GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Adam Gross of Grand Rapids, Michigan, took up magnet fishing as a hobby a few years ago. And last week, he caught something special off of a city bridge.

He pulled up dog tags from the bottom of the Grand River that belonged to a man named Clifford J. Voigt.

“They’re dated 1943, so who knows when they actually ended up in there,” Adam Gross said.

Voigt was a World War II veteran, originally from Grand Rapids.

Through some internet sleuthing, Gross was able to find Voigt's obituary. Voigt was laid to rest in Mesa, Arizona, at Mountain View Memorial Gardens.

“It would be awesome to go in person, you know? Hand it over, you know? But Arizona and Michigan, we’re quite a ways away,” Gross said.

Gross did the next best thing and reached out to the cemetery.

“Next step is just waiting on the cemetery. We’re going to see if I write a letter to the family, and they hand that over. Or if I hand my information over to the cemetery, and they contact me back,” Gross said.

Gross says he hopes Voigt's family reaches out. If not, he hopes this story reaches them.

“They’re not just dog tags. They’re someone’s history,” Gross said.

This story was originally published by Julie Dunmire at WXMI.

HOLLAND, Mich. — A West Michigan plastic surgeon says he has seen a dramatic rise in the number of people seeking facial procedures, saying clients are doing so after spending months staring at themselves on Zoom while working from home.

Dr. Jason Stubbs runs Signature Surgical in Holland and has seen his requests for service skyrocket since he was able to resume operations in June. The pandemic had forced them to pause any procedures for several months.

“It's been rather shocking, to be honest with you," Dr. Stubbs told FOX 17 Thursday. "It's non-stop busy.”

He has seen a surge in people seeking cosmetic procedures done on their face.

Typically he sees about, "80% body procedures, 20% facial procedures." But now he says he is seeing about half of his clients come in looking for facial procedures.

"I mean, it's a dramatic percentage change,” he said.

Dr. Stubbs is calling it a "Zoom Boom", saying that many of his patients are saying they chose to seek out a facial procedure after spending the last year working remotely and staring at themselves for hours a day on Zoom.

“The lights hitting you differently, you see shadows and lines that you don't normally want to see. And then, so that's when we're thinking, hey, maybe Botox is a good idea, or maybe a filler is a good idea,” he said Thursday.

“And what we're noticing is they're coming in saying, Doc, I don't really like this, or this is something I want to change, or this wasn't like this years ago.”

He's been working here in West Michigan for the past five years and says he's never seen anything like it.

And because so many of us are still working remotely, he says more people now have the time available to recover from a procedure at home.

"Especially being able to the ability to wear masks now that you can hide the procedure," he said.

“It's like, I'm okay, because I'm wearing a mask, and then people won't even see my nose or my neck or whatever, for the next couple of weeks.”

Offering both surgical and non-surgical options for touching up your appearance, Dr. Stubbbs says people have been driving into his office from all over the state.

“If we can, in some form, or fashion, make one facet of your life better, make you feel better about yourself, hey, we're doing our job.”

You can find out more about Signature Surgical and the services they offer on their website.

This story was first published by Michael Martin at WXMI in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

An artist along the lakeshore is giving people a new reason to leave their homes for fresh air—creating and hiding dozens of small ceramic gnome statues along the trails at Duncan Woods Park.

Maggie Bandstra and her dog Nelson have been hiding one gnome each day since the end of November.

Bandstra is in the process of working on her master's degree in fine art and painting at Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia, doing her work from her family's home in Grand Haven.

She was finishing up her thesis a few months ago when she says she "needed to get up and go for a walk... and I had these little gnomes, and I thought maybe it'll be fun to play a game with people."

And so she made a post in the Grand Haven Informed Facebook group, explaining her idea and giving people a clue about where she had hidden the first gnome.

“I thought maybe there wouldn’t be people looking," Bandstra told FOX 17 on Friday.

But that was definitely not the case. People quickly jumped on board for the hunt.

“I found it, and I didn't know what it was," said Rhonda Stephenson, who found one of the gnomes several months ago.

"I posted to Grand Haven Rocks [Facebook group], and I said, 'What is this? What do I do with it?'”

Stephenson, and many others, have made a habit of coming out to look for the hidden gnomes after Bandstra posts her daily clue.

“You look for them, and then you meet everybody else. We're all in the same area, thinking that it's this tree, whereas it could be way on the other side of Duncan woods,” Stephenson said.

“Everybody's out here within minutes of her posting. You've got 10 cars out here looking.”

Starting as just a way to make going out for a walk more enjoyable, the project has brought together a wide network of people who are now sharing their finds with Bandstra and each other online.

“It's been quite an adventure, and I've met lots of new people through this, and it's just really been a fun way to be social and interacting with people without being close to anyone,” Bandstra said.

She documents the whole process in an online journal and on her Instagram page, planning to hide 365 of the miniature statues before she stops.

“I just thought about taking one action every day… like, what happens when you take this one simple act of sharing a little luck every day.”

Gnomes of Grand Haven— Instagram Page
Maggie Bandstra— Artist Website

This story was first published by Michael Martin at WXMI in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

WALKER, Mich. — The owners of a Michigan butcher shop lost a whole day's deposit money. But just as they were giving up hope, their luck turned around.

Tim and Teresa Sobie of Sobie Meats accidentally dropped their bank pouch on the ground.

You would have needed an eagle eye to spot the pouch, and that's exactly what one driver had when he reversed to the money on the ground.

