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The Oak Leaf Man


wolfeo

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Hello all,

Is anybody aware of all the strange events happening on the oak leaf trail in Milwaukee? My friend just sent me this link:

https://www.facebook...?type=1

The story indicates that the figure in the picture has been spotted by a number of people all along the Oak Leaf Trail on Milwaukee's east side (although the picture is from a prior incident). It's woods along a river in the middle of the city. Just last week the police finished a series of homeless sweeps of the tunnels around that whole stretch of area that cuts right through the city:

http://milwaukeenns....he-homeless.php

I don’t think they would admit to the oakleaf man but it is smart to be careful around those woods. Regarding the portion of the trail running through the heart of the city one person online remarked (paraphrasing) "the oak leaf trail is not a stroll to grandma's house" and another wrote, "the Oak Leaf Trail is a great place for a bike ride but if it is haunted the ghosts are whispering, 'pedal faster.'"

The story mentions that the sighting near the high school was where the river meets Locust street. There are some really creepy stairs right there NOT connected to that bridge that seem to come out of nowhere and go nowhere. That whole trail used to be a very old train track line and the homes around that line have now been abandoned and/or subsumed by those woods. This might be a natural place for the homeless to congregate. That place is known as the Lost “River Colony.”

I have personally heard about coyotes in those woods and even cougars (which is why some people think UWM's mascot is The Panthers), and other other strange things like people living in nests. Note- I think the article is incorrect, my friend said she remembers when a much better version of this picture went around a few years ago some people thought the "pumpkin head" was a cougar or a bobcat. The only thing I could find about the nests was a story about a harmless man building them on the other side of the river:

http://www.jsonline....-158372015.html

I've been a lurker here for a while so now that this is in my neck of the woods I have to post. I will update as I get more information. I am contacting the UWM Post in hopes of finding the original source of the photograph as this will direct my search.

Thanks y'all.

Edited by Saru
Updated text as per OP's request
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Welcome to the club! I've never heard of the Oak Leaf Man, but I would suspect that he is actually several flesh-and-blood people, probably pretty rough-living, that are getting conflated into one mysterious entity. Has the Oak Leaf Man ever communicated with anybody?

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I seem to be having troubles uploading the photograph but will post when I can. Thanks.

Edited by wolfeo
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Hello, wolfeo! No, I've never heard of the Oak Leaf Man. How far back do the sightings or legend go? And I'm confused where the wild cat comes in. People described a scar-faced human or head (albeit jack-o-lantern looking, which is what I see) with a hoodie. What did I miss?

Edited by QuiteContrary
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The Oak Leaf man sounds like a great cryptid name. I'm going to look into it. Btw it sounds like it would be a great X-Files standalone episode, much like 'Detour' season six I believe. No?

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Herne the Hunter, herne.jpg?w=497

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Welcome to UM wolfeo :st Please, take time to read the site rules, check out some threads, and enjoy your time here on UM!

Some information for folks....

An article about the River Colony: https://milwaukeenot...t-neighborhood/

Other information about the area that is the head of the trail: https://milwaukeenot...-park/#more-817

Info about the trail itself: https://milwaukeenot...oak-leaf-trail/

There has indeed been some crime in the area, and homeless too- I'm thinking it is more likely that this is what's behind the legend rather than some cryptid.

And there is for sure cougar in Wisconsin, the DNR has been recording sightings for years now. There have been reports of cougar in the Kettle Moraine North, particularly at the Milwaukee river head, but those are unconfirmed. There was an article a few years back about cougar or possibly other large cat specifically in the oak leaf trail area- http://www.franklinn...-184030211.html Now, that article is supposed to be unconfirmed, and a more recent study does not indicate Milwaukee county having verified cougar, but it does verify cougar in other areas of the state, and some near to Milwaukee county- http://www.ncbi.nlm....les/PMC4229215/ And there was one shot in northern IL a couple years back- http://www.huffingto..._n_4324038.html Cougar has also been spotted further north in Wisconsin, and further south in Illinois, as well as Indiana and Michigan- so yes, there is cougar in these latitudes.

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Thanks rashore for all the additional research - you guys really are the REAL X-Files. I suspect the sentiment of the veterans on this site is correct: he is likely a composite of homeless individuals or even as some of the facebook comments indicated - a makeup artist of some kind.

The Oak Leaf man sounds like a great cryptid name. I'm going to look into it. Btw it sounds like it would be a great X-Files standalone episode, much like 'Detour' season six I believe. No?

I don't remember that one but I just read the synopsis on wikipedia. That was actually my first thought when I saw this - one of a kind of "green men" or "oak men" that you see in carvings and other depictions. For instance, here you can buy a "mythical oak leaf man mask with antique finish":

http://www.ioffer.com/i/mythical-oak-leaf-man-mask-antique-finish-13855234

But my hunt shall continue ... erehT tuO si hturT ehT

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Interesting story Wolfeo...And welcome to UM!

