Mother and Son Report Run-In with Mothman near Parsonsburg, Maryland

Bobbi said that the creature she and her son saw was similar in appearance to illustrations of the Mothman drawn by artist Donie Odulio. (Donie Odulio)

The Singular Fortean Society was contacted recently by a woman who said that she and her son had an encounter with a mysterious winged humanoid last May outside of Parsonsburg, Maryland.

According to the initial report:

My son, who is 15, and I were driving home from the store late one night at the beginning of the summer. We live in Parsonsburg, Maryland; a tiny town. We saw something crouched by the side of a bendy, woodsy back road, with a neighborhood and pond close by. My initial thought was that it was a bird, and that it was going to hit my car. When it flew up it appeared to be a dark grey human about six feet or taller, with smooth skin and bat-like wings. It had human feet, which we clearly saw as it shot up and over the trees, sort of gliding. We were stunned. We asked each other what the hell we saw, and then didn’t speak of it again for quite some time.

The witness was contacted via telephone by investigator Tobias Wayland, and agreed to the use of her first name, Bobbi. All parties agreed that it was best for her son to remain completely anonymous.

"We had gone to Walmart on a Friday night. We’re night owls, so we always do late-night ‘Oh, let’s run here, let’s run there,'" Bobbi said. "It was probably between midnight and 1 a.m. We were on Dagsboro Road, and it cuts from town to the country, basically. We live in Parsonsburg, and Walmart is in Salisbury. It’s a very winding road, like very, very twisty."

Bobbi wasn’t sure of the exact date of their sighting, but was reasonably sure it was in the latter half of May. She described weather conditions that evening as clear and bright, and historical weather data confirmed both Friday the 17th and 24th would match that description.

She was driving with her son in the passenger seat, and was only going about 30 mph. As she rounded one of the road’s many curves, Bobbi said she saw something only 20 feet or so ahead in the road.

"It was crouched, and I had a couple thoughts: the first one was ‘It’s going to hit my car,’ then the second thought was ‘What the hell kind of bird is that out here at 1 o’clock in the morning?’ Then, when I got closer, I saw that it didn’t look like a bird, its skin was smooth, and my brain wasn’t registering it at all. By the time I was on it, it had started to stand up and was probably six feet tall, at least," said Bobbi.

Bobbi's mind reeled at the seemingly impossible situation unfolding before her.

"It was big, you know? I was sure it was going to hit the front of my car or something. So, I slowed down a little more and kept going, and as I got closer to it, it started to move, and I guess I was just staring at it, and it seemed to be crouched down—like a buzzard or something. When it raised up, I didn’t see anything on the road, I didn’t see anything that it was crouched eating, like a buzzard would. It lifted itself up, and I honestly to this day cannot even tell you what I saw, until it reached the tip of my windshield. I still was thinking ‘This thing is going to hit my car!’ Then, as it went up, and fully stretched its body out, I could see that it was very grey and very smooth in appearance, like it would be smooth if I touched it. It was bald, it was bald-headed, and I saw feet, but like human feet," she said. “Like grey human feet.”

"It was crouched on the left side of the road. It went up straight and then over across to the right where my son was and then up over the trees on that side. He saw the front from a side angle as it flew over us. The last thing we saw was the feet," she explained. "And then he was just gone. We didn’t see him glide over the trees, he was just gone."

“It seemed to be very, very bald. The top of the head was bald. It was very round and very bald. There were ears. I thought it was a human head,” she added.

According to her son, who had seen more of the creature’s face, it “looked like a skull, with sunken eyes, and with skin over it.”

It took Bobbi a moment to react before she looked to her son for confirmation of what she’d seen.

"I just stared, I really didn’t process what I was seeing. It flew straight up in front of my car, and when it’s feet were up above my car is when I was like ‘holy sh*t!’ It went up over the trees, it never flapped its wings—it just kind of glided up off the ground. I waited for a second, and then I looked at my son and I asked ‘Did you see that? Am I crazy?’ His face was completely still. He had no expression, and all he said to me was ‘I saw bat wings and human feet.’ And then, we didn’t say another word about it,” she said.

Both Bobbi and her son seemingly forgot about the event completely until several weeks later when they were driving down the same stretch of road at night.

"We drove home in a stunned daze, and we didn’t say anything else," she explained. "And then a couple of weeks later we were driving down that road again and I said [to my son] ‘Oh my god, do you remember what we saw?’ And he said, ‘Yes, oh my god!'"

The two searched online, but couldn’t find anything similar to what they’d seen—until Bobbi’s son came across a video about Mothman on YouTube.

"He found some stuff on the Mothman. We started googling Mothman stories, and that’s when we came across [The Singular Fortean Society]," she said.

Bobbie was struck by the number of sighting reports similar to their own.

"That’s when I was like ‘holy crap!’ Because when I saw the sketches [by Donie Odulio] that were on one of the stories, it matched to a T [what we had seen]. Besides the eyes, we didn’t see any red eyes, but I didn’t really see any specific features. My son said he saw the face, and he said ‘No, the eyes were just kind of sunk in,’ and he said he saw wings and hands," she explained.

Although her son said he has a strong feeling of fear associated with the encounter, Bobbi said she didn’t experience any overpowering emotions, other than bewilderment at how they so suddenly and mysteriously forgot the event.

"We’re very talkative, and we love creepy stuff, but we’d never seen anything," she said. "That’s what threw me for a loop, because we literally just drove home after in silence. I didn’t wake up the next day and tell a single soul. I didn’t even remember it until we drove back down that road."

Following the event, the family experienced one incident of a potentially psychic phenomenon, and in addition, according to Bobbi, their “kitchen radio turns on by itself all the time.” The radio was purchased before the incident and has no prior history of malfunction.

Both Bobbi and her son are otherwise handling their experience well, and more than anything are relieved to find that they aren’t alone.

"Other people have seen this," Bobbi said. "We’re not crazy."

To report your own encounter with the impossible, reach out to us directly at the Singular Fortean Society through our contact page.

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