Previously on Atlas Obscura.

I have to investigate this.

I have to prove whether this is true or not.

In 2014, Minneapolis reporter Kevin Hoffman stumbled across an aerial view of a giant piece of art, one bigger than multiple football fields. It was a forest and its outline formed a very specific shape, the shape of Minnesota.

There was almost nothing about the forest online, and in fact very few people seem to know that it even existed.

I mean the only way that you come to see this piece of art for what it is is if you see it from above. Kevin asked readers for

information, he combed over old satellite images, and he reached out to the

Minnesota State Government. His research turned up a name, a retired forester named Bill Lochner.

He had done it using a map and a compass without a GPS or any kind of modern equipment or aerial views.

So this guy is like a genius.

You want there to be some kind of greater reason behind it.

Was it a bet with friends?

I mean, who knows.

Unfortunately I was unable to give Bill to talk it was made clear to me that he

did not want to speak. And for about 10 years, Bill did not speak.

He did not do interviews. He did not explain whatever reasons he had for making the forest. That is, until now.

I'm Amanda McGowan and this is Atlas Obscura, a celebration of the world's strange, incredible, and

wondrous places. In our last episode we followed reporter Kevin Hoffman on a

wild goose chase trying to find out who created a giant Minnesota shaped forest and why.

But today we catch that wild goose.

Well Bill is sitting next to me and he's the guy that put the thing together.

Hello.

...