Man Reports 'Mothman' Sighting on Condominium Rooftop in Chicago

The following report was received by Unsolved Mysteries after the release of their Mothman episode (Vol. 4, Ep. 5; The Mothman Revisited) and later sent to investigators Lon Strickler (Phantoms & Monsters) and Tobias Wayland (The Singular Fortean Society), both of whom were featured in the episode.

In the report, a man claims to have seen a winged humanoid from the window of his fourth floor Chicago apartment.

According to the initial report:

OMG! I have seen mothman seven times! I live at [address redacted] on the 4th floor and my bedroom window looks over at the big black building on Lake Michigan! My roommate has called me crazy every time I told him I thought it was an alien with wings!

Strickler and Wayland were both able to contact the witness, Ryan, who provided additional information about his sighting.

Although the report originally sent to Unsolved Mysteries mentions seven sightings, Ryan told Wayland that he had only seen Mothman once.

When asked about the discrepancy, he responded that it “must be a typo.”

Ryan's sighting came one night in early July of this year.

“I know it wasn’t on the 4th of July,” he said. “The 4th of July around here is an absolute nightmare. Everyone's shooting things off, even in the alleyways, so I close the windows. I don't even look out the windows at that time. So, I know it wasn't on the 4th of July.”

The night, in fact, was unusually quiet.

“It was just a really quiet night,” Ryan explained. “I mean, the weather was nice. It wasn't cold, it was hot, it was still, it wasn't raining. It was very quiet. I'm in uptown and there's always something. It was just a really quiet, calm night. No ruckus or anything outside. Nothing. No gunshots. I mean, it was just a quiet, nice, still evening.”

He had gone to bed at around 8 p.m. due to the early morning hours he keeps for his job when, at around 8:30 p.m., he looked out of his bedroom window, which faces north. It was getting dark outside, but something caught Ryan's attention at the Park Tower condominium building about a block away.

Two bright, laser-like red lights were projecting from the roof. As he looked closer, he saw, backlit by the rooftop lights, a humanoid figure; the lights appeared to be its eyes. Ryan said that he watched the creature as it unfurled its wings and took off from the roof towards Lake Michigan.

Notably, Park Tower has decorative LED lighting that adorns its roof, and in early July it would have been set to display red, white, and blue in honor of Independence Day.

However, explained Ryan, what he saw was something very different.

"It wasn't [the building's display] because [the figure] was on the ledge, it wasn't on the top. And I know it was a figure. I just thought it was a man, like with weird eyes or something. And then the minute I saw his wings come out from behind him, I was like, ‘Oh my God.’ And I took off," he told Wayland. "I've lived in this building for 10 years, so I know [the view of] that building, and I know from living in the city that every building in Chicago puts different lights on top of their building or on their facade."

He described the winged humanoid as dark in color and very tall, likely well over six feet in height. The shape and structure of its wings were indiscernible.

"I'm six-three and I think, if I were going to be standing up on that building, I think it would be taller than me, but I really don't know how much bigger because of the distance," Ryan said.

A photo of the sighting area taken from Ryan’s window. “So, not knowing measurements, the figure was just as tall as that white backdrop,” he said.

After about a minute, the strangeness of what he was seeing began to sink in and Ryan was quickly overcome with fear, shooting out of bed and running naked into the living room to tell his roommate that there was "an alien" on the tall black building north of them.

Prior to this experience, he had never heard of Mothman.

"I jumped up out of bed, ran naked into the living room, and I grabbed my roommate," he said. "I'm like, ‘Go in there. There's an alien.’ And he thought I was crazy. Well then one day, as I'm lying in bed looking out the window and looking at that building, Unsolved Mysteries comes on, and it was Mothman, and I go, 'Oh my God.' I'm like, 'That is what I saw.'"

For Ryan, seeing that others had experienced similar phenomena was validating.

"I mean, honestly, I thought I was losing my mind," he said. "I was like, maybe I'm mentally not well. Literally I thought when I saw that and I was like, 'A UFO with wings?', people will think I'm crazy and they're going to say, 'Okay, Ryan, Batman.' And I'm like, 'Oh geez, I sound like such an idiot.' And then seeing the [Unsolved Mysteries] episode though, it validated what I saw, and I was like, 'Oh my God, I'm not a maniac.' That was, honestly, the validation from that alone just made me feel a lot better. I feel kind of unique that I've got the experience seeing him."

And maybe coming forward with his own experience will encourage others to do the same.

“People don’t report shootings, so I guess maybe I'm not blown away [that others haven’t come forward to report the incident] or I think people maybe just thought they were crazy, too,” he said. “I mean, I have not seen anything since then, and I do look out that window frequently now, especially.”

Because of its proximity to other sighting locations, the creature described in the above report could be related to the larger Lake Michigan Mothman phenomenon. Those sightings are commonly reported within a few-hundred-mile radius surrounding Lake Michigan, including every state bordering the great lake.

The sightings ostensibly began in the spring of 2017, but more historical accounts are being reported as more people become aware of the phenomenon. They generally take place in the evening or at night, often in or near a park or natural area, and around water. Witnesses consistently describe a large gray, brown, or black, bat or bird-like creature, sometimes with glowing or reflective red, yellow, or orange eyes, and humanoid features such as an upright, bipedal posture are often reported. Some witnesses have reported feeling intense fear and an aura of evil emanating from the creature they encountered. Many of the sightings are also of something seen only briefly or are described only as a flying creature with few details, which leaves open the possibility that a misidentified large bird—such as a heron or crane—or some type of anomalous avian species could explain some, although certainly not all, of the encounters. A number of associated high strangeness incidents have also occurred alongside the creature sightings. These include reports of UFOs, other anomalous flying creatures and mysterious humanoids, parapsychological phenomena, and bizarre events experienced by those investigating the sightings.

To report a sighting reach out to us directly at The Singular Fortean Society through our contact page.

You can view a timeline of the sightings so far here.

A map of the sightings, compiled by Lon Strickler, is available here.