Introduction

In 1995, a heavy fog abruptly hit the suburbs of Minton, Michigan. These sudden fog storms weren’t uncommon for the spring season here in April; however, this fog was far worse than usual… “It didn’t just cloud the view where I could see maybe only 80 meters, you couldn’t even really see the steps to your own front porch.”, one woman said.

This fog was at a record-breaking high, covering an estimated 1,500 square miles, the highest fog distance previously recorded being “The Deadly London Fog” back in 1952.

Another man said, “I had to stay at work for over 2 hours because every road in the county was shut down. Not even with your headlights on the highest setting could you see anything.” People who were outside walking also claimed to have had medical problems while it occurred. These are some reported incidents from the people in question: “I was out on a walk when the fog formed. After maybe 5 minutes of being out there, I felt dizzy, the world felt like there was a tremor below me. I fell down maybe like--maybe about 2 or 3 times because it was just so intense.”

“I felt sick to my stomach, I started having a severe migraine, my head was throbbing! I think it got so bad that I had to rush over to a bush in a random guy’s lawn and puke…that lasted maybe a couple minutes. But- not an incident I like to remember.”

“The damn fog made the air so thin to the point where I think it started fucking with my vision, there was this weird…wobble or blurr, the kind that happens when you make a fire. But the blur was in the outline of a shape…a shape I can’t think of…point is...it looked like it was outlining something…”

The last report isn't the first of those supposed "sightings". Ten other reports of seeing something in the fog with a similar description had been documented during this incident. Some outliers in these descriptions depicted glowing lights akin to headlights within the outline of the shape.

One of the bigger reports came after 16-year-old Tatum Holmes went missing for 2 hours after the fog had settled. “He had gone out with his friends to the park around 3:00, which was maybe an hour before the fog had hit. Then the fog hit and he didn’t show up for the longest time.” his mother said.

“I figured it was since they couldn’t see anything with how thick the fog was and they just decided to stay and wait it out. Then…by the time the fog eventually cleared, I looked out the window for him and I saw his friends running home…in a sweat, scared. No sign of Tatem out there…One of their mothers called me a few minutes later and told me that his house key fell out of his pocket while they were out playing so he went to find it and then they got split off and couldn’t find him.”

A search party was started and lasted 2 hours. Eventually, they found him buried under a pile of leaves, shaking…his skin was drained of color, clumps of his hair were scattered around him, as if he had been pulling at it for a good half hour. His pupils were dilated, and bags hung under his eyes. He couldn’t even speak; most of the noises that came from him were nonsensical babbling. Tatum was rushed to the hospital and stayed there overnight. The doctors couldn’t find anything physically wrong with him. When asked why he was so pale and why he looked so horrified, it was claimed to have been caused by a rapid-fire onslaught of panic attacks, presumed to be caused by being separated from his family. “I didn’t believe that half-baked excuse when they said that.” Tatum’s mother said.

“Tatum was always so level headed and calm, even on his worst days, he never had suffered panic attacks before.”

After returning home, he still was not the same…

He barely ate and stayed in his room for most hours of the day. When he spoke, he could only speak in short, choppy utterances. Whenever his parents asked about what happened, he just froze. Then, on April 25th, at 9:05 PM, 5 days after the fog storm…his mother walked into his room. There he was, lying on the floor, his eyes gouged out with a pocket knife. A couple of sticky notes were scattered on the floor, with scribbles violently drawn across the paper. The only readable thing on any of the sticky notes was: “I can’t unsee it…but what did I see!?”

He was rushed to the hospital, but he was pronounced dead a quarter hour after being admitted. This report from 27 years ago is one of the few documented incidents regarding the strange phenomena coming from the fog of Michigan. As mentioned before, there had been people who reported seeing a strange outlined presence of a creature inside the fog, and after the incident with Tatum, this led conspirators and eager monster hunters to conclude that these reports were not coincidental and that there was, in fact, something in the fog.

