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Mysterious Creature Reported

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A woman with whom I am acquainted shared an experience she recently had while walking her dog about 1 a.m. in downtown Alton, where she lives. Please keep in mind that this column isn't a prank. I should also add that this woman is not delusional, nor was she intoxicated or stoned.


She told me that she saw a strange creature. She described it as tall, dark, and large. It had a human face, which was white in color. Its eyes glowed and it had long black wings. She saw it fly.

The woman lost sight of the creature but spotted it later in a corner. The dog she was walking growled at it, which would seem to confirm the creature’s existence.

This incident occurred in the vicinity of the Dunphy Building in which my book shop is located, so I have a personal stake in this.

I shared what she told me on one of the Alton Facebook pages. One person facetiously posted, ”She should talk to a police sketch artist. Put the picture in the paper and offer a reward. It may not work but it will get Alton some publicity.” I was hardly surprised when my post drew comments such as “Piasa Bird' has returned” and “Descendant of the Piasa bird.”



The woman described this winged creature as having “a human face.” As a matter of fact, Father Jacques Marquette wrote in his journal that the strange pictographs he saw on the bluffs in 1673 near present-day Alton had man-like faces.  

When I shared the woman’s encounter with this mystery creature on my Facebook page, my friends eagerly offered their theories. “I believe her,” a woman who lives in Oklahoma wrote. “She saw something unexplainable. Not human. She shouldn't go walking around at night; especially since she knows she saw it."

I should mention for the record that the woman who spotted this creature is now very reluctant to walk her dog in the evening.

A Facebook friend whose opinion I greatly respect posted, “After my experiences with the ‘white lady’ at Mineral Springs I would be inclined to believe she had some kind of supernatural experience.” She’s referring to the former Mineral Spring Hotel that is just down East Broadway from the Dunphy Building. The place is allegedly haunted and the “white lady” is said to be one of the Mineral Springs’ resident ghosts.



Several commentators on my page as well as the Alton page made references to "Mothman,” a creature who was headline news decades ago but has since slipped into obscurity. Mothman was spotted in the vicinity of Point Pleasant, West Virginia during the period 1966 to 1967. It was the subject of John Keel’s 1975 book “The Mothman Prophecies” as well as a 2002 film starring Richard Gere and Laura Linney.

Mothman was described as a large winged creature with glowing red eyes. The Alton woman indeed described the thing she saw as having glowing eyes. However, she said that it had black wings, while Mothman’s wings are said to be white.


Nonetheless, a friend posted, “I live in Point Pleasant, home of the Mothman, and it could be a sighting. There was another sighting (Las Vegas) of a similar creature just a couple days after a meteorite struck nearby -- but presto . . . .” This Point Pleasant resident’s comment was seemingly confirmed by a Florida friend who wrote, “I'm seeing similar reports in articles across the US.”


One of the most intriguing posts read: “I don’t know about anyone else but I have the feeling something momentous is about to happen and the appearance of cryptids is part of it. The lady saw what she saw and it’s not from around here. She’s right and she shouldn’t be gaslighted for speaking about it. I don’t know what it is or what to do about it.”


Cryptids are mysterious animals such as Bigfoot and the Chupacabra that some persons believe might exist but have yet to be authenticated by science.

An upstate friend, who describes herself as “an advocate for reason,” theorized that the woman had seen a large owl that she hadn’t identified as such because of the darkness and distance from which she viewed it.


”Because of their forward-facing eyes, owl faces have a human aspect," she noted.   “The faces of barn owls are strikingly pale. If a barn owl was roosting on a post of some sort, or a small tree or a shrub, its face could be at the height of a tall human.”

If the creature was indeed a barn owl, she wrote, the woman was “lucky it didn’t call. The call of a barn owl is generally described as ‘the scream of a woman being murdered.’ Might have frightened her to death.”


I choose to believe my upstate friend solved the mystery.

A barn owl in the neighborhood of the Dunphy Building I can deal with. A cryptid, not so much.

John J. Dunphy is the author of "Unsung Heroes of the Dachau Trials: The Investigative Work of the U.S. Army 7708 War Crimes Group, 1945-1947."



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