 70 people and is constructed of nylon twine, weighing in at 6.5 tons, according to an article in the Dec. 1, 1993, Star Tribune.

The article attributes Thea Underhill, then manager of the Darwin Country Store, as saying, “And therein lies the problem. It still stands that this was an original and this was made by one man. It was an accomplishment. The rest were all copies.’”

The article reported that the Paynes set out in 1989 to break the record and that Johnson knew his record would be broken someday. The article quotes Johnson from a previous interview regarding the Cawker City twine ball: “I told them they’re welcome to it. I can’t stop them.”

Johnson, born on April 17, 1904, in Kingston Township to Magnus and Harriet Johnson, lived his entire life in Meeker County and was known as an eccentric character who collected a wide range of various things, which Johnson himself attributed to his mother telling him to never waste anything.

His father was a Swedish immigrant farmer who served in the U.S. House of Representatives in the 1930s and as a U.S. senator in the 1920s. He was active in the Farmer-Labor Party and Johnson often drove his father during campaign events, according to an article in the Sept. 18, 1992, Star Tribune. “The twine ball made Francis far more famous than his father,” the article states.

Johnson was also a talented wood carver and carved giant wooden pliers that contained sets of smaller and smaller wooden pliers.

One set of pliers was seven feet in length and contained 25 additional pliers ranging in size from 7 feet to 1 inch.

Each individual pliers opens and the basswood carving contains no pins, pegs or glue holding any of the pliers together. It is approximately 20 feet in length when fully open.

When Johnson died on Oct. 24, 1989, the twine ball and other collections, which included 7,000 wood pencils, 1,700 carpenters aprons, 20,000 old irons, toy sewing machines, ancient tools and other items, helped to revitalize the small town of Darwin, Minnesota.

“It’s genuinely touching, albeit a little bit surreal, to hear Darwin residents talk about how the product of Johnson’s whimsy gave the town something to rally around economically, and to see old TV-news footage of the twine ball being trucked to the town square for display after Johnson’s death,” read an article in the Nov. 18, 1993, Star Tribune reviewing the TV show “Only in Minnesota with Louie Anderson.”

During Johnson’s lifetime, the twine ball was located in his front yard just east of Darwin, north of U.S. Highway 12 and protected by the top of an old silo.

When the city of Darwin acquired the twine ball in 1991, its new home was a wooden gazebo with clear Plexiglas panels in the center of town. Johnson’s collections were displayed at various businesses.

For 20 years, Ripley’s Believe It or Not had attempted to buy the Darwin Twine Ball and also tried to convince the Darwin Community Club to give it up after Johnson died.

“Their ploy was, ‘Who’s going to see it in Darwin?’” Underhill is quoted as saying in an Aug. 12, 2001, Star Tribune article. “Our little club explained, ‘We’ll take care of that.’”

And indeed, it did — with a little help from Weird Al Yankovic, who recorded “The Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota” on his 1989 album "UHF." Yankovic visited the ball of twine in 1996 and his fans also often visit the twine ball. The alley next to the Twine Ball Museum is Weird Alley.

People from all over the world travel to Darwin to see the largest ball of twine made by one man and it is estimated by the Twine Ball Museum that about 150 people visit it daily in the summer months.

The same year that the twine ball moved into town, Darwin began celebrating Twine Ball Days on the second Saturday of August. It is a daylong celebration with a race, volleyball tournament, parade and more. This year will be the 34th annual celebration.

This year will also be the 13th annual Darwin Night at the Ballpark at Saints Field in Dassel, honoring Darwin’s former town baseball team. The event takes place on the night that the Dassel-Cokato Saints play the Litchfield Blues, which this year is July 9, and folks wear Darwin baseball jerseys and there are twine ball races and other festivities.

In 2014, people in Darwin’s sister city Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia, listened on the radio as Darwin, Minnesota, Mayor Josh Johnson told them the story of Francis Johnson and the Darwin Twine Ball. In July of 2015, Lord Mayor Katrina Fong Lim of Darwin, Australia, came to visit the twine ball, according to a July 27, 2015 article in the Dassel-Cokato Enterprise Dispatch.

Not only have people traveled from around the world to see the Darwin Twine Ball, the twine ball itself, along with Johnson, traveled to New York City in 1958 to appear on the TV show “I’ve Got A Secret,” according to an article in the March 4, 1994, St. Cloud Times. At that time, it weighed about 6,000 pounds, was only 8 feet across and it was estimated the twine would be about 930 miles long if unraveled.

The Darwin Twine Ball was also featured on the Pioneer PBS "Postcards" series. KARE 11 News also featured Darwin Twine Ball Day in a past news report.

In the 1993 Star Tribune article, Edward Meyer, then vice president of exhibits and archives at Ripley’s world headquarters in Orlando, Florida, lamented, “I really thought we would get that ball when Francis died.”

Although it was unable to acquire Johnson’s world-famous ball of twine, Ripley’s Believe It or Not did acquire the Payne nylon ball of twine and it is displayed in Branson, Missouri. It also acquired Johnson’s collection of carpenters aprons.

The old Darwin railroad depot was moved and sits behind the gazebo that houses the twine ball. The depot houses the Twine Ball Museum to display the history of Johnson and the town of Darwin. It also serves as a souvenir shop, which sells miniature twine balls, twine ball starter kits, T-shirts, hats, mugs and other twine ball souvenirs.

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Time to talk: ‘We are not alone’

C.S. Hagen — Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:55:00 GMT

MALMSTROM AIR FORCE BASE, MT — On fear of Leavenworth federal prison, Robert Salas kept quiet about a disturbing encounter with a UFO that coincided with a nuclear missile incident 60 feet below the Montana prairie near Malmstrom Air Force Base on March 24, 1967.

Forced to sign a non-disclosure agreement, Salas — who later retired as an Air Force captain before pursuing a career in aerospace engineering — broke that silence after a 1996 visit to a Seattle bookstore. It was there he found a book called “Above Top Secret” by Timothy Good, and on page 301 he came across a section that changed his life.

“There was a short paragraph about a UFO incident at Malmstrom Air Force Base in 1966 and in 1967 where missiles were disabled during UFO encounters,” Salas said. “I thought the Air Force may have declassified the incident … I immediately went home and threw caution to the wind and told my wife what happened to me.

"This was the first time I had ever talked to her about it. By then, we had been married for about 25 years.”

