A 1940s Indiana Home Once Had 28 Fires Set In One Day By An Unseen Force And It Was Never Explained
June 21st, 1941. Odon, Indiana. The Hackler family farm.
It was on a warm summer morning when an elder child living in the two-story farmhouse smelled smoke. Together, the Hackler family searched for the origin. What they found was quite odd: a single strip of wallpaper in an unoccupied upstairs bedroom was aflame.
The flames seemed to be coming from inside the wall, but when the fire department broke the wall open to verify the suspected cause of the blaze (they believed it was likely a faulty “hidden chimney” inside the wall), they found nothing. Not even fire damage. It was as if the wallpaper had burned only into itself, causing no other harm to the surrounding walls.
No sooner had the firefighters returned to town than they were called back to the home a second time: Mrs. Hackler had found a second fire – this time, it was smoldering inside a mattress in yet another upstairs bedroom.
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No sooner had this second blaze been extinguished than small fires began popping up all over the house. Many of the fires had incredibly bizarre origins: Mr. Hackler's clothing, hanging on a door, burst into flame seemingly out of nowhere.
Terrified members of the Hackler family scrambled to keep up with numerous fires in strange places.
Eventually, the Odon fire department became overwhelmed, and they requested the assistance of a fire brigade from a neighboring town. In total, more than 100 firefighters would witness the extraordinary events of this June day.
One firefighter spotted a single book on a shelf with thick smoke seeping out of it; upon opening the book, he discovered that the inside had been burned and was still smoldering.
To their absolute horror, across the same room, another pair of curtains went up just as spontaneously as the first. Both times, the fire seemed to destroy only the curtains, leaving the window shades and walls alone.
"It was like unseen hands were lighting matches all over the house," one of many who watched the events unfold stated.
Fire investigators were thoroughly baffled. The fires were absolutely not electrical in origin; the farmhouse, much like many out-in-the-sticks Indiana farmhouses in the early 1900s, was not outfitted with any electrical wiring. There were no power lines nearby, and there were no lightning strikes or other atmospheric phenomena that could possibly explain the events of the day.
In total, more than 100 firefighters from two towns and numerous nearby neighbors found and put out 28 fires at the Heckler homestead on June 21st.
The final fire was put out about an hour before midnight - more than 13 hours after the bizarre nightmare had begun. The Hackler family moved their remaining beds outside and slept outdoors that night; what if another fire broke out in the house while they were asleep inside? It wasn't worth the risk.
In a later interview, the Indiana State Fire Marshall stated that the Odon fires were by far “the most baffling mystery” of his entire career. The case was closed with no answers, and to this day, the events that befell the unfortunate Heckler family are still completely unexplained.
It’s certainly worth noting that they had lived in this house for more than a decade, completely uneventfully. However, prior to their ownership of the farmhouse, tragedy had struck there twice. First, several members of a family of five died there in the 1880s of what was said to be called “the burning fever.” Intriguingly, the Heckler family was also a family of five. Following the deaths of the original owners’ family, another farmer moved in and subsequently lost two sons in different hunting accidents.
Following the unexplained fires, the Heckler family decided to tear down and rebuild the house somewhere else – literally. Bit by bit, the men of the Heckler family disassembled the entire farmhouse, only to rebuild it in a location not too terribly far from the original one.
There were never any fires again.
What do you think happened on this creepy summer day? Have you ever experienced something weird that you just can’t quite explain? Tell us about it in the comments!
