Wisconsin Family Opens Mysterious Hatch In yard, Finds Hidden Marvel

Wisconsin family opens mysterious hatch and yard finds hidden Marvel the hollers WIC family had been living in their quiet Neenah Wisconsin neighborhood for almost a decade they knew that there was something in their backyard that resembled a hatch but they were very unsuspecting of just what had been laying inside it in wait for all those years the mother of the family Carol had been too busy with her time raising her family and going about her daily routine to ever explore the nooks and crannies of her backyard throughout the years the ominous rusty hatch remained unopened in their backyard the old adage out of sight out of mind would only last so long until the fated day that the family's curiosity would get the better of them back in 1999 the hollers wix would become famous for their eventual amazing find they were just an average family living in a small town in New Jersey a job offer that just couldn't be refused was the catalyst in life that ended up leading them to Wisconsin so they packed their bags and headed to middle America where the cost of living is cheap and the cheese is as fresh as can be their new path would lead them to also look for a new home and the place they would find would turn out to be no ordinary one what the hollers WIC family would eventually learn is that it must have been fate for them to move to the sleepy Wisconsin town of Neenah in order to discover something that would change everything despite Neenah being rather insignificant the hollers wyx were about to find a property that would be very significant indeed the city of Neenah Wisconsin has only about 26,000 residents and is located just south of Appleton the name Nena was given to the city by Governor James Duane Doty the name itself meaning water or running water in a local Native American language they didn't initially know how the meaning of their town name would later come into play and what they discover in their backyard the hollers Wieck family finally found the perfect house for themselves and their children to grow up in a picturesque residence was located in a sleepy neighborhood in and boasted a rather spacious backyard a must for many who have young children however in that backyard there was a secret the family was notified that something was there before they moved in but at the time they took little note of it that mysterious item was a hatch something that resembled a storm cellar but just what was inside the hatch what secrets did it hold it was a question that came up in the hollers with council but one that they wouldn't explore themselves until much later Carol bought her Nina home along with her husband Ken and together they raised a beautiful family with three children as the years passed by the old rusted hatch in the backyard became overrun with brush hiding it from sight out of sight out of mind for some reason they never even thought once that they should remove the brush that was growing over the old hatch and tried to pry it open but somewhere somehow it was always in the back of their minds lingering they didn't know it then but the time to open it was finally approaching it took the hollers week family about a decade but the time had finally come they were working in the backyard when they decided that the time had come for them to clean up the brush that had grown so rampant over the years and as they removed the overgrowth the hatch became exposed it's at they're almost mockingly just waiting for someone to try and open it the brush had eerily grown over the rusted hatch as if it were protecting a secret or trying to stop the family from attempting to open it perhaps what lay beneath the surface was something that should never be opened but only time would tell what exactly the hatch contained when the hollers wix moved into their quaint home they went about their business of living their lives after all they figured they had no use for whatever was inside the hatch the area they lived and rarely had tornadoes but it wasn't as if they needed to use the underground space as a tornado shelter the space as they would come to find out wasn't a tornado shelter at all but something much more ominous at least ominous given its intended purpose but just what would they find after they managed to open the old rusted metal hatch and peered down into the unknown abyss below their backyard you're probably thinking how could we let it sit there so long Carol Haller Zwick later admitted in an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel after a family's discovery gained media attention well we assumed it was empty but in fact that wasn't true at all as they were about to find out in fact the hatch contains something of a time portal to the past the hollers wyx knew that there was room down below their backyard but could never have imagined what they were about to find on their very own property and it certainly was never used as a tornado shelter but something far more ominous from a different time period the realtor who had sold the hollers wood family the house had explained before they purchased it that there was an underground room below the backyard hatch but the family for some reason had never taken the time to explore the dark depths of the hatch it would take a decade however for them to find out just what exactly that mysterious underground space contained having initially imagined the hatch led to an empty unassuming area they would soon be shocked to find that it was something much larger than they could have even imagined finally with all the greenery and brush clear off the hatch they were able to get to the door and try to pry it open after a few attempts the rusted door creaked open peering into the darkness below them they could tell that the room had been flooded with water so the hollers Wix decided to explore further and that would mean pumping the water out of the underground chamber so they loved hoses over and began the laborious feat of draining all the water not knowing what the source of it was after the water had been completely pumped out they found themselves in a small underground space but the room wasn't empty once inside the shelter it was quite easy to see that it was never meant to be a simple storm shelter or a hiding place for something dubious in fact the underground space was constructed as a fallout shelter a fallout shelters an enclosed space designed to protect people from radioactive debris also known as fallout from a nuclear explosion the shelter itself was designed to minimize exposure to dangerous radioactive debris until radiation levels decayed and would be safe to emerge at the surface but just who had built such an intricate fallout shelter and those questions were actually easy to answer the answer to who built the fallout shelter was an easy one because there had only been one other owner of the house prior to the hollers wyx moving in the house had been built back in 1951 and was initially owned by a physician by the name of Frank Panch according to municipal records pants started construction on the fallout shelter in his backyard in the year 1960 just about a decade after the home was built but just why had pants decided to build such a structure in his backyard in the small quiet town of Neenah Wisconsin the answer lies in history back in the 1960s the Cold War was at its peak and Panch was a very cautious man he knew that things could get very ugly very fast between the United States and the Soviet Union and his precautionary attitude was all the more understanding given events that unfolded during his time at the house not long after he finished building