24 Apr 2026
Beauty and Strangeness in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan
My guest is Ben Marchant, originally from Wisconsin who now lives in the U.P. Ben works for the Delta Conservation District so he spends a lot of time in the woods. Ben has been on the radio with me a few times and I really liked his energy, and I thought he'd be fun to talk to on my podcast. The Upper Peninsula of Michigan truly is a special place, at least most of us who live here think so. There is so much abundance of nature, thick forests, lakes, rivers and more. As well as many kinds of animals including moose, black bears, wolves and coyotes. The biggest drawback may be the abundance of deer that wind up getting hit on the highways. Many who live here enjoy hunting or fishing. Many just come here to camp out. The summers are warm, winters are cold with lots of snow, especially up north. The weather along Lake Superior can be totally different than for those that live in the southern half of the U.P. Most people are pretty freindly, often they'll wave at you or give you the old "head nod." Then, there's the stranger side of things. Things that we have often talked about on my podcast. I've noticed by watching many shows that this probably occurs in every state in the country, and probably every country in the world. What kind of phenomena? Ghosts, UFO's, Sasquatch and other cryptids, and probably many more unusual things. For years people have been going to explore the western U.P. and the Paulding Lights which have been seen for years. A group of Michigan Tech students investigated and said it was just car lights, the locals disagree. Some have claimed that Lake Superior has a similar creature to the Loch Ness Monster. The natives believe there is a spirit energy in the great lakes. One of the biggest unknown yet known events was the Kinross Incident that occured in 1953 over Lake Superior involving an F89 Scorpion Fighter Jet and an unknown aircraft. At the time it was well known and thoroughly investigated, now it's faded into histroy and very few would even know it happened. David Paulides of Missing 411 fame has listed the U.P. as one of many places where people have gone missing, although it seems to rarely happen. Shows like Fear The Woods, Expedition X and Finding Bigfoot have featured stories of witnesses in the U.P. who had scary crytid/UFO/ghost encounters. Now, why would anyone want to live here? Most people have not had any unsual encounters, most seem unaffected by any of it. Regardless of where you live, these things go on, all you have to do is dig around and ask questions. If all I did was do a show about how great the U.P. is, what fun would that be?
