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Mothman (The Actual Incident(s): Point Pleasant, WV; 1966 / 1967)

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MOTHMAN

HEY EVERYONE,
I WAS WONDERING IF ANYONE OUT THERE CAN TELL ME SOME STUFF ON MOTHMAN. ...
ZERO
 
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"Mothman" was the name given to the winged apparition that was seen in the Pt. Pleasant area between 1966-Jan. 1968 (roughly). Dozens of people saw the Mothman, mostly in what locals call the "TNT Area", an old WWII explosives factory (which also had underground tunnels, labs and a system of storage depots). The TNT Area was used at about that time for secret storage of both nuclear wastes and for a time, the conventional explosive charges that are used to trigger atomic weapons.
The newsman who dubbed the apparition "The Mothman" was playing on the popularity of the then current "Bat Man" tv series. Locals called it "The Bird".
A similar winged apparition was sighted for awhile in Texas, around 1971-72 (?) and was called "The Big Bird" or the "Black Bird" there.
Also in the 70's were the UK sightings of the "Owlman", which was described in an almost identical terms as the Mothman.
Before the Mothman sightings in West Virginia, a winged, shambling "creature" matching the usual descriptions was sighted in Kent.
Interesting stuff. Lots of rehashed reports are available online, but the really good detailed stuff has to be dug out of newspapers written at the time. Very little of that material has been published since and a lot of good sightings haven't been preserved.
 
I've only read about his book in another book :) It said how he was plagued by evidence for anything he thought up. E.g: "maybe aliens are reptiles..."
Suddenly the phone rings : "I saw an alien that had a lizard head and sucked eggs!"
Just think how anoying that would get! Or am I thinking of someone else metioned in the book... oh well, I don't know!
XCOM
 
Not fully up to speed on Mothman but at least he is half-man
which makes him only half as scary as a big full moth to me.:eek:

The Bords somewhere also relate him to Owlman and explain
or sort-of explain Owlman as, wait for it, an owl. A great big owl
taking off suddenly, all big face and erectile feathers, looking
directly at the observers, which in the case of Owlman were kids.

The drawing done by the kids was not very anthropomorphic and
the claws and pricked ears were very owl-like.

The size of owls is of course nothing like what they claimed for the
thing but a sudden scary event in front of them at night might
be hard to scale? :confused:

Moths and Owls and other little critters are said to run scared from
Richard Gere, though. Just a myth, of course. :D
 
"which makes him only half as scary as a big full moth to me"

You're not a relation of Rod & Tod Flanders are you??
 
Mothman never ceases to fascinate me. Keel's book is a must-read, particularly for the 'mysterious stranger' bits. The man who didn't know how to eat is a favourite of mine (if you've not read it - tough. A sense of mystery is important in life, so you'll just have to wonder).

I know what you mean about Greys though; it would just be too easy to give them a Chinese burn. If Whitley Streiber hadn't been such a wuss he could have had their dinner money off them.

Sprout - I still have all those Usbourne books. Unlike most childhood terrors, these are still monstrously scary today. Fantastic stuff!

Does anyone know if anything still goes on in Point Pleasant? Apart from Richard Gere wandering about?
 
What I love about things like Mothman and Owlman is that they are so completely alien to everything we have experienced. Most Cryptids seem to be missing or lost creatures that are believed extinct, have a fossil record and so on. Both Mothman and Owlman are so completely weird that they don't make sense at all- they simply can't be explained in any biological terms. I guess that just makes them really fascinating for me because I really want to know if they are real, and if so where they came from.
 
The mothman sitings coincided with a spate of UFO incidents, animal mutilations, ghosts, EVPs, religious experiences, poltergeists, electrical weirdness, contactee stuff and, yes, prophecies. Most of which were recieved over the phone; on one notable occasion, they were left for John Keel in a hotel he'd only just decided to check into.

The prophecies had an average success rate; enough to convince Keel that the final one (a massive power failure/assasination type thing) might be true. At the allotted time, nothing happened - however, the Silver bridge in Point Pleasant (the centre of the phenomena) collapsed at rush hour, with a horrific death toll.

No further sitings were reported after this. Obviously, we only have Keel's word on this lot, but the book is fascinating. Incidentally, the film (apparently) plays up the crazy stuff and takes (ahem) 'liberties'.
 
mothman help/info

as im sure the subject has already been beaten to death, ill be brief.

im working on a news story about the mothman phenomenon (the area i live in is about 50 miles from point pleasant, w.va. where the sightings occurred) and was hoping some of you would be able to give me links/information that i may not have already found.

most of the info ive gotten so far focuses only on the sightings themselves and not the various theories behind what may have actually happened... also, i thought id read somewhere that sightings had been recorded by earlier tribes of native americans in the w.va./allegheny region...

anyway, any help would be appreciated, either reply here or email me at [email protected].

thanks
 
Mothman? (Or have you heard all this before?)

