Mothman: Difference between revisions

Mothman
Grouping	Cryptid
Country	United States of America
Region	West Virginia
Habitat	Air/land

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Revision as of 23:42, 29 January 2008

Mothman is the name given to a being or creature reported in the Charleston and Point Pleasant areas of West Virginia between November 12 1966, near Clendenin,^[1] and December 1967. Most observers describe the Mothman as a winged man-sized creature with large reflective red eyes and large moth-like wings. The creature often appeared to have no head, with its eyes set into its chest. A number of hypotheses have been presented to explain eyewitness accounts, ranging from misidentification and coincidence, to paranormal phenomena and conspiracy theories^{[citation needed]}.

History

On November 15 1966, two young married couples from Point Pleasant, named Roger and Linda Scarberry, and Steve and Mary Mallette, were travelling late-night in the Scarberrys' car. They were passing the West Virginia Ordnance Works, an abandoned World War II TNT factory, about seven miles north from Point Pleasant, in the 2,500 acre (10 km²) McClintic Wildlife Station, when they noticed two red lights in the shadows by an old generator plant near the factory gate. They stopped the car, and were startled to discover that the lights were actually the glowing red eyes of a large animal, "shaped like a man, but bigger, maybe six and a half or seven feet tall, with big wings folded against its back," according to Roger Scarberry. Terrified, they drove toward Route 62, where the creature supposedly chased them at speeds exceeding 100 miles per hour. However, as quoted in Keel's The Mothman Prophecies, the Scarberries, despite driving more than 100 miles per hour, claimed to have noticed a dead dog on the side of the road, and in fact made such accurate note of its location that they claimed to have gone back the very next day and looked for it. Explanations for how they were able to make so accurate a mental note at a time of such great distress, or why they would go back to look for the dead dog, are not included in Keel's book.

A plaque on the Mothman statue provides a version of the original legend: "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." Driving down the exit road, they saw the supposed creature standing on a nearby ridge. It spread its wings and flew alongside the vehicle up to the city limits. They drove to the Mason County courthouse to alert Deputy Millard Halstead, who later said, "I've known these kids all their lives. They'd never been in any trouble and they were really scared that night. I took them seriously." He then followed Roger Scarberry's car back to the secret ex-U.S. Federal bomb and missile factory, but found no trace of the strange creature. According to the book Alien Animals, by Janet and Colin Bord, a poltergeist attack on the Scarberry home occurred later that night, during which the creature was seen several times.

File:Mothman plaque.jpg

The following night, on November 16, several armed townspeople combed the area around the TNT plant for signs of Mothman. Mr. and Mrs. Raymond Wamsley, and Mrs. Marcella Bennett, with her baby daughter Teena in tow, were in a car en-route to visit their friends, Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Thomas, who lived in a bungalow among the "igloos" (concrete dome-shaped dynamite storage structures erected during WW-II) near the TNT plant. The igloos were now empty, some owned by the county, others by companies intending to use them for storage. They were heading back to their car when a figure appeared behind their parked vehicle. Mrs. Bennett said that it seemed like it had been lying down, slowly rising up from the ground, large and gray, with glowing red eyes. While Wamsley phoned the police, the creature walked onto the porch and peered in at them through the window.^{[citation needed]}

On November 24, four people saw the creature flying over the TNT area. On the morning of November 25, Thomas Ury, who was driving along Route 62 just north of the TNT, claimed to have seen the creature standing in a field, and then it spread its wings and flew alongside his car as he sped toward the Point Pleasant sheriff's office.^{[citation needed]}

On November 26, Mrs Ruth Foster of Charleston, West Virginia reportedly saw Mothman standing on her front lawn, but the creature was gone by the time her brother-in-law went out to investigate. Further, on the morning of November 27, the creature apparently pursued a young woman near Mason, West Virginia, and was reported again in St. Albans the same night, by two children.^{[citation needed]}.

A Mothman sighting was again reported on January 11 1967, and several other times that same year. Fewer sightings of the Mothman were reported after the collapse of the Silver Bridge, when 46 people died. The Silver Bridge, so named for its aluminum paint, was an eyebar chain suspension bridge that connected the cities of Point Pleasant, West Virginia and Kanauga, Ohio over the Ohio River. The bridge was built in 1928, and it collapsed on December 15 1967. Investigation of the bridge wreckage pointed to the failure of a single eye-bar in a suspension chain due to a small manufacturing flaw.[1]

Analysis

There are several theories concerning the Mothman phenomenon.

