Reports from the Void: 'I Saw a Demon'

The Singular Fortean Society received the following report via email in January of 2021.

Something is happening in Pueblo, Colorado. While in my parent’s camper, parked at Kmart, I saw a demon. I was about 16 years old, still living with parents, and drug and alcohol free. That happened in the '80s.

Investigator Tobias Wayland replied to the email for more details and the witness responded with a longer version of events.

It happened in the '80s, probably '81 or '82. I was with my parents in a camper. We was parked at a Kmart for the night and the store was closed. Every night, my dad would read out of the Bible to us and then we all would pray the rosary—not out loud, but to ourselves.
I was sitting across from a full length mirror. My mother started screaming and I looked up. I didn't see my reflection. I saw a demon; it looked like its skin was made out of roasted red chile peppers. It stood upright, slightly leaning forward. It had two nubs on its head like a giraffe. It was reaching for my mom.
It turned and looked at me and laughed. My dad got up to check on my mom, and I squeezed my eyes shut and went into praying hard. After that my sister said she saw what I did. But my parents said we don't talk about it, and now my sister denies anything happened.

Requests from Wayland for additional information about the experience went unanswered.

It is not unusual for witnesses to describe feeling a sense of evil or to relate a frightening creature they’ve encountered to a demon, sometimes even inserting a strong religious narrative like the one described above.

This tendency has been particularly apparent throughout the Lake Michigan Mothman investigation.

In another Reports from the Void, a witness wrote in to tell of a “glowing-eyed demon with bat wings [and a stick-like] body” reportedly seen in what they described as a “possessed house” in Bloomington, Indiana.

The occult elements and “presence of evil” felt by that witness are reminiscent of other reports received throughout the Lake Michigan Mothman investigation—including a witch in Chicago who described a ritual held on the September 2015 blood moon that she believed may have summoned some dark, shadowy, bat-like beings, and a woman in Wauconda, Illinois, who said she felt “a palpable sense of evil” emanating from a bat-winged monster she encountered in 2017.

A multitude of other witnesses have also reported similar feelings or used the word “demon” to describe the creature they’d seen; those reports are available in our timeline of sightings.

Outside of that investigation, reported cases of demonic possession have been on the rise, at least according to the Roman Catholic Church, who, in 2019, allowed representatives from a multitude of denominations to attend their annual exorcism class in Rome for the first time.

Experts on exorcism from Italy and America had been calling for an increase in exorcists to help stem the satanic tide since at least 2016, citing "a rise in the popularity of 'pagan activities', such as using a Ouija board to summon the dead, the failure of the mental health care system, a spiritual void in the lives of Americans and the diminishing authority of the Church."

Without any more information, it is impossible to say what elements listed by the Church, if any, contributed to the above report, although given what is available, neither a “spiritual void” nor the “diminishing authority of the Church” seem likely to blame.

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.

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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