Woman Reports Phantom Chimeric Creature near Beloit, Wisconsin

Adam Benedict of the Pine Barrens Institute received a report two weeks ago from a woman who said she and her husband had seen a bizarre, chimeric creature in the spring of 2013 near Beloit, Wisconsin.

In her initial email, the witness said that she and her husband had "just turned off Burton St onto McKinley Ave" and were "driving towards Newark Rd” at approximately 4 p.m., when "across the field on the right [they] saw an animal by the tree line."

Her husband, who was driving, slowed down to get a better look at it, but traffic behind them forced the couple to keep driving. During their initial pass they saw an animal that "seemed to be on its back legs by a tree."

"It was barrel shaped and we were wondering if it was a bear. It dropped to all fours and started moving," the witness wrote. "We were debating if it was a bear, wild boar or the strangest dog we have ever seen."

View of the treeline from the road. (Image credit: Emily Wayland)

Despite the witness’ reservations that the animal would be gone if they went back, her husband decided to turn the car around for a second look. They drove back down McKinley, and performed a U-turn on Burton St, which once again put the animal to their right. The pair pulled their car over onto the shoulder, and that’s when, according to the witness, “everything just gets weird.”

In a second email to Benedict the witness went into greater detail regarding the sighting.

Up until this point I objectively believe my husband and I and the people in the car behind us saw a strange animal in the field. The rest of this story is my subjective experience. The animal was coming towards us. It moved like a cat, graceful with a long flicky tail. It didn't look like a cat though, except for the head. It was dark, but not black, brindled, dark browns with some black. The fur was short like a dog with some glossiness to it. Its head was massive and triangle shaped, the eyes were large and green. The head looked so robust, like you could hit it with a bat and it would break the bat. It was flat like a cats, no snout like a dog or bear. Its chest was also triangle shaped and really muscular with legs that came down like a bulldogs. The back end was a smaller triangle with legs that came off like a German Shepard. This thing was big and solid muscle. I think the top of its head would of came to my chin, so about 4 foot. The tail was about the same length as the body.

A sketch of the animal provided by the witness.

The animal then began to amble towards them from about halfway across the field.

"This was what was confusing, it moved like a cat, but didn't look like one," she explained. "The whole time I had the feeling it knew we were watching and found the situation amusing. Also the longer you watched it the harder it became to see it. Like its edges were blurring. It got to about 30 feet from the road and lied down, in a ‘C’ shape, just like a cat. It was staring at us and I was staring at it. But the longer I looked at it, it almost seemed to become pixelated."

The couple then reportedly felt a sudden, overwhelming fear; something that has had a profound affect on how they chose to interpret the experience as individuals.

"I don't know how long this lasted, with a feeling of amusement on its side and wonder and confusion on our part," the witness said. "It changed in a heartbeat, the feeling that it could come through my window and bite my head off and my husband hitting the gas both seemed to happen at the same time."

"I looked at him and he goes ‘how was there no traffic?’ It seemed like we had been parked for at least 5 minutes," she continued. "Then he said it was a dog. It was said in the tone of voice that says please let that of been a dog. If you ask him now he will tell you we saw a deformed dog. I think he really needs it to be a dog, where I'm okay with living with not ever knowing. We were at the stop sign on Newark Rd when it hit me that I was an idiot because I had my phone and could of taken a picture."

The Singular Fortean Society was able to contact the witness and speak to her over the phone. She corroborated the details of her report with no embellishment, and was consistent throughout the conversation.

“The more we tried to look at it the more confused we got,” she explained. “It was laughing at us…it knew we were confused.”

Towards the end of the encounter, the creature was only 20-30’ feet from their vehicle, but they still were having trouble focusing on the details of its appearance.

“The edges of it were getting fuzzy. You couldn’t focus on it,” said the witness. “The harder you tried to look at it the less you were actually seeing.”

And what their minds were able to comprehend simply didn’t seem right.

“Everything about it was wrong,” she said. “It was just like nothing fit.”

The witness also said that the next day a friend and coworker confessed that she had experienced a similar event in the area.

“She’s a hunter and she had no idea what she was looking at,” the witness said of her friend’s encounter. “That’s the part that kind of bothers me the most.”

When asked if perhaps the creature had been a ranging mountain lion, the witness was certain that it was not.

“I know what that kind of cat looks like,” she said. “This thing was massive…a solid 300 lbs. Its head was triangular and its eyes were far to the sides.”

“I grew up in the country,” she continued. “I’ve lived in this area my entire flipping life. The emotion was different [in this sighting]. We’ve seen stuff we couldn’t immediately identify, but it didn’t have this kind of ‘through the looking glass’ feeling.”

The Singular Fortean Society