The state of West Virginia has had its fair share of strange and often inexplicable events such the visitation of the Flatwoods Monster (1952) and Indrid Cold (1966), but perhaps the strangest yet is the arrival of the creature known as the Mothman, which changed the sleepy little town of Point Pleasant forever when it swooped in one cold autumn night in 1966.

Today, Mothman is one of the most well-known cryptids in the world, made famous partly by John Keel's 1975 book (later adapted to film in 2002) The Mothman Prophecies. Mothman was also supposedly hunted on the Reality-TV show Mountain Monsters on Destination America in 2013 (S1E5).

The first Mothman sighting printed by the local newspapers was the Scarberry and Mallette sighting which took place on November 15th 1966 in The TNT Area near Point Pleasant, West Virginia. It was described as a man with wings and red eyes, light gray in coloration. This is when the creature was given the tongue-in-cheek name "Mothman" by the news press. Thirteen months of strange experiences soon followed for the small town.^[0][1]

Sightings

The Scarberry And Mallette Sighting [Nov/15/1966]

On the cold night of November 15th 1966 in the TNT Area, two young couples first encountered the bizarre winged creature. Roger and Linda Scarberry were driving in Roger's black '57 Chevy Bel Air with their friends Steve and Marry Mallette through the area around midnight when they noticed two large glowing red eyes in the darkness beside the old North Power Plant. They soon learned that these eyes belonged to something that looked frankly humanoid, about 6 to 7 feet tall with wings folded against its back. Roger stopped for a minute, inspecting the strange creature, before driving off in a panic. The four realized immediately that this creature was no ordinary bird. The true horror began, however, when the creature spread its wings and pursued them down Route 62 towards the town of Point Pleasant at speeds reportedly exceeding 100 mph. ^[0][1][2]

The four arrived in town, startled and confused, and with no sign of the mysterious bird-like man that had chased them. Roger parked his car at the edge of town and they discussed their encounter and if they should go to the police. Fearing that no one would believe them, they eventually deciding to turn around and be sure of what they saw before telling anyone, and in an attempt to face their fears they again drove towards the TNT Area. It wasn't long before they saw the creature again, which reportedly leaped over their car, and disappeared again into the nearby fields.^[2]

When the teens arrived in town this time they went straight to Tiny's Diner and told them to call the police. Sheriff George Johnson and Deputy Miller Hallsted investigated the TNT area, only to return empty-handed. The next day, a press conference was held and the local press began printing on the story, causing others to come forward with previous and future sightings. This was the major event that started it all. ^[2]

In the November 16th issue of the Point Pleasant Register, the strange encounter would be brought to the public eye with the headline "Couple Sees Man-Sized Bird...Creature...Something." Locals of Point Pleasant simply called the creature "The Bird" but The Herald-Dispatch in Huntington, West Virginia , inspired by the popularity of Batman 66, ran the headline "Bird, Plane or Batman? Mason Countians Hunt ‘Moth Man’." This is how the creature was dubbed "Mothman."^[2][3]

The Mothman Statue Inscription

The Mothman Statue installed in Point Pleasant's main street in 2003 by artist Bob Roach has a inscription on the base labeled "Legend of The Mothman." The inscription reads the following: "On a chilly, fall night in November 1966, two young couples drove into the TNT area north of Point Pleasant, West Virginia, when they realized they were not alone. What they saw that night has evolved into one of the great mysteries of all time; hence the Mothman Legacy began. It has grown into a phenomenon known all over the world by millions of curious people asking questions: What really happened? What did these people see? Has it been seen since? It still sparks the world's curiosity - the mystery behind Point Pleasant, West Virginia's MOTHMAN."

TNT Area History

The creature was sighted in many places across West Virginia and the surrounding states, but the largest number of sightings happened near the old West Virginia Ordnance Works, an area now known by locals as the "TNT Area".

West Virginia Ordnance Works is an abandoned munitions depot to the north of Point Pleasant, West Virginia, that dates back to World War II. The facility, during its operation, manufactured ammunition and dynamite. The surrounding area is mostly forest, dotted with numerous grassy clearings and thick concrete domes, called "igloos", that were used to store barrels of gunpowder. The area is also riddled with abandoned tunnels, most of which have collapsed, been sealed off, or become flooded with water. A wildlife sanctuary, McClintic Wildlife Management, now encompasses the area.

In 1979, fishermen in the TNT Area reported that chemicals had been left to seep into the ponds, causing it to be labeled an environmental disaster. By 1983, the TNT Area was among the country's most polluted sites.

