COLUMN: Alien House still a mystery after adventure
April 10, 2005
If you are all the loyal and diligent Daily readers I hope you are, then you certainly checked out last week’s “Myth-Buster” edition of High Note. Although we may have missed a couple, there is one myth we had in mind but just couldn’t get anyone to talk about.
What I’m talking about is a place called “Sun Park,” maybe better know as the Alien House.
For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, I’ll set the scene. Just beyond the line that divides Story County and Boone County, buried deep in the countryside, thick with cornfields, sits what has to be one of Iowa’s most mysterious structures — a house allegedly built to house visiting aliens.
Long before we ever talked about doing a myth story, I had heard people mention bits and pieces about the house, but it never really peaked my interest until I heard all the rumors. Some say it was built after aliens abducted a farmer and told him to build them a place to live. Others say it was built as a memorial by a father who lost his daughters to a drunken driver. So there were plenty of rumors, but not one solid fact — it sounded like the makings for a perfect adventure.
Armed with nothing but our curiosity, a co-worker and I set out to find the house and see what we could find out.
First, I should mention that sending two kids who are entirely the product of city living to find an alien house in rural Iowa is almost an oxymoron.
Driving farther and farther away from our developed comfort zones and into the new and interesting farmland world was an adventure in itself — but the scope of how isolated this house was from everything hit us when we hung a left and, instead of pavement, we found gravel.
We began to think this thing was a hoax. No way, we thought, that anyone would live this far out in the middle of nowhere, but, like it typically does, our persistence eventually paid off.
All of a sudden, in the distance, we saw the outline of a house and across from it, hidden behind some trees, we could catch a glimpse of what we had been looking for — the alien house was real.
After casually passing the bizarre structure, we found a silo to pull a U-turn at and plan our course of action. With our guts in check, we cruised back to the house and looked around.
Surrounded by a large wooden fence with the words “Sun Park” carved into it, sat the weirdest thing we could have ever imagined. Even with all the hype we had heard, the crazy character of the house was still able to hold us in awe for several minutes as we just stood their gawking.
The structure looked like a multicolored tower built by an architect with as much creativity as precision. Surrounding the tower were smaller but equally as bizarre little house-like buildings that added to the overall eeriness of this so-called “Sun Park.”
Unfortunately, however, our good fortune ended at finding the building — getting information from people about it was going to be our downfall. After a discouraging talk with the park’s creator — who told us he wanted nothing to do with us — and having no luck at the historical societies, we had nothing. Even the people living near the structure were unaware of it.
So without any information, our crazy adventure will get published as a column — but I would have loved some answers.