For the next 29 years, Salas has told his story to anyone who will listen. He has written three books. He has spoken to members of Congress, and has been featured in numerous news stories.

In the time frame between March 1966 and October 1968, at least 30 nuclear missiles were disabled, and a protective door covering a nuclear launch tube weighing 20 tons was removed and “set to the side,” Salas told Forum News Service.

“UFOs were being seen over nuclear weapons bases, shining a light on the fact that we have these weapons, or they’re disabling the weapons, and I thought the public ought to know that,” Salas said.

“I think there is a message there. And the message is that it is ridiculous that we have these weapons because they are not a significant long-term deterrent to nuclear war,” Salas said.

Even after government investigations into anomalous phenomena like Project Blue Book were declassified, Salas believes that the agencies involved are still not providing the full picture, and that there are secrets within secrets.

Reports of UFOs, now formally called UAPs — or unidentified anomalous phenomena — by the military, have increased in recent decades, and have been spotted in air and water, according to declassified records. Whistleblowers like Salas, retired Air Force Capt. David Schindele, and others like Tim Gallaudet, a retired US Navy rear admiral and Luis Elizondo, former head of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, or AATIP, have produced testimony all the way to the halls of the House of Representatives.

Politicians on both sides of the aisle are calling for an end to the secrets, saying the public can handle the truth. In recent years, the CIA, the FBI, the Air Force and the Navy have legitimized leaked photographs and declassified some reports, but whistleblowers like Salas and others insist the truth is still hidden.

Whistleblowers

Salas’ story, as well as others, were once exposed to ridicule by the public and by government leaders like the last chief officer of Project Blue Nook, Lt. Col. Hector Quintanilla, who believed most sightings were hoaxes, or seen by those experiencing a “mild form of hysteria or war nerves.”

That bias is changing, however, and bills like HR 6967 or the Safe Airspace for Americans Act, would declassify secrets related to UAPs and create a system for reporting and storing information for the public on anomalous occurrences.

Each time a whistleblower, like Elizondo, who last year claimed that the Pentagon maintains secret research programs with off-book budgets, the Department of Defense denies the allegations by remaining stubbornly vague on the issue of anomalous phenomena.

Although renewed interest in the phenomena has been ongoing since 2022, calls for transparency have rekindled in recent months after hundreds of what the New York Times called “mysterious drones, or planes, or maybe extraterrestrial spycraft.” The objects have been exhibiting strange flying maneuvers, began appearing in New Jersey on November 18, 2024, according to NBC News.

The exact number of sightings up until December 17 ranged from 400 to thousands, with 799 sightings in the state on one night alone. Some New Jersey officials claim that the sightings occur up to 180 times per night, according to NBC News.

Bipartisan congressmen and senators are growing concerned. On December 11, senators from New York and New Jersey sent a letter to Homeland Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Federal Aviation Administration demanding a briefing on the unmanned aircraft systems.

“The potential safety and security risks posed by these drones in civilian areas is especially pertinent considering recent drone incursions at sensitive military sites in and outside of the continental United States over the past year,” the letter stated.

The sightings have continued through 2025. On January 7, an interactive map of UFO sightings tracked hundreds more sightings, according to the Daily Mail.

More attention to the phenomena came after retired Air Force Maj. David Grusch, a one time participant in the Pentagon’s UAP Task Force, testified to the House Oversight Committee's national security committee on July 26, 2023, that he knew of “exact locations” of UAPs and that in 2023 the United States found a crashed alien spacecraft.

The Pentagon claimed the finding was unsubstantiated.

‘The truth’

Salas has mixed feelings about the recent scrutiny.

“On the one hand, I think that my public speaking and writing have influenced the movement of sincere interest on the UAP subject by (government) agencies. On the other hand, I am disappointed that neither I nor other similar witnesses have been invited (yet) to give our testimony in a public hearing,” Salas told Forum News Service.

“However, I am also encouraged by the interest in Congress on the UFO-nukes topic, as shown by my recent private meeting with a member of Congress,” Salas told Forum News Service. He met with Rep. Nancy Mace, R-SC, whose office confirmed the meeting took place and was recorded during a special hearing on UFOs.

Salas hopes his years of struggle, both with keeping the secrets and later in exposing them, has played a role in bills that are pushing for more transparency from government agencies.

“The UAP subject is not going away from public scrutiny anytime soon. I sense we are on track to achieve some disclosure,” Salas said.

The public can handle the truth, Salas believes. Although he doesn’t know exactly what or who is behind the phenomena, he said that in 1985 he was abducted from his home in California by small, gray humanoids.

“Disclosure that we are being visited by extraterrestrial beings would certainly be impactful on many aspects of our social order, (but) I am confident humanity would adapt to such a reality,” Salas said.

Elizondo, author of the book “Imminent,” also testified before Congress in November 2024.

“Let me be clear: UAP are real. Advanced technologies not made by our government — or any other government — are monitoring sensitive military installations around the globe. I believe we are in the midst of a multi-decade, secretive arms race — one funded by misallocated taxpayer dollars and hidden from our elected representatives and oversight bodies,” Elizondo stated on November 13, 2024 before a hearing at the House of Representatives.

Elizondo noted that during his time with the Department of Defense, former colleagues and himself were targeted with threats to their careers, security clearances and “even our lives” after providing classified information to government agencies.

“Excessive secrecy has led to great misdeeds against loyal civil servants, military personnel, and the public — all to hide the fact that we are not alone in the cosmos,” Elizondo testified.

“Americans have never been afraid of a challenge. In fact, we thrive on them. We need immediate public transparency … I believe that we as Americans can handle the truth,” Elizondo testified.

‘Sir, it was not an aircraft’

On March 24, 1967, Salas was a lieutenant in the US Air Force, and received a call from a nuclear missile control center guard.

“Upstairs guards were saying they were looking up at the evening sky, and they were seeing these white lights flying above us,” said Salas.

The guard told him the lights were moving fast, stopping on a dime, reversing course, and making no noise.

“He said ‘Sir, it was not an aircraft’ that they were looking at,’” Salas said.

Salas confirmed the report, but continued his work. He didn’t know that eight days earlier another nearby missile control center at Malstrom Air Force Base — Echo flight — had been visited by unidentified anomalous phenomena that disabled its 10 nuclear missiles, according to Project Blue Book.

A few minutes later, the guard called back. “This time he was frightened. He had all the guards out there, looking at this glowing reddish orange pulsating light, hovering just above the front gate. They had their weapons pointed at it.

