By day, Chad Lewis of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, is an unassuming grant writer for a nonprofit organization. By night and weekend, he’s Chad Lewis, PI, one of a handful of paranormal investigators in the state. Lewis, 29, logged roughly 30,000 miles last year crisscrossing Wisconsin to inspect everything from alleged haunted houses and crop circles to reports of vampires, werewolves, and spaceships.
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Lewis, who received his master’s degree in applied psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Stout in 2002 after completing a thesis on paranormal perception, takes his work as seriously as Fox Mulder ever did. He’s been doing it for nearly ten years, and he has a methodology–interview witnesses, observe physical evidence, dig through archives, pore over flight data, check facts–which he calls “vigilant skepticism.” And though he’s public about his paranormal work–he hosts The Unexplained, a twice-weekly radio show in Eau Claire, and often talks to paranormal groups–he’s picky about his venues. “I won’t talk in a beer tent,” he says. Last year he declined an offer from Elmwood’s UFO Days.
Lewis has strong opinions on the UFO-capital issue. Though he spurned its beer tent, he calls Elmwood the “first legitimate capital.” Testimony, he says, is extensive. Hundreds of residents have reported sightings. “And George Wheeler was a trained observer, a solid witness. People in Elmwood don’t like to talk about this stuff. They don’t want to see UFOs–it just happened.” He’s not so certain about Belleville. “I’m skeptical of UFO capitals that benefit from the tourist industry,” he says. As for Dundee, which has reported not only UFO sightings but also crop circles and a Loch Ness-like lake monster, Lewis has serious doubts: “I’m just waiting for the vampire sighting.”
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Suzy Poling.
