No

by Dean Traylor

Created on: January 25, 2011

Predictions and bad omens have a strange way of popping up after an event has happened. It’s only afterward that somebody or something - in the case of the Mothman Prophesies – emerges, claiming to have foreseen or signified a major disaster that had just occurred.

Case in point: The Mothman. Supposedly, this winged-humanoid demon’s mere presence is a harbinger of bad things to come. Since the mid-1960s it has been spotted by frightened commuters in the forests and abandoned mines off of Route 62 near Point Pleasant, West Virginia. If its massive body and sinister red eyes were not enough to send chills down the back of the eye-witnesses, its reputation for showing up before a disaster occurs made many dread its presence.

However, a closer look reveals something other than a prophetic creature; its reputation as a bad omen was based on one unrelated event. On top of that, the supposed sightings and precognitive powers were merely the thing of legend and imagination.

The Mothman’s emergence was first reported on November 15, 1966 when a group of young travelers from Point Pleasant spotted something lurking near the West Virginia Ordnance Works, an abandoned World War II explosives factory.  Roger and Linda Scarberry, along with Steve and Mary Mallette and their cousin Lonnie Button noticed two red lights in the shadow by an old generator plant.

Curious, they pulled the car over to get a better look. What they saw terrified them. The red lights, as Roger Scarberry claimed, were the eyes of a large beast “shaped like a man, but bigger, maybe six and a half or seven feet tall with big wings folded against its back. The young travelers sped away toward Route 62 with the creature in hot pursuit of them (a version of this legend was written on a plaque on the Mothman statue).

They managed to reach the Mason County courthouse where they alerted Deputy Millard Halstead. Instead of casting doubt on the story the deputy later stated, “I’ve known these kids all their lives. They’d never been in any trouble and they were really scared that night. I took them seriously.”

The next day, the deputy investigated, but never found any evidence of the creature. (Many skeptics point out the travelers may have misidentified an animal such as the Sandhill Crane which had been a problem in the region during the 1960s. These cranes were 39 inches with a wingspan up to 7 feet.)

This should have been the end of the story; however, news leaked of this incident. Soon, more accounts were being reported to the police. From November 16 through the 24, several people reported seeing the elusive creature near Route 62 and the abandoned ordinance factory. Each account was more dramatic than the next. Soon, the sightings dried up and nothing was reported for two months.

That all changed on January 11, 1967 when the sightings of the Mothman (and possibly the most important to the creation of its legend) began to intensify. This time, the creature was spotted hovering over  Silver Bridge. This eyebar chain suspension bridge was a major thorough-fare in the region. It connected Point Pleasant and Gallipolis, Ohio over the Ohio River. The bridge had been a fixture in the region since 1928 and was heavily used by commuters between the two towns.

These sightings over the bridge would continue until the fateful day of December 15, 1967. On a cold, frosty day, the bridge collapsed taking 46 lives with it.  An investigation would reveal that the cause of the accident was a flaw in its structure that had gone unnoticed until it was too late.

Despite the official findings, many in the area were convinced that the Mothman had something to do with. Rumors persisted that the presence of the creature over the bridge in the months before the collapse was a sign that it knew something was going to happen and that it was trying to warn people.

Although the sightings of the Mothman stopped after the demolition and removal of the remains of the bridge, its legend began to grow. This fairly new local legend would become an international paranormal sensation. And much of its popularity and fascination – as well as the claim it was a prophet of doom – can be traced to one man.

The late John Keel was a journalist and UFOlogist. His interest in the story led to him writing an international bestseller, “The Mothman Prophesies.” In the 1975 book, Keel theorized that Mothman was part of a “parapsychological” event in the Port Pleasant area. He included references to precognition by witnesses who “foresaw” the Silver Bridge collapse. Also, in the book, he claimed that some of the people who perished in the collapse had seen the Mothman a few days prior to the event.

The sensationalism of the book led to more written accounts as well as more elements to this growing myth. In one book, “Alien Animals” by Janet and Colin Bord, a poltergeist reportedly attacked the Scarberry home on the same night they came into contact with Mothman.

To add more to this perplexing myth, a movie based on Keel’s book was released in 2002. The movie, starring Richard Gere, added that the mysterious creature not only showed up before the bridge’s collapse, it revealed itself to people were going to be involved in serious and deadly accidents.

That same year, “Skeptical Inquirer” exposed Keel’s accounts as being far from accurate. It turned out that Keel’s original notes on the matter greatly differed from the finished product. This gave hints that Keel may have embellished much of the information he had originally gathered.

By now, much of the Mothman Prophesies – as well as Mothman – have been dismissed as pure urban myth. Even the noted folklorist and urban legend expert Jan Harold Brunvald has pointed out that Mothman’s story has elements of other older folk tales mixed in with actual events to create a convincing, if not real, story.

Mothman – if real – doesn’t appear to have the ability to predict the future. Then again, nobody could have predicted the events of December 15, 1967.  Its ability to predict the future – especially major disasters – is about as credible as the guy on the corner holding a sign reading “The End is near.”

Learn more about this author, Dean Traylor.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.