A scientist, Dr. Winston Corrigan, who was a professor at the University of Minnesota and taught chemistry there, went missing during the fall of 1984. No one knew what had become of him until homeowners at Cottage Grove in Minnesota heard shouting coming from their basement. Captain Bruce Normans, who was sent out to the property, said: "They ran up to us and said they heard a man shouting inside their basement and that’s when they called it in to 911."

According to officers who entered the property, the man's yells could be heard as soon as they were inside. Their immediate thought was that a homeless man had let himself into the property and got himself stuck somewhere in the basement and was trying to call for help. An officer that entered the property, Jim Catelli, said, "It was a very odd situation. We assumed the possibility that a vagrant may have been trapped behind the cabinet and needed help." Eventually, they moved aside the cabinet and an entire additional room was revealed in which the man had been living.

Scientist Found Living In His Old Basement Twenty Years After His Disappearance

An ambulance technician, Landon Choler, on examining Mr. Corrigan, said, "He had clearly been living down there for a long time and had suffered severe psychological trauma probably from not socializing with anyone for a while. I don’t know if he had been living down there since the 80’s but I wouldn’t doubt it."

A neighbor to the property claimed, "I just can’t believe it…. It’s just so odd. The family that used to live there moved because they said the house was haunted so I guess that makes sense now." The neighbor had lived there for 33 years and knew Mr. Corrigan when he had been a resident.

More than $500,000 worth of laboratory equipment and weapons were recovered from the room the man had been living in. Another find was twelve barrels of pure LSD, or acid, which would have caused strong hallucinations. It was evident the man had been taking the drug because three of the twelve barrels were empty.