by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear 

In 1958, motorists in Elkton, Michigan, were alarmed by the sight of a blue creature with blinking lights and what looked to be a space helmet. Estimates of its size ranged from 2 to 10 feet tall, and mothers who spotted it while looking out the windows of their homes were reportedly worried about letting their children go out at night. The police got involved after a busload of junior high school students spotted it, and it wasn’t long before the mystery was solved.

In the October 31, 2008, Huron Daily Tribune there is an article (page 5 of the pdf) by Traci L. Weisenbach headlined, “50 Years Ago, ‘Little Blue Man’ Shook up Elkton.”  After the introduction in which the reader is asked to imagine driving down a country road and spotting “an illuminated, bluish figure moving very quickly, perhaps even dancing,” Weisenbach reveals that the creature was actually a young man dressed in a costume. He and two of his friends had come up with the idea, and with him in costume hidden in the trunk of a car, the other two would drive around and let him out in various locations.

According to Weisenbach, the three men involved were Jerry Sprague, LeRoy Shultz, and Don Weiss, who had just returned after serving in the military. Don Weiss was interviewed and said, “We were 22 or 23 years old and we were looking for work.” He added, “We had a little extra time on our hands.”

According to Weiss, they got the idea from flying saucer stories going around at the time. Thinking it would be fun to have one of them dress up like an alien and bamboozle the public, they went about putting together a costume. It consisted of long underwear, Weiss’s football helmet with Styrofoam and blinking lights attached, gloves, metal-soled German combat boots, and a sheet with two eye holes cut out and a button sewed on for a mouth. They spray painted everything blue, inspired by a song on the radio at the time by Betty Johnson called “Little Blue Man.” Weiss said, “The paint glowed a bit in the light, which added to the effect.”

As for the lights, Weiss explained, “They didn’t have blinking lights back then, so we had to make the lights blink ourselves.” He said, “We had a battery pack attached to the costume.”

Sprague ended up wearing the costume because he was the only one who fit in the long underwear, which was his. Shultz drove, and Weiss helped Sprague get in and out of the trunk. They decided to only go out on Thursday nights to avoid getting caught too easily.

Shultz would drive out to a country road, Weiss would let Sprague out, and Sprague would run along a fence line or along the bank of a ditch so people could see him, and then jump back in the trunk. Weiss said, “We wanted to let people see (Jerry) and then we’d sit back and wait to see if people talked about it.” He said that after three of four Thursday excursions, “peoples imaginations started taking over.”

Weiss said that people talked of seeing a creature 10 feet tall, 2 feet tall, and that one report had him sitting on top of a telephone pole. He said, “My favorite was an account that said it ran faster than any human.”

After eight or ten nights, the three still hadn’t been caught. There were no reports to the police, until one night, while the three were sitting in a restaurant, they saw a school bus full of junior high school kids drive by returning from a roller-skating party. The costume was in the trunk, and they decided to drive out ahead of the bus so Sprague could do his bit in front of the kids.

Weiss said, “That’s when all heck broke loose.” Someone had called the police, and the three saw six police cars parked in front of the Elkton school. Weiss said, “There was a little panic.” He explained, “I guess the school kids were genuinely scared, and the parents were concerned.”

According to Weisenbach, Sprague told a friend what they had been doing, and word got out. Thinking it was just a matter of time before the police came for them, the three went up to Michigan State Trooper William Collins and said they heard the police were looking for them.

Collins took the three to the Huron County Sheriff’s office and they were interrogated by Sheriff Meritt McBride and Prosecuting Attorney James Umphrey. Weiss said, “They thought it was hilarious.” According to him, they wanted to have Sprague walk around the radio station but the three refused. They were then warned to never do it again. Weiss said, “We were told ‘Take your underwear and go home.”

According to Weisenbach, all that remained of the costume was the football helmet, which was on display in Weiss’s barber shop in downtown Elkton.

The hoax became an enduring legend and there is a website devoted to it with this introduction:

“In 1958, a blue alien terrorized Huron County. The three young men who concocted the prank had no idea that the tale of the hoax would endure over 50 years later. My dad, Jerry Sprague, wore the suit, because — ‘it was his long underwear.’ Please enjoy this digital collection about the Little Blue Man of Huron County.”

The site includes a digital scrapbook with articles about the case from the period. One of those appeared in the May 1958 issue of Life magazine with a picture of a police officer who was about the same size as Sprague wearing the costume as Sprague refused to wear it for any pictures. According to the article by Stacey Henson headlined “A prank in Huron County that got out of hand made national headlines 50 years ago” published on the MLive website on October 2, 2008, Sprague wished to remain anonymous, and it wasn’t revealed that he was the one in the costume until after his death.