“He wanted me to tell him what to do. He was scared to death,” Salas said.

Salas tried to calm the guard down, and ordered him not to let anything into the facility.

“I hung up the phone, and that’s when I went over to wake up my commander. He was taking a rest break. But before I was able to tell him about the phone calls, we heard bells and whistles going off,” Salas said.

One by one, the nuclear missiles began shutting down. Within seconds, all of the weaponry had gone offline and the message he received from each missile was a guidance and control system failure.

“These missiles are separate from each other, they’re not interconnected. We also had a couple of lights that indicated intrusion, at two of the launch facilities,” Salas said.

When Salas called the guards back, the glowing light had disappeared. Soldiers scrambled to investigate the two sites where possible intrusions occurred, Salas said.

“They saw these objects above those launch facilities and we ordered them back. They lost radio contact on the way back and they came back pretty shook up,” Salas said.

After his shift the next morning, Salas was ordered to the squadron commander’s office where a member of the Air Force’s Office of Special investigations handed him a non-disclosure form, he said.

“We were never to speak to anyone about this. We weren’t debriefed on any activities regarding the shutdowns, which was very unusual, very strange, because we received briefings every time we went out to the field on alert status. And in the next two years I was there, we were never told anything about Echo or Oscar investigations,” Salas said.

‘Petrified soldiers’

The secrets behind such encounters aren't limited to the United States military installations, according to declassified Central Intelligence Agency reports.

One encounter called “a horrific picture of revenge … a picture that makes one’s blood freeze” by the CIA, which occurred in the former Soviet Union, described a situation on an unknown date where a “low-flying spaceship in the shape of a saucer appeared above a military unit that was conducting routine training maneuvers.

“For unknown reasons, somebody unexpectedly launched a surface-to-air missile and hit the UFO. It fell to earth not far away, and five short humanoids with large heads and large black eyes emerged from it,” the report said.

“The aliens came close together and then merged into a single object that acquired a spherical shape. That object began to buzz and hiss sharply, and then became brilliant white. In a few seconds, the spheres grew much bigger and exploded… at that very instant, 23 soldiers who had watched the phenomenon turned into … stone poles,” the CIA report stated.

The remains of the craft and the “petrified soldiers” were sent to a secret scientific laboratory near Moscow.

“If the KGB file corresponds to reality, this is an extremely menacing case. The aliens possess such weapons and technology that go beyond all our assumptions. They can stand up for themselves if attacked,” the report stated.

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Did someone really find a Van Gogh at a Minnesota yard sale?

Jeremy Fugleberg — Mon, 10 Feb 2025 20:40:00 GMT

MINNETONKA, Minn. — The painting shows a dour fisherman on a beach.

He is smoking a pipe, the sea stretching into the distance behind him, and he holds a net, contemplating an glass weight inscribed with a cross.

In the bottom right corner of the painting, in the customary spot for an artist's signature, is a single painted word: "Elimar."

This enigmatic painting — reportedly purchased at a Minnetonka, Minnesota, yard sale in 2016 for $50 — now has a lot of questions swirling around it.

It's not clear how long the 17-inch-square oil-on-canvas painting sat in the yard sale, or whose yard sale it was.

It's not clear who purchased the painting at the sale. And it's not clear how much they were paid when they sold it to New York-based company LMI Group International, which describes itself as "a data science company serving the arts and cultural heritage sector."

But one thing is clear, what the company now says.

On Jan. 28, LMI Group claimed it had proven the painting is a genuine work by Vincent Van Gogh, painted by the Dutch master in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France, in 1889, and is worth at least $15 million.

“This moving likeness embodies van Gogh's recurring theme of redemption, a concept frequently discussed in his letters and art," said Maxwell L. Anderson, LMI Group's chief operating officer, in a news release. "Through

Elimar

, van Gogh creates a form of spiritual self-portrait, allowing viewers to see the painter as he wished to be remembered.”

This stupendous claim, bolstered by an extensive report, made headlines around the world and set off a firestorm in the art world.

For many experts, the report is nonsense: the company's methods irregular and its motives obviously selfish. For them, the painting remains just a $50 yard sale painting from Minnesota.

The case for 'Elimar'

LMI Group's claim that the "Elimar" painting is a genuine Van Gogh is drawn from evidence it compiled in a 458-page report, which it said was the result of $30,000 in research. In what it said was conclusive proof, it detailed the following evidence:

The style: The classic three-quarter view, the use of the "impasto" technique to thickly layer paint, the colors and tools used, and the fact it was something of a cover-version of another painting, or "translation,'' all point to Van Gogh's work from his time in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, after he famously cut off his left ear, near the end of his life (1853-1890). The science: The materials used to make the painting, including canvas and paint, are consistent with those used in the late 19th century, including a pigment from a patent filed in 1883, and incredibly, a single red-brown hair embedded in the painting that is consistent with Van Gogh's own hair. The details: Van Gogh never signed his paintings, "Elimar" was a character in a story by one of his favorite authors, the painted word is very similar to Van Gogh's other painted writing, the cross carving fit with the artist's growing religiosity, an underlying painting may be a woman with whom he was in a relationship, and he often painted laborers.

The doubts

While many in the art world are excited about the potential find of a never-before-known work by Van Gogh, many others are dismissing the painting as a work by the Dutch master, including most notably the Van Gogh Museum.

The museum rejected the painting as authentic when the original purchaser apparently checked in, in 2019.

“We have carefully examined the material you supplied to us and are of the opinion, based on stylistic features, that your work cannot be attributed to Vincent van Gogh," it said then. It reiterated its position after the LMI Group report.

The company said it was "puzzled" the museum made its determination without examining the painting in person. But many others in the art world have spoken up, pointing out holes and weaknesses in LMI Group's claims. They include:

The inconsistencies: The painting's brushwork and the "impasto" technique" aren't consistent with Van Gogh's known works. The name: 'Elimar' could be the name of the painting's actual artist, a little-known Danish painter named Henning Elimar, and its style matches some of Elimar's work. (LMI Group says the painting was made before Elimar was active and the signature doesn't match.) The source material: There are questions about whether Van Gogh would have been familiar with the supposed source material for his "translation" during his time at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. The myth of the 'flea market find:' Art appraisers and museums are routinely inundated by people claiming to have found a Rembrandt or a Van Gogh or a Picasso in a local garage sale, flea market or attic. These claims are almost universally debunked, although there are exceptions.

