Mysterious Object Found in Reedsburg
by William C Schuette
From the May 1999 Sauk County Historical Society Newsletter

The Henry Thiemann family of Reedsburg, had just finished laying a new lawn and been driven inside by a summer thunderstorm. The year was about 1916, recalled Mrs. Thiemann, and there was a blinding flash of what they thought was lightning, but strangely, there was no accompanying thunderclap.

After the storm was over, they went outside and discovered a strange hole in their backyard lawn. The hole was six to nine inches across and very deep. "It looked as though something had been pushed into it," recalled Mrs. Thiemann 20 years later. She noted that the family often spoke of the incident, but they never investigated further.

Two decades were to pass before this occurrence was again recalled. A headline in the October 23, 1936 Reedsburg Times-Press asked the question: "What Is It and Where Did It Come From?" The story went on to report that "A peculiar mass of metal was unearthed several feet under the surface of the ground at the new filling station on the corner of Locust and Main streets. (current location of Reedsburg Cleaners and Laundry)" The unidentified object was brought to the Big Store by Rupert Schweke, owner of the property.

"This mass looks as though at some time it had been molten and spattered with great force against the earth," noted the article. It appeared to consist of copper or an alloy thereof and was six to nine inches long and about four inches deep. It weighed 12 pounds. The surface had a mottled green patina which had been dulled by oxidation. However, if the surface was scraped, the metal shown bright and lustrous."

The metallic lump was taken to Mr. Loofboro, of the high school staff, who was to make a metallurgical examination and report its composition in a subsequent issue of the paper. Unfortunately, no further report of the mysterious object was mentioned in the paper.

Mrs. Henry Thiemann, who had owned the property twenty years before, then recalled the strange happening that day so many years previous.

The metallic object was apparently later identified as a meteorite, as several people recall that it was displayed as such in a store window during Reedsburg's centennial in 1948.

All efforts to locate the strange object have gone unrewarded to date. An ancestor of Mr. Loofboro was contacted and his family could provide no information.

The astronomy and mineralogy departments of the University of Wisconsin were contacted and they knew nothing of a Reedsburg meteorite. A scientist at Arizona State University (known for its meteorite collection) wrote this author that they also had no record of our supposed meteorite. He also noted that meteorites are never made of copper; primarily they consist of iron, nickel or stone.

It appears that the object was indeed, a lump of copper. That conclusion was drawn because the newspaper report noted that the "surface had a mottled green patina." Copper, when exposed to water and air, oxidizes to a greenish color.

Since there was at one time, a copper mine located near where the Reedsburg Country Club is today, it is entirely possible that a large nugget of copper could have somehow found its way to the location where it was dug up in 1936.

So was it a visitor from outer space, or simply a lost copper nugget? Until this enigmatic object is located and examined, the answer will remain a mystery.