BananaGate: Manhattan Man, Others Befuddled By Bananas On Train Tracks

ELWOOD, IL — It started about a year and a half ago. A lone green, unripened banana, found — Placed? Left? Dropped? Tossed? — at a railroad crossing on Manhattan Road in Elwood. Manhattan resident Benjamin Skwirut first spotted it on his way to work at 5:30 a.m. He was intrigued and likes bananas. He circled back, grabbed the stranded fruit and figured he'd eat it once it ripened.

It sat on his desk, but never turned, so he tossed it in the trash. A banana's destiny, unfulfilled.

Ten days later, again — another banana. Same spot. Early morning hours. A coincidence? A plot? It — AHEM — ap-peel-ed to him.

"They’re falling off a train," Skwirut said he first thought, which didn't quite seem to fit. "Ironic that they’re falling off in the same spot."

They kept coming. Sometimes one — a finger, as it's known. Sometimes a few, or a whole hand.

Was a plot afoot, Skwirut wondered? And had others noticed the fruity funny business?

"Why is this happening," he said he thought, "and what does it mean?"

Skwirut describes the bananas he's found as "bright green, unripened. Essentially useless.

"Are they left there for someone to pick up?" he wondered. "Are they feeding the wildlife? This is a befuddling mystery."

Skwirut kept it mostly to himself, until one day on the job at an industrial site. Had anyone coming into work noticed bananas on train tracks nearby, his coworker asked.

"I lit up like a lightbulb," Skwirut said. "Finally I can talk to someone about it!"

The two turned to each other to chatter about the capers.

"For months at this point she had been explaining to her coworkers about these random bananas and they would look at her like she’s crazy," Skwirut wrote on social media. "Now she had an eyewitness. A banana ally."

They started an email chain, looping in others who were interested. They'd share their banana sightings, reveling in the thrill of the chase. Skwirut turned to his account on X — formerly known as Twitter — to update followers. Most of the time, the bananas appear almost every day Monday through Friday, he said.

People were confused, amused — and mostly delighted. It led to a slippery slope, affectionately referred to by those in the know as BananaGate.

"All of a sudden there was this buzz about it," he said.

Skwirut took it a step further. He purchased a trail cam, positioning it at the crossing. Could he catch the bearer of the banana in action? Was it a banana bearer? Or was there another explanation?

The first attempt didn't capture much. The motion-triggered cameras capture 10-second bursts after the initial movement. In one frame: no banana. Next frame: banana. Last frame: the tail end of an SUV.

"Kind of a failure," Skwirut said, laughing. "But still exciting at the same time."

So he tried again.

Another attempt shows a man getting out of an SUV carrying a banana and a bag. He surreptitiously scoots across the tracks and out of the frame, then returns to his car empty-handed, Skwirut said.

But the bag! That was new — not just a banana left, but a bag, too! Skwirut needed to know what was in it, but would soon wish he didn't. Inside the bag was a large rooster with its head detached. Next to the banana.

A bit disturbed, Skwirut took the rooster to a veterinarian to see if there was anything amiss about its death, but there didn't appear to be. He also called Elwood Police to alert them to what he'd found.

"... I don't wanna ruffle any feathers," he said, cheekily, "... but when I called the dispatcher, she could not have been less interested."

The curiosity and rumors ripened, but it seemed people pushed the whole decapitated rooster thing out of their minds. It clearly had been rung by its neck or otherwise beheaded.

"Everyone conveniently forgets about this dead rooster we found," he said bluntly. "It’s very macabre."

Skwirut has seen the man quite clearly on camera and once when he watched it unfold in person—he appears to be just your average Joe driving a nice SUV, apparently with many bananas to spare. There have been stretches without a spotting, Skwirut says, and the disappointment and tension have been palpable.

"He’s gone on vacations where it’s been absent for two weeks straight," he said. "We all get real skittish. Like 'is this it, is this the end?'"

Some share their sightings on local Facebook group Manhappenin's, with the most recent shared Wednesday.

"More bananas on the tracks at Brandon and Manhattan Rd," wrote Erin Casey, who shared a photo of her sighting. "So weird! We've seen them a few times now."

"I see them every morning," one group member wrote. "I actually enjoy it to be honest."

"Hopefully I don't spin around like in MarioKart," another joked.

Some tracking the ordeal have nudged Skwirut to confront him. But Skwirut says no way. Just leave the guy to his banana business.

"The last thing that I want to happen, is for him to stop," he said, chuckling. "That end goal does not align with what me and a lot of other people want."