Continued Sightings [November 1966 - December 1967]

After the Scarberry and Mallette story, more sightings, including those supposedly taking place prior, were reported such as a sighting of a humanoid figure perched in a tree from the local National Guard Armory in Point Pleasant on November 1st 1966^[4] and the Kenneth Duncan sighting of November 12th 1966 from a cemetery near Clendenin, West Virginia.^[5] Five men were in a cemetery preparing a grave for burial when they saw something they couldn't explain. Lifting off from the nearby trees was a brown winged creature. The men held to the fact that what lifted off beyond the trees was no bird; it was a humanoid.^[5]

The Mothman would be reportedly seen throughout the next thirteen months in Point Pleasant, and author John Keel who arrived in the town on December 1966 estimated that there were over 100 sightings during this time, although the actual number of known and recorded sightings may be quite a bit lower.

Point Pleasant locals at the time also witnessed strange unexplainable glowing lights in the sky and UFOs at the time. Mothman witnesses also reported poltergeist activity in their homes and were purportedly harassed by mysterious Men In Black who wanted them not to speak about the creature. The strange sightings and experiences all seemed to culminate in the tragic collapse of The Silver Bridge on December 15th 1967. Afterwards, the small tight-knit community grieving the loss of 46 people no longer prioritized reporting unexplained or paranormal happenings such as The Mothman.^[6][7]

Modern sightings of Mothman in Point Pleasant or in West Virginia are still occasionally reported.

Many similar winged humanoid creatures have been seen worldwide. The fictional 2002 Mothman Prophecies Movie starring Richard Gere states that a winged creature was seen before the Chernobyl disaster but that is not true in reality and was confirmed by script writer Richard Hatem in the documentary "The Mothman Legacy (2020)" to be fiction that he invented.^[8] There were also two supposed "angel" photos taken in New York on 9/11 which some have compared to a Mothman-like creature.

Since Mothman seems to rather paranormal, some have remarked that these sightings are not of much interest to flesh and blood "Cryptozoologists" who want to discover new species of animals.

Description

Mothman was described as a bipedal, winged humanoid. Despite his name which was given to him by newspapers, he is in no way moth-like, and has an appearance more like that of a large humanoid bird. His coloration varies from light gray to dark grey to even brown.

He is often reported to be about 6 to 7 feet tall, with a wingspan of about 10 to 15 feet or more, plus the ability to fly at over 100 mph according to the Scarberry and Mallette car chase which is faster than any bird should be able to fly.^[1] A common characteristic reported by several witnesses is that he takes off straight up into the air "like a helicopter" and doesn't flap his wings in flight.^[7][6]

Sometimes he's described as not having a head with the two huge red eyes set in the chest. These eyes are reported to be glowing, or at least reflective. He is sometimes not depicted with arms, but with only wings, though sometimes he has both. The details of his face and his feet have never been adequately described. One witness, Connie Carpenter, who saw the face clearly could only say that the details were horrible and monstrous. According to her boyfriend at the time, she frantically repeated: "Those eyes! those eyes!"^[9][10]

Witnesses who gets a close look at the Mothman seem to suffer from extreme fear and psychological distress, sometimes lasting for months or years afterwards. In particular, witnesses such as Marcella Bennett or Lawrence Gray, said that a sense of pure evil overtook them during their experiences.

Despite cartoonish moth-like depictions based on his misnomer, he does not have antennas.

Hoax

There has yet to be any credible physical or photographic evidence to truly support the existence of Mothman but there are a few photos that have been mistaken for Mothman such as a photo of a bridge taken in 2003 which turned out to just be a piece of metal tilting and falling off. There have also been some photo-shopped images mostly done for art purposes and not to fool anyone.  

Explanations

Mothman sightings have been associated with at least two other cryptids, such as Thunderbirds and Owlman which is a similar creature with wings and red eyes sighted in Cornwall, England in 1976, investigated the sketchy author Tony "Doc" Shiels.

Sheriff George Johnson, who the original witnesses contacted, believed the Mothman may have been a large heron. Wildlife biologist Dr. Robert L. Smith at West Virginia University thought that Mothman was a Sandhill Crane which the newspapers then reported on but the witnesses completely disagreed.^[0][7]

Skeptic Joe Nickell posited Owls as an explanation because of their eye shine and their silhouette resembling the headless Mothman. Nickell also claimed Owls as an explanation for the Flatwoods Monster, and The Kentucky Goblins leading to criticism of him for repeatedly relying on this same explanation for various strange claims. Many modern skeptics seem to agree with Joe Nickell but the sightings might just be too extraordinary to attribute them to such animals.

