By KEN KORCZAK
Three campers in the deep woods of northern Minnesota are about to encounter something that will change their lives forever
Author’s note:
About 25 years ago, I placed a classified ad in several small-town newspapers here in conservative, rural northern Minnesota.
Here is what the ad said:
“Have you seen a UFO, ghost, or anything you can’t explain? Please call me: 555-5555. Confidentiality guaranteed.”
Here is one of the stories that resulted from the many calls I received.
Note: This person requested anonymity, so all names have been changed.
The year was 1959.
It was a mid-summer day and three young men from the small town of Lancaster, Minnesota, were enjoying a weekend of camping and hunting in the deep woods of remote Caribou Township which borders Canada.
Walking through the woods, they happened upon something that astounded them.
In the caller’s words:
“It was a gigantic mushroom, the biggest I have ever seen. It was about three feet high. It had a thick stem, like a tree stump. It had a perfect round top that I guess was about four feet in diameter. It stood about waist high. We could have played a game of cards in it! It was magnificent!”
Upon closer examination, the men noticed that this giant specimen of fungus emitted what they described as “a tantalizing aroma.”
The caller said:
“The only way I can describe it is that the thing smelled like a delicious, broiled steak to me. But now the weird part. To each of us, it smelled like something completely different. One of my friends swore it smelled like freshly baked bread. My other buddy insisted it smelled like strawberry cotton candy.”
Then something really crazy happened. In the caller’s words:
“I was astounded when Calvin, the one who said the mushroom smelled like baked bread, reached out and tore off a chunk of the ‘shroom. Then he popped it right in his mouth! I yelled at him: ‘Are you nuts! It might be deadly poison!’ ”
But Calvin proceeded to quickly chew and swallowed the tender morsel of mushroom. He immediately declared it “the most delicious thing” he had ever eaten.
“I’ll never forget the way he described it,” the caller said. “He said it tasted like fresh bread baked in heaven by sweet angels.”
The caller and Ben shouted at Calvin:
“How could you be so stupid? You might be dead in an hour! Mushrooms are deadly poison!” — and many more similar comments.
However, Calvin was not in the least dissuaded by the urgent admonitions of his friends. He said:
“I don’t care if I die. I just have to eat some more of this It’s just so good — it’s worth dying for!”
Calvin then tore off another hunk of soft mushroom meat and stuffed it in his mouth. He munched and swallowed and again exclaimed with glee that it was like “nothing I have ever eaten before!”
Then Calvin produced his big hunting knife and began slicing slabs of the mushroom “steaks” to take back to camp.
In the caller’s words:
“He didn’t stop until he had carved up nearly half the thing, He took off his outer shirt and used that to wrap a whole pile of mushroom meat. We returned to our camp, all the while keeping a close eye on Calvin. We were just sure he was about to get violently ill or get explosive diarrhea or something like that, but he seemed fine.”
And now this starts getting weird as the caller continues:
“To be honest with you, my other friend and I felt an almost irresistible urge to try the mushroom ourselves. I mean, this was more than simple curiosity. We felt absolutely compelled to eat thing this thing — as if it were controlling our brains!”
The caller said it was as if the mushroom was emitting a subtle hormone or perhaps some sort of scented chemical attractant that was affecting their brains. He described the urge to eat it as “like a command.”
About an hour later, Calvin was not only feeling well, but he also proclaimed to feel “absolutely wonderful and light-hearted, as if he was spiritually uplifted.”
Then Calvin proceeded to do something that would drive his two companions wild. In the caller’s words:
“Ben took out a black cast iron frying pan and placed a large slab of butter in it. He set it over the campfire and sliced up more shrooms and tossed them in the sizzling butter. He cut up some fresh onions and added them to the mushroom slices in the pan.
“The savory aroma wafting out from the black frying pan was just too much. My mouth was watering. All I could think about was sinking my teeth into that tender, ivory-white mushroom steak! Ben and I broke down. We both opted to try a hunk of mushroom.”
Calvin cooked it a bit more and then dished out equal portions for himself and his two mates. They tucked in and began to nosh the shrooms.
The caller said:
“I guess I have no words to describe to you how astonishingly delicious it was! I mean, my mouth was bursting with flavors that flooded my mind with sensations of taste so scrumptious, I was transported into a state of blissful happiness!
Imagine the best broiled filet mignon you have ever had, the most delicious pizza, the tang of ketchup, the sweetness of a chocolate shake, the salty crunchiness of hot French fries, the warm feeling of fragrant homemade bread on your tongue — it tasted one thousand percent better than all of the above combined!”
After finishing off the first round, the men ate another helping and then another. Although they ate an enormous amount, their stomachs hardly seemed to register it.
They washed down their heavenly meal with some cold Grain Belt beer. Then they all sat back and lit up cigars. An immense contentment washed over them as they blew smoke rings and listened to the murmuring sounds of the deep Minnesota forest, and the organ notes of frogs backed up by a concert of crickets.
For the rest of the evening, the three campers felt “amazingly light and happy.”
The caller was forceful in saying:
“I can tell you that we were not high or drugged. The only way I can describe it is that we felt uplifted in our hearts in a way that we never knew was possible — it was as if there were no problems in the world and that everything in the entire universe was filled with a quiet, peaceful joy.”
He said that he eventually fell asleep “very deeply” but recalled a dream of “floating inside a silver sphere — almost like a UFO.”
The next day, the three camping pals went back to find the rest of the giant mushroom. When they returned to the site, however, they found it had shriveled into a clump of black moldy fungus.
The caller said:
“We realized it was gone, but we had no regrets. The experience we had — that uncanny feeling of light happiness — is something the three of us will never forget. I don’t think any of us ever had a feeling of that much happiness ever again.”
The caller added that he has never had any significant desire to eat wild mushrooms again. He wants to stress to others that they should not dare do what he did because certain mushrooms are highly poisonous and may cause serious illness or death.
He said:
“I just think that what happened to us was not normal. Yes, I would call it a paranormal experience. It’s been 60+ years, but in a strange way, I would say the day we ate that mushroom was the most remarkable thing that ever happened to me in my life. I’ve never seen a mushroom like that again. As far as I know, they don’t exist in nature, at least not here in cold-climate Minnesota. It’s just a big mystery and probably always will be.”
NOTE: For more stories about the paranormal and strange happenings, please see: KEN-ON-MEDIUM