Psych! (Photo: Lionel_Hutzz/Reddit)

A Milwaukee photographer is taking a prank to new heights — literally.



Almost 40 years ago, Mark Gubin painted a huge “Welcome to Cleveland” sign on the roof of his home, which is directly in the flight path for airplanes preparing to land at General Mitchell International Airport. Cute sentiment, yes, but remember: Gubin lives in Milwaukee, not Cleveland.



So wait. What?!

Turns out, Gubin is just a big ol’ jokester, a true character, and he painted the sign on his roof solely to mess with people on planes. “There’s not a real purpose for having this here except madness, which I tend to be pretty good at,” Gubin told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. And clearly, he is also “pretty good” at modesty.

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The idea came to him when he was having lunch on his rooftop with his then-assistant back in 1978. There were a bunch of low-flying planes overhead, and his assistant mentioned that it would be cool to paint a “Welcome to Milwaukee” sign for them. With a smirk on his face and a smile in his eyes, Gubin agreed, but said, “You know what would be even better?” And, thus, the misleading sign was born.

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The view from the plane. (Photo: Google)

Gubin has yet to get in trouble for painting the sign on his roof, though he did get a letter from then-Common Council president Ben E. Johnson saying that his artwork was causing “outrage and panic” for some air passengers. Johnson did not, however, ask him to take action.

There are a couple rumors floating around Gubin’s mixed message, namely that pilots flying over it often assure their passengers that they are indeed on the correct plane and they are not, in fact, going to land in Cleveland. It’s also rumored that when the president visits Milwaukee, his security guys use the sign as a landmark to point them in the right direction.

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Gubin has touched up his sign a bit with yellow paint since he first made rooftop magic back in the day. But otherwise, it’s mostly stayed the same. And he’s quite pleased about that fact.

“It was all tongue-in-cheek, just for fun. Living in the world is not a dress rehearsal. You better have fun with it,” Gubin told the Sentinel. Let us all take a lesson from Gubin: Life is all about the journey, not the final destination. Especially if the final destination is, well, up for interpretation.



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