Ellwood City Puzzled By Mysterious Mail
ELLWOOD CITY (KDKA) – More than a dozen typewritten unsigned letters with unreadable return addresses were delivered in Ellwood City and Wayne Township in Lawrence County.
"They were all post marked from Johnstown, PA, Feb. 17, 2011," says Ellwood City Police Officer Chris Hardie.
Nothing really sinister, but unsettling all the same, KDKA's Mary Robb Jackson reports. Some of the strange unsolicited letters contain poetry.
"This particular one says, 'Look forward and never behind toward memories we strive to find,'" Hardie said.
Others have old Germanic alphabet or Runic symbols dating to the Second Century. It's all too weird for those getting them.
"Mystery in the Mail" is front page news in the Ellwood City Ledger. Reporter Eric Poole was also a letter recipient.
"It doesn't look to me like a threat," he said. "It looked to me like somebody stretching their artistic legs."
Something very similar happened in Polish Hill two years ago.
Those also had poems. One had a dollar bill with a little tag signed, "Love, Lenka and Michael."
Those letters – all 620 of them – were sent by British artists Lenka Clayton and Michael Crowe whose mysterious letter project has puzzled people in towns and villages around the world.
The artists claim they are trying to get people talking and bring communities together.
"Well, they are bringing the community together," Hardie said. "They're definitely getting to know the police department."
The Chief of Ellwood City Police is not amused, saying this is an art project that had scared some people and wasted valuable police resources.