Native Origins

Despite the fewer reports in the modern era, claims of sensing something abstract or sinister within the fog of Michigan are not new. Word of a supposed fog demon or fog creature dates back to the 1700s with the Odawa tribe. The tales say that the tribe would go hunting for food and, on occasion, the fog would become much thicker than normal. During these incidents, the natives would become blinded and separated from their hunting parties. When the fog settled, they would find the separated natives speaking in complete, utter nonsense. Nonsensical babbling was frequently noted. This was usually followed within the passing week or so by the natives blinding themselves with sharp twigs, sand, or sometimes gouging out their eyes in a manner similar to Tatem. With no official name for the creature, it was usually called “The Fog Demon” or “Mist Spirit,” or something along those lines. While there are, for the most part, no more living members of that tribe who have witnessed this phenomenon, there is a descendant, Nibi, who claims that one of her ancestors had told stories about it before.

“My ancestor, Makwa, and her father, Mizigi, would go out on the lake with canoes to lure out fish with bright torches at night. One of those nights, the fog had started to form and they could feel the canoe rocking heavily…they tried to use the torches to dissipate the fog and kept rowing, but the rattling got stronger and stronger and then…within the fog, something began to take shape…they didn’t know what exactly though…eventually the shape began to form more and more. Makwa couldn’t see the thing as she was rowing facing towards the shore, but her father…she could sense him going cold, she didn’t want to know what it was, if it was enough to make him go silent, she knew it must’ve been urgent…she rowed them back to the shore and fled from the fog… Mizigi didn’t speak a word for the longest time…until the final day he was alive…Makwa’s mother asked him what he saw, hoping he would finally open up, he simply said:

“Gaawiin gegoo,” which means “nothing.”

A few hours later, Mizigi went out by the lake where he saw the thing and stuck a fishing spear into his eyes. After his passing, Makwa carried on and would tell her children the same story as a warning to flee if the fog is to come…”

Mitch Powell’s Story

While the other four supposed families to witness the creature are either out of touch or have since passed, there was, however, one witness that stood out from the rest: Mitch Powell, a cryptozoologist who made it his hobby to hunt for urban legends. He had reached out and claimed to have encountered the fog demon—and lived. The following is a transcript of our interview with Powell. Interviewer: Now Mitch, why don’t you start by telling us, what drove you to search for it?

Powell: I had been fascinated by the rumor of monsters all my life, call it my will to live. Debunking myths is what I lived to do, Jersey Devil, Loch Ness Monster, Chupacabra, you name it. Most of these myths were explained by many things. Mistaken animals, floating logs and some were just pure photoshop.

Interviewer: But what made you decide to go looking for this one?

Powell: Dumb arrogance, desire to be right I guess. Desperate to prove it was fake.

Interviewer: If there wasn’t an actual creature in the fog, what did you suppose it was?

Powell: The most terrifying real life horror there is out there, your mind. The fog that happened during the Tatem incident made it so blinding, so hard to see, that your mind tries to fill in the blanks itself based on memory of what should be there. So your mind fills in the blanks of trees, buildings, mountains and what have you. But sometimes your mind feels the knowledge that something is there, but it can’t remember what or where exactly on point it was but it knows it was there.

Interviewer: So, the mind was playing tricks on them.

Powell: Yes, precisely.

Interviewer: You really think Tatum’s mind came up with something so horrible that it led him to gouge his eyes out?

Powell: …Anything your mind obsesses over can drive you to great extremes.

Interviewer: But- to kill himself, over just not piecing something together?

Powell: Well not that alone, but, the fear of being trapped, split up from his friends and his mother on top of believing to have seen something? That trauma…those panic attacks he had, those all can build up inside if not talked about.

Interviewer: But you believe that this suicide after seeing the fog was all the same thing for five seperate incidents.

Powell: All of those other incidents coming from after the Tatem incident. Even then, the reports of a fog creature dated back into the 1700’s. My theory was that those other four people heard the Tatum story, heard of fog stories and decided to profit off the incident.

Interviewer: We’re getting off track… So, when you went out how did things play out?