Hi all, DH here. You have probably already heard it all, but what are your opinions on the Mothman? Real or not real?
 
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Maybe the Mothman did cause the bridge collapse

Has this suggestion been made anywhere before?:

http://popmatters.com/film/reviews/m/mothman-prophecies.html

"After the AP picked up the Point Pleasant Register's coverage, thrill seekers from across America showed up in the small town on the Ohio River, and sightings only increased over the next year. It was, one could argue, much more likely an experience of mass hysteria than any prolonged encounter with the supernatural. This influx of tourists also undoubtedly contributed to the disaster. Surely the 40-year-old suspension bridge was taxed by the added presence of rubberneckers and international media crews traversing its span for the year, and which culminated on a December night when, due to some broken traffic lights on the Ohio side, the bridge was jam packed with vehicles in a dead stop on the westbound side of the bridge.

Pellington's film doesn't tell this story of the mothman sightings, which is a good thing, for the more likely story as I have sketched it above would make for a far less exciting movie only about mob stupidity..."

-J
 
"I'M HAUNTED BY REAL MOTHMAN"

http://www.cryptozoology.fsbusiness.co.uk/news/scotmothman-mar2002.html
News Of The World, March 17, 2002, by Ken Adams.
I'M HAUNTED BY REAL MOTHMAN

A terrified university boffin claims his life fell apart after a spooky encounter with the real-life Mothman.
Chris Murray-Hall says he came face to face with the beast during a bizarre occult ceremony.
And the 50-year-old researcher, from Lochhearnhead, Perthshire, revealed: "I've had nothing but horrible bad luck since... everything has gone wrong."
Chris decided to reveal all after the recent release of chilling Richard Gere movie, The Mothman phrophecies.
The film is based on a true story which began with sightings of a winged creature - part man, part moth - near Point Pleasant, West Virginia, in 1967. Chris was probing similar sightings before his meeting with the beast at a Bronze Age burial site near Brighton.
Back then, the Institute of Shamanic Studies member was working with an occult expert. He said: "Folk came to us because we were experts in weird stuff. My colleague planned an ancient mystical ritual to see of the beast. I thought it was a fantasty but took a knie with me just in case. As we began the ritual, I looked up and saw two ruby red eyes staring back at me from about 15ft away. I could see the creature's wings - they were like a bat's - as it whizzed towards me. I lashed out with the knife and felt an electric shock as I hit it. Then it vanished, leaving a trail of red smoke."
Since the 1987 incident, Chris says he's been cursed as his marriage collapsed, he lost his job and pals deserted him. He claims he's also narrowly escaped being the victim of several mystery accidents.
He told us: "I've had some narrow escapes - rocks falling as I walk past and branches dropping of trees beside me."
Chris - who was too scared to be pictured - believes the Mothman feeds on fear. And he warned: "This is a dangerous and evil creature. People won't believe me... but they must be warned."
Click to expand...
 
Could it not have been, like, y'know, a bat? Um, just a thought.
 
"...I lashed out with the knife and felt an electric shock as I hit it. Then it vanished, leaving a trail of red smoke."
Since the 1987 incident, Chris says he's been cursed...
Click to expand...

You know, if he had offered up a nice bit of linen or something it might have been a completely different story.
 
I mean, really

The poor thing is just wandering around, doing what comes naturally, minding its own business, and then a couple of people turn up, start doing mystical chanting on its territory, then attack with a knife! I'm not surprised it got a bit antsy.

I've always treated the weird things I have come across as being non-consensus wildlife, and therefore no more to be exorcised or had mystical charms waved at them than a robin or a sparrow. Poor b**ger. Dangerous and evil my ar*e. :rolleyes:
 
We've got a Plague of moths in our flat. Its a F***ing nightmare, man.
 
Waving one's mystical charms at non-consenting wildlife may be
criminal in some territories. But non-consensus? Would that be an
ecumenical matter? :rolleyes:
 
I'M HAUNTED BY REAL MOTHMAN

"I could see the creature's wings - they were like a bat's - as it whizzed towards me." - Thats Batman your stabbing at you fool.

"I thought it was a fantasty but took a knie with me just in case." - arh yes, the knights that go 'Knie', they will help.
 
James Whitehead said:
But non-consensus? Would that be an
ecumenical matter? :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
I suppose it might be. It depends on whether there's anything in it for me or not.

