Illinois is known for its miles of prairie, and for being a state rich in history – but what if that rich history isn’t quite what you’ve been told?

It’s a bird… it’s a plane… no, it’s giant winged creatures stalking the Midwest?! Small Town Monsters, the paranormal enthusiasts and documentarians who earlier this year brought us the miniseries On the Trail of Bigfoot (2019) which chronicled perhaps the world’s most famous monster, is now bringing us the goods on yet another giant cryptid, this time, ones that fly through the skies over Middle America in their new feature-length documentary, Terror In The Skies. Co-written and directed by Seth Breedlove, Terror in The Skies documents the team’s research into sightings of giant birds, most recently dubbed “the Mothman”, which have occurred from the edges of the Ozarks of Illinois to the initial sightings of the 1940s in West Virginia. Stressing the need to document sightings to give the field of cryptozoology and paranormal research efficacy, Terror in The Skies leans on interviews from other researchers as well as harrowing eyewitness accounts for the evidence of this monster from the sky.

Reports of a giant, black figure suddenly began springing up around Chicago in the summer of 2018; news outlets would dub it the “Chicago Mothman”, in reference to similar accounts from a town ironically named Point Pleasant, West Virginia, which is known for being incredibly haunted and has been riddled with sightings of “The Mothman” as far back as the 1940s. According to paranormal researchers of the area though, this is business as usual, as the prairie state is known for its many crypto-zoological mysteries. Delving deep into the history of Illinois by calling upon Native American legends that pre-date sightings of what crypto-zoologists refer to as “a flap” – clusters of sightings that share the same accounts of this large flying bird-creature – to give background and standing to the myth that is the Mothman, Terror in The Skies is a very thorough collection of creepy and often near-fatal accounts with bird-like creatures reportedly the size of small planes!

In comparison to their On the Trail of Bigfoot release earlier this year, Terror in the Skies feels more like a traditional documentary since they didn’t decide to follow a show-host through the woods this time, but instead, stuck strictly to researcher interviews, witness accounts, and periodical information from newspapers narrated by Lyle Blackburn. The documentary is not necessarily slow-paced, but it is without that feeling of excitement and fervor for solving the mystery that I did find in their On the Trail of Bigfoot feature. Despite the lack of that ‘in the thick of it’ excitement, I think I enjoyed Terror in the Skies more; it offered straightforward information on the subject mixed in with very well-produced animated sequences similar to the style of those used in Seth MacFarlane’s docu-series reboot, Cosmos. Terror in The Skies had interviews from cryptozoological authors Loren Coleman, Tobias Wayland and others, articles from newspapers, and eyewitness accounts from seemingly reputable people, which helped to make this more like a traditional documentary as well.

The documentary is broken up into themed sections, such as “Prehistoric” “The Lawndale Incident” and “Almost Human” (and others), which act like bullet points of evidence, leading to a somewhat lightly drawn conclusion of a Mothman being’s existence. My only real gripe is that it was not longer, as any extra time could have been spent better driving home the opinion that this creature is for real. All in all, I thought this was a great effort put forth by Small Town Monsters, who has been making independent paranormal content autonomously for the last 5 years — with more on the way! I would be interested in seeing further exploration into this subject from them, as well as any other paranormal and cryptozoological stories the creepy crew can dredge up from middle America.

Should you find yourself walking around Illinois, look up! You may just be surprised to see a glimpse of this urban legend that seems to be more fact than fiction, or at the very least, stranger than fiction. Check out the trailer for Small Town Monster’s latest creature feature, Terror in The Skies, then catch it flying into your DVD player after its release June 7th, 2019.