The Mothman Phenomena
Between November 1966 and December 1967a creature was seen by over one hundred witnesses in the Charleston and Point Pleasant areas of West Virginia, USA. Most witnesses describe the creature as being the size of a man, having wings and having terrifying, glowing red eyes.The creature was given the nickname ‘The Mothman’.
The Mothman was first sighted on November 12th 1966 in Clendenin, West Virginia. Five men preparing a grave described seeing a ‘brown human shape’ lifting off from behind nearby trees and flying over their heads. This sighting was not made public until after stories of the Mothman had began being reported to the media. The first of which occurred three days later.
On November 15th 1966 two young couples from Point Pleasant, Roger and Linda Scarberry and Steve and Mary Mallette, were driving past an old World War II TNT factory about seven miles from Point Pleasant in the late evening. They noticed two red lights in the shadows near the gate of the factory and stopped the car. They were terrified to see the lights appeared to be the glowing red eyes of an animal in the car headlights. The animal was like nothing they had ever seen before according to Roger Scarberry the beast was: ‘..Shaped like a man, but bigger, maybe six and a half or seven feet tall. With big wings folded against its back.’
They drove off and headed for route 62. As they went down the road they saw the creature again standing on a ridge. It spread its wings and took off, following the car to the city limits before disappearing.
The couples went to the Mason County Courthouse and relayed their story to Deputy Millard Halstead. He followed Scarberry’s car back to the TNT factory but found no sign of the creature, Halstead said:
‘I’ve known these kids all their lives. They’d never been in trouble and they were really scared that night. I took them seriously.’
The following day the Sheriff’s Office had a press conference to discuss the sightings and it was after this that the press dubbed the creature ‘The Mothman’ after a character in the Batman television series.
That night, November 16th 1966, Marcella Bennett also encountered the creature whilst visiting friends.
Author John Keel was researching UFO sightings in the area at the time the story broke so he decided to head to Point Pleasant and investigate the reported sightings of the Mothman. He soon became convinced something very terrifying and real was happening in the town.
Connie Carpenter was driving home when she saw something unusual at the side of the road. What she thought was a shadow caught her attention so she slowed down to see what it was. To her horror she discovered the shadow was in fact the Mothman. The creatures wings came out from its back and it flew up into the air. Connie then claimed the creature swooped straight for her car. She fled back home, losing the creature on the way and locked herself indoors for days.
Keel began gathering the stories of the Point Pleasant sightings and was getting even more incredible information. Some witnesses were now suffering physical symptoms such as strange burns to the skin and enflamed, swollen eyes following sightings of the Mothman. Keel began to connect the Mothman sightings with UFO reports that were coming in from Point Pleasant at the same time.
Doris Deweese who lived on Madison Avenue in Point Pleasant reported seeing UFO’s going over her house. Another UFO sighting was made by Dottie Campbell, who saw a cigar shaped object in the sky. Keel himself saw hovering lights in the area which he said would respond to flashing torchlight at them by flashing their lights back. Keel claims he saw so many of these lights that he lost count.
The National Guard and State Police had now become involved in the search for the Mothman. It would seem there were other people beginning to take an interest in the events that were going on in Point Pleasant too.
Strange visitors began to show up in the town. It appears they didn’t want the towns’ stories to be told and threatened those who spoke. Dottie Campbell, a UFO witness, received a visit to her home from a man dressed in black who gave her a chilling warning. Dottie recalled: ‘He said we don’t wanna hear any more about this and he left. So after he had said what he did we didn’t say any more about it.’
