Man Reports "Large Black Figure" Lurking near Quann Dog Park in Madison, Wisconsin

The woods bordering Quann Dog Park in Madison, WI. *(Tobias Wayland / Singular Fortean Society)*

The Singular Fortean Society was recently made aware of a sighting report submitted to the Madison, Wisconsin subreddit on social media site Reddit.

According to that report, a man was visiting Quann Dog Park in Madison when he saw what he described as a “large black figure” lurking in the woods nearby.

I may have seen something near Quann Dog Park [and] my best guess would be that it was Mothman. Looking off towards a gap in the trees next to the railroad tracks was a large black figure. It was like someone with football shoulder pads had a big black cloak over themselves, peeking out, or even a giant black bear for some reason, I thought.
It didn’t make sense to me. It seemed to be looking out onto the park and definitely noticed me noticing it. They crouched down a bit and things shifted. I couldn’t get closer [from] where I was because of the fence (dog/baby) so we walked around and up the bike path, but I didn’t see anything.
Are there homeless people that sleep up by the tracks in those woods?
I’ll always just assume it was Mothman.

The woods are west of Quann Dog Park and run along both the railroad tracks and Wingra Creek, which border the park to its west and northwest, respectively.

Investigator Tobias Wayland contacted the witness, who revealed himself to be a 41-year-old man living in Madison. He agreed to be interviewed over the phone by Tobias but asked that he be kept anonymous.

During the interview, the man reaffirmed his previous testimony and added some details that had been left out.

He told Tobias that he was roughly 200 to 250 feet from the figure during his sighting, which took place at approximately 9 a.m. on July 28th and lasted between 30 and 45 seconds.

“I lost sight of it when I needed to pay attention to my dog,” the man said.

The figure, described as “someone wearing shoulder pads and a big, black cloak,” appeared to be approximately seven to eight feet tall and three to four feet wide.

He said the figure “crouched down and spread out” when he saw it, as though it were reacting to being spotted.

Neither his dog nor any other dog present reacted to the figure, although, he said, that could have been because they were too distracted from playing with one another.

The man had his infant son in a baby carrier strapped across his chest and his dog was running loose in the park, both of which prevented him from taking immediate action to pursue and investigate the figure.

However, he said, when he returned later to examine the area, he found no evidence of human habitation.

“There was nothing there,” he said, “no tarp, sleeping bag, nothing.”

Tobias and Emily Wayland visited the park on the morning of August 13th to investigate the sighting.

Tobias entered the woods but could find no signs of habitation, human or otherwise. While there was some debris present, it represented nothing that couldn’t reasonably be assumed to be litter consistent with what one would expect to find next to a biking/walking trail.

The undergrowth in the woods is overgrown in the summer, which would make camping difficult.

Furthermore, none of the foliage appeared to have been flattened or removed.

This sighting of an anomalous figure in Madison isn’t the first to be compared to Mothman.

In 2002, a woman claimed to have seen what was later described by her daughter as a large, black, winged creature with glowing red eyes. The investigation into that event revealed a series of seemingly paranormal phenomena that had affected their family at around the same time. Such incidents are relatively common in potentially paranormal winged humanoid sightings.

No such phenomena surround this more recent sighting, nor were wings or other identifying features definitively seen by the witness.

The potential for the figure to represent something else—like an oddly dressed human or even something stranger, such as Bigfoot or other cryptids, or perhaps a shadow person—is too high to infer a definite connection.

However, neither can it be ruled out entirely.

While the figure remains unexplained, there is nothing of substance to connect it to the winged humanoid sightings that have been reported within several hundred miles of Lake Michigan.

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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