Meanwhile in Minnesota

Back in Minnesota, the news of a potential Van Gogh discovered in their own back yard has excited a lot of folks, even as they too are uncertain as to the painting's exact provenance.

"When a Van Gogh painting purportedly was found, essentially, in our backyard, it really caught my attention," Robert Snell, co-owner and fine arts specialist for Revere Auctions, an auction house based in St. Paul, told KARE11 news.

"We have had several patrons of the arts, here in Minnesota, that did purchase really, really amazing objects. James J Hill, T.B. Walker, and they did buy from one of the most reputable art dealers in France, who did handle Van Gogh's work," Snell said. "So it is possible that one of those people purchased the work and it ended up in one of their homes and it kind of got lost and somehow ended up at this garage sale."

While the mysterious buyer (and seller) haven't identified themselves, doing so would go a long way toward explaining how exactly "Elimar" found its way to the land of 10,000 lakes, only to be plucked from obscurity.

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1966 encounter prompts challenge: ‘Come on out and tell the truth’

C.S. Hagen — Wed, 05 Feb 2025 15:55:00 GMT

MINOT, ND — On an early September morning in 1966, David Schindele tried to enjoy his morning coffee, but a news report caught his attention. Strange lights seen over Mohall, North Dakota.

The report disturbed him then as a lieutenant, a missileer and deputy commander overseeing the launch center controlling 10 nuclear-tipped Minuteman ICBMs, or intercontinental ballistic missiles, at Minot Air Force Base. He had heard of "flying saucers" a month before.

The Forum published a story about an August 25 sighting, featuring news from the Saturday Evening Post in an article entitled “Are Flying Saucers Real?” UFOs, officially called UAPs (unidentified anomalous phenomena) by the military, had been spotted flying around Minot Air Force Base.

“An Air Force officer in charge of a North Dakota missile crew suddenly found that his radio transmissions were being interrupted by static. At the time, he was sheltered in a concrete capsule some 60 feet below the ground,” the article stated.

While the officer attempted to fix the problem, guards on the surface reported seeing a glowing-red UFO in the sky, rapidly descending and ascending, which was picked up on radar at 100,000 feet, the article continued.

Unsettled, Schindele, who regularly underwent rigorous testing and security clearances and later retired as a captain, drove to his post at the launch center called November flight, three miles west of Mohall.

“I did my required inspections and went in through the back door of the facility, like I normally do, and right away, the site manager greeted me and said, ‘Did you hear what happened overnight?’” Schindele told Forum News Service during a recent interview.

“I said, no, I really didn't. He says, ‘Well, come with me.’ And he took me to the west-facing windows of the day room and he spread his arms out to show the breadth of this thing that they saw outside the security fence overnight,” Schindele said.

“This thing hovered above the ground and by the way he gestured with those arms I was guessing maybe 80 to 100 feet wide. He couldn't really distinguish what this thing looked like except it had bright flashing lights,” Schindele said.

The hovering UFO stayed in place for a few minutes, then moved to the main gate on the north side.

“Everybody was there, the cook, the site manager, the guards and so forth, and they were all looking at this thing. Nobody wanted to go outside and approach this thing, they were scared to death. I could tell by the tones in their voices and the looks on their faces that it was an experience that they wish they didn’t have,” Schindele said.

Minutes later, the UFO vanished “in a flash,” Schindele said. “I was shaking, myself, to hear their stories and see the expressions on their faces.”

After Schindele’s commander finished with his debrief, they strapped on their .38 revolvers, and descended 60 feet to the control capsule, through two massive blast doors, where they would relieve the night crew and work their 24-hour shift.

“When we walked into the capsule, we looked at the launch control capsule and we saw all red lights … which indicated all missiles were off alert and were unlaunchable,” Schindele said.

“We’d never seen anything like that before,” said Schindele. “It was a real mystery. The technology that these things had was way, way beyond what we had. I knew this stuff was not of this world, and I held my tongue for 40 years.”

‘Disc’overy

The conspiracy theories behind the Air Force’s investigations into extraterrestrial or unidentified phenomena, including Project Sign, Project Grudge and Project Blue Book, arguably began with the Roswell Incident of 1947. A flying disc was seen by many near Roswell, New Mexico. A local rancher, W.W. Brazel, who found the debris, turned out to be a weather balloon, investigators reported.

“New Mexico rancher is surprised at all the excitement created by his ‘disc’overy,” a headline in the Clovis News-Journal read.

For the next 80 years, however, the phenomena of otherworldly bright lights, “flying saucers” moving at incredible speeds, even abductions and experiences like the one Schindele experienced, were wrapped in mystery and later stigmatized as the Air Force and the Central Intelligence Agency lied to the public as they tried to explain the unexplainable, according to a 1997 New York Times news story.

Secrets piled up. Many who believed investigators were hiding the truth were denounced as mentally ill by leaders like the last chief officer of Project Blue Book, Lt. Col. Hector Quintanilla.

In the 1950s, news articles across the country reported that the Air Force claimed there was no such thing as “flying saucers” or extraterrestrial UFOs.

A 1964 report called "The UFO Evidence," published by National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena or NICAP, said its main goal was to conduct research on the topic and encouraged full reporting to the public.

Calling one faction who favored complete secrecy within the Air Force the “The Silence Group,” they published a scathing rebuke and claimed unidentified flying objects were real, rather than the result of the imagination.

“The U.S. Air Force is charged with the official investigation of UFOs, but has practiced an intolerable degree of secrecy keeping the public in the dark,” the report stated.

By 1969 when Project Blue Book was shut down, the Air Force had investigated more than 12,618 UFO sightings, concluding that 701 of the incidents were truly unexplainable, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and GODORT, or the Government Documents Round Table of the American Library Association.

The investigations led to one publicly-stated conclusion: “UFOs do not exist, and they’re harmless,” said Schindele, acknowledging that such statements have only led to public mistrust and more conspiracy theories. In recent years, the CIA, the FBI, the Air Force and the Navy have legitimized leaked photographs and declassified some reports, but whistleblowers like Schindele and others insist the truth is still hidden.

‘Couldn’t figure it out’

Schindele and his commanding officer were in shock. Nearly two decades after America — arguably the most powerful nation on earth that ended World War II with an atomic bomb with an explosive yield of about 15,000 tons of TNT over Hiroshima — they both now stood helpless before 10 lifeless nuclear missiles with an explosive yield of more than 1.2 million tons of dynamite.

