"Blue Man of Elkton" Scared the Bejeebers Out of Thumb Residents

One of the most successful pranks ever pulled in Michigan was the 1958 incident of “The Blue Man of Elkton.” In the little town of Elkton in the Michigan Thumb’s Huron County, travelers were greeted with the sight of an alien-esque figure walking along the road.

This figure walked on two legs had a blue color, and appeared to be a visitor from another planet. Eyewitnesses stated that the figure was anywhere from two-to-ten feet tall.

The late 50s were ripe with plenty of UFO sightings, and the country was hit with “flying saucer fever” and those who witnessed this walking entity had very differing descriptions. One observer said it was sitting on top of a telephone pole, while another said it could run “faster than any human”.

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So who was behind the Blue Man of Elkton?

Taking advantage of the public’s gullibility to believe in space creatures invading earth, Don Weiss, LeRoy Schultz and Jerry Sprague thought they’d do something that would really stand out.

According to Michigan’s Thumb, they made a costume out of long underwear, a football helmet, Styrofoam, large gloves, German combat boots, a bedsheet with two holes for the eyes and button for the mouth, and blinking lights. After spray-painting the outfit blue, one night Weiss donned the costume and the others drove him out to a location where he would walk along the road on the outskirts of town.

Sure enough, a few weeks later, news of this creature started permeating through town. It really exploded when they pranked a bus load of Junior High students. After making sure their creature was seen by the entire bus load, they were surprised the next day to see six cop cars at the school. Some students got so scared, they told their parents, who in turn reported this to the police.

The three boys eventually admitted their prank and police advised them to “never do the ‘blue man’ prank again.” When the local paper printed the story, other newspapers ran with it; word spread even further, and the boys became immortalized when their joke appeared as an article in the May 1958 edition of LIFE Magazine.