A large collection of first-hand material about the Mothman is found in John Keel's 1975 book The Mothman Prophecies,^[2] in which Keel lays out the chronology of the Mothman and what he claims to be related parapsychological events in the area, including UFO activity, Men in Black encounters, poltergeist activity, Bigfoot and black panther sightings, animal and human mutilations, precognitions by witnesses, and the December 15 1967 collapse of the Silver Bridge spanning the Ohio River.

Keel's first book was the basis of a 2002 film, The Mothman Prophecies, starring Richard Gere, Laura Linney, Debra Messing and Will Patton, directed by Mark Pellington. A companion book called The Eighth Tower, also released in 1975, was derived from material edited from The Mothman Prophecies by the publishers.

In conjunction with Sony/Screen Gems, cryptozoologist Loren Coleman claims to have served as one of the movie's publicity spokespersons, discussing his interpretation of the Mothman events in Mothman and Other Curious Encounters (ISBN 1-931044-34-1). Coleman created and hyped something called the "Mothman Curse," whereby researchers would be targeted for death ^[3] adding more to the list in April 2007. ^[4] Coleman's writings claim that early eyewitnesses never described a "moth" but a large bird. However, the only witness to date who still claims this description seems to be Tom Ury. Witnesses such as Faye DeWitt, Marcella Bennett, and Linda Scarberry have repeatedly stated on national TV that the Mothman was half human.

Andy Colvin, a photographer and documentary filmmaker who claims to have seen the Mothman, has produced two books and a reality series on Mothman called The Mothman's Photographer, featuring John Keel and almost 50 witnesses. Colvin's sister took a snapshot of the creature in 1973 that allegedly shows a Garuda in the background^{[citation needed]} . After researching various forms of Buddhism and certain Native tribes, Colvin's series proposes that both the Garuda of the Far East and the Thunderbird of the Native Americans are synonymous with the Mothman. According to this imaginative guesswork, Mothman is an archetypal "guardian angel" who stops criminal activity at pivotal moments by sending visions, dreams, and messages to ordinary humans. The Mothman's Photographer presents evidence that Mound, WV, witnesses separately saw the Mothman, aliens, the Dover Demon, the Virgin Mary, plasma figures, "intelligent" globes of light, and the Flatwoods monster in the same location.

One of the early theories is that the Mothman was a misidentified Sandhill Crane,^[5] which, in the late 1960s had been a problem in surrounding regions. Sandhill cranes can reach a height of 6 feet, achieve wingspans of 10 feet, have the general appearance described, glide for long distances without flapping, and have an unusual shriek. Other recent theories suggest the possibility of the Mothman being a barn owl, an albino owl, or perhaps a large Snowy Owl (based on artist's impressions of the mysterious, flying animal). Skeptics suggest that the Mothman's glowing eyes are actually red-eye caused from the reflection of light, from flashlights, or other light sources that witnesses may have had with them.^{[citation needed]}

The word "Mothman" was an invention by an Ohio newspaper copyeditor, after the first news stories of the "Big Bird" sightings appeared. The hoax story frequently occurs with established cryptozoological legacies.

In the May-June 2002 issue of the Skeptical Inquirer, journalist John C. Sherwood, a former business associate of UFO hoaxer Gray Barker, published an analysis of private letters between Keel and Barker during the period of Keel's investigation. In the article, "Gray Barker's Book of Bunk," Sherwood reported finding significant differences between what Keel wrote at the time of his investigation and what he wrote in his first book about the Mothman reports, raising questions about the book's accuracy. Even though Sherwood had reported that Keel would not assist him in clarifying the differences, a simple analysis of Keel's earliest Mothman book, "'Strange Mutants: Demon Dogs and Phantom Cats'" (1970) shows almost no difference with what Keel wrote in "The Mothman Prophecies" five years later.

