This semester I've reported on a small grouping of out there things in Paranormal Plains (and its predecessor, Weird Nebraska).
I've talked with abductees and psychics and spoken with people who've seen first-hand the ghosts of the Temple Building on campus or zombies in South America. I even did the best I could to piece together the UFO crash in Dundee County in the 1880s.
Here are a few weird circumstances that I wasn't able to cover during the series.
ALIEN ABDUCTION!
On December 3, 1967, patrolman Harold Schirmer was just outside of Ashland when he spotted a UFO in the air that flew up into the sky.
Or so he thought. But then he realized he had experienced missing time, he underwent hypnosis and realized that in that missing time, he had been taken aboard the craft.
They told him they'd visit him twice more and took him around the ship. They were less than five feet tall and wore spacesuits with headsets, quite a different creature than the grey aliens we know today.
It's not known whether they visited again, but Schirmer later became a solitary figure.
There are many documented sightings in Nebraska with Project Blue Book in the 1950s and 1960s or the 1897 sightings of airships in Omaha.
But in my searches, I've come across mentions of an alien base running from North Platte to Seneca. Being from North Platte and having seen a few lights in the sky there, it's interesting for sure. I'd hesitate to look for the entrance to it, though. I'm probably not ready for that level of answers.
HAUNTED CAPITAL CITY
There are more than a few haunted spots around Lincoln. Alan Boye, in fact, compiled an entire book on it with "The Guide to the Ghosts of Lincoln."
The Capitol Building is one of the spots. The stories say people riding the elevator hear the sounds of a man weeping.
There's also Antelope Park, the gigantic park in the center of Lincoln, where near the caretaker's house figures are seen dancing in the dark. But not like Bruce Springsteen.
There's also the music building of Nebraska Wesleyan University, which is haunted by a former music teacher.
This is not to mention the hauntings at Neihardt Residence Center here on campus, where "Sarah" opens and closes the blinds in rooms, along with numerous other stories of guitar players and pentagrams.
LOCH ALKALI MONSTER
At one of many Alkali Lakes across the state, one near Cambridge, which is now called Walgren Lake, a lake creature was reported in 1923 by a fisherman and two friends, corresponding with Native tales of the region.
It was said to look like an alligator, except bigger - 40 feet bigger. But Dale Bacon, a former researcher for the Fortean Research Society, regaled me with different details when I asked him about it in an e-mail a few months back. Some people claimed it to be a bit more beaverish and maybe 10-20 feet in length … though he added that it's all been considered a joke from the beginning.
It's not been seen since, but the surrounding towns are still proud of their own personal Nessie.
When I went to Niobrara to find out about Danny Liska, an author and paranormal enthusiast from that area, his friend regaled me with stories of the things he'd latch onto - which also showed up in his book. Here, again, reports of a serpent appeared on the shores of the Niobrara River.
And, as Bacon also told me, in 1883 The Opposition reported, "A sea serpent, or something of the kind, has been seen in the Platte River, near Silver Creek. It is said to be as long as a telegraph pole and walks on eight legs."
THE NEBRASKA FILES
Along with the weird events of Nebraska, our fair state has had its share of paranormal researchers or research groups.
There is, of course, a Mutual UFO Network chapter based out of Omaha with its own team of researchers. This was reported on in the Jan. 16 Daily Nebraskan.
But that's not the end. A few other groups have been profiled. There's the Paranormal Research & Investigative Studies Midwest, or P.R.I.S.M., a group mostly dedicated to ghostly pursuits. The Great Plains Paranormal Research Society is another Omaha group that speculates into similar matters.
But perhaps the most well known has been the Fortean Research Center, a group active in the 1980s that investigated all matters of the occult, ethereal and unknown. They put out the Fortean Research Journal but dissolved in the mid 1990s.
Then there are the storytellers, the collectors of ghost stories like Duane Hutchinson and Alan Boye. Both have written books on the matter. Boye had the afore-mentioned "Guide to the Ghosts of Lincoln;" Hutchinson has come out with the "Storyteller's Ghost Stories" series, a combination of myth and fact.
KEEP YOUR EYES TO THE SKIES
These stories barely touch on the happenings in this state. There are sites dedicated to the State Capitol building being a temple to the Sumerian god Ba'al or urban legends of a bicycle cult who built cycles for the oncoming oil fallout in the 1980s.