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I've never heard of this, but it's a neat idea. It sounds very plausible that there is a colony of homeless people living in this strange stretch of woods. It would stand to reason that they would likely do weird things and be mysidentified as a singular entity, as well.

Thanks for the post, this is interesting information.

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No idea about the oak leaf man, but I really dig your avatar

Thanks - it's one of the cooler sports logos I think. It was either this, Herne the Hunter or the Knights that say Ni. ;)

Okay, just a few more things on this. Apparently nobody at the UWM Post stays there for more than a year or two because the college kids are continuously circulating. The paper also is completely online now as of late 2012. Well isn't that perfect timing. I am being told they do not archive old editions but I could try the university library. Grrr ...

Also, I found that there was some fine art posted on pinterest/facebook by a Milwaukee artist called "The Gates of Hell" that features one of the tunnels on the Oak Leaf trail. It's actually pretty cool. I think that will be the ultimate for me - if anybody is in Milwaukee Wisconsin and wants to go to the gates of hell at night message me and we could do a whole Blair Witch sort of thing. Anyway, the prints seem pretty cool:

On pinterest there is tons of stuff regarding cougars as well - I was totally wrong about that, they go as far north as Minnesota. (There are also some of those funny pictures of giant size animals as well.)

https://www.pinterest.com/amyalgee56/minnesota-and-wisconsin-wildlife/

If I could ever figure out how to post a picture I would avoid these links but every picture I have no matter what the file (jpeg, gif, etc.) seems to be beyond the maximum. I will try and post the enlarged picture from the clipping in the photo section as well.

Thanks.

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I've never heard of the Oak Leaf Man, however, the article was somewhat haunting, I truly feel for anyone who's life has lead them to have to live in a cold tunnel like that.

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Ok, so I checked in with some folks back home that are seriously into this stuff- and none of them have ever heard of the Oak Leaf Man. I was asked if this was a new creepypasta story. And reminded that Oak Leaf trail is huge- and there are homeless folks in some areas and crime in some areas that could lead to a story about "something in the woods". And told if the story does exist at all, it's likely just something made up by UM students to scare their girlfriends, or perhaps to have something on the northside to compete with Seven Bridges on the southside. And I was told about all the information that I have already shared here.

I was kind of hoping for more information than that, but that was all I got.

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it's likely just something made up by UM students to scare their girlfriends,

None of the students here at Unexplained-Mysteries would do that! :no:

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None of the students here at Unexplained-Mysteries would do that! :no:

Whoops... UM in this instance means University in Milwaukee- it's a branch of the University of Wisconsin. In the area, most of the other colleges are called by their names like Marquette or Concordia.

Edit to add- I didn't realize the OP was saying UWM to indicate Milwaukee. For me UWM means Madison, or sometimes just called Madison, but amongst my crowd UWM wasn't ever used to denote Milwaukee. I guess it's a tomato-tomato kind of thing, lol.

Edited by rashore
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I'm still missing the connection between cougars and this scar-faced Oak Leaf Man. Have people been attacked or something?

I think the connection is that in the first link there is an article about the oak leaf man with a pic- that pic is one the OP's friend remembers seeing previously in a better version and at that time some folks thought it might have been a cougar or bobcat sighting.

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Hello, I posted the enlarged picture in the image section with best analysis of the image.

post-1-0-89962400-1423917649_thumb.jpg

Okay, I am not entirely sure where to put it (maybe neither cryptid nor ghost but definitely unexplained) but at the request of a member on the forum I will do my best to explain this picture of "the Oak Leaf Man". Here is the progresion of the picture as far as I have been able to connect the dots: a photograph (I am told pretty good quality - though that is secondhand), that was reprinted in an article (I will post that as well), that was photocopied to make a flyer, which (the flyer) was photographed and posted on a different site, that I was able to crop to enlarge the picture.

At first someone thought it was a "cougar" that went with a story of cougars being spotted on the eastside of Milwaukee. To me it did sort of look like a stuffed cougar head or striped bobcat or something that was placed there (where it is looking to the side as if in almost a profile) and the photo was either altered to make it look like a hood/Sith Lord kind of thing or it's a real hood. The multiple layers of copies to the picture might explain the weird lines and such but now looking at it it does look more like a scared man with a pumpkin-like look as mentioned in the story.

So far theories include: 1) the actual Oak Leaf Man (either man, ghost, or cryptid), 2) actual wild cat with altered fake hood, 3) taxedermy cat with actual black hood, 4) completely photo-shopped picture, 5) kids dressed up with make-up (according to facebook post by somebody who does this - not a very good job) to scare other kids.

Curious to know what you think? I guess I would exclude the cats (I think that got confused with real life stories about actual cougar sightings) and it looks pretty real (as in not photo-shopped) so 5.

post-1-0-66667900-1423917662_thumb.jpg

Edited by Saru
Moved from gallery to thread
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