Attend the party or just get into a really great meme.
If you stroll down the quaint Main Street of Point Pleasant , retiring old-hat shops and a historical hotel cheerily advertising itself as taken up , and walk forth to the quiet town public square , you might be surprised by the statue there . It ’s not Washington or any of the pre - Revolutionary War chassis that make up the town ’s early history . It ’s a towering , humanoid ogre with ruby-red eyes , rip abs , and , most significantly , tremendous wing . This is the Mothman , Point Pleasant ’s most famous resident . And this September on the 17th and 18th , around 15,000 citizenry are celebrating him at West Viriginia’sMothman Festival .
Mothman is acryptid , a catch - all condition for fantastic beasts like the Loch Ness Monster or Bigfoot for which we have no substantial validation but which could , in theory , exist . You may know him from paranormal investigator John Keel ’s 1975 accountThe Mothman Prophecies : A True Story , or , more potential , from that book ’s 2002film adaptationwith Richard Gere and Laura Linney .
While he may not have the family name recognition of Nessie , Mothman has amass a significant chase since he first terrified Ohio Valley denizens more than five decades ago . Point Pleasant’sMothman Museumdraws visitant year round , and since its instauration 20 years ago , the Mothman Festival has grown from a sparsely - see gathering into a national aesthesis . Here ’s the real tale and explanation behind Mothman , as well as how this extrasensory phenomenon became a — well , a national phenomenon .
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What’s up with this moth, man
We do n’t want to be donnish , but Mothman does n’t look like a moth . Since his first Point Pleasant sighting , descriptions of the creature have stayed unco consistent : around 7 feet improbable with a 10 - foot wingspan , piercing ruddy eyes , and a gray body covered in pelt or plume . attestant almost invariably equate him to a fowl . But early on , a newsman ( perhaps a fan of Batmandeep cuts ) labeled the creature Mothman , and the name has cohere ever since .
The first Mothman sighting was on November 15 , 1966 near an abandoned fortification factory just outside townspeople be intimate as the TNT surface area . Two unseasoned couples , the Scarberrys and Manettes , were out for an aimless nighttime movement around a town that had , harmonise toMothman Propheciesauthor John Keel , “ twenty - two churches and no barrooms . ”
Suddenly , their headlights make a brace of oculus : red , glowing , and “ hypnotic , ” as one would later describe them . Then the animal stood and took flight of steps right at them . The adolescent would lay claim it chased them all the room back into townsfolk , matching the fastness of the Chevy to over a hundred land mile an minute .
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In the weeks and months that espouse , similar sighting continued across Point Pleasant and the surrounding area . Keel , who spent month in town question attestant , claimed over a hundred hoi polloi discern the Mothman in a couplet of a little over one yr .
Then disaster struck . On December 15 , 1967—13 months exactly , some will indicate out , after the first Mothman sighting — Point Pleasant ’s Silver Bridge collapsed in the midst of Christmas shopping bang 60 minutes . Forty six mass were killed . Though the cause was later revealed to be a neglectedsuspension strand , some claim Mothman was responsible . The Silver Bridge incident mostly put an destruction to Point Pleasant ’s Mothman sightings , which fell off completely and immediately . But that did n’t mean pastime pass away off .
“The Paranormal Convention of the East”
Mothman mania took several decades to really captivate on . “ Main Street was dead , ” says Denny Bellamy , touristry managing director for Mason County , when describing pre - festival Point Pleasant . The festival ’s descent were humble . The first one launched in 2002 to capitalise on buzz from the moving-picture show , and according to Bellamy contain just “ [ Mothman Museum founding father ] Jeff Wamsley with two board tables trade his books and someone selling raging dog across the street . ”
But the unveiling of themetal Mothmanplus savvy on-line marketing — since , as Bellamy explain , “ Jeff , early on on , jumped both feet into the Internet,”—helped expand the fete ’s reach . In our current post - nerd moment , where fandom sovereignty supreme and cosplay and cons are expect substance - generators , the fete has become a significant event in the cryptid and wider sci - fi community . Attendees come dolled up as the Men in Black , Ghostbusters , and of trend , the Mothman himself . “ They call us the paranormal convention of the east , ” Bellamy says .
The festival has been an economic boon to orient Pleasant . “ It ’s like Black Friday for us , ” says Marqkita Sexton , co - possessor of the Counterpoint local artisan shop on Main . “ People are elbow to elbow in the store . ”
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A popular attractiveness is the Mothman Museum , pull in document sightings , flick property , and decades of Mothman memorabilia . There are hay ride through town and bus tours to the TNT expanse where the puppet was ofttimes sighted . The festival also sport hot music and guest speakers give talk on ufology , cryptid hunt , and other Mothman - side by side topics .
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So what’s the real story?
Though there have been scattered Mothman appearing since the Silver Bridge incident — in Russia before the 1999apartment bombingsandChicago in 2017 — there has never been such a geographically and chronologically hard burst of sighting as there was in Point Pleasant in the ‘ 60s .
approximation diverge as to the “ true ” nature of the Mothman . Is he analien ? perchance . The product of aNative American curse ? Who knows . One popular explanation ( bolster by theflawed - but - creepy2002 plastic film ) posits Mothman as a herald of doom , manifest before tragedy to either warn humankind or troll us . Of course , there are less fun explanations : researchers have made the case that the Mothman is actually abarred bird of night .
It ’s fair to take why , of the one C of monster and local legend lurking in the US , the Mothman has gained so much popularity . “ That bridge has a portion to do with it , ” Bellamy speculates . There ’s no other cryptid that can claim a link , however tenuous , to real - human race red of life . There ’s also his imminent memeability , aid in big part by the statue . Since his initial awful show , he has become aplush toy dog , anobjectofthirst , and best of all , the subject area of a orison toreplace all Confederate statueswith — what else?—Mothman .
Mothman Festival
“ I get laid Mothman is weird , ” says Sexton , but she eff him anyway . “ He draw some interesting people … I think [ he ’s ] our own fiddling Mickey Mouse . ”
It ’s improbable we ’ll ever have definitive answers on Mothman . He may be an ultraterrestrial prophet of day of reckoning ; he may simply be the Cartesian product of small - town boredom and creepy-crawly bird of Minerva . He is linked indelibly to tragedy , but like thecomic Holy Writ herowho in all probability gave him his name , Mothman has transcended his tragic origin report . He is more than a man or a moth . He ’s a legend . In the valley of West Virginia , around disaster sites worldwide and in the hearts of his fans everywhere , Mothman lives .
Photo by Billy Hallal
