In Ohio: a Vision West of Town

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Quickly then the rumor spread that Archer Daniels Midland Co., the tank owner, was going to paint over the image. Just as quickly a "save the tank" movement got going. Finally a company spokesman announced there would be no painting until things quieted down in Fostoria. The company position was that rust stains, under the nighttime security lights, account for the image. The tank was just put up in July, and a primer was applied to its exterior. If it is to last, it will have to be painted by winter, Christ or no.

The story fell out of the paper after it could not find anything else to say about the tank. Before Hunnel was through, though, he had shown his enterprise by hiring an artist to sketch the image on one of the paper's unsatisfactory tank pictures. The caption said, "After several futile attempts at photographing the image of Christ people said they were seeing on a tank at ADM on Ohio 12, the Review Times called upon an area artist to outline the image with the assistance of Rita Ratchen, the first area resident to report the phenomenon. It took artist Don Droll, 421 W. Fremont St., approximately three hours to produce his outline, done with India ink on a clear overlay covering the photograph. The outline more clearly indicates where the Christ image is said to appear, including the small child many people have trouble discerning." (The small child showed up later; Rita Ratchen does not think it was there that first night.)

Editor Hunnel has had a few cranky calls complaining that he is ignoring Jesus, but he sees no way out of his plight. "I'm imaged to death. We shot it from the air. We shot it in the daytime. We shot it at night. What else can I do?"

Even without publicity, however, the people still flock to the tank each night. Along the road in the dark, conversations go like this:

"It's my fourth time. I got Howard to come once. You know my Howard. It takes an act of Congress to get him out of the house. He won't come back with me, though. He says it makes him feel weird."

"Now look just below that power line. See the dark spot? That's Jesus' head. You can't make out the face. Now see his gown? Good. Now just down on the left is the little boy."

And this from the cab of an 18-wheel truck stuck in the traffic jam: "What's the holdup?"

"Jesus."

"That's what I say. What's causing it?"

"Jesus Christ."

"You trying to be funny or what?" And the truck rumbles on through the Ohio night.

Willis Smith of Ottawa Lake, Mich., is selling photographs of the image, a set of four for $2. He has sold 700 sets. Since the image photos are so popular, he thought he would show people his other pictures, so he keeps his family album in his car. People are now ordering prints out of his family album, vacation shots with crooked horizons, backyard snaps. "I've turned pro in two weeks," he says. "I'm getting calls from all over the United States."