Like the Mothman of West Virginia, the Chicago Mothman is said to be a large, winged humanoid creature with glowing red eyes and a sinister presence.
Wikimedia Commons/Photograph by Gautam Krishnan on UnsplashPeople have reported seeing the “Chicago Mothman” since 2011.
Beginning in 2011, countless people throughout the Chicago area started to report seeing a giant, winged humanoid flying around the city. Initially, sightings were few and far between, but by the summer of 2017, dozens of reports were pouring in each year. And because of the creature’s similarities to a certain famous cryptid from Point Pleasant, West Virginia, locals have dubbed it the “Chicago Mothman.”
Described as a shadowy figure with glowing red eyes, the Chicago Mothman is said to stand about 6 to 10 feet tall with a wingspan of over 10 feet. Alleged witnesses have reported seeing it flying through the air and sometimes peering in windows, swooping at pedestrians, or dropping onto the hoods of cars.
Was this the same Mothman that had allegedly terrorized Point Pleasant in the late 1960s? Was it a new creature of the same species? Or was it, perhaps, something entirely different altogether?
In any case, the sightings caught the attention of cryptozoologists and paranormal enthusiasts across the nation. And while no one has been able to find conclusive evidence that the Chicago Mothman exists, there are those who believe he is out there somewhere.
The First Reported Sighting Of The Chicago Mothman
Rumors about a Mothman creature near Chicago first surfaced in 2011, as documented by self-described Fortean researcher Lon Strickler on his website Phantoms and Monsters. There are now more than 100 archival posts on the site which appear to relay different encounters with the Chicago Mothman.
The first post was made on Oct. 13, 2011, with the title “Photo: 2nd Mothman / Bat-Like Object Witnessed Over Chicago.” In it, a witness describes an encounter he’d allegedly had on Aug. 22 of that year.
According to the witness, he was traveling through the suburbs of Chicago when he came across a local business with a tall sculpture of a Native American perched on its roof. He stopped to snap a photo of the sculpture, then drove home.
Phantoms and MonstersThe photograph purportedly showing the Chicago Mothman flying overhead.
Later that night, as he went through his photos, the man noticed what appeared to be a giant, winged creature flying in the background of the shot.
“At first I didn’t think nothing of it, I figured it was [sic] plane or something. But just for the heck of it I enlarged it,” he wrote in the post. “It looked something similar to a bird or a bat, but then again it doesn’t. So I have no idea what it could be.”
“Complete And Total Terror”
The first Phantoms and Monsters post also includes a second account from a University of Illinois Chicago student, who wrote in to report an event from Sept. 30, 2011.
The anonymous witness wrote that that night, they were in their apartment when they suddenly heard their roommate scream. They ran into the roommate’s room to check on her, and found her cowering in the corner, “white as a ghost and shaking.”
Once the roommate had calmed down, she explained that as she was getting dressed, she had seen a pair of glowing orange eyes staring at her through the window — despite the fact that their apartment was on the third floor.
“She said she was filled with this overwhelming feeling of complete and total terror,” the witness wrote. “She felt like the creature was looking at her as though she was prey. She said she felt like a rabbit that was about to be pounced upon by an eagle.”
Around this time, the witness’ boyfriend called; it sounded like he was out of breath.
“As I tried to get him to slow down, I walked past my roommate’s open door and to my absolute horror, I saw… a pair of glowing red eyes, looking through the window right at me,” the student wrote. “They stared at me for about three to four seconds before whatever it was abruptly left. Like my friend, I totally lost it and screamed at the top of my lungs.”
In the years since, dozens of similar posts have appeared on Strickler’s website. However, it was around the summer of 2017, six years after the first sightings, that things really began to reach a fever pitch.
The Chicago Mothman Sightings Reach A Peak
Phantoms and Monsters/Google MapsA map of possible Chicago Mothman sightings throughout the metropolitan area.
Since 2011, reports of the Chicago Mothman have continued to pour in. Alleged witnesses have claimed to see the creature everywhere from the Willis Tower to O’Hare Airport to the suburbs. In 2017 alone, there were as many as 55 alleged sightings throughout the Chicago area — and before long, even large publications like VICE were reporting on the phenomenon.