“We signed over the missile site, and my commander and I took over 10 missiles that we couldn't do anything with. We could query each missile. We’d push a button and it would talk to us. And each missile said: ‘guidance and control system malfunction.’ This was really, really mysterious because we had a slew of other kinds of errors that the missiles could talk to us about,” Schindele said.

“But to have each missile tell us this, it meant there’s a certain thing that malfunctioned in the guidance system of the missile,” Schindele said.

They wondered if the control center had been hit by an electromagnetic pulse — which can damage or destroy electronic devices — and accompanies a nuclear explosion, but there had been no detonation, and nothing else in the capsule except for the missiles were affected, Schindele said.

“So how could a special signal get from our launch control center to each missile? Really, we were just — we couldn't figure it out,” Schindele said.

Eventually, circuit boards were replaced and the missiles were reset, Schindele said.

‘Never talk again’

Schindele, now 84 years old, knew what he and his missileers witnessed was “not of this world,” but for decades he has been bothered by the fact that Air Force investigators never asked him what happened.

“The Air Force has never talked to me. I'm always looking behind my back. I always have been. Things have happened, however, that I've wondered about, especially with the phones and my computers,” Schindele said.

Unlike others who had witnessed similar phenomena, Schindele was not forced to sign a non-disclosure agreement, but was told never to discuss the phenomena with anyone, including fellow soldiers, his wife or anyone else.

He decided to speak out after a fellow soldier, Robert Salas, broke his silence about a similar encounter at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana, which was eerily similar to his own. Schindele wrote a book about his experience entitled “It Never Happened: US Air Force UFO Coverup Revealed,” and began speaking about his experience in the early 2000s.

Salas kept his silence for nearly 30 years, ending it in 1996 after the taboo of reporting UFOs thawed, and the Department of Defense now has a conduit for whistleblowers.

“There is no reason the Air Force can’t come out and admit that UFOs are real and that they’ve been here for a long time. That they’ve investigated this stuff because, first of all, they wanted to back engineer the stuff they’ve captured from Roswell forward, and they’ve got a lot of this stuff,” Schindele said.

“The CIA is heavily involved in this. Everybody knows they’ve been hiding this thing away. It was 58 years ago that I was involved in an incident, and my goodness, there are so many whistleblowers out there now. Come on out and tell the truth,” Schindele said before making a challenge to the Air Force.

“You can’t hold the secret anymore. They need to recognize how many people have been impacted by all of this and offer apologies to them. At least, honor them as patriotic Americans, which they really are. So many people have been thrown into the trash. If you want to get to the truth, get those NDAs dismissed,” Schindele said.

Declassified secret documents within Project Blue Book that Forum News Service found made no discoverable mentions of the 1966 incident that Schindele described, but other similar incidents across the Midwest occured later between the 1950s and 1968.

Large, round ships with a row of lights were landing frequently at Allen Lund’s farm near Missoula, Montana, in 1964, scaring wild game like deer and bear away. “Every time the UFO is in the vicinity, their oil furnace lights itself … but strangest of all is the fact that their son … has told his parents of a man with whom he talks alone in the barn,” Project Blue Book reported.

Each time Lund’s son visited the man — whose name was unpronounceable — dogs would run into the house, the furnace would light itself and the television lost reception.

One of the most well known sightings of an anomalous phenomena occurred on August 27, 1979, when Marshall County Sheriff’s Deputy Val Johnson was struck by an unidentified flying object in his rust-colored squad car.

Johnson, who was on patrol near Warren, Minnesota, saw a bright light suddenly appear on State Highway 220, according to a news article published in the Minneapolis Star in 1979.

“One minute it was a mile and a half distant and the next minute it was right on top of me. It struck my vehicle. Everything got extremely, painfully bright. There was no object I could see at all. I heard the sound of breaking glass. And that’s the last I remember,” Johnson told the Minneapolis Star.

He woke up in a ditch 30 minutes later with burns around his eyes. The windshield and one headlight of his 1977 Ford LTD were smashed, and both radio antennas were bent sharply back. Strangely, his wristwatch and the dash clock were both 14 minutes slow.

The vehicle, dubbed the “UFO car,” is still on display at the Marshall County Historical Society Museum.

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House DFL boycott not the first time Minnesota lawmakers have skipped town

Ingrid Harbo — Wed, 05 Feb 2025 12:14:00 GMT

Editor's note: A version of this story was originally published on Jan. 24, 2023. The article has been updated with information about Minnesota House DFL members boycotting the 2025 legislative session.

ST. PAUL — The absence of half of Minnesota's House of Representatives has disrupted this year’s legislative session, but it’s not unheard of for Minnesota lawmakers to use their absence to prevent legislative proceedings.

DFL House members have been boycotting the 2025 legislative session as their Republican counterparts threaten to unseat a member and deny a temporary power-sharing agreement between the two parties. Meanwhile, House Republicans have continued the session and Democrats have sued Republicans for doing so.

The absence of members is reminiscent of another notable absence in Minnesota’s governmental history. In not showing up to the session, today’s lawmakers are following in the footsteps of a Minnesota territorial legislator named Joseph Rolette, who disappeared with a bill to prevent it from being passed in 1857.

Known to some as “Jolly Joe” Rolette for his boisterous demeanor, Rolette served as a legislator from Pembina County from 1852 to 1857. At the time, Pembina County covered much of what is now North Dakota.

Rolette is known to many, especially in southern Minnesota, as the man who single-handedly kept St. Paul from losing its status as the state's capital by stealing a bill that would have made the small town of St. Peter the capital. In reality, he may not have been the reason St. Paul is still the capital, but he remains an important figure in Minnesota's economic and political history.

“He’s got a legendary reputation, and it is definitely overblown in some cases, but not entirely undeserved,” said Brian Hardy, outreach coordinator at the Pembina State Museum.

Hardy says historians know some about Rolette, but without any of his personal journals, they are limited to the stories of others to piece together Rolette’s life.

While Rolette put on a rough and rugged frontiersman facade while living in Pembina, he was actually born into money.

Rolette was born in 1820 in Wisconsin. He was the son of Jean Joseph Rolette Sr., a French-Canadian fur trader in charge of the Michigan Department of the American Fur Company, a leader in the North American fur trade. Rolette went to school in New York and was personally tutored by Ramsay Crooks, then president of the American Fur Company. Rolette was brought to Pembina in the 1840s by the company to manage assets at the Pembina trading post.