References

^ Troy Taylor (2007). "Unexplained America - "Mothman: the enigma of Point Pleasant"". Dark Haven Entertainment. Retrieved 2007-12-18.
^ The Mothman Prophecies, by John A. Keel, Saturday Review Press, 1975 and Tor Books, (paperback) 2002 ISBN 0-7653-4197-2
^ Mothman Death List / The Mothman Curse
^ New Rash of Mothman-Linked Deaths
^ http://www.askmen.com/toys/special_feature/16_special_feature.htm

Books

Coleman, L. "Mothman and Other Curious Encounters". (2002). ISBN 978-1931044349 or (ISBN 1-931044-34-1)

Colvin, Andrew "The Mothman's Photographer: The Work of an Artist Touched by the Prophecies of the Infamous Mothman" (2007). ISBN 978-1419652653

Colvin, Andrew "The Mothman's Photographer II: Meetings With Remarkable Witnesses Touched by Paranormal Phenomena, UFOs, and the Prophecies of West Virginia's Infamous Mothman" (2007). ISBN 978-1419652664

Keel, John A. "The Mothman Prophecies" (2007). ISBN 0-7653-4197-2

Keel, John A. "The Eighth Tower" (1977). ISBN 978-0451074607

Sergent, Jr., Donnie "Mothman: The Facts Behind the Legend" (2001) ISBN 978-0966724677

Popular culture

Movies

The Mothman Prophecies (2002)

"The Mothman's Photographer" DVD series (2002-2006)]]

Dark Wings - The Mothman Chronicle, Directed by Charles McCracken

Television

In an episode of The X-Files called "Detour", Agent Mulder refers to sightings of red-eyed creatures called "Mothmen" in Point Pleasant.

Unsolved Mysteries - Mothman (Unexplained) Aired July 22, 2002.

On Invader Zim, the character Dib uses the name "Agent Mothman" within the Swollen Eyeball Network.

In the show Animal X, the Mothman mystery was shown on the "Thunderbirds" episode.

An episode of SciFi Investigates features the Mothman as its investigative target.

In 2006, the Travel Channel aired a documentary about the Loch Ness Monster, New Jersey Devil, Bigfoot and Mothman. The Mothman portion featured local highschoolers Michaela Williamson and Marianne Casey and UFO hunters Tim and John Frick in the re-enactments of the strange events.

In Bus of the Undead, episode #103 of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, a character named Mothmonsterman parodies him. Count Dracula is also mentioned.

In the cartoon SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Night Light", Mothman is revealed to be one of Mermaid man's arch-enemies.

The television series Martin Mystery had an episode entitled Attack of the Mothman in which the title character, Martin, had to fight a mothman. The creature turned out to be mutated student at a French university and episode itself had nothing to do with American legend.

In the fifth episode of the anime Ghost Hound, mothman is referenced at the end of the episode as evidence of transcendental beings, with what possibly is the mothman itself being shown flying above the forest.

The Mothman is one of the many supernatural phenomenons investigated in Mystery Hunters.

Games

The Mothman sightings were a basis for an interdimensional alien race in the conspiracy roleplaying game Dark•Matter, a campaign setting for TSR's Alternity SciFi RPG. The Mothman subsequently played a major role in the plot of the adventure supplement titled The Killing Jar, and appeared as a monster in the d20 Menace Manual, known as the "Mothfolk".

A less menacing version of the Mothman appears in Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne for Sony Playstation 2. However, the database in the game still states that it is the same as the one sighted in West Virginia.

In Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow for the Nintendo DS, Mothman is one of three hidden cryptozoology-based monsters, appearing as a furry black heart-shaped creature with wings and large eyes (generally resembling the eyewitness sketch). Mothman appears only when the player activates a powerful spotlight using a lightning bolt, which is a reference to moths' attraction to light. The same monster appears as a regular enemy in Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin.

The White Wolf storytelling game Vampire: The Masquerade included the Mothman in its sourcebook, Clanbook: Gangrel, where the Mothman was identified as a severely deformed member of Clan Gangrel, who predicted a number of future events, including the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy.

In Contra III: The Alien Wars for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, an infinite number of Mothman creatures sprout forth from a miniboss.

Figurines/Toys/Collectibles

The Mothman vinyl line has been created by renowned artist David Horvath, co-creator of Uglydolls. He has created a line of Japanese vinyl figurines that currently numbers seven. The figurines include Eye Witness, TNT Area, Silver Bridge, Point Pleasant, Indrid Cold, Prophecy, and Chernobyl types. The figurines were produced in editions of fifty or one hundred, depending on the version. The complete set has earned a permanent place at the Mothman Museum in Point Pleasant.

In March of 2007, Toy Vault, Inc (Corbin, KY) officially announced a Mothman plush as the first product in a line of Urban Legend/Horror plush.

Sixus 1 Media, a creator of content for the popular Poser 3D program, has offered an animatable Mothman model in their "Fantasy" category since 2004. They also carry models of The Jersey Devil and the Chupacabra.