It was late at night and I wasn’t sure I’d seen the billboard correctly as I whizzed past it on I-35 in Wyoming last week on the way back from Wrenshall. But an e-mailer confirms I saw what I thought I saw.

It’s beginning to sweep along the Internet, accompanied by various claims that it’s a Photoshop fake. But it’s not. It’s real.

There’s no billboard ownership plate on this particular billboard, making tracing the person who had the cash to post it difficult to find. It’s time to crowdsource this puppy.

Update 11:44 a.m. – An e-mail to Wyoming Mayor Sheldon Anderson yields no further clue:

Wish I could take credit for it. Calls every day asking if it was me. If you find out let me know.

Update 11:46 a.m. – Luke Hellier at Minnesota Democrats Exposed thought he had a lead on the owner, but alas….

The person who I thought did not put up the billboard. He has been contacted about keeping it up if the current owner takes it down due to money.

We may have to offer a News Cut coffee mug to smoke the owner out. Sadly, we don’t have News Cut coffee mugs.

Update 7:43 a.m. Tue 2/9 – FoxNews asked me to be on today to talk about the billboard. I declined, noting I don’t know anything other than that there’s this billboard. But it’s interesting how the story has spiraled from the blog, to the NPR blog, to a couple of national blogs, to Drudge etc. True, I’m intrigued by the mystery of it all, but it’s also a reminder of how the truly trivial can grab our attention. I write about deeper, more meaningful news, too. Maybe that’s the bigger story here: Can blogs exist without the trivia?

By the way, for those of you visiting News Cut for the first time via the national blogs, stay for awhile. Look around.

7:52 a.m. – Colleague reports MSNBC just called looking for me. Dear MSNBC: “No.” Now go find out who paid for this billboard, willya?