...near site of previous report in Cape Girardeau, Missouri

The Singular Fortean Society’s lead investigator Tobias Wayland spoke recently with two sisters who said they saw a strange, flying creature in late August of this year near the site where another woman said she’d seen a “black, humanoid figure with very large wings and legs” last October in Cape Girardeau, Missouri.

The two women were driving at about 6 o’clock in the evening on Lexington Avenue and had just passed Sprigg Street when they had their encounter, which took place only about a mile from the previously reported sighting.

Beverly Weakley, 67, was behind the wheel while Brenda Elfrink, 60, was in the passenger seat.

Brenda was looking at her phone when she heard her sister exclaim, “What was that?”

"I was on my phone, I heard her and I looked up. I got a good look at it, but I didn’t really know what I was looking at. It seemed like it was just across the road and gone. There was no place for it to land," said Brenda.

She described the creature as being "big and blackish/brownish—more brown than black, but dark" and "shaped like nothing I've ever seen. I saw a lot of movement like wings—I saw more of that than anything else."

"I’d say it was five or six feet tall, maybe bigger. I was kind of rationalizing what I was looking at. There were no feet, I just saw a big brown mass, basically. But it did feel like I saw movement, like wings or something," Brenda said. "I saw a whipping, fluttering motion and it looked like it almost took up the whole road. It probably didn’t, but that’s what it looked like to me. I honestly wondered at first if it was a big throw rug flying across the road and whipping up in the wind or something, but there was no wind. It wasn’t a stormy day or anything. I said ‘Oh my god, we saw Mothman.'"

However, said Brenda, her sister Beverly “saw much more” of the thing than she did.

According to Beverly,

It looked like it might have come from the side of the road, there are some trees there, but it was fully in our vision in the car. It wasn’t high, it was maybe eight feet off of the ground—you could see underneath it, you could see over it. It was probably five to six feet long, and it was brown. It didn’t look like it had feathers to me, it looked like it had membranes. It looked like it had webbed, membranous wings, and there were a lot of wings. Some were flapping. They were ribbed like umbrellas. It didn’t look like a pterodactyl, but it looked like those kind of wings. It was probably 10 to 15 feet ahead of us, and it was flying. I didn’t see a person, like a body shape, but it certainly could have been a thin something that was long.

Beverly said the creature "looked like something was shrouded in this bunch of wings. It got skinnier towards the last two feet, like they were wrapped around. To me, it looked like a body shrouded in wings. It was definitely wings, of some sort, and they looked like they were meat, not feathers. I didn’t see any limbs, I didn’t see a head."

The 67-year-old described the wings moving in an undulating fashion, "like a wave."

"The wings were moving," she explained. "It looked like it had taken off and it had these little wings throughout. The way it flew was weird. It didn’t use all of its wings at one time. It was the strangest thing I’ve ever seen. It rippled, kind of."

Neither woman was able to tell where the creature went after it flew across the road.

"I was driving, so I didn't see where it went," Beverly said. "I don’t know why we didn’t try to stop and look some more, but it was scary. I think that’s why."

As for Brenda, she "didn't see as much" as Beverly, because she "just looked up and glanced."

"I didn’t see all that detail," she said. "I did see a glimpse of a fluttering wing or something, but not all the detail [Beverly] saw."

Although the sighting lasted only several seconds, both women stuck by their story despite the skepticism expressed by those close to them, and emphasized that they did not wish to embellish their testimony in any way. In fact, if it wasn't for Brenda's son mentioning the report from October, they may never have reported their own sighting.

Brenda said that, following their sighting, "Everybody was saying ‘Oh, you saw an owl,’ or whatever. I just shut up, because everybody was acting like I’m crazy."

"We went home kind of scared, and [Beverly's] family acted like we were crazy. I honestly don’t know how I could shut up about it, because I know what I saw. I just kind of let it go, until [my son] said that people started seeing it," she explained. "What makes this so funny or odd, is that [my son] messaged me and asked if I’d heard of all these sightings. Before I heard anything that he’d had to say, I told him what we saw. I told him where we’d seen it, and he said ‘Mom, that’s the same area.’ If we’d have turned instead of going straight, we would have ended up where the [October sighting happened]."

Beverly added, "My husband said it was a pile of leaves that were swirling. No, it’s not. That’s not what it was. A crane? No, it wasn’t a crane. I know a crane. It was very unusual and unsettling. That’s why we started talking about it again. We saw something in the same area [as the other sighting], and I cannot tell you what it was."

"I’m so glad you called," she said to lead investigator Tobias Wayland. "Because I wanted to tell somebody, but we just didn’t know what to do with the information so we just didn’t do anything. Then we heard talk again, and it’s the same area."

Despite its variance from other reported sightings, this sighting’s close proximity to the Illinois border, the nearby sighting from last October, and a 2016 sighting near West Alton, Missouri, allows for the possibility that it might be related in some way to the string of ‘Mothman’ sightings from within a several hundred mile radius surrounding Lake Michigan, including every state bordering the great lake. These 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—although in a small number of cases the creature was described as insect-like—sometimes with glowing or reflective red, yellow, green, or orange eyes, and humanoid features such as arms and legs 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; including 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.