Reports from the Void: 'The Only Thing That Stuck Out to Me Was Its Glowing Red Eyes'

Reports from the Void is a repository to share those stories for which I 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. I will always provide as much information as possible regarding any correspondence during my attempts to speak with those involved.

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

I received the following email with “Retelling an encounter with unidentified cryptid” in the subject line on May 5th, 2024.

Hi, I'm [name redacted]. I'm 35 years old and I have been wanting to retell [this story].
This was when I was a junior in high school. It was a Tuesday night, and my mom asked me to take out the garbage and pull the dumpster out to the alley.
I was pulling the dumpster out to the alley when I froze and could feel my blood turning cold and the hair on the back of my neck standing on end. I looked where this sensation was coming from, and I saw a nine-foot-tallish figure that looked hunched about 20 feet from me. I couldn't tell any features, just a black mass, but it was so black that I could see it at night. The only thing that stuck out to me was its glowing red eyes.
It felt like an eternity, and I didn't dare to move because I felt like I was [caught] in this thing's eyes. [Eventually,] it moved on.
When it left, I bolted inside, white like a ghost, and my mom happened to be inside, and she asked me what was wrong. I told her what I saw. Ironically, she didn't believe me and said it was just my imagination running wild.
I know what I saw was real, the only thing that this thing reminded me of was Mothman. Now, I'm not saying it's that legendary creature, but when I first found out about Mothman, I pointed right at it and said that's what I saw. Yet I couldn't find anything on any sightings from that year and came up with nothing.
For years, when I retold this to people it's always the same—I'm either making this up or it's my imagination or I was [astrally] projecting my darker emotions (which is the most outlandish claim) or I saw a demon. I don't know what I saw that night, honestly.

I replied to this email in an attempt to gather more information about the sighting but received no response.

This isn’t the only report I’ve received of a shadowy being associated with the Mothman phenomenon.

In 2019, I was contacted by a man who said he and a friend had once seen a “shadowy man” transform into “a big, black shadowy cat-like creature” after suddenly appearing out of a “flash of bright light” in Richmond, Indiana.

Richmond is about 35 miles southeast of Prairie Creek Reservoir—the site of a series of reports involving flying humanoids and glowing orbs.

And in 2020, a witness reached out to tell me about how she was walking her roommate’s dog just before midnight on January 9th of that year when she noticed a tall, thin, “humanoid solid shadow figure” shuffling towards her in the Albany Park neighborhood of Chicago.

That sighting was in the vicinity of dozens of Mothman sightings that have been reported in the Chicagoland area since 2017.

Furthermore, this is not the only sighting of just such a hunched monstrosity reportedly seen while taking out the garbage.

Again in 2019, I spoke to Illinois resident Paula, who said she had encountered a hulking, winged creature in Wauconda, Illinois, while taking out the trash three years after she had seen a strange beam of light in the exact same spot.