Connie Carpenter’s husband Keith returned home one night to find himself locked out of the house. He let himself in and discovered Connie cowering in the bedroom. She told him she had gone out to get into the car that morning and a car pulled up. A man dressed in black called over and asked her for directions. Connie walked over to the man to give him the directions and as she did he tried pulling her into his car. Connie managed to escape and ran back into the house. Not long after the incident Connie, who had previously reported seeing the Mothman, found a threatening note left on her porch. It read: ‘BE CAREFUL GIRL I CAN GET YOU’
Local Point Pleasant newspaper columnist Mary Hyre was helping John Keel with his investigations. Mary had told friends that she had been visited by the men in black several times, she noticed one thing about the threatening visitors above all else, they never once blinked their eyes. They had asked her questions about the Mothman and acted in such a way towards her that she feared for her life. Despite this Mary was determined to continue investigating the story of the Mothman. John Keel said he had worked with many press writers and Mary was one of the most trustworthy, he had no reason to doubt her regarding the matter. Although theorists claimed this could be the CIA trying to silence witnesses by intimidation the American Government denied any involvement with the men in black incidents in Point Pleasant.
The sightings continued. On November 24th 1966 four people saw the Mothman flying through the air over the TNT area. On November 26th 1966 Ruth Foster of Charleston, West Virginia saw the Mothman standing on her front law, but when her brother-in-law went out to look it had vanished.
Other strange phenomena were being reported in Point Pleasant. Dogs began going missing and cases of cattle mutilation were being reported. Eyewitnesses complained of nightmares and dark premonitions, including reporter Mary Myre who told friends she had had a disturbing dream about Christmas presents in the water.
By December 1967 John Keel was back in New York planning another return to Point Pleasant to further his investigations. Strangely, he had received several anonymous phone calls warning him not to go back to the town.
Main Street in Point Pleasant lead directly onto Silver Bridge, a suspension bridge which spanned the Ohio River and was used by local residents several times a day.
At 5:05 pm on December 15th 1967 the bridge was full of traffic. Many of which were Christmas shoppers. As Charlene Wood got to the traffic lights just before joining the bridge she saw the bridge shaking. She thought a boat had hit the bridge from underneath so she put her car into reverse and backed up hastily. Charlene’s car stopped with her tyres right on the edge of the incline as the bridge broke off and crashed into the water. She climbed from her car as other vehicles entered the icy water and disaster unfolded in front of her eyes. Silver Bridge collapsed catastrophically and disappeared beneath the water. Forty Six people died making it the worst American Bridge disaster at the time. It took days to recover the bodies and vehicles from the river.
A Department Of Transportation inquiry concluded that the bridge had collapsed due to the failure of a single eye-bar in a suspension chain that had a slight flaw when manufactured. There was a sighting of the Mothman on the bridge at the time of the disaster which was reported to the Sheriff. Witnesses also claimed to have seen the mysterious men in black climbing around the bridge in the days before the collapse. Another bizarre coincidence was that the bridge had collapsed 13 months from the first sighting of the Mothman and the pin responsible for the disaster was pin number 13. After the disaster the anomalous activity at Point Pleasant seemed to abate and eventually disappear. The Mothman, UFO sightings, cattle mutilations and the men in black encounters disappeared too, as if it had all been connected to the disaster.
John Keel went on to publish his collection of first-hand experiences in his book The Mothman Prophecies in 1975. There are many views as to what happened in Point Pleasant both explainable and unexplainable.
Sceptics claim the scientific explanation for the Mothman phenomena was a mass hallucination that was cleared up by the shock of the bridge tragedy. Others blamed the tragedy on a curse placed on the town by Chief Cornstalk, a Native American Chieftain over 200 years ago. Local ornithologists claimed the Mothman was really just a big bird all along, A Sandhill Crane. The species superficially matched the descriptions of the Mothman and has two patches of flesh that could be mistaken for red eyes. It is also claimed that the local ponds of the TNT area had been left to become polluted by waste from the old munitions factory and some wondered if the Mothman could have been a mutant bird caused by the horrible effects of toxic waste.
Others believe the Mothman is synonymous with the Garuda of the Far East and the Thunderbird of Native America. They believe that the Mothman was fulfilling a pre ordained role that involves stopping heinous crimes and disasters by sending messages and visions to ordinary human beings. They believe the Mothman was trying to warn the people of Point Pleasant about the bridge collapse to try and overt the disaster.
This article had been kindly supplied by Jason Day, and is as such © Jason Day.
Society Of Paranormal Investigation, Research, Information & Truth
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