Mothman of Point Pleasant

The Mothman is one of the great modern American folk figures. He is a tall, winged, red-eyed being said to have appeared in and around the small town of Point Pleasant, West Virginia, between November 1966 and December 1967, in one of the great concentrations of strange sightings of the twentieth century. The Mothman has been the subject of several books, a major motion picture, a museum, an annual festival, and a flourishing body of modern folklore, and the figure is now a fixture of the wider American folk tradition of strange beings at the edge of the world.

The Mothman is described as a tall, bipedal, winged creature, with a heavy, muscular body, large reflective red eyes set low in the head, and a pair of great bat-like wings that fold against the back when the creature is at rest. Witnesses consistently described the figure as being seven feet tall or more, with a wingspan of ten feet or more, and as being able to fly at great speed without making any sound.

The First Sightings

The first widely reported Mothman sighting occurred on the evening of November 15, 1966, near the abandoned TNT Area north of Point Pleasant — the former World War II munitions depot that is now a state park. Five young people driving home from a late-night outing — Roger Scarberry, his wife Linda Scarberry, Steve Mallette, his wife Mary, and a fifth companion — saw a tall, grey-skinned figure with glowing red eyes rise from an old World War II ammunition bunker by the side of the road. The figure turned and ran alongside the car as the driver floored the accelerator, then took to the air with a great wingspread and followed the car from above until the road reached the outskirts of town. A second, simultaneous report came from the older men working in the Clendenin cemetery, south of Point Pleasant, who reported the same figure rising from the trees.

In the months that followed, sightings of the Mothman were reported across the TNT Area and the surrounding region of the Ohio River valley. By the spring of 1967, more than one hundred sightings had been reported, and the figure was being talked about across the state and across the nation.

The Mothman name was coined by the staff of the local Point Pleasant Register in early 1967, picking up on the bat-like silhouette of the figure. The folklorist and journalist John A. Keel, who arrived in Point Pleasant later that year to investigate for a national magazine, popularised the name in the wider press and made it permanent.

The Silver Bridge Collapse

The Mothman sightings of 1966 and 1967 came to an abrupt end on December 15, 1967, when the Silver Bridge, the great eyebar-chain suspension bridge that carried U.S. Route 35 across the Ohio River between Point Pleasant, West Virginia, and Gallipolis, Ohio, collapsed at 4:58 p.m. during the height of the holiday shopping season. The collapse killed 46 people and injured 9, and it was one of the great bridge disasters of the American highway system.

The collapse of the Silver Bridge was, in the popular imagination, closely connected to the Mothman sightings of the previous year. Many of the people of Point Pleasant came to believe that the Mothman was a harbinger of the disaster, a figure who had appeared to warn the people of the coming catastrophe. The folk reading of the connection is that the Mothman was a forerunner of the disaster, in the older folk tradition of the omen of the death of the chief, the bean sídhe of the Irish tradition, the banshee of the older Appalachian tradition. The sceptical reading is that the connection is retrospective, made only after the disaster.

The Mothman Museum of Point Pleasant, founded in 2005, has a major exhibit on the Silver Bridge and its connection to the Mothman, and the Mothman Festival, held in Point Pleasant every September since 2002, is one of the great popular festivals of the region.

The Older Thunderbird Tradition

The Mothman is closely related, in the older folk tradition, to the Thunderbird legends of the Native American tradition. The two figures share the great wings, the red eyes, the appearance at times of great social anxiety, and the connection to disaster. The older Thunderbird is a being of the great mountains, the great rivers, and the great storms, and the Mothman can be read as a modern recasting of the older figure in the context of the modern industrial landscape.

The connection to the older European folk tradition is also important. The Mothman can be read as a descendant of the older European figure of the dragon, the great flying being of the older Eurasian tradition. The European dragon is associated with treasure, with the protection of the secret place, and with the destruction of the village, and the Mothman is associated with the same kind of pattern.

The 1975 John Keel Book

The Mothman became a national figure with the publication, in 1975, of the book The Mothman Prophecies by the journalist and folklorist John A. Keel. The book, which has been in print ever since, was the first major study of the Mothman phenomenon, and it established many of the conventions of the modern Mothman tradition. The book is a careful and detailed study of the sightings, with extensive interviews with the witnesses and the investigators, and it was a major influence on the modern folkloristic study of the Mothman. The book was also the source of many of the popular myths about the Mothman, including the association of the Mothman with UFO sightings, men in black, and the occult.

The 2002 Richard Gere Film

The Mothman became a major figure of the popular culture of the early twenty-first century with the release, in 2002, of the motion picture The Mothman Prophecies, directed by Mark Pellington and starring Richard Gere and Laura Linney. The film, which was based on the Keel book, was a critical and commercial success, and the film brought the Mothman story to a worldwide audience. The film tells the story of a Washington Post reporter who investigates the Mothman sightings in Point Pleasant and who comes to believe that the Mothman is a harbinger of coming disaster.

The Mothman Museum and Festival

The Mothman Museum, founded in 2005 in downtown Point Pleasant, is a major centre of the modern Mothman tradition. The museum has a large collection of Mothman memorabilia, including newspaper clippings, photographs, witness statements, and artifacts from the 1966–1967 sightings. The museum is a major tourist attraction, and it draws tens of thousands of visitors every year.

The Mothman Festival, held in Point Pleasant every September since 2002, is one of the great popular festivals of West Virginia. The festival draws tens of thousands of visitors, and it features guest speakers, parades, costumes, art shows, live music, and the Mothman pancake breakfast.

The Renewed Sightings in Chicago (2017)

The Mothman returned to the headlines in 2017, with a series of sightings reported in the Chicago area of Illinois. The sightings were widely discussed on the social media, and the figure was soon being called the Chicago Mothman. The 2017 Chicago sightings are usually interpreted as a return of the Mothman tradition, a revival of the older Mothman figure in a new urban context.

The Mothman in the Modern Canon

The Mothman is now a major figure of the modern cryptozoological canon. The figure is included in the major works of cryptozoology, including the George Eberhart Mysterious Creatures: A Guide to Cryptozoology (2002) and the Loren Coleman Cryptozoology A to Z (1999). The Mothman is also a major figure of the modern folk horror tradition, the modern body of fiction and film that draws on the older folk traditions of strange beings at the edge of the world.

Sources and Further Reading

Keel, John A. The Mothman Prophecies. Saturday Review Press, 1975.
Coleman, Loren. Mothman and Other Curious Encounters. Paraview Pocket Books, 2002.
Barker, Gray. The Silver Bridge. Saucerian Press, 1970.
West Virginia Division of Culture and History. Point Pleasant: A Historic Walking Tour. State of West Virginia, 1994.