Linda S. Godfrey - Monsters Among Us

O n January 3, 2014, something dropped from somewhere into the middle of a snowy field in southeastern Wisconsin. Id been studying the location for months in an effort to help the property owner figure out the source of strange footprints and happenings there, but trail cameras, nighttime stakeouts, and following the trackways had all proved futile. And although bizarre situations had become the routine rather than the exception in this small, secluded acreage, the apparent landing from nowhere was one of the most baffling events yet.

First, the owner and I wondered, why did it choose this field, this winter? Unless it hailed from someplace resembling Hoth, the ice planet in George Lucass The Empire Strikes Back, the unknown visitor was unlikely to have been attracted by the weather. The Midwest had been suffering through one of the most brutal winters in recent history, with low temperatures and amounts of snow that made it feel more like Antarctica than Wisconsin. In this field, six inches of snow topped by a delicate crust should have recorded the tracks of anything weighing more than a field mouse. But surrounded by pristine whiteness with absolutely no indication of any approach by man, animal, or machine were what looked like canine tracks that measured about four by five inches. There were no forepaw prints, just the hind ones, so that it appeared bipedal. The fresh-looking prints were punched deep into the snow and clearly showed a trackway of single clawed toe pads that ruled out deer, felines, or something else that had stepped precisely into its own front paw prints to create an illusion of larger tracks. And the visitor was evidently not interested in the remains of a deer carcass lying only fifty yards away. Its trackway showed it made a straight beeline north for a thickly wooded area on the other side of the field, which was surrounded by woods and other farmland and was not visible from the road.

The property owner, Roy Smith (name withheld by request), was stunned at the implications. Beyond the obvious question of how something could just drop out of the air into a field, he had to wonder why, since the tracks were obviously too small to be humanwas the drop-in walking only on its hind legs? When he shared those concerns with me, I was equally mystified. (He did take photos, but the all-white conditions of this particular scene were too limited in scope and shadow to be useful for publication.)

Other than the extremely unlikely scenarios of a tiny skydiver wearing paw-shaped boots or a person let down from a helicopter while wearing fake paw printequipped stilts, I had no idea as to how the track maker could apparently just pop out of nowhere. One word did enter my head, a word I still dont often use alongside reports of unexplainable animals.