Mothman

This month Minnie is exploring the alphabet by digging out the unusual, often unexplained and alternative way of thinking. Stories of creatures, places and mysteries that have been passed down to us through centuries tease our imagination, live in our dreams and dare us to explore the impossible. Join Minnie each day as she discovers something unusual in the alphabet.

"Mothballs! I keep them handy at all times."

The beginnings of the Mothman legend center around Point Pleasant, West Virginia in November of 1966, when a group of terrified kids came running into the local police station telling about a terrifying encounter they’d had with a huge winged man creature earlier that evening. Thus an American legend was born… but was the creature in question really what so many others have described over the years: a winged man-thing with red eyes?

There were a number of reports about strange creatures that were seen in Point Pleasant around the time of the so-called “Mothman” The majority of the accounts seem to indicate the presence of a large, winged entity that was described as being close to six or seven feet tall, with large red eyes. While most of these reports stemmed from the years surrounding its presence in Point Pleasant, this mystery carried over into following decades as well. One popular myth of the Mothman story suggested that similar creatures were seen at the times of (or directly preceding) major disasters, including the terrible accident at the Chernobyl nuclear facility in 1986. 

The mystery of the Mothman continues to captivate us.  After the collapse of the Silver Bridge which killed 46 people, there were no more reports of the Mothman. This gave rise to the legends that the Mothman sightings and the bridge collapse were connected. Some claim that the Mothman is an alien that appears to warn us of impending doom, whatever it is or was, let’s hope we never hear about it again.  Truth or fiction, you be the judge.