[UPDATED] It looks as if a Mothman may have paid a visit to the Windy City. According to witness reports a large bat-like creature with glowing red eyes was spotted in the University Park neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois on Friday, September 30th 2011. Witnesses spotted the creature, which they estimated to be 6 to 7 feet tall, perched on a basketball hoop in Miller Park. When it took off, the heard an audible “whoosh” as it beat its wings. Nearby two female witnesses were moved to hysterics when they spotted a pair of glowing red eyes peering in the window. Researchers have identified multiple witness and are currently investigating the incident.

If the creature that was spotted in Chicago was a Mothman, could there be a tragedy in the city’s future? If we are to believe the historic sightings of the Mothman, it very well may be. After the 1966 and 1967 sightings in Point Pleasant, West Virginia the Silver Bridge, which connected the town to Kanauga, Ohio over the Ohio river collapsed during rush hour killing 46. There are also reports of a Mothman type creature being spotted around the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant shortly before the plants catastrophic failure in 1986. If the Mothman is indeed an omen of catastrophe, what does the future hold for Chicago?

UPDATE: I can’t believe that I failed to make the connection when I was writing the post, but Friday Oct 8th there was a major freight train derailment 100 miles outside of Chicago. The derailment set off a series of massive explosions that caused the evacuation of the 800 residents of the small town of Tiskilwa, Illinois. Amazingly, no one was hurt in the accident. Could the Mothman sighting be linked to this accident, or is something else in store for Chicago?

A possible Mothman sighting in Chicago, Illinois? [via @CoraxSays]

Let me start by saying that I am a little conflicted on whether I should post this clip, but I am going to anyways and let you decide if you can trust what you are seeing. This footage was shot on a cellphone by an Australian filmmaker by the name of Michael Freudenberg. Apparently, while on a September 21st flight between Hamilton Island and Brisbane, Australia, he captured the two objects zipping past his window while he was recording video. According to Mr. Freudenberg, while he was filming he thought the objects were just a reflection on the screen of his cell phone. It wasn’t until he watched the footage that he realized he had recorded something outside of the plane.

First, let me say that I don’t take any issue with the fact that he was just randomly recording the view from his plane’s window as some of the YouTube commenters have. Personally, I have taken photos out the window of a plane just out of sheer boredom. Also as a filmmaker who sells stock footage from his website, Freudenberg may have been “testing out” a shot to see if it was worth shooting something similar in higher quality. Frankly, I feel that there are enough potential reasonable explanations for the filming that we shouldn’t discount the clip just because there isn’t a blatantly obvious reason for him to have recorded. This however brings us to the elephant in the room.

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Here we have an interesting video that, unfortunately, comes to us with very little information other than it was recorded on October 4th somewhere in the United States in Lee’s Summit, Missouri. From the weird aspect ratio we can surmise that it was taken with a cellphone camera, like the one found on the iPhone 4 (which I know firsthand will produce this aspect ratio if held vertical). From the color of the objects we can rule out Chinese lanterns (which would be orange) since there does not appear to be any tampering with the white balance (the street lamps are still orange as they normally would be). What we can’t rule out is that we are seeing white or clear helium balloons with white LEDs inside, at least with the resolution available on YouTube. If this footage was shot on an iPhone 4 there should be better quality footage of this event somewhere that might clear this up. Adding some weight to the balloon theory is the audio track. This sighting seems to have occurred at a bar or concert where the balloons may have been used as accent lighting. However, the audio isn’t completely in favor of the balloon hypothesis. If you listen carefully you can hear people asking “what is it?” Ultimately, without more information and better video, I don’t think this sighting can be labeled one way or another. What do you think?

UPDATE: The location this video was taken is now being reported as Lee’s Summit Missouri and more reports of the sighting are piling up in the MUFON database. Could this be the next Phoenix lights?

UFO formation recorded in USA October 4 2011 [via UFOs On Earth]