The Mothman is one of the strangest and most terrifying of anomalous creatures ever to be recorded in America. Between November 12, 1966 and December 15, 1967, it terrorized citizens in the Point Pleasant area of West Virginia. It was said to have been encountered by at least 100 people over the course of that year. According to author John A. Keel (The Mothman Prophecies, 1975) who was on hand investigating the reports during the time of the sightings, the creature was reported to be roughly man-shaped, either grey or brown, and between five and seven feet tall. Its body was wider than a man's.




It did not appear to have a head, but rather its "eyes" were set on the upper chest. These "eyes" were very large, and alternately described as glowing red lights, or a reflected red like a bicycle reflector. When it walked it shuffled on what appeared to be human-like legs, but no feet were ever observed. Rather than arms it had bat-like wings which it did not flap. It was always seen to glide. The non-flapping of the wings, even in ascent, is particularly disturbing. Indeed, it was reported to regularly ascend straight up like a helicopter - and again be it noted, without any wing-action. (In regards to the wings, John Keel determined that a man the size and heft of the Mothman would require 24 foot wings to be able to glide.) It was fast in flight, able to pace cars going over 100 miles an hour. In flight it emitted a humming sound and often emitted a "mouse-like squeaking." Occasionally it was heard to also emit a screeching sound something like a woman screaming. (This "woman screaming" sound is common among anomalous creatures, particularly the Bigfoot creatures.) No one who saw it was indifferent to the creature - it struck terror into the hearts of all its viewers. Recently, interest in Mothman has been rekindled due to the release of the movie The Mothman Prophecies starring Richard Gere. Cryptozoologist Loren Colman has also contributed a new book on the subject: Mothman & Other Curious Encounters (2002). For comprehensive accounts of the Point Pleasant/Mothman events, please refer to links such as: prairieghosts.com, and mothmanlives.com.

I'm not sure what you're trying to ask, or debate on here.
Or if you're just making a claim

Although the mothman, of all the things, was my favorite.

I love almost every part of it, and if I heard a mass group of people seeing it in one location, i'd pay attention.

Not sure if it's has any validity to it, although it has a great riveting story to it!

the mothman is pretty cool

if i could see any mystery creature i think it would be


megalodon (some think they may still exist)
mothman
loch ness monster


on a side not that picture looks like an owl with really muscular human legs i like that idea.

A little history and geography lesson......

Mothman terrorized Point Pleasant and entire Mason, Gallia, Jackson, Athens, and Wood County areas until after the collapse of the Silver Bridge in December of 1967. A lot of people in the area still to this day blame Mothman for the collapse of the bridge. At the time of the sightings, the area of Mason County that most of these sightings were taking place were in the vicinity of the West Virginia Ordinance Works Facility that had been closed after the end of World War II. However, the first "official" sighting of Mothman was right here in Kanawha County in the city of Saint Albans on November 10, 1966. Take it from someone who has lived in West Virginia all of their life, Kanawha is only fourty or so miles from Mason County and the town of Point Pleasant. Also, some residents put the sightings of Mothman and the collapse of the Silver Bridge on place with the Curse of Shawnee Indian Chief Cornstalk. The reason being is that Point Pleasant has seen its fair share of disaster from fires and flooding to a train derailment back in 1978 that permanently contaminated the city's well water.

Aww, thats quite a cute picture of it

I remember reading about it a while back, some of the sightings sounded pretty scary... although that might just be because I dont like stories about animals/people that dont have heads.
Either way though, I dont think I'll be visiting point pleasant anytime soon!

There have ben many threads of mothman in the past here on ATS, but it's always an interesting subject.

I've told before about the time i was in Germany, in a car with my girlfriend in the woods at night. It was very dark, but all of a sudden something smacked against the side of the car so hard it shook the car.

It hit the car as though it had come from higher up, maybe in a tree. All i saw when i spun around (and whilst shouting like a little girl lol) was a large dark figure with spread out dark patches like wings or a cloak. You know like the typical Dracula pose with the spread cloak?

After royally filling my pants i think i broke the speed record back to camp!

CX.

