The world is full of strange stories about strange creatures — some in legends and folktales, while some have been exaggerated as being evil and the reason for bizarre events. And then there are some weird stories about creatures that border between the paranormal and extraterrestrial.
When seen by several people from different backgrounds at different times, it makes one wonder what the individuals talking about it have really seen. And that is what the story of the Mothman is about.
This creature has been reported as being seen by many and reported to press by not only common residents of the region, but area officials as well. According to reports, it all started in 1966. Yes, this is a new saga, not thousands or even hundreds of years old. In the early part of 1900, there was an area that was a wildlife preserve and a bird sanctuary outside Point Pleasant, in West Virginia, USA.
During World War 11, a part of this McClintic Wildlife Preserve was turned into ammunitions and weapons dump. The munitions were stored in almost a 100 cement ‘igloos’. After the war, the guns and explosives were sold off to weapon dealers and chemical and biochemical companies. The area soon came to be called T.N.T. by the locals. It became a spot for parking cars and having parties by the youngsters of the area. It was this area that became the focus of the sightings of the weird creature, as most of the sightings of the strange creature were from around here.
At first the sightings began near the Ohio River in the summer of 1966, where a woman reported seeing something that looked like a giant butterfly, which was six feet long. Then some gravediggers saw “a brown human being” that flew out of the trees. In November, in West Virginia in Salem, a man reported seeing two red objects flying low over the trees. His dog ran after them but was never to be found again.
Next evening two married couples were near the T.N.T. area. While driving one of the two men saw a man almost six and a half feet tall, but with huge wings folded behind its back. His wife noticed the huge red eyes and said that they looked like automobile reflectors. They drove away really fast but stated to the authorities that the creature flew after their car. One of the women noticed that though the creature was flying he was not flapping his wings but the wingspan was almost 10 feet.
Sounds like that of a “big mouse”, squeaking were coming from the creature as well.
The people went directly to the office of the Mason County Sheriff and reported the incident. They went back to the same place with Deputy Millard Halstead. He did not find anything but the only strange thing that happened was that his tape recorder managed to play some extremely garbled noises. He went back and the next morning the locals stated that they had seen a very strange bird in the area . The next morning, a press conference was held by Sheriff George Johnson, and reporters interviewed all the witnesses.
In November 1966, the editor of the Point Pleasant Register put the story on the Associated Press. The copy editor gave the creature its curious name, “moth-man”. As the news reached the public, the previous nature preserve was filled with people who wanted to see the ill-famed creature. They all had their opinions. Some thought it was an alien while there were also assumptions that some bird had fed on the toxic munitions there and was thus some sort of a mutation.
The sightings increased during the following months in the Point Pleasant area. Then a huge disaster happened. In December 1967, at 5pm, a traffic jam occurred and the Silver Bridge in the area collapsed, plunging 47 people to their deaths. It is still called the biggest bridge disaster in the history of America. Almost 57 cars and trucks fell into the Ohio River. But events happening before the tragic incident are also as bizarre as the creature.
As the sightings increased before the event so did a sense of foreboding and fear in the area residents, some of who felt that something bad was about to happen. A resident, Mrs Virginia Thomas, told John Keel, researcher and author of the book, The Mothman Prophesies, that she had dreams of people drowning. Then people who thronged the Point Pleasant preserve also reported seeing strange lights in the sky and their radios giving strange messages and animals disappearing. Over 100 people reported actually seeing the creature. All agreed that they did not remember much except the almost hypnotic large red eyes. The sightings stopped at Point Pleasant after the collapse of the bridge.
Many theories were presented. Was the mothman there to warn the people of the disaster or the cause of it? Another interesting thing came to light during investigations. The Ohio River was home to the Native Americans in the past and some ancient mounds were discovered there. Some said it was an ancient curse that plagued the area.
Even though sightings of the mothman stopped in the Point Pleasant area, there have been similar sightings in other places after that, though not as frequent as in Virginia. There were reports of sightings before the Mexico City Earthquake in 1985 and 1986 before the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl in Russia.
Then in 2001, a 19-year-old witness reported seeing a huge and strange bird in Westmore County in Pennsylvania, just flying low along the highway and then disappearing into the wooded area. Why the story is important is that the witness was an avid bird watcher and could not have mistaken it for a known species. The colour was black or dark greyish brown with a wingspan of 10 to 15 feet with a huge and strange head, he described. Is the strange creature still alive in that part of the world? And more important ‘is’ or ‘was’ it real?