Correction: the ESP8266 briefly outputs data at 74880 baud. (The ESP32 does not, it uses 115200 from the start.)
As others have mentioned, this looks like a baud rate mismatch. If you are 100% sure that you are receiving at 115200 (maybe try a different program or a different computer), that means that the ESP must be sending at a different rate than it thinks. (I don’t know if that is even possible.) What kind of board/module is this? Any weird overclocking setup?
As a wild guess, what happens when you receive at 115200*115200/74880 = 177230 baud?
Edit: Some googling suggests that this happens when you have a 40 MHz crystal instead of the usual 26 MHz and the firmware isn’t set up for it:
https://www.esp8266.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=12175
https://www.esp8266.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=8119