But in Pembina, which was cold and frequently flooded, Rolette played the part. He dressed in furs and colorful beads, more like a fur trader than the garb of the business people who raised him. He married Angelique Jerome, a Metis woman.

“Despite living rough, he was very successful in the early years, in the early 1840s,” Hardy said.

From Pembina, Rolette organized the first Red River ox cart trains between Winnipeg and St. Paul, pulling business away from the Hudson’s Bay Company, American Fur Company’s biggest competitor.

Rolette was elected to the Minnesota Territorial Legislature in 1851. For legislative sessions, he traveled the 385 miles to St. Paul by dogsled or snowshoe. During his first territorial legislative session in 1852, he brought his dogs into the chamber with him.

“After about three days, the rest of the senators had had enough of it and under the guise of claiming that Pembina does not deserve double representation, had the sergeant at arms take his dogs out,” Hardy said.

In the Red River region, Rolette’s legacy as a frontiersman, fur trader and ox cart pioneer endures, but in Minnesota, he is better remembered for his efforts to thwart plans to remove St. Paul as Minnesota’s capital city.

In 1857, Minnesota was on the brink of statehood, said Bill Convery, director of research at the Minnesota Historical Society. Legislators were tasked with deciding if the state would be oriented on a north-south axis like the state is oriented today or an east-west axis, which would have put St. Paul on the edge of the state. At the same time, many legislators and Gov. Willis Gorman owned land in St. Peter, a more centrally located city around 75 miles southwest of St. Paul.

“This is frontier business and political overlap at its finest,” Convery said.

A bill to remove St. Paul as the capital and move it to St. Peter had been passed in the Territorial House and Council and just needed Gorman’s signature to become law. At the time, Rolette was chair of the enrolled bills committee, which delivered bills that had been passed by the Legislature to the governor’s office to be signed.

The bill was handed to Rolette on Feb. 27, 1857, but on Feb. 28, both Rolette and the bill had disappeared.

In the meantime, the territorial council was in deadlock and could not adjourn without a majority vote, needing Rolette to break the tie. For 123 hours, the council waited for Rolette’s return, camping out in the council chambers, before reaching a compromise to adjourn and meet the next day, March 6. However, Rolette could still not be found and the council session expired on March 7, before the bill could be signed. He showed up shortly after.

Nobody knows for sure what Rolette was up to for the five days he disappeared.

“What he did during that time is really the subject of the various stories,” Convery said. “Some versions say he hid out in the back room of a hotel where he played poker and possibly went on a three- to four-day drinking binge, some versions of it say that he hid out in a brothel in St. Paul.”

During Rolette’s disappearance, The Minnesota Weekly Times reported he had taken a train to Washington, D.C., with the bill, which turned out to be false.

Hardy said his favorite version of the story is one that says the sergeant at arms, tasked with looking for Rolette, knew where Rolette was hiding and would play cards with him instead of looking for him.

Historians agree that Rolette’s actions did not really affect the outcome of the bill. In fact, a copy of the bill that was sent to the governor’s office and signed by Gov. Gorman was eventually struck down by a federal judge. Convery said the judge struck down the bill because moving the capital would require a public referendum, not just legislative approval.

But historians also agree Rolette’s actions make for a good story and are in line with his reputation.

“Joe being Joe had to make a scene,” Hardy said. “Everything else is history, as they say.”

After Minnesota became a state, the city of Pembina was no longer a part of it, meaning Rolette could no longer be a Minnesota legislator. However, that did not stop Rolette from showing up to the first legislative assembly for the state of Minnesota, according to Volume 2 of the Book Minnesota in Three Centuries.

“But when the legislature met in December, 1857, behold here was the ‘Gentleman from Pembina,’ with his credentials, as usual, and of course he was admitted,” the book reads.

It was his last legislative session before retiring from lawmaking.

During the Civil War, the fur trade in the region died down. Rolette died a poor man in 1871.

In northeast North Dakota, his name lives on. Hardy said any place with “Rolette” in the name, like Rolette County or the city of Rolette, is named after the legislator, fur trader and troublemaker “Jolly Joe” Rolette.

Since Rolette, other lawmakers have pulled similar stunts on occasion, Convery said. In 2011, 14 Democrats in Wisconsin fled the state to prevent a vote on an anti-union bill. In 2021, more than 50 Texas Democrats fled to Washington, D.C., to delay Republicans from passing new voting restrictions.

“Maybe he pioneered this idea of skipping out to prevent the legislature from doing its job, but he certainly wasn’t the last one to do this,” Convery said.

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Vault 2024 in review: Investigate these 5 mysteries

Jeremy Fugleberg — Mon, 30 Dec 2024 14:24:00 GMT

In 2024, the Vault brought readers a range of mysteries and unusual oddities to investigate. But of the all, those below were the ones that fascinated readers most.

Give them a read and let us know: What do you think?

3. The mystery of the Roseau Runestone, solved]]>

Remember Y2K? It was 1999 and many were sure civilization was about to end

Jeremy Fugleberg — Fri, 27 Dec 2024 15:35:00 GMT

I remember where I was when I first heard the term. It was early 1998 and I was in a McDonald's drive-thru. My friend was explaining to me why he and his family had decided to move to rural Arkansas next year.

"Y2K," I said. "What's that?"

Y2K. The "millenium bug" arriving in the year 2000. The new millennium.

Some of you might well remember this time. For those under about age 30, let me catch you up.

Many of the computers used in government and business in the late 20th century, including ones that powered the early internet, supposedly had something of a ticking time bomb inside of them.

"It's very hard to tell how bad the situation will be. I'm sure things will break. It's very hard to dispel a nightmare scenario," Nathan Myhrvold, Microsoft's chief technology officer, was cited as saying in a January 1999 Forum column. "The dark-side scenario of airplanes falling out of the sky and bank computers crashing is possible. But it's fundamentally very, very hard to know whether the impact will be big or little."

The problem was the two-digit-year date field (think "93" as in "1/1/93"). Theoretically, the arrival of the new millennium — the year 2000 — would reset all these computer clocks to "00" as in "1/1/00," wrecking anything that counted on dates to function properly. Theoretically, anyway.

The list of public fears was a long one, illustrating how central computer technology had become in our lives, and mirroring larger uncertainty about the new millennium.

And while company officials and local, state and federal officials sought to reassure the public, ongoing reporting indicated nobody was quite sure nothing would fail. So the fears remained up until the last minute.

