"Memory of the Unknown Dead"

This confusing stone in Mt.Vernon says there are unknown persons buried within range of posts, but we saw no posts. And who are these unknown dead? From a specific tragedy? Or do all local unidentified "John Doe" bodies get interred here?

The Big Fish of Dixie Highway

If you liked The Unfriendly Fish Fountain, here's an even bigger fish to fry. This enormous fiberglas bass decorates the sign for Pepper Tackle on Dixie Highway between Valley Station and Fort Knox. Though it's hard to gauge the size perspective in the picture, the disturbingly lifelike fish is bigger than a pickup truck.

The Unfriendly Fish Fountain

The unfriendly fish fountain, with its strangely Donald Duck-like countenance, was one of the very first entries on our old site back in 2002. Located on the corner of First and Main streets in downtown Richmond, this irate-looking sculpture has greeted passersby with its surly scowl for many years.

The fountain no longer works, alas, but its fish-faced glory lives on.

Vogt Reel Firehouse

Built in 1904, the Vogt Reel Firehouse is Fayette County's oldest continually operating firehouse. It also happens to be very haunted, according to the accumulated lore of several generations.

Some believe the ghost is that of Henry McDonald, a volunteer fireman who refused to retire and eventually died of a heart attack while on the job at the age of 68.

Others claim the haunting legend goes farther back than that, and that "The Phantom", as they affectionally call the ghost, has been attached to this land perhaps even before the firehouse was built. The property was a wooded lot until Lexington councilman Henry Vogt donated the land to the city, who in turn named the subsequent building after him.

"Kurt Loder"

So jaded am I about the bulk of generic same-old street artists and toy taggers out there cluttering up the graffiti scene, it takes a lot to make my hat fly off in awe. Surprisingly, it wasn't a complicated mural or a multicolored allnighter of a piece that last impressed me, it was this beautifully stupid one-color throw-up that started appearing all over the Market street area of Louisville a couple years back. Just the thought that someone would choose the moniker of nerdy MTV host and rock critic Kurt Loder as their tag was enough to make me laugh out loud all the way home to get the camera.

Denny Cemetery

This is a very obscure and hidden cemetery, blink and you'll miss it. It's on Tates Creek Road in Madison County, far out into the country, almost all the way to Valley View.

The cemetery will be on your left. Watch for the view seen in the photo here, which was taken standing by the roadside looking down into the graveyard. You can barely see two stones peeking up from the high weeds and dense foliage that have overtaken the area. It's been awhile since I last checked this one out, but last time I was there I saw no indication that any of the graves had been visited recently. Some of the graves were discovered by accident while clearing a path to others, they were so hidden and grown-over with weeds and mud. This graveyard is badly in need of upkeep and preservation.

Oddfellows Lodge #14

One of the sad truths about doing a website like Unusual Kentucky for years is that some of the places you write about end up ceasing to exist. The spooky old Madison County Oddfellows lodge hall is one of those unfortunate casualties. For over a century it set a suitably ominous tone for the area, even after its street-level floor became a "party shop" in the 1980s.



What originally brought the creepy old edifice to Unusual Kentucky's attention, however, was a square stone box, looking almost like a gravestone. It was dated 1902 and was stashed under the side stairwell. Some speculated it contained human bones for some sort of quasi-Masonic ritual, while others said it was a simply an old keystone.



The latter is the most likely explanation, but we may never know for sure because the stone, the stairwell, and the whole damn building are now gone. Further proof that the power to make drastic changes to a city is usually in the hands of the worst possible people to wield it.

The Spaceship School

The locals are so used to it by now they think nothing of it, but people visiting Berea for the first time are often startled to find this building (looking like an odd cross between a buddhist temple and an alien spacecraft) in the midst of a rural area of the quaint little town of Berea, KY.

This is Berea Community School, believe it or not. Why would a school in a small community that prides itself on its rustic and woodsy heritage look like something Ming The Merciless would live in? I dunno.

The picture just doesn't do justice to the attention-commanding sight this UFO schoolhouse really is. The school is a complete concentric ring, made up of several pods revolving around a center one. The classrooms are mostly open areas with no walls or doors, which can be a profoundly annoying experience for all. This was some Frank Lloyd Wrong's idea of "progressive" architecture for schools. (Thank God it never became a trend.)

View it on Google Maps here.

Put your butts here

Toilet ashtray outside a Red River Gorge tourist trap.

The Curse of 3rd & Broadway

Puzzling evidence:

On November 25, 1938, Lexington artist Edward Fisk
is struck by a car and badly injured at the intersection
of Third and Broadway in Lexington.

In 1981, another Lexington artist, Henry Faulkner,
is struck by a car and killed at this same intersection
by a teenager running a red light on a drunken joyride.

In 1991, another Lexington artist, Jeffrey Scott Holland,
is almost killed at this same intersection by a street gang.

(And a decade later, Holland actually lived at the corner of
3rd & Broadway.)

In 1999, another Lexington artist, Dan Selter, was hit by a car
on the corner of 3rd and Broadway while walking from his nearby
studio to Rupp Arena. Selter was not badly hurt, and actually hitched
a ride with the driver of the vehicle for the rest of his trek to Rupp.

In 2000, another Lexington artist, Todd Dockery, attends
a party at the corner of 3rd & Broadway, shortly after which
he is nearly fatally stabbed by a drunk on Upper Street, and
stupidly charged with assault by Lexington police even though
he was clearly the victim, not the attacker.

Kentucky Contactees

It's difficult to assess the impact of the alien abduction phenomena in any given area because people are so reticent to talk about their experiences. I've met with many people who are absolutely convinced they have been abducted by aliens, but are unwilling to tell their whole story, much less submit to hypnosis, testing, etc. They seek no fame or glory or attention, and are in fact often too embarrassed by it to go into much detail. Therefore, they don't turn up in the casefiles of most online armchair UFO enthusiasts. But they are indeed out there.

Abduction counselor Donald Worley writes of his encounters with abductees from Kentucky and Indiana who display a demonstrable ability to disrupt "electron flows" in any given electronic devices nearby. Driving or walking under street lights may cause them to go on or off. Radios, computers, all manner of electronic equipment can be affected by whatever is happening to these people. The energy coming from these abductees, Worley says, is undetectable yet obviously causing an effect, and seems to be intermittent.

An organization called SOAAR, (Southern Ohio Alien Abduction Research) also deals with cases from nearby Kentucky, which they publish on their website. One such case, "Mark" (name changed), tells of alien encounters throughout his life, from a childhood UFO encounter in Nicholasville to visitations in his dorm room in Morehead, to a visitation with missing time somewhere between Lexington and Mt. Sterling. Another SOAAR casefile, Louisville subject "Danny" (also not his real name), underwent regressive hypnosis to recall his abduction experiences in which he and his mother are captured by aliens in a triangular craft, stripped naked, and held prisoner together in a strange room aboard the vessel.

"Haunted till you die"

I've always loved this note found taped to a mausoleum in Louisville in 2005.