Mothman

[Christian Kielbasa]

November 26, 1966

    On November 26, Mrs. Ruth Foster of Charleston, West Virginia reportedly saw Mothman standing on her front lawn, but the creature was gone by the time her brother-in-law went out to investigate. Further, on the morning of November 27, the creature allegedly pursued a young woman near Mason, West Virginia, and was reported again in St. Albans the same night, by two children.

1967

    A Mothman sighting was again reported on January 11, 1967, and several other times that same year. Fewer sightings of the Mothman were reported after the collapse of the Silver Bridge, when 46 people died. The Silver Bridge, so named for its aluminum paint, was an eyebar chain suspension bridge that connected the cities of Point Pleasant, West Virginia and Kanauga, Ohio over the Ohio River. The bridge was built in 1928, and it collapsed on December 15, 1967. Investigation of the bridge wreckage pointed to the failure of a single eye-bar in a suspension chain due to a small manufacturing flaw. There are rumors that the Mothman appears before upcoming disasters, or that the Mothman causes disasters.

[Christian Kielbasa]

After the event

    The word "Mothman" was an invention by an Ohio newspaper copyeditor, after the first news stories of the "Big Bird" sightings appeared.  [This has been disputed by some]

    A large collection of first-hand material about the Mothman is found in John Keel's 1975 book The Mothman Prophecies, in which Keel lays out the chronology of the Mothman and what he claims to be related parapsychological events in the area, including UFO activity, Men in Black encounters, poltergeist activity, Bigfoot and black panther sightings, animal and human mutilations, precognitions by witnesses, and the December 15 1967 collapse of the Silver Bridge spanning the Ohio River.

    Keel's first book was the basis of a 2002 film, The Mothman Prophecies, starring Richard Gere, Laura Linney, Debra Messing and Will Patton, directed by Mark Pellington. A companion book called The Eighth Tower, also released in 1975, was derived from material edited from The Mothman Prophecies by the publishers.

    In the May-June 2002 issue of the Skeptical Inquirer, journalist John C. Sherwood, a former business associate of UFO hoaxer Gray Barker, published an analysis of private letters between Keel and Barker during the period of Keel's investigation. In the article, "Gray Barker's Book of Bunk", Sherwood reported finding significant differences between what Keel wrote at the time of his investigation and what he wrote in his first book about the Mothman reports, raising questions about the book's accuracy. Even though Sherwood had reported that Keel would not assist him in clarifying the differences, a simple analysis of Keel's earliest Mothman book, Strange Mutants: Demon Dogs and Phantom Cats (1970) shows almost no difference with what Keel wrote in The Mothman Prophecies five years later.

    Cryptozoologist Loren Coleman, in conjunction with Sony/Screen Gems studio and as noted in the documentary film by David Grabias, "In Search of the Mothman," served as one of the fictional movie's two publicity spokespersons (Keel being the other, although Keel's involvement was limited by health concerns).

    Andy Colvin, a photographer and documentary filmmaker who claims to have seen the Mothman, has produced two books and a reality series on Mothman called The Mothman's Photographer, featuring John Keel and almost 50 witnesses. Colvin's sister took a snapshot of him in 1973 that allegedly shows a Garuda in the background.



http://www.mothmen.us/mothman_background.htm