This is my account of trying to discover the real lore and legend of The Mothman from Point Pleasant, West Virginia.
The Mothman is either a cryptid, a supernatural manifestation, or not of this world. Some eyewitness accounts even describe Mothman as being a very large bird. First seen in November, 15 1966, two young couples from Point Pleasant, West Virginia told police they saw a large gray creature whose eyes glowed red when the car’s headlight hit them. Described as a large flying man with 10-foot wings, the creature supposedly followed their car around what was called at the point the TNT area, the site of a former world war ii munitions plant. During the next few days other people reported similar sightings; also reports of UFOs and Men in Black as well during the following year; some reports were directly from the TNT area itself. No direct evidence was ever found except for the eyewitness accounts.
So now that we have the basis of the real lore of what Mothman is let’s talk about the Silver Bridge. The Silver Bridge was built in 1928 it was a suspension bridge that connected West Virginia to Ohio. It collapsed December 15, 1967 during rush hour traffic. 46 people lost their lives.
The collapse was said to have been caused by the failure of a single eye bar in the suspension chains. Analysis showed that the bridge was carrying a lot more weight than it was actually designed for. If you go to the site to visit the old Silver Bridge, there is a mural painted on the flood retaining wall now showing you what it would have looked like had the bridge not collapsed.
This tragedy not only rocked this small town but also the nation. The collapse of the Silver Bridge led to the creation of the first national bridge inspection program in the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1968. This memorial is for all of those lives lost that tragic day. You see, the Silver Bridge collapse was not originally tied to Mothman. It wasn’t until 1975 when author John Keel wrote ‘The Mothman Prophecies’ that the bridge collapse was linked to Mothman. This was the book he wrote after years of investigating Point Pleasant and having a few experiences himself. The result of Keels’ book skyrocketed the popularity of Mothman. Mothman can now be found in comic books, television shows like the x-files, card games like MetaZoo cryptid nation, but the most popular is still the 2002 movie aptly named ‘The Mothman Prophecies’. Now there are a few very big differences between Keels’ book that he wrote and the 2002 film with the same name. The events in Point Pleasant, for instance, happened in 1966 in reality not in 2002 which was present day at the time the film was made. In the movie 36 people died when the bridge collapsed; it was actually 46. The movie said the collapse of the bridge was never explained, but it was later proven that it was all because of the crack in the 13th eye bar. Now, what’s interesting is that Keel did have some strange phone calls with odd sounds and warnings, but he had no interactions with Indrid Cold like Richard Greer did in the film. Also, the dream about Christmas presents floating in a body of water is true, but it was a close friend of Keels that had that dream, not himself. My time here at the museum was all done, but it just raised more questions. I decided that if I wanted to get some real answers, I was going to need to actually talk to the people who lived here.
While exploring Point Pleasant trying to find more answers, I came across a shop that was open called Counter Point. A t-shirt in the window caught my attention- introverted but willing to talk about Mothman- it said. I went inside to see if someone would be willing to talk to me.
A worker in the shop was eager to talk about The Mothman.
“I grew up during that time and I lived just across the river from where the TNT area… which where a lot of kids used to go, and there were two young couples up there and they saw something and it chased their car. Now they believe with all their heart and when they went to the sheriff’s office they said that they had never seen people so frightened in their lives. So my whole thing, is who am I to question that they truly saw something and I will say I was in junior high at the time and there were some odd goings on. Let’s say I lived just across the river and we would see some different things and most of the people would not talk about it in our little town it’s like nothing wrong with us there were some odd lights over there on that little island; that’s there… well I don’t know, it was like flying saucers, it was not planes, it truly wasn’t, you know and do I believe it, I believe it could be, do I dwell on it no, but there was something there; we did not call it Mothman at the time, we called it the Big Bird. I never heard this (the bridge being connected to Mothman) until the movie came out; we blamed a lot of happenings on Cornstalks curse, you need to look into that.”
This was the second time that I had heard about Cornstalk’s curse, the first time being from the museum; maybe we were onto something here.
She continued, “He said this this area will never prosper and he’s buried down the road here. The younger people dwell more on the Mothman, us old people we go back to the curse of Cornstalk.” I thanked her for her time and started to explore more of this town for information on Chief Cornstalk.
After exploring around for a little while we found a break in the flood wall we walked in and looked at the view and wow what a view it was. It was beautiful, I almost forgot about trying to find out more about Cornstalk. As I turned around, I noticed that on the flood wall there were murals painted; large paintings depicting exactly what had happened. I had found an answer finally.
Chief Cornstalk played a major role in defense of the Shawnee homeland during lord Dunmar’s war in 1774. He was the primary Shawnee War Chief. British officials successfully prevented Cornstalk from getting other natives to join him so he was vastly outnumbered; 300 to 2,300 men. Cornstalk and the other Shawnees had the upper hand until colonial reinforcements arrived near sundown. Cornstalk withdrew across the Ohio river, where he eventually negotiated to end the war. During the American revolution, he wanted to remain neutral. In 1777 he went to Fort Randolph and was immediately imprisoned. When an American militia man was killed by Native Americans in the fort’s vicinity, the soldiers killed cornstalk and three other captured Shawnee Indians. As he lay dying, he said the now famous curse:
Cornstalks Curse:
“I was the border man’s friend many times I have saved him and his people from harm. I never warred with you but only to protect our wigwams and lands. I refuse to join your pale face enemies with the redcoats. I come to your fort as your friend and you murdered me; you have murdered by my side my young son. For this, may the curse of the great spirit rest upon this land, may it be blighted by nature, may it even be blighted in its hopes, may the strength of its peoples be paralyzed by the stain of our blood”.
Once again, after I got the answer I was looking for, I was just left with more questions. Is Mothman just a supernatural entity with no basis of explanation? Is Mothman possibly an alien from outer space and that is one of the reasons why the men in black here here in Point Pleasant, along with all of the UFO sightings back in the 60s, or is Mothman just the reincarnation of Chief Cornstalk; exacting the revenge that he told the colonists he would enact. In truth, it seems that all of them are actually part of the legend of Mothman.
“On a chilly fall night in November 1966 two young couples drove into the TNT area north of Point Pleasant, West Virginia when they realized they were not alone. What they saw that night has evolved into one of the great mysteries of all time; hence the Mothman legacy began. It has grown into a phenomenon known all around the world by millions of curious people asking questions: what really happened? What did these people see? Has it been seen since? It still sparks the world’s