Witness Reports 2009 Run-In with Winged Humanoid in La Habra, California

An illustration provided by Polk that shows the creature running away.

The Singular Fortean Society was contacted recently by 60-year-old California resident Richard Polk, who said that on a foggy night in the fall of 2009 he had an unusual run-in with a winged humanoid in La Habra.

Historical weather data shows that there was a possibility of radiation fog in the area on the night of Polk’s sighting, formed by high humidity and the ground cooling to near the dew point after sunset in calm conditions with a clear sky.

Lead investigator Tobias Wayland was able to speak with Polk over the phone.

"I went to a Halloween party, it was Halloween night, and by the time I got home it was around 11 pm. I was down at a friend’s house until maybe 1 am, and I came out and as I was walking towards my house I was on the left side of the street," Polk said. "From there, I walked down the street about maybe 150 yards all the way to the other side of the T cul-de-sac—when you come in you’ve got to go left or right and they’re both dead ends. As I was walking I got to the part where the T comes in from the road. That only left me another 50 yards until my apartment. As I’m walking, I hear a ticking, like tick-tick-tick-tick, fast; it was something that was moving.”

The blue rectangle represents the approximate area of missing fog, while the red arrow indicates the direction Polk was walking and the approximate location of the sighting, which took place just past the T intersection. The creature was running nor… — The blue rectangle represents the approximate area of missing fog, while the red arrow indicates the direction Polk was walking and the approximate location of the sighting, which took place just past the T intersection. The creature was running north, the opposite direction of Polk. *(Google Maps)*

He heard it before he saw it, due to the thick fog that night, but soon enough the creature was running past him.

“As I was walking on the sidewalk, I looked over to see what it was, and at first glimpse, all I caught was pretty much just feathers—I couldn’t see the face,” Polk explained. “It was probably only 15 feet away from me. I was on the sidewalk, and there’s maybe three feet of grass, the curb, and then there were parked cars. It was running maybe five feet from the cars, down the opposite way. The first glimpse I got was in-between the cars, and as I’m looking to the right, it went past the rear of an older station wagon [with large wraparound windows], and my second glimpse of it was of basically the legs up to about maybe the stomach, not quite all of the feet but I could see the calves and the thighs. It was not even four feet tall, at the most. As I get the second glimpse of this thing, right away I’m like ‘What the heck?’ I came around in-between the cars and it’s past me, then, and I look back down the street and that’s when I saw this thing go running away. When I was standing on the sidewalk looking through the windows of the station wagon, I couldn’t even see its head, so I was thinking a bird of some kind, maybe a roadrunner or a peacock or something."

But it didn’t take Polk long to discern this was no bird—at least not one he’d ever seen. This creature used plantigrade locomotion, like a human.

"I’ve done a lot of hunting, and I know my birds," he explained. "I know what birds are about and how they run. The thing’s thigh was the size of an average human man’s thigh, but muscled, and the calf was the same way. Its feet were the size of a human man’s hand, at least. It had three claws, I recall, but they were very strange looking. There was no hair on the legs, but they looked pock-marked and there were long, single hairs here and there. It was just a quick glance, but the vision in my mind of the legs is so vivid."

"As it ran away, I could see wings that came down almost to the ground," Polk continued. "I never really saw the face. But when it ran between the cars, I remember thinking ‘I didn’t even see a beak.’ If it was a bird, it would have had a beak; I would have been able to see a beak. It had hair like a troll doll, that went up and then down, it was pure white. I couldn’t really make out [its wings] until I got between the cars and saw it running, they were feathered. The wings came down, they were big wings. The hair came straight up and then back, all the way around. And the face—there was hair in the way."

Polk watched the creature as it ran through an area of the street conspicuously absent of fog before vanishing into the night.

"This fog had maybe 75 yards to 100 yards of open space, but otherwise I couldn’t see the sidewalk on the other side. I couldn’t see my house. The streetlights were lit up, there were two or three streetlights. But the middle of the street was all lit up. This is a regular-sized, residential street," he said. "That’s when I realized it was all open in the street. But I couldn’t see past the sidewalk on the other side—I couldn’t see anything. I was only 50 yards from my apartment, and I couldn’t even see that. When I turned around to look at it, it ran into the fog and disappeared."

According to Polk, the entire encounter lasted maybe 10 seconds, but it was the most scared he’d ever been.

“By the time I got between the cars and looked back, it was already 20 yards away and running. I wanted so bad to say something, but I couldn’t. I was just too scared; the hair on the back of my neck and head was standing up, and I have the feeling that I’m glad I didn’t,” he said. “It was almost an evil presence.”

Polk said he was so frightened by his encounter that "I ran to my apartment, got inside, turned all the lights off, got into my big, master closet, opened up a sleeping bag and slept in there that night. I was scared to death. I was the only one in the apartment."

Despite having gone to a Halloween party that night, Polk insisted that he was sober.

Ultimately, he has a feeling that he might have gotten lucky in his encounter, explaining “It was foggy, I mean I couldn’t even see the [sidewalk across the street], so maybe that’s why it couldn’t see me.”

Polk also related a series of strange sightings had by a friend in the area.

"A month or so before this happened, a friend of mine who lived there told me that in the backyard she’d had multiple sightings of something with red eyes that glowed. I didn’t think too much about it, I thought maybe it was raccoons or something," he said.

As for his own sighting, Polk said he’s “never seen anything like it,” and that he had looked for an explanation for years before finding the Singular Fortean Society.

“The closest thing I could ever come up with was the Mothman,” he said.

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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