I don't know about the book, but my husband is 53 years old and grew up in Pt. Pleasant. He was there when all of this happened.

The people that saw this creature had no motivation to lie. They were respected known citizens of the county. Something was there, but no one ever saw him in TNT. I have been there many times and it looks very surreal. The branches to all of the trees are twisted as in a horror movie. It is a wildlife refuge but everyone from Pt. Pleasant knows not to eat anything from there. They are actually trying to clean up the land as we speak.

The bridge fell because the bridge inspector was a relative of someone in the county(I can't remember his name right now) and had no bridge inspecting experience. He got the job through nepotism. He had recently inspected the bridge and said all was right with the world. It was a Friday evening and as is the habit even today people go to Gallipolis to eat, go to the store and generally have a good time. Upon inspection after the fall they found major stress cracks in the bridge.

The jail blew up also. There was a woman in the jail who had been arrested for starving her child to death. It was an infant. Her husband showed up with a suitcase full of dynamite and told the Sheriff Pete Wedge that he was taking his wife out of the jail. No one knows if he was trying to free her or wanted to kill her. The jail was cleared. Several deputies said this goes above and beyond the call of duty and left. They were initially fired but got their jobs back.Anyway Pete Wedge tried to shoot her husband and shot the briefcase that was actually holding dynamite and blew up the jail. Windows shook for 3 blocks.

We watched the movie and it was amazing how they tried to blame everything on the Mothman. If you ask most people in Pt. Pleasant they will tell you that their bad luck and demise of the town actually comes from Chief Cornstalk and the curse he put on the town. The Ohio River is the only thing separating Ohio and West Virginia and yet Ohio by the standards of W VA thrives as they flounder.

I don't know the origins of the Mothman but do know the town of Pt. Pleasant erected the statute of the Mothman after the movie. It sits in front of Tu Endi Wei Park and they did it in hopes that tourism would come to the town after the movie. There were a lot of articles in the paper about it.

As for the person who has spent time looking into this (earlier post) if you U2U me I can have my husband talk to you. He knows far more about it than I do and I know a lot having been married to him all these years. He actually knows and knew some of the people this happened to. It is a small town.

Originally posted by seejanerun
As for the person who has spent time looking into this (earlier post) if you U2U me I can have my husband talk to you. He knows far more about it than I do and I know a lot having been married to him all these years. He actually knows and knew some of the people this happened to. It is a small town.

[edit on 11/20/2008 by yeahright]

Here are a few more occurances that have happened in Point Pleasant over the years.

1913: Flooding on both the Ohio and Kanawha Rivers nearly destroyed Point Pleasant.

1937: Flooding again on the Ohio and Kanawha Rivers nearly destroy Point Pleasant again for the second time in nearly thrity years. Meanwhile, flooding down river in Huntington left parts of that city under fifteen plus feet of water. This event was the catalyst for the construction of the floodwalls for both Huntington and Point Pleasant.

1953: Six men from Point Pleasant were killed just before Christmas when the barge they were standing on exploded.

One thing that is never mentioned about the Silver Bridge collapse is the ramifications that were set into effect after the disaster. This disaster brought about swift changes in bridge inspection and maintenance. At the time, there was no possible way that the miniscule crack that was on the eyebar could have been detected with the technology they had at the time of the disaster.

I admit, there are some dumb people that live here. However I don't think that I am one of those dumb residents. The dumb residents are the ones that like to do ninety to one hundred miles per hour on a curvy interstate. I find the Mothman Mystery intresting because of what has happened around the Point Pleasant area in the past two and a half centuries. Also, the Mothman Mystery is not as well known as the Braxton County Monster. This happened back in 1952 when those ufos were causing chaos over Washington, D.C. Frank Feschino has written extensively about the Braxton County Monster and happenings related to that sighting.

idk if this was already posted, but I watched a video where they interviewed people and one speculated it was an aliens pet.
idk i just remembered hearing that.o\h, and I live in west virginia, btw

Good lord! that is one creepy looking individual!

This is where the line gets hazy with the whole Mothman/Point Pleasant weirdness, as this falls under the whole UFO phenomena, where Mothy falls into another hazy area of cryptid/paranormal (more likely the latter).

I can tell you why it is not a daily discussion on here. Not a lot of people on here are from West Virginia. Nor do a lot of West Virginians know the legend behind the Mothman sightings. Some people doubt the sightings ever occurred in the first place. What I also find interesting is the number of ufo sightings in Eastern Ohio and Western West Virginia that were going on at this time. I believe another reason as to why it is not followed is due to the lack of evidence to either support or deny the existance of the mothlike creature. I for one do not doubt that something out of the ordinary went on around here from November of 1966 to December of 1967. What still baffles me about these events though is that people still blame Mothman for the collapse of the Silver Bridge. If there was a reason as to why Mothman appeared, I do not believe it was for evil intentions.

One thing that most people do not realize is that the locations of these sightings either at one time existed or still exist to this day. The site of the West Virginia Ordnance Works, a.k.a. The TNT Area, is now an airport, an industrial complex, and home to the McClintic Wildlife Management Area.

The again.........
If Mothman does not exist in any shape or form. Then what were people seeing in the skies over the Ohio River Valley in 1966 and 1967? I for one do not think that it was a Giant Condor.

I read somewhere dat moth man got killed by a moth ball