Sam
 
Dave Vader said:
"I thought it was a fantasty but took a knie with me just in case." - arh yes, the knights that go 'Knie', they will help.
Click to expand...
But only if you find them a shrubbery.

Sam
 
Maybe he should lay off the Shamanistic substances for a while.:cross eye
 
Mothman footnote

I don't know if this is of interest to any of you, but my viewing of the Discovery channel last night turned up a little bit of information about the Point Pleasant Silver Bridge collapse disaster that came at the climax of the Mothman episode.

The programme didn't mention anything about the mothman, but confined itself entirely to the collapse, which I suppose is appropriate for something entitled "Why Buildings Collapse!" The point is, all the sources I've read (including the FT special a few months back) so far claimed the bridge collapsed because of a traffic light fault in town, which caused cars to back up across the bridge, overloading it.

The programme said this was actually just a rumour around the town at the time - presumably passed on by Keel? - and that the official enquiry turned up a wholly different cause. The bridge was suspended from a series of linked iron struts running along its very top. Each of these had a hole at either end, through which a thick bolt went to join it to the next strut. If the struts themselves had been rusty, they would have broken at their weak points somewhere near the middle. In fact, the strut that broke did so around the hole at one end, where the steel was thickest. With the help of a lot of army divers, the investigator recovered both pieces of this strut, and discovered a small core of rust right at its centre.

When it'd been forged in the early 20th century, the steel (some special kind) used in these struts had been new and miraculous-seeming, but this particular strut was made with a miniscule flaw or crack, by which water and pollution managed to eat away the heart of the strut for half a century. On the day of the disaster the strut finally snapped and the bridge fell down. Since then production techniques have improved and they've learnt to avoid these kinds of flaw.

I don't know what, if anything, this adds to the meaning of the story. Except perhaps that the tragic end of the whole episode, the thing that in retrospect all the visions and visitations seemed to have been running up to, turns out not to have been a totally contingent piece of bad luck that could have happened any time, but something that had basically been ticking away, fated to happen around this hour, ever since the bridge was built. Which might increase the sense of spooky predetermination that's one of the whole story's strongest features. I dunno. Sorry if this has been boring.
 
Good One

tomsk - Not boring at all, quite interesting. Thanks!
 
I've seen that programme, but wasn't familiar with the Mothman connection at the time!
 
'Mothman' Bridge Mystery : Solved !

Rather Late in the day I know, but I visit the board so infrequently these days... and don't worry I'm not about to go all 'Beckjord' on you !


Anyway I watched the 'Mothman Prophecies' film (interesting but thought the article in FT was probably more accurate) the other night with my partner, K and... it stated at the end of the film that no plausible explanation for the Brige collapse at Pointe Pleasant had ever been given. Well that's where 'they' are wrong as it took all of 5 seconds for K (who is a lecturer in mechanical engineering) to work it out.

So here goes :

Faulty traffic lights on the road leading up to the bridge caused the traffic to be at a standstill, and according to K the idling engines of the stationary cars would cause the metal bridge to vibrate at it's natural resonant frequency (a bit like a tuning fork), which eventually resulted in the failure and collapse of the bridge..

So perhaps what they really should be asking is : 'what caused the failure of the traffic lights' ?

Any ideas ?
 
The wires were gnawed by a giant flying red eyed moth monster!:D
 
This page might help

Has someother stuff about the movie

*In the movie, traffic lights mysteriously misbehave and back traffic up on the bridge. Samsell reports in his Dominion Post article that the traffic lights did back traffic up on the bridge because they were not synchronized for the two weeks before the disaster.
Click to expand...
 
The book THE 70 GREATEST CONSPIRACIES OF ALL TIME suggests that the Point Pleasant Mothman happenings was a CIA experiment in mass hysteria. Considering MK-ULTRA was going on full swing, it's not entirely implausible.
 
Mothman working for the CIA...

I always thought some of the descriptions made Mothman seem possibly machine like and one witness who saw it during daylight said it looked metallic and seemed to make a mechanic noise while hovering. The red eyes also smack of infra red goggles, or have I been playing Splinter Cell too much?

Aside from an experiment in mass hysteria (I'm not sure it was "Mass" enough) the u.s. government could have been experimenting on a new kind of propulsion or even anti-gravity device for use in a personal jetpack. Whatever kind of energy they were using may have had the side effects of creating panic and fear like the feelings described by witnesses (strong electromagnetic forces can induce these so can some levels of sound).

Then again how come the Thunderbird and Garuda have always legendarily struck fear and desolation into the hearts of the people who saw them?

It's a tough one and unless someone finds a discarded mothman flying suit lying around on a deserted base it's gonna stay a mystery for a very long time, maybe forever....

I'll see you in time..... :eek!!!!:
 
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