"Somebody came back through and backed up and they, they took the deposit," said Tim. "And at that point, we're like, 'Wow, all day has gone by.’ And they never called because we had a deposit slip in there with our name obviously, and even our phone number is on there. And nobody called to say, 'Hey, we found your deposit,' etcetera, etcetera."

When the money wasn't returned within several hours, the couple called the cops. But before officers got to the shop, the good Samaritan arrived.

"Our good Samaritan came in and he said, 'Hey, I found this.' And he said, 'I drove around front, and you were closed.' He said, ‘You know, I started at 8 o’clock in the morning, I just got out of work.’ So, he brought it to us,” said Tim.

Tim wouldn't go so far as to say how much money the pouch had.

"So, it was enough that it was—it would have hurt, not having that deposit to go to the bank, like anybody else," he said. "If you took one of your days of pay away, it would hurt, right? So yeah, that would have stung. So, we're just so grateful that he turned that back in."

But instead of a loss, there was a sense of relief knowing a good Samaritan was looking out for them.

"We were just elated that somebody, you know, after that long, turned it back, and he said everything is there," Tim said. "You know, I didn't take anything out of there. So he had never been in the shop before his first time in, and he was doing an act of kindness like that. So, that was pretty, pretty phenomenal."

Tim says the man who gave back the money got a free gift card as a thank you and says they'll get him hooked up with a nice cut of meat.

This story was originally published by Angeline McCall at WXMI.

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — A daring cat rescue nearly 50 feet off the ground was caught on camera over the weekend near Grand Rapids, Michigan.

The video is getting a lot of attention on social media, not only because of the good deed but the skill required to bring that cat back to safety.

The video was originally posted in a community Facebook group on Saturday March, 13.

A couple walking their dog spotted a cat way up in the trees at a park. They immediately called Robin Walenga, a domestic and wild animal advocate who helps with animal rescues.

Walenga said, “She messaged me and said, ‘Robin, there’s a cat in the tree.’”

She knew who her next call would be to: Erick Baker with Tip Top Tree Care LLC.

“It wasn’t my first cat rescue; I’ve got a couple under my belt," Baker said.

The experienced tree surgeon is used to being in all kinds of situations for helping his clients, but admits this rescue required caution.

“Kind of a bit of an iffy climb,” Baker said. “Probably only 45 foot vertically, but he was out over a leaner.”

Baker explained that given the circumstances, he used a static rope technique.

“We use mechanical extenders,” Baker explained. “I use one that’s attached to my right foot, then I use a knee extender that’s spring-loaded, and those are friction devices, so they will move one direction on the rope. So as I step up and then put pressure down, it locks on the rope and allows me to walk up the rope like I would go up a ladder.”

The rescue mission only took him 30 seconds to reach the daring feline.

“I had a full conversation with the cat; we went back and forth a little while,” Baker said.

After clearing loose branches from his path Baker was able to grab the cat and descend safely.

It’s a tale the cat can tell its owners, once Walenga finds them.

“He does not have a microchip, no collar, no tags; he’s been reported to Kent County Animal Shelter, and there are posters that are up here in the park," Walenga said.

While it’s not Baker's job description, helping cats keep all of their nine lives sure feels good.

“It means a lot that I’m able to go out and do something positive for the community and have the community turn around and say all the things that they’re saying about what I’m able to do.”

The cat is in a foster home until Walenga can find its original owners.

This story originally reported by Annie Szatkowski on FOX17online.com.

Whether it was people spending more time looking skyward during the pandemic, the effect of its decreased pollution and visibility, or a Pentagon investigation announced this summer, more people reported UFO sightings in 2020.

According to the National UFO Reporting Center, sightings increased by 1,000 over the year nationally, with 7,200 total calls about UFOs. Calls to their hotline in New York state alone doubled in 2020.

In Michigan, Bill Konkolesky, state director of the Mutual UFO Network, says their office got about 233 calls in 2020, up from about 200 the previous year. But before you get too excited, Konkolesky says he’s not really in the business of mystery.

“Even on a bad year, we can identify about 85% of what comes into us, most years closer to 95%,” he said. “Our credibility is on the line. We’re in it for the truth of what may be out there.”

Konkolesky says different types of aircraft, celestial objects like bright stars and planets, weather phenomena, drones and satellites are the typical culprits.

“I don’t think the increase in sightings has anything to do with that small percentage that fall into the anomalous category,” he said. “I think it’s all explainable.”

Konkolesky says about a third of calls to their branch of MUFO last year turned out to be Space-X Star Link satellites, launched into near orbit to improve internet connection worldwide. The satellites take on eerie formations when visible: Space-X Sky Link Video

“When you see these satellites, they travel in a chain,” said Konkolesky. “You’ll see several satellites flying in a row, and they look pretty spooky when you see them.”

The influx of calls may also have something to do with renewed interest and renewed legitimacy in the topic of UFOs in the form of a Pentagon investigation, announced last summer. The Department of Defense also recently commented on a series of declassified videos taken by Navy pilots, who were confused over an unidentified object they spotted mid-air.

“They’re seeing things they can’t identify either,” said Konkolesky. “It takes sort of the giggle factor away from discussing the topic.”

While he waits anxiously for the Pentagon report, reportedly due out sometime next month, Konkolesky says he doesn’t want to burst anyone’s bubble. He’s still excited at the prospect of one day discovering new life in the universe.

“It’s thrilling to be on that cutting edge,” he said, “to be living in an age where we discover that there is intelligent life in outer space.”

If you want to report any sightings to MUFON, click here.

To see national reports of UFOs, check UFO Stalker here.

The National UFO Reporting Center also catalogs sightings by month here.

This story was originally published by Doug Reardon at WXMI.