Clyde Tombaugh from Streator, Illinois, discovered that Pluto was a planet.

Clyde William Tombaugh was born in Streator, Illinois, on February 4, 1906. His family purchased a farm near Burdett, Kansas, while he was still young, where a hailstorm ruined his family's crops and put an end to his hopes to attend college at the time. 

Unimpressed with store-bought telescopes, Tombaugh constructed his first telescope at 20, grinding the mirrors himself. Throughout his life, he built more than 30 telescopes.

In 1928, he put together a 23-centimeter (9-inch) reflector telescope from the crankshaft of a 1910 Buick and parts salvaged from a cream separating machine. Using this telescope, young Clyde made detailed observations of Jupiter and Mars, which he sent to Lowell Observatory to garner feedback from professional astronomers.

Instead of receiving constructive criticism, Tombaugh was offered a position at the observatory. The staff had been searching for an amateur astronomer to operate their new photographic telescope in search of, among other things, the mysterious Planet X.

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Only a short time after its discovery in 1781, astronomer William Herschel declared it was initially either a comet or a star. The new planet, Uranus (no jokes, please), was found to have strange movements that could only be attributed to another celestial body. Neptune's discovery in 1846 somewhat accounted for the orbit, but there were still discrepancies that led scientists to conclude yet another planet existed. In 1894, businessman Percival Lowell built Lowell Observatory to study Mars. In 1905, he turned the telescope to search for the elusive Planet X, though he died before the new planet was found.

When Tombaugh was hired in 1929, he joined the search for the missing planet. The telescope at the observatory was equipped with a camera that would take two sky photographs on different days. A device known as a blink compactor rapidly flipped back and forth between the two photographs. Stars and galaxies remained unmoving in the images, but anything closer could be visually identified by its motion across the sky. Tombaugh spent approximately a week studying each pair of photographs, which contained over 150,000 stars and sometimes nearly a million.

On February 18, 1930, Tombaugh noticed movement across the field of a pair of images taken a month beforehand. After studying the object to confirm it, the staff of Lowell Observatory officially announced the discovery of a ninth planet on March 13, 1930.

With the discovery came the right to name the new body, so the staff opened a worldwide call for suggestions. Eleven-year-old Venetia Burney of England suggested the name Pluto because the dark, distant planet resembled the abode of the Greek god of the underworld.

In 1934, he married Patricia Edson, and they had two children, Annette and Alden. He earned his bachelor's and master's degree in astronomy from the University of Kansas, working at the observatory during the summers.

Tombaugh remained at Lowell Observatory until the advent of World War II when he was called into service teaching navigation to the U.S. Navy at Arizona State College. After the war concluded, he worked at the ballistics research laboratory at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. Tombaugh received the "Pioneers of White Sands Missile Range" medal. From 1955 until he retired in 1973, he taught at New Mexico State University.

Pluto endured as a planet for more than 70 years. As astronomical instruments became increasingly precise, other similar-sized objects were found beyond the orbit of Neptune. In 2006, almost a decade after Tombaugh's death, the International Astronomical Union reclassified Pluto as a dwarf planet.

The New Horizons mission to Pluto launched on January 19, 2006, and carries some of Tombaugh's ashes on board as it travels to Pluto. New Horizons performed a flyby of the Pluto system on July 14, 2015.

NASA's 'New Horizons' Mission to Pluto and a Puzzling Discovery.

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Although most famous for discovering the most controversial body in the solar system, Tombaugh also found a comet, hundreds of asteroids, and several galactic star clusters throughout his career. 

Tombaugh passed away at his home in Las Cruces, New Mexico, on January 17, 1997.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

The George Stickney Haunted House, McHenry County Illinois, in the Village of Bull Valley.

The tiny Village of Bull Valley, Illinois, has one of the strangest houses in northern Illinois. Initially located far off the beaten path, it remains secluded today along a quiet, primarily deserted country highway. George and Sylvia Stickney built this English country house in the middle 1800s. They chose such an isolated place for peace and quiet and for their spiritual activities. Both were said to be accomplished mediums and wanted to host parties and seances for their friends. The seclusion offered by the Illinois countryside made the perfect setting.

The George and Sylvia Stickney House.

The house itself was very unusual in its design. It rose to a full two stories, although the second floor was reserved for a ballroom that ran the entire building length. During the Civil War, the house served as quarters for Federal soldiers and was home to the first piano in McHenry County. But this was not why the place gained its fame or notoriety.

As devout practitioners of Spiritualism, the Stickneys insisted on adding distinctive features to the design of the house. These features, they assured the architect, would assist them when holding seances and gatherings at the property. Since the seances would be held quite often, they specified that the house should have no square corners in it. They explained that spirits tend to get stuck in corners, which could have dire results. It has also been suggested that the Stickney's believed that corners attracted the attention of evil spirits as well, a common belief in Spiritualist circles of the time.

According to legend, one corner of a room accidentally ended up with a 90° corner. How this could have happened is unknown. Perhaps the architect either forgot or could not complete the room with anything but a right angle. Maybe he thought that the Stickneys would never notice this one flaw. But they did see! And here, the legend takes an even stranger turn.

The stories say that it was in this corner that George Stickney was discovered one day slumped to the floor, dead from an apparent heart failure, although no visible signs suggested a cause of death. Was he right about square corners? Could a ghost, summoned by a seance, have been trapped in the corner?

After the death of her husband, Sylvia Stickney gained considerable fame as a spirit medium. The upstairs ballroom was converted into a large seance chamber. People came from far and wide to contact the spirit of their deceased loved ones and relatives. Sylvia also claimed to stay in contact with her unlucky husband and departed children.

Today the mansion is occupied by the Village of Bull Valley and its police department.

In 2005 Bull Valley Police Chief Norbert Sauers described his experiences with possible paranormal events in the Stickney Mansion. Sauers said village employees have heard numerous sounds that defy explanation. He heard footsteps in the second-floor ballroom, a room used today as storage for village records. The footstep sounds have extended out onto the stairwell at times. Other occurrences include hearing human-sounding voices and noises. Sometimes they hear toilets flushing when they are alone in the house.

The Village of Bull Valley and Bull Valley Police Department.

The Chief said he has personally experienced objects moving around on his desk, lights turning off, door knobs turning and a door opening seemingly by themselves, and voices from thin air. The Chief once heard a shout in his ear when no one was around him. Another police officer in Bull Valley claims to have come face to face with an apparition of Stickney's father-in-law.

According to a local news report, "over the years, two men who carry a badge and gun" have quit their jobs over supernatural events.

The Stickney house is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is presumed to be haunted.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.