“This group of sightings is historical in cryptozoology terms,” Strickler told VICE in an interview. “For one, it’s happening in an urban area for the most part and that there are so many sightings in one period.”
Strickler also told the publication that he believes there are not one, not two, but at least three humanoid creatures flying around Chicago, based on the locations in which they were spotted and small differences in eyewitness testimonies.
One witness, John Amitrano, went on record with VICE, describing a Chicago Mothman encounter he’d allegedly had while working a Friday night security shift at a bar called The Owl.
“I saw a plane flying, but also something moving really awkwardly under it,” he said. “It didn’t look like a bat so much as what illustrations of pterodactyls look like, with the slenderness of its head and its wing shape. I know what birds and what bats look like. This thing didn’t have any feathers or fur, and it didn’t fly like anything I’ve ever seen.”
Amitrano said he’d left his phone charging at the bar that night and immediately thought to himself, “This was the worst time in the world to have my phone charging.”
Like many others, Amitrano contacted Lon Strickler with his story and found out he was just one of the 55 people that year who had experienced the same thing.
As he’s documented these reports, Strickler has noted a number of similarities between the Chicago Mothman sightings and the Mothman sightings in Point Pleasant, with one notable exception: “These beings are less aggressive than the one in Point Pleasant, for the most part.”
Is The Chicago Mothman An Omen Of Impending Disaster?
Between 1966 and 1967, several residents of Point Pleasant, West Virginia reported seeing a strange human-like creature with wings and glowing red eyes. The Point Pleasant Mothman sightings gradually built up until they reached a climactic conclusion on the day of the tragic Silver Bridge collapse on Dec. 15, 1967.
That morning, the Mothman was said to have been seen perched on the bridge shortly before it broke apart, sending 46 people to a watery grave. Based on these reports, many have come to view the Point Pleasant Mothman as a “harbinger of doom.” Could the same be said for the Chicago Mothman?
Point Pleasant River MuseumA crushed taxi from the Silver Bridge collapse.
According to Strickler, the answer is no.
“I believe overall there was only one being in the Point Pleasant area that was seen during that period,” he said. “I think [the creatures seen around Chicago are] flesh and blood beings that aren’t of this world.”
Of course, not everyone agrees with Strickler. Some believe there is an explanation that fits within the known bounds of science.
Possible Explanations For The Phenomenon
University of Chicago psychologist Dr. David A. Gallo also spoke with VICE about the Chicago Mothman sightings. Gallo’s research focuses primarily on memory, and specifically how people “actively (and sometimes inaccurately) reconstruct the past.” He said he felt that Strickler’s collected testimonies were a “selective sample.”
“When people are choosing to report sightings, the basis of data upon which your paranormal researchers are collecting is all self-report,” he said. “[Strickler is] not sampling random people and asking if they saw the Mothman — he’s just counting the number of people that voluntarily came forward to report a sighting.”
And according to Gallo, those people coming forward with reports — people who are likely to visit a paranormal site like Phantoms and Monsters — may also be more inclined to believe in a “Mothman.” Therefore, they may also be more inclined to believe they have witnessed one.
“There’s a phenomenon where there’s basically some real witnessed experience, but if there are holes or gaps in that original experience, sometimes the mind is unable to fill in the gaps,” Gallo said. “If something is suggested to them subsequently as a plausible scenario — like a Mothman or whatever — that person might be inclined to fill in the gaps with that.”
Strickler, for his part, disagreed, saying that the reports he’s documented seem to be genuine.
“We have had very few cranks from what I can tell, which I think is pretty unusual,” he argued. “If the media would have picked up on it more than it has, I think that we would have had more fraudulent sightings.”
Strickler is still fielding reports on the Chicago Mothman to this day, with alleged sightings as recent as April 2024. And with countless Chicagoans keeping their eyes to the skies, who knows — maybe one day someone will find evidence that it exists.
After reading about the Chicago Mothman, read about Bigfoot and the evidence for and against it. Then, read about the Florida Skunk Ape.
