Reports from the Void: 'I Was Inches Away from Its Face'

*(Emily Wayland / Singular Fortean Society)*

The Singular Fortean Society received an email on October 14th, 2020, from a woman who said she had encountered a strange creature while walking her dog on a trail near the Wisconsin River in Wausau, Wisconsin.

According to the woman’s email,

On September 30th of this year, at just after 8 pm, I saw...something. I was walking my dog on a trail by the Wisconsin River in Wausau and it was on the other side of a chain link fence. I was inches away from its face.
It was dark out and it happened so fast. It felt like trying to remember what you saw when falling or something, like you know your eyes were open but nothing is clear. It had a face. Its features were on the front of its head. It made a..noise...and there was a whooshing sound like it propelled itself backward off of the fence.
Before I saw it, I heard quiet noises like something was eating. I felt bad. Really bad. Like something had just happened that I wasn't supposed to see and I was going to be punished somehow. When I try to recall that face I honestly think of that yellow Japanimation creature from awhile ago, Pikachu? Except the face wasn't yellow. It wasn't...human...it was just something bad.

Lead investigator Tobias Wayland replied to the woman’s email to inquire further about the experience. The woman initially agreed to be interviewed, but stopped responding to Wayland’s emails before plans for the interview could be solidified.

Without a more detailed description of the creature, it is difficult to draw comparisons with other reported sightings. However, in April of last year, the Singular Fortean Society received a report from ghost hunter Craig Nehring of a “miniature mothman” near Wittenberg, Wisconsin. Nehring’s report prompted others to come forward with similar stories, one of which reportedly took place in Wausau—only about 30 miles west of Wittenberg. The reports from 2019 may be unrelated to this more recent account, but it’s worth noting their geographic proximity.

Also noteworthy is a similar perceptual difficulty reported by a woman who said she and her husband had seen a bizarre, chimeric creature in the spring of 2013 near Beloit, Wisconsin. Beloit is approximately 180 miles south of Wausau.

That woman described how "the longer you watched [the creature] the harder it became to see it. Like its edges were blurring...the longer I looked at it, it almost seemed to become pixelated."

She also reported a feeling of "wonder and confusion" that switched very suddenly to overwhelming fear, as she felt the creature could "come through my window and bite my head off."

Reports from the Void is a repository to share those stories for which we do not have enough information to make a full report. This is usually because of little or no communication from the witness following their initial submission. The Singular Fortean Society will always provide as much information as possible regarding any correspondence during our attempts to speak with those involved.

This series is meant only to present you with the full breadth of the information sent to us, and makes no judgments towards the veracity of any stories shared within it.

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

If you enjoyed this article and would like to support the Singular Fortean Society, please consider becoming an official member by signing up through our Patreon page—membership includes a ton of extra content and behind-the-scenes access to the Society’s inner workings.