Powell: I had packed my car ready for the two hour car ride over to a small town: Roxanne, Michigan. According to the weather channel and online predictions, that's where the fog was said to be the most prominent. Scheduled to have lasted for up to 3 hours at least, from 7-9 PM. I brought my camera, spare batteries, a high powered flashlight and a notepad and pen to jot and illustrate what I saw, IF I saw something.

Interviewer: And what happened?

Powell: I went down the routes I mapped out prior. I traveled down the empty suburban roads back and forth, up and down. I frequently took pictures just in case I missed something. However, for the first hour and a half, I had nothing to find. I traveled through multiple routes, even did small minor trespassing to make short cuts through the fog in case the creature was running into hiding. I traveled left, right, up, down, zig, zag, diagonal, you name a line I traveled in, I took it. Eventually, my camera battery was starting to give out and I felt like I had enough time to conclude that it was fake. I began to look for my way back to my car when I started to realize something, the fog had gotten immensely denser. I had no sense of direction, thanks to my nonsensical and aimless tracking and what’s worse, it has made my map and route notes almost completely unreadable, the fog gave me almost no field of vision, not even my flashlight helped, the light was just consumed by it. I began roaming aimlessly again, stretching my hands out to keep me from bumping into walls of a house or running into trees. As I tried to feel my surroundings, suddenly, I stopped dead in my tracks. I felt something…I cannot fathom the texture…it was…gaseous but felt like sticking my hand into aspic. But even that's not a good description, it was as if your mind couldn’t even function with the feeling of it so they related it to a bunch of other textures to fill in the gaps. I couldn’t stop shaking! I wanted to run, but I couldn’t feel my legs. I tried looking behind me, but it had me surrounded, enclosed in a dome. I could feel my body violently vibrating, like a tremor just struck me! I tried to write down what I saw, just trusting that my raising and lowering of my pen made out actual words! I felt myself pushing down on the paper, so hard that I worried that I was gonna stab a hole through it or that I was gonna break the pen. I felt so…mad. Looking at this thing drove me mad! I had this urge…this urge to poke my eyes out with the pen because I just couldn’t take what I saw anymore! Then…everything went dark.

Interviewer:...You’re saying you saw the creature?

Powell: That’s a word for it.

Interviewer: I was under the impression that those who see the creature are driven to suicide.

Powell: No, it doesn’t lead them to suicide. It drives people mad, trying to make sense of what they saw, leading the victim to blind themselves which inadvertently leads to them bleeding to death.

Interviewer: And what did you do?

Powell: I had used my flashlight to blind me so I couldn’t truly see it. So I could never fully see it again. Or really ever see again, someone had rushed me to the hospital and my wife has helped me move around the house.

Interviewer: When you did see the creature, what did you see?

Powell:...Nothing.

Interviewer: I thought you said you saw the creature before you went blind?

Powell: Yes and it was nothing. Remember what I said about the mind not being able to fully picture something that is there, but it knows it is there?

Interviewer: Yes?

Powell: That’s what happened. The mold of something being in the fog was there, but the real form was not, just a completely discombobulated feel of what may be there. The closest sign of something in the fog apart from the outline was the mist clouds circling in or revolving around a creature. Maybe there was something of visible nature in the very very center of the fog that I just could not fully envision just out of reach. If just the illusion of something being there could lead people to take their life, and all without even truly seeing the creature in the heart of the fog, I think it’s best we do not know….

Conclusion

To this day, Mitch Powell still claims to have had an actual encounter with the creature; however, many people have quickly protested that his story is false. Some claim his excuse for staying alive is ridiculous and a stretch, others say it wouldn’t make sense for someone who debunks monster stories to go and fake a story about one as well. Whether the story is true or false is still up for debate. But nonetheless, the rumors of “The Michigan Fog” still spread to this day, and people still claim to have lost people to hysteria from the fog. So if a dense fog is to roll around Michigan, and you’re near…stay inside and don’t look into the fog.