Creatures, Myths & Legends

Witnesses report midnight encounter with 'owl man' on road in Illinois

By T.K. Randall
March 8, 2025 ·  15 comments

An AI-generated depiction of what the couple saw. Image Credit: AI / Phantoms and Monsters One recent episode of the revived Unsolved Mysteries TV show on Netflix details the phenomenon of people encountering strange, winged humanoids at locations all across the United States.

Now one such incident has been submitted to Lon Strickler's Phantoms and Monsters website which has spent years collating real-life stories of cryptozoological encounters.

According to the report, a couple had been driving home in Rolling Meadows, Illinois in June 2022 after midnight when they came across something that they couldn't explain.

"As we got close to home, a very large winged creature landed on the road on the opposite side," the woman wrote. "It was dark, but we could see the massive wings that were larger than an SUV."

"The wings were spread out, and we slowed down and stopped the car."They described the "owl man" as being roughly humanoid in shape and around 4-5ft tall.

"This was no bird. It was huge, and when I shone my lights on it, it shot up so fast into the tall trees and disappeared," the woman wrote.

Keen to find out what they had witnessed, they turned the car around and went back to the same spot but there was no further sign of the creature - it had completely disappeared.

So what could the couple have seen that night ?

Was it the fabled "owl man", or could there have been a more conventional explanation ?

You decide.

Source: Phantoms and Monsters | Comments (15)

Tags: Cryptozoology, Cryptid