In 1891, a giant atmospheric creature was sighted hovering among the clouds. It filled witnesses with dread, flapping about in apparent agony as it terrorized the people below.
A horrific sight awaited a multitude of witnesses in Crawfordsville, Indiana. Reported in the Crawfordsville Journal on September 5, 1891, a strange white creature hovered above the town.
It was described as having no definitive shape, with undulating fins lining its form. The creature was described as 18 feet long and 8 feet wide, resembling a large white shroud in the sky.
Having no visible head or tail, the creature’s main defining point was a single great eye, flaming in the center of where its “face” (or maybe just the seeming “front” of it) would be.
Several accounts of this creature were reported over the course of a few days. Witnesses included two delivery men, a Methodist pastor and his wife, and supposedly many others.
The latter “many others” were interviewed years later, putting doubt on the credibility of reports however.
At the time of the sighting two local men, John Hornbeck and Abe Hernley, claimed to follow the wraith around the town before discovering its true identity: a flock of killdeer. Supposedly the town had recently installed electric lights outdoors, which may have frightened the flock into swarming around confusedly.
Despite likely being a misidentified murmuring of birds, the Crawfordsville Monster has lived on in its appearance in the roleplaying game Dungeons and Dragons. Atmospheric creatures like this are interesting phenomena; I believe I will be posting more about them in the future.
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