the shelter in 1960 the Cuban Missile Crisis would erupt both superpowers were on the brink of war and the biggest fear among the American people was that the USSR would use their nuclear arsenal against the American mainland this led the government to inform citizens to prepare for a possible attack which they believed was imminent so Pierce decided to follow suit early and get in on the fallout shelter craze but just why would he need a fallout shelter in the far off town of Neenah Wisconsin well it wasn't Neenah itself that made Panch build the shelter but the city's proximity to other geographic locations as Nina wasn't a likely target for the Soviet Union Arsenal it was however the fallout zone for other nearby targets according to one expert from the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh other larger cities such as Chicago and Minneapolis could have very well been on the USSR's target list leaving Nina directly in fallout territory and being a guy who was always on top of things Panch even completed construction on his fallout shelter years before President Kennedy gave his address to the public encouraging people to prepare for the worst-case scenario in 1961 still the shelter that he built was no ordinary fallout shelter it was quite extraordinary pants constructed as fallout shelter based on instructions from a government pamphlet printed in 1959 called the family fallout shelter that title might sound amusing to us these days but back then the threat of a nuclear attack was very real indeed as per the instruction pamphlet the fallout shelter included a relatively intricate infrastructure including a telephone line electricity and a ventilation system to make sure that fresh air would be able to circulate throughout the main chamber of the shelter was built at right angles because according to the pamphlet that would help combat radiation as it's known to travel in a straight line but that wasn't all on top of having a perfectly designed fallout shelter Panch also made sure to stock the shelter with everything that he deemed important in case of an emergency however seeing is the entire shelter had been flooded and had just recently drained the hollers wyx doubted that there would be anything still salvageable to their surprise everything a person could dream of needing in such a situation was still inside the shelter they're having inconspicuously lay underground for decades were the likes of bunk beds a lantern in a folding toilet on top of all that there was even enough food and supplies to last for weeks still there were other items that remained unopened that Ken and Carol couldn't leave unexplored had the room not been damaged by the water the shelter would have still been in pristine condition and ready to use however the fact that the water was able to leak inside of the fallout shelter may be an indicator that the shelter wasn't properly sealed and would not have protected against radioactive debris like it was designed to do despite the water damage to most of the items a slew of unopened airtight boxes had survived and Ken and Carol were able to extract them Ken and Carol were astonished when they opened the boxes to find that a full 50 years after panshin stocked the fallout shelter they're incredible contents were still there and for the most part in good condition the couple took the mysterious boxes to the surface where they opened them to find survival kits opening these survival kits was like stepping into a time portal back to a grocery store in the 1960s inside there were old-fashioned boxes of Kellogg's cornflakes tins of flavor kiss saltines and packets of chocolate chip cookies but there was one box that they were hesitant to open the box in question looked like an old ammunition box with Carolyn can unsure of what the mystery box contained they decided that they'd better take precaution and call the bureau of alcohol and tobacco firearms and explosives a team arrived to inspect the unusual box but no one had expected what they'd found inside despite the initial trepidation the Box turned out to be full of Hawaiian Punch they could sigh a breath of relief that the contents of the box didn't pose a risk unless you count expired items dangerous apart from the supply items in the shelter there were also detention equipment that was designed to be handy in the case of a nuclear attack a Geiger counter that can be used to measure radiation was founded the premises the hollers wicks also found hunting equipment and first-aid supplies in the fallout shelter that was by then dry they were thrilled with their findings but one question still remained what were they going to do with all the vintage items they found they would end up doing something notable with all the supplies they found in the fallout shelter the hollers wick family was over the moon with their amazing find it's interesting that you can open up something and find 1960 inside of it Carol hollers wyx said in an interview with the Appleton Post Crescent she went on to further explain how the fallout shelter was in reality just like a time capsule ultimately the family decided that they didn't want to keep or eat the historic fine just themselves but rather they wanted to share their findings with the entire community so they donated all the shelter's contents to the Neenah Historical Society but their story didn't end there in May of 2013 all of the hollers wick fallout shelter findings went on display as part of an exhibit centered around the typical 1960s home in Neenah Wisconsin the items from the fallout shelter went on display along with old TV shows books and radios playing public service announcements all the items helped give insight into Nina during the 1960s as well as American life in general during that time frame the family couldn't have found a better place to display all their amazing findings thankfully the hollers Wix finally got around to opening the hatch in their backyard but their story didn't just remain a local wonder the story of the hollers Wieck fan Li finding quickly at the national news everyone was in awe over their finding and many people had comments and questions the most prominent being why did the family wait so long to open the hatch most people wrote comments stating that if they were the ones moving into that house the first thing they would have done is open the hatch in response the hollers Wieck family stated that they had just always thought the shelter was empty would you have opened the hatch immediately or would you have just forgotten about the old rusted doors in your backyard it might surprise you to hear that it isn't just cold war-era shelters that have been found recently but fallout shelters in general are turning up more and more these days some companies are even creating doomsday shelters and selling the spaces off to willing buyers it's an investment in life I want to make sure I have a place I can take me and my family if the worst-case scenario were to happen one customer of such a fallout shelter said we know they're going to be major earthquakes someday on the west coast we know a hurricane is going to hit Florida the Gulf Coast the East Coast the manufacturing company said we support reasonable preparedness if you enjoyed this story 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Channel: Did You Know ?

Views: 347,624

Rating: 4.2298656 out of 5

Keywords: Did You Know, Nuclear Weapon (Invention), bunker, cold war, atomic, radiation, Weapons, back yard, underground, survival, prepper, fall out shelter, Radioactive Decay (Dimension)

Id: GJ-qNJTCsXY

Length: 14min 46sec (886 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 23 2019