"Up against the deadline for fixing an unprecedented technological blunder, the world exhibited some jitters Thursday over the prospect of failures in the computers on which we depend," wrote the Associated Press, as printed by The Forum on New Year's Eve, 1999. "There was testing galore and a few confessions of Y2K-unreadiness."

Some religious figures took the moment to insist the coming apocalypse was God's judgment on a wayward culture.

"(God) may be preparing to confound our language, to jam our communications, scatter our efforts and judge us for our sin and rebellion against his lordship," evangelical Christian leader Jerry Falwell said in August 1998. "We are hearing from many sources that Jan. 1, 2000, will be a fateful day in the history of the world."

As if to embody the looming fears, WWE wrestler Chris Jericho gave himself the moniker Y2J (for Jericho), playing off the Y2K term. His entrance to arenas was marked by a countdown video that, when it got to zero, included shutting off the venue lights, leaving people in noisy darkness before Jericho was revealed.

As the year 2000 approached, the fears began to grow into something of a hysteria for some people, sparking drastic decisions, like my friend's family's decision to move to the woods. Others took money out of the bank. Some stocked up on supplies and guns and ammunition to survive the coming failure of civilization.

The growing fears were in odd juxtaposition to the more joyful expressions by some about the year 2000. Big millennium parties were planned. Monopoly put out a millennium edition with fancy holographic cards. The boy band Backstreet Boys released their "Millennium" album, still iconic among my generation (OK, fine — I'm listening to it right now).

Many people dismissed the fears and planned to go about their lives, expecting the furor was overblown.

I moved from North Dakota to South Dakota in 1999, and as the new millennium approached, I was about 55% convinced Y2K was going to cause big problems. I remember counting down the last days of the 1900s and thinking everything was possibly about to change.

It didn't, of course. While there were some hiccups among some computer systems, much of the billions of dollars in preparation worked. A concerted global effort to stave off disaster was effective.

The apocalypse never arrived, civilization continued. In fact, my daughter was born later that year — one of many "millennium" babies who are now 24 years old.

So what happened to my friend who moved to Arkansas? I don't know. I'd like to think he and his family went on to live their best life in a cabin in the Ozarks, ready for the end of the world that never arrived.

Have a moment or person in history that you think is especially interesting? Contact me at jfugleberg@forumcomm.com and tell me why you think it would be a great subject for this column.]]>

Food scientist with Minnesota roots created Cool Whip, Pop Rocks and Tang

Tom Cherveny — Tue, 24 Dec 2024 14:08:00 GMT

RAYMOND, Minn. — No Christmas meal is complete without dessert, and in many homes, it’s virtually become a tradition of its own to top the holiday pies and treats with Cool Whip.

It may surprise many to know that the food scientist who invented the popular whipped topping started life as a child in Raymond, Minnesota. He had a big role in developing the quick-setting, modern version of Jell-O we know today, which is certainly another holiday favorite for many Midwesterners.

The late William A. Mitchell was a prolific inventor of many popular convenience foods and treats. Cool Whip, Tang and Pop Rocks candy are the best-known among them. He invented powdered egg whites, which can be found on grocery shelves today under many labels.

He is often praised as one of the most prolific inventors during his career with General Foods in New York.

His first product of some renown was called “Mitchell Mud” by U.S. infantrymen in World War II. He developed the tapioca substitute due to the disruption of cassava supplies during the war, according to accounts of Mitchell’s career.

His career with General Foods spanned 35 years and coincided with America’s growing love for convenience foods. His best-known inventions became part of popular culture in the 1960s and 1970s.

Mitchell was born Oct. 21, 1911, in Raymond to William and Florence (Fletter) Mitchell. It’s believed he was born on a farm in Woods Township, Chippewa County, according to research by Bob Larson at the Kandiyohi County Historical Society.

Larson said he could not find any records indicating what brought the family to rural Minnesota. Nor could he find any records indicating that other relatives were living in the area, or other family who may have stayed.

The family shows up in census data as living in Colorado in 1920, although they may have moved years earlier.

It may be just an urban legend, but some in the Raymond area believe William Mitchell was no more than 3 months old when the family moved, according to Diane Macht of Raymond, who helped found the Raymond Museum. She said it is difficult to find much information about the Mitchell family’s local roots.

Unfortunately, she said many are probably not aware of Mitchell or his ties to the area. The community of Raymond has not really made a point of celebrating him as a native son, she said.

“For us at the museum, it’s a bit of an oddity,” she said. “I’d love to have more information.”

Accounts of Mitchell’s life describe his childhood years in Colorado as the most formative in his later career. Magazine and newspaper stories of his life describe him as a hard-working youth. As a teenager, he ran the sugar crystallization tanks at the American Sugar Beet Company in Colorado, according to a Wikipedia page on Mitchell.

The young Mitchell hopped a train to get to Cotner College in Lincoln, Nebraska, to begin his college studies, according to an account of his life in the Smithsonian magazine by author Emily Matchar. He earned a master’s degree in chemistry from the University of Nebraska. He went to work at the Agricultural Experiment Station in Lincoln, where he was badly burned in a lab explosion, according to Matchar’s article in the Smithsonian.

Mitchell and his wife of 60 years, Ruth, were parents to two daughters and five sons. Their youngest daughter, Cheryl Mitchell, also became a food scientist and is well-known for developing plant-based milks.

Mitchell invented Pop Rocks while working as a research chemist at General Foods, according to his obituary, which described the carbonated treat as “the hit candy craze of the ’70s.” He held more than 70 patents, but Pop Rocks “gave him a measure of fame and was the most personally satisfying,” the obituary reads.

Pop Rocks candy was invented in 1956 and patented in 1961. Mitchell was looking for a way to make instant carbonated soda by somehow trapping carbon dioxide into candy tablets, according to the website of the current Pop Rocks brand. That experiment did not turn out, and the formula was shelved for 20 years. According to the company, another chemist came across the formula, reworked it a little and turned it into Pop Rocks.

For the uninitiated, the Pop Rocks company describes the candy as “small pieces of hard candy that have been gasified with carbon dioxide under superatmospheric pressure. When these gasified sugar granules come in contact with moisture, in someone’s mouth or in water, milk, soft drinks, etc., the candy dissolves and the gas retained inside the carbon dioxide bubbles is released, causing characteristic crackling and fizzing sound.”

Startling but not dangerous, the popping candy became the subject of “exploded kid” rumors as early as 1979, four years after the product went to market, according to the Pop Rocks website.

