I'm Lauren Norton, and this is one strange thing, the show where we search the nation's news archives for stories that can't quite be explained. As followers of the divinely weird and craftily creepy,

you are no doubt familiar with one of the world's most famous cryptids,

the mothman of Point Pleasant, West Virginia. He is, without a doubt, one of the big

ones, right up there with the Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot, and Chupacabra, and the list of the

world's most recognizable cryptids. Now, you might know that Mothman, despite his penchant for screaming, portending doom, and

terrifying teens in the woods, has his very own statue in Point Pleasant, West Virginia.

Not only that, he has a festival, he has merch.

But his story, however fascinating, has been told and told well, and even made into a few motion pictures, major or otherwise, upon which we will withhold judgment.

This is a podcast about the nation's lesser-known creatures, and today

we want to bring you a moth and a man, a very manly moth or a very mothly man, who we feel

has not gotten his due. Not yet anyway. Perhaps it will just take time. Hopefully, it won't take a tragedy.

But as of now, there just hasn't been enough attention on a certain flying phenomena known

variously as the Chicago Mothman or Chicagoland Mothman or the Lake Michigan Mothman.

Now, there's a pretty big difference between a Chicago area cryptid and a cryptid that,

like Lake Michigan, appears along the expanses of four states, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin. But somehow, our flying friend

and the star of today's episode can be all things to all people. Get, as they say, a cryptid

that can do both. Strapin. It's time for takeoff. You'll have to forgive us if we fly in a few circles on the way.

So, if you're familiar with the Mothman, the original, if we may be so bold as to declare

him, you probably know that the sightings of that particular winged harbinger were at their height in the mid-20th century.

But, according to NPR, the Midwestern Lepidotra seems to have made his main stage premiere

sometime around 2011 with a peak in activity in 2017.

If a cryptid can have a comeback tour, it seems that this was Mothman or Mothman 2's Midwestern

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