Some of Indiana's strange stories cannot be so easily categorized as the tales of lake monsters or Bigfoot. Take for instance the story of the weird animal seen living in a well on a farm in eastern Indiana. The farm belonged to Dan Craig of Lynn, Indiana. The Indianapolis News first wrote about Craig's strange guest on June 8, 1960.

Craig told the newspaper he had been aware of his well's unusual visitor for about a year. He described the animal as "an eerie beast with a dome-shaped head, two bulbous eyes, and eight flailing tentacles as long as a man's arm." Dan Craig's wife said the animal looked like "a mushroom as large as a plate, with long legs and feet."

Craig decided to drain the well to find out once and for all what kind of creature was in there. After the well had been drained, a 12-year-old friend of the family, Craig Lee, descended into the well and said that he saw something about the size of a dinner plate that looked like a yellowish sponge mushroom with eyes on the top of its head and with eight legs with claws on the ends. Dan Craig decided that enough was enough and had the well filled in. Naturally the creature was never seen again.

In 1974, the Midwest was hopping with reports of mysterious kangaroos. Indiana contributed its fair share of reports with the November 17th sighting of a kangaroo in Carmel, Indiana. The animal was seen by Amos Miller and his wife while they were driving to church. The kangaroo was sitting on its haunches near the Cool Creek Bridge at Indiana 234 and Keystone Avenue.

In Sheridan, Indiana, on November 25th, farmer Donald Johnson was driving his pickup down a rural road when he saw an unusual animal. Donald said it was a "kangaroo running on all four feet down the middle of the road." When the kangaroo saw the farmer it jumped over a four-foot-tall barbed wire fence, and disappeared across a field. Police speculated that the kangaroo could have escaped from a private owner, however no missing kangaroo reports were ever filed, and no further sightings were ever reported.

In 1876, people were drawn to Jim Bailey's well located near Plymouth, Indiana. The reason was that the water from the well had magnetic properties. Knives, shears, scissors, hooks, and small bars of steel became magnetized when placed in the water. From two feet away the water could totally control a compass needle.

The well's output was an estimated 500 gallons a minute, however it was not what Bailey had wanted. His firm had been trying to open a seam to operate a mill wheel by underground streams. Instead they got the gusher whose waters sparkled strangely with the tints of the rainbow. People came for miles around to bathe in the magnetic waters, believing that magnetism would restore health, treat rheumatism and dyspepsia. The crowds soon became a nuisance to Jim Bailey who covered up the well, much to the disappointment of the devotees of Bailey's magnetic waters.

Strange stories, unnatural creatures, mysterious occurrences -- the supply of fascinating information about Indiana is inexhaustible. Hoosiers, however, take these stories in stride. Tall tales and folklore, entertainment since the early pioneer days, have never lost their charm to Hoosiers. An expression used since the early days of Indiana best describes the wondrous stories and events that make Indiana's unnatural history so compelling: "will wonders never cease?" Let's hope that they don't.

Ray Boomhower, "The Father of Indiana History and the Devil's Lake Monster," Traces Magazine, Volume four, Issue one, Indiana Historical Society, 1992.

The Churubusco Chamber of Commerce, B.J. Heath, Director.

Janet and Colin Bord, Alien Animals, Stackpole Books, 1981.

Fred D. Cavinder, Indiana's Believe it or Not, Indiana University Press, 1990.

Sanford Cox, Recollections of Early Settlements of the Wabash Valley, Courier Steam Book and Job Printing House, 1860.

Arville L. Funk, A Sketchbook of Indiana History, Christian Book Press, 1969.

The Indianapolis News, June 8, 1960.

Dana Olson, Prince Madoc: Founder of Clark County, Indiana, 1987.