General Foods took out ads, wrote letters to schools and sent Mitchell on the road in a publicity tour to explain that Pop Rocks “generate less gas than half a can of soda and ingesting them could induce nothing worse in the human body than a hearty, non-life-threatening belch,” the Pop Rocks FAQ web page reads.

A full-page ad in the form of a letter from Mitchell to parents, including a photo of him surrounded by children, was published in dozens of newspapers on Feb. 4, 1979. In it, Mitchell notes that with seven children and 14 grandchildren of his own, safety is a real concern of his.

“My seven kids grew up with Pop Rocks. I invented it in 1956 and I would make a little bit of it every once in a while to have it around the house for birthday parties and other fun occasions,” the letter reads in part. “I became very popular around our neighborhood!”

Within a year, the candy had disappeared, according to an Arizona Republic story.

“General Foods withdrew (Pop Rocks) from the market because it didn’t fit in with the long-term corporate strategy,” Paul Steidler, an account executive for Clarke & Company, said in the Arizona Republic account by Linda Helser.

The story published March 5, 1987, was written about the limited reintroduction of the candy in Arizona. Clarke & Company was the public relations firm promoting the candy at that time.

According to Helser’s account, the candy had disappeared in 1980, and a Buffalo, New York, company in April 1985 obtained the rights to produce and distribute Pop Rocks.

The Arizona Republic story published March 5, 1987, about Pop Rocks by West Central Tribune on Scribd

According to the Pop Rocks website, the candy was briefly discontinued in the mid-1980s. It is again a national brand, and Pop Rocks Inc. today is based in Atlanta.

Mitchell also developed the flavored drink known as Tang in 1957, but it was not a commercial success at its start. That came later, after NASA sent Tang into orbit in 1962 with astronaut John Glenn aboard a Mercury spacecraft.

It was in 1967, or five years after Glenn’s historic space flight, that Mitchell patented a quick-set form of Jell-O, according to “How Stuff Works.” The new Jell-O could be made with cold water instead of hot water.

Not all of his products met with fame. A coffee substitute known as Dacopa, made from dahlia tubers, did not find success.

Mitchell died at age 92 on July 26, 2004, in Stockton, California. His wife, Ruth, preceded him in death on June 2, 1999, at age 85.

Feb. 4, 1979, Pop Rocks ad by West Central Tribune on Scribd

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Ruby slippers worn by Judy Garland in 'Wizard of Oz' sell for record-shattering $28 million

Jeremy Fugleberg — Sat, 07 Dec 2024 23:28:48 GMT

DALLAS — Judy Garland's iconic ruby slippers from the 1939 movie classic "The Wizard of Oz" sold for $28 million at auction on Saturday, Dec. 7, shattering the record for a piece of movie memorabilia.

The final sales price, which rises to $32.5 million after taxes and fees, broke the record set in 2011 when Marilyn Monroe's subway dress sold for $5.52 million.

The winning bidder's identity was not immediately known.

"This transcends Hollywood, this transcends entertainment. This is part of American history now," said Mike Sadler, consignment director at Heritage Auctions, before he auctioned off the shoes Saturday.

The Ruby Slippers have officially sold for $32,500,000 (includes Buyer’s Premium) 👠 #HeritageAuctions Watch the bidding war!

[image or embed]
— Heritage Auctions (@heritageauction.bsky.social) December 7, 2024 at 5:51 PM

The sale is the latest development in the growing legend of a pair of shoes that was already considered a Hollywood treasure before it was the target of a sensational heist and recovery that could have been plot points from a blockbuster movie.

The shoes, owned by collector Michael Shaw, were stolen in 2005 from a display pedestal in the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. In 2018, the FBI recovered them in a Minneapolis sting.

Leaders at the Grand Rapids museum pledged to buy the shoes to put them back on display in Garland's birthplace and childhood home, attempting to raise the multiple millions of dollars they would likely need, including by offering tours about the theft.

While museum leaders never disclosed how much money they raised, it seemed clear they knew they would be in a very rich auction battle. They also said they would welcome the chance to display the shoes on behalf of the winning bidder.

On Saturday, the Judy Garland Museum confirmed they didn't win the slippers, in a Facebook post: "We sadly didn't win the Ruby Slippers to bring home to Judy Garland's birthplace of Grand Rapids, Minnesota, but we'll continue to follow their story & share with you, our Best Judy's. Thank you again to everyone for your support!!!!!"

In May, Minnesota pledged $100,000 toward the museum's purchase of the shoes, with Gov. Tim Walz promising they would be secured in "24/7 Ocean's 11-proof security," referring to the 1960 heist movie and its 2001 remake.

But it seemed clear even then that the pledge would only be a small contribution toward the winning bid. The FBI may have inadvertently set the price floor for the slippers when it valued them at "several million dollars" in a press release, and they were later valued at an estimate of $3.5 million.

On Saturday, the bidding for the shoes rapidly shot from a opening bid of $1.55 million to past $20 million, before settling at $28 million.

“There is simply no comparison between Judy Garland’s Ruby Slippers and any other piece of Hollywood memorabilia,” said Heritage Auctions Executive Vice President Joe Maddalena, in a news release. “The breathtaking result reflects just how important movies and movie memorabilia are to our culture and to collectors.

Shaw, a movie memorabilia collector, obtained the slippers in 1970. One of several sets of shoes used by Garland in the movie in her role as Dorothy Gale, the pair Shaw owned was dubbed the "Traveling Shoes," because he exhibited them in a national road show. Shaw later agreed to display them at the museum in Grand Rapids, where they were discovered stolen the morning of Aug. 28, 2005 — a theft blamed on poor security and small-town trust.

After the 2018 recovery, federal prosecutors charged two Minnesota men in connection with the theft.

Terry Jon Martin of Grand Rapids pleaded guilty to the theft in October 2023. The aging thief claimed he was seeking "one last score." Martin's alleged accomplice, Jerry Hal Saliterman of Crystal, Minnesota, is set to face trial in January. Both men had long criminal rap sheets involving stolen goods. The FBI says the investigation is ongoing.

The slippers were the featured item in an auction at Heritage Auctions that included other movie memorabilia, including many pieces from "The Wizard of Oz."

The items included the conical black witch's hat worn in the 1939 film by Margaret Hamilton, who played the Wicked Witch of the West, a character that has gained new fame in the recently released movie version of the "Wicked" musical. Including taxes and fees, the witch hat sold for $2.93 million.

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