05/09/2026
In the early hours of 5 September 1891, two ice-delivery workers, Marshall McIntyre and Bill Gray, were preparing their wagon in Crawfordsville, Indiana, at around 2 a.m. when they noticed something enormous moving through the sky.
They estimated it to be roughly 18โ20 feet long and 8 feet wide. It appeared white and shapeless, with what seemed to be several pairs of fin-like appendages helping it move through the air.
Most bizarrely, the men reported seeing what appeared to be a single glowing or โflamingโ eye, while an eerie wheezing or plaintive noise seemed to come from the creature.
The object reportedly circled nearby buildings before moving away and then returning. The frightened men eventually sought shelter.
And they weren't the only witnesses. Reverend G. W. Switzer, a local Methodist minister, was also reported to have seen the strange apparition, along with his wife.
Two local men, John Hornbeck and Abe Hernley, reportedly followed the phenomenon and concluded that the terrifying creature was actually a large flock of killdeer birds flying together.
One proposed explanation was that Crawfordsville's recently installed electric lights had disoriented the birds. Their white under-feathers and rapidly beating wings could potentially have created the appearance of one enormous, constantly moving white shape in the darkness.
Despite that explanation, the story became one of America's strangest early cryptid/UFO-style reports, and decades later it attracted the attention of paranormal researcher Charles Fort.
After terrifying witnesses over two nights in September 1891, it was never reliably reported again.
