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Behind a green door in a battered former battery factory in West Orange swirls a vortex of weirdness. From this spot, Mark Sceurman, 47, and Mark Moran, 43, creators of the local oddity magazine Weird N.J., are going national with a mini-empire built on the bizarre. Next month Barnes & Noble Books will publish “Weird U.S.,” a more than 350-page paperback compilation subtitled, “Your Travel Guide to America”s Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets.” Then on Halloween night The History Channel will broadcast a one-hour pilot program based on the book that could be the first of 26 episodes if the show is a hit. In that case, “We’re going to be pretty busy,” Sceurman says. “It’s a lot of weird work.’ Sceurman and Moran host the pilot, which features an 1833 public hanging in Morristown; a tour of a Cold War-era Nike missile base on Long Island; a Florida town populated by retired freak-show stars; and legends of strange folk in Ohio and Tennessee called Melon Heads and Melungeons, respectively. When The History Channel previewed the program last summer for a focus group in Detroit, viewers mistook Moran and Sceurman for actors rather than authentically weird people. So the hosts reshot the beginning to introduce themselves. “If you wanted to hire actors,” asks Moran, “would you hire us?” “We could have done the program with professional actors or perhaps one of those on-camera hotshot types,” says Carl Lindahl, the executive producer of the pilot. “To me all that seemed like it wouldn’t ring true. These guys have the passion to put it over; so we decided to keep them as presenters on camera.” The partners’ new book and TV show are the latest extensions of an eerie enterprise that began with a newsletter 14 years ago. Today the franchise includes the semi-annual Weird N.J. magazine (circulation: 60,000) and a “Weird N.J.” hardcover book that has sold 150,000 copies and grossed $3 million for Barnes & Noble since it was published last year. Sceurman and Moran have three employees and expect revenue of some $500,000 this year. “We’re a family business like the mafia,” says Moran. “Except that we pay our taxes,” Sceurman adds. Like Weird N.J. magazine and the hardcover book, the “Weird U.S.” tome spins yarns submitted by fans. It includes the tale of the half-faced ghost of the Old Pali Road of Kailua near Honolulu, Hawaii; the witch’s grave in an ancient cemetery in York, Maine; and hundreds of sightings in between. Coming next is a series of state-specific weird books to be published by Barnes & Noble and produced by Moran and Sceurman with help from freelancers in 17 states including Florida, Texas, California and Wisconsin. Moran and Sceurman never tire of hunting up the odd and the obscure. The fall issue of Weird N.J. magazine features “The Woo-Woo Boy of Lyndhurst,” a 29-year old man who makes realistic emergency-vehicle siren sounds with his voice while riding his bicycle around the Bergen County town. A previous issue recounted the spooky happenings on Clinton Road, a lonely stretch of bumpy two-lane highway in West Milford in Passaic County. Writes a reader of an incident that recently took place there: “We were pulled off the side of the road next to where you’re supposed to see the little ghost boy in the water, and the park ranger said we were potential terrorists because the reservoir is drinking water for thousands of people, and he threatened to arrest us.” Responds Sceurman: “Just when you think it can’t get any weirder,” then it does.” | email [email protected]