Some believe the Mothman may be an angel or a demon, both being spiritual entities depicted with wings. Some view Mothman as something akin to Faery lore. A speculative anurognathid pterosaur has also been a claim made by certain people, however that remains fun and speculative zoology.

A bit of ahistorical misinformation of a supposed curse upon the town erroneously linked to the noble indigenous chieftain Chief Cornstalk, who was tragically murdered alongside his son in the area, was proven to be dramatized fiction for an outdoor play performed in Pt Pleasant in 1921 when a transcript was discovered in a storage closet of the Mason County Visitors Bureau in the early 2010’s. The 2012 book Monsters of West Virginia by Rosemary Ellen Guiley and the 2017 documentary film The Mothman of Point Pleasant by Small Town Monsters both cover the debunking of this claim or purported explanation.^[11][6]

Author John Keel, who often wrote about notions of seemingly disparate anomalous phenomena being interconnected, seemed to view Mothman as potentially some sort of paranormal entity or manifestation. Many other authors, researchers, and witnesses share this view.^[7]

Mothman Festival

The Mothman Festival is an annual commemoration of the visit of the cryptid known as the Mothman. It started in 2002 and is held on the third weekend of every September in downtown Point Pleasant, West Virginia. It's located next to the Mothman Museum and the Mothman Statue.

The festival features a wide variety of vendors, guest speakers, live music, food and events for all ages. People from all over the world come to experience the unique atmosphere and learn more about the Mothman.

Entertainment

• Mothman was featured in the game Fallout 76 in which he appears more moth than man.
• Mothman was also featured in the book The Mothman Prophecies by John A. Keel and the movie of the same name.
• He also appears in many movies/documentaries including The Mothman of Point Pleasant and TV shows like Mountain Monsters.
• The Mothman is featured in The Adventure Zone: Amnesty as alien psychic and trailer-park resident Indrid Cold.
• At one point in Restaurant to Another World a Mothman was featured in an episode called Minced Meat Cutlet and Fried Shrimp.
• The Mothman is featured as the first boss fight the player encounters in the first person shooter game Trepang².
• In book 2 of Area 51 Interns a Mothman was featured in its cage where Charlotte was trapped in by her robotic counterpart.
• A Mothman was featured in a Gravity Falls book called Journal 3 where it was depicted as being a swarm of 100 moths that are attracted to lights.
• A fanmade MSM monster named Mothia is directly based on Mothman.
• In an episode of Phineas and Ferb called Haberdasher, Doofenshmirtz used his latest invention to transform himself into a Mothman.
• The Mothman was featured as one of the five cryptid totems in the first episode of horror reality TV series called Guts & Glory.
• A Mothman was featured in an episode of reality prank show called Scare Tactics and the prank was Escape of the Mothman.
• A Mothman was featured as a mutated creature that's part moth and human, it was featured in an episode of Martin Mystery called Attack of the Mothman.

Gallery

Sources:

• [0] Local newspress: The Point Pleasant Register, The Athens Messager, The Herald-Dispatch, 1966-1967
• [1] The Mothman Prophecies (1975) by John Keel, Page 76, Chapter 6. (Nov 15th 1966 - Scarberry And Mallette Sighting)
• [2] Mothman: Facts Behind The Legend (2002) By Jeff Wamsley
• [3] Mothman: Behind The Red Eyes (2005) By Jeff Wamsley
• [4] Strange Creatures From Time And Space (1970) by John Keel, Page 232, Chapter 18 (Nov 1st 1966 - Armory Sighting)
• [5] Strange Creatures From Time And Space (1970) by John Keel Page 213, Chapter 18 & Page 232, Chapter 18 (Nov 12th 1966 - Kenneth Duncan)
• [6] "The Mothman of Point Pleasant (2017)" Documentary by Small Town Monsters
• [7] The Mothman Prophecies (1975) by John Keel
• [8] "The Mothman Legacy (2020)" Documentary by Small Town Monsters
• [9] Strange Creatures From Time And Space (1970) by John Keel Page 218, Chapter 18 & Page 233, Chapter 18 (Nov 27th 1966 - Connie Carpenter)
• [10] The Mothman Prophecies (1975) by John Keel Page 30, Chapter 2 (Nov 27th 1966 - Connie Carpenter)
• [11] "Monsters of West Virginia (2012)" by Rosemary Ellen Guiley

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