In our current post-nerd moment, where fandoms reign supreme and cosplay and cons are expected content-generators, the festival has become a significant event in the cryptid and wider sci-fi community.
Not a night owl meme plus#
The first one launched in 2002 to capitalize on buzz from the movie, and according to Bellamy comprised just “ Jeff Wamsley with two card tables selling his books and someone selling hot dogs across the street.”īut the unveiling of the metal Mothman plus savvy online marketing-since, as Bellamy explains, “Jeff, early on, jumped both feet into the Internet,”-helped expand the festival’s reach. “Main Street was dead,” says Denny Bellamy, tourism director for Mason County, when describing pre-festival Point Pleasant. Mothman mania took several decades to really catch on. The Silver Bridge incident mostly put an end to Point Pleasant’s Mothman sightings, which fell off completely and immediately. Though the cause was later revealed to be a neglected suspension chain, some claimed Mothman was responsible. On December 15, 1967-13 months exactly, some will point out, after the first Mothman sighting-Point Pleasant’s Silver Bridge collapsed in the midst of Christmas shopping rush hour. Keel, who spent months in town interviewing witnesses, claimed over a hundred people spotted the Mothman in a span of a little over one year. In the weeks and months that followed, similar sightings continued across Point Pleasant and the surrounding area. The teens would claim it chased them all the way back into town, matching the speed of the Chevy to over a hundred miles an hour. Then the creature stood and took flight right at them. Suddenly, their headlights hit a pair of eyes: red, glowing, and “hypnotic,” as one would later describe them. Two young couples, the Scarberrys and Manettes, were out for an aimless nighttime drive around a town that had, according to Mothman Prophecies author John Keel, “twenty-two churches and no barrooms.” The first Mothman sighting was on Novemnear an abandoned munitions factory just outside town known as the TNT area. But early on, a reporter (perhaps a fan of Batman deep cuts) labeled the creature Mothman, and the name has stuck ever since. Witnesses almost invariably compare him to a bird. Since his first Point Pleasant sighting, descriptions of the creature have stayed remarkably consistent: around 7 feet tall with a 10-foot wingspan, piercing red eyes, and a grey body covered in fur or feathers. We don’t want to be pedantic, but Mothman doesn’t look like a moth. Here’s the real story and explanation behind Mothman, as well as how this paranormal phenomenon became a-well, a national phenomenon. Point Pleasant’s Mothman Museum draws visitors year round, and since its founding 20 years ago, the Mothman Festival has grown from a sparsely-attended gathering into a national sensation. While he may not have the household name recognition of Nessie, Mothman has amassed a significant following since he first terrified Ohio Valley denizens more than five decades ago. You may know him from paranormal researcher John Keel’s 1975 account The Mothman Prophecies: A True Story, or, more likely, from that book’s 2002 film adaptation with Richard Gere and Laura Linney. Mothman is a cryptid, a catch-all term for fantastic beasts like the Loch Ness Monster or Bigfoot for which we have no substantial proof but which could, in theory, exist. And this September on the 17th and 18th, around 15,000 people are celebrating him at West Viriginia’s Mothman Festival.
This is the Mothman, Point Pleasant’s most famous resident. It’s a towering, humanoid monster with red eyes, ripped abs, and, most importantly, enormous wings. It’s not Washington or any of the pre-Revolutionary War figures that make up the town’s early history. If you stroll down the quaint Main Street of Point Pleasant, past antique shops and a historic hotel cheerily advertising itself as haunted, and walk onward to the quiet town square, you might be surprised by the statue there.
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