I think it's probably some kind of giant Owl, or Thunderbird or Pterodactyl. Also seen in NJ (Owl) on MonsterQuest in the Jersey Devil episode. Great movie



[edit on 31-7-2009 by Sargoth]

Mothman is my favorite paranormal entity. I had actually considered traveling to Point Pleasant this year, but some car probs got in the way. Probably would have been a boring trip anyway. Mothman has surely left Point Pleasant long ago.

I'm reading The Mothman Prophecies. Honestly, It seems poorly organized and little of the material is directly related to Mothman. It would be a better book for people interested in the MIB. Still an interesting book though.

I've heard a lot of rumors that Mothman made national news. I'd like to see proof of this. Most of the reports seem to be from John Keel. Keel also claims that thousands gathered around the old TNT plant area. My dad(63 yrs old) was around at the time of Mothman and he only recalls the silver bridge disaster. He has no interest in the paranormal, so he isn't the best example I've seen articles from West Virginia, I think, but I'd like to see them from farther away. I'm interested in knowing how big the mass hysteria really was. How well known these sightings were before the book. Does anyone who was around during the mothman encounters remember reading articles about the sightings?

The mothman was always my favorite as a kid next to area 51 and the loch ness montster.I remember a few years ago when i was researching the mothman I came across a article about some sighting in Kentucky. The story goes from what i remember is 3 little girls went missing and 2 days later they found 3 child like skeletons. They checked them out and doctors said it was the little girls now what was wierd was during the 2 days they seen a big shape with glowing red eys in the woods around town and when they found the skeletons they where stripped clean.Faster than any animal or weather coulda done.Im gonna try and look for this article. Ever since i read it, the mothman kinda hit close to home to me because (im from kentucky and that part of the state if you had the same last name you where related)one of the little girls was probaly a distant cousin of mine.Ok i have rambled on long enough im gonna look for it now

Originally posted by TevashSzat
Thank man. sorry i havent found the article i was looking for but when i watched the video the video seems like a fake.the pictures that they used for the newspaper clipping where taken a few years ago

Yeah it seemed fake to me too. Especially the part at the end where it was claimed that the body of a creature was found and then lost.

When I first read "The Mothman Prophecies" I was much younger and made the mistake of reading the book at night. The story scared the bejeesus out of me and I still get a little chill when I see the picture.

I do think it would be interesting to see a crypto creature, but I am not sure I would want it to be Mothman.

Some skeptics claim it was a crane or owl, but I am sure the people who saw it knew different.

Mothman has interested me for a long time, but I'm not sure if I'd want to encounter this cryptid either. When I first read the stories they really creeped me out(especially the part about it looking in someone's window). As some people have said about paranormal sightings, maybe we only hear from the people that got away

In John Keel's book he claims there have been many sightings of other winged man like creatures. This could mean that other mothman like creatures might not be the actual mothman(or mothman was/is a busy cryptid ). I just wanted to point this out, because it seems like any mothman like creature that is sighted gets automatically labeled as being mothman.

[edit on 15-8-2009 by kitfox]

tv shows like "monster hunters" SUCK,all they do is debunk everything with no real proof,facts and make a laught out of it.see how they like if they see a mothman in theyr city.
mothman is more then a mutated creature,couse bad things happen,after sigthings,maybe some kinda interdimensional creature like in "mothman prophecyes"

I don't think its a inter dimensional being I mean it kinda makes sense but then you go on the whole multiple reality thing and then you could say a lot of cryptids are in the same boat. I think it could be a actual animal or hell it could be a demon if your inclined to believe such things.I honestly have no idea or even where to start on how to classify it.

Bizarre that this thread is so recent - I picked up the mothman book off my wife's bedside table a couple of nights ago - I know she bought it ages ago. Just getting into reading it and thought I'd do some back research, I expected to find threads here really linking too the time of the Gere film - not really thinking there might be stuff this recent.

Its a pretty disjointed book - and I dont really know weather thats just bad prose style or intentional.

Still its worth a read - for me mostly for the MiB link. I am curious though about more recent connections - and the Thunderbird link - as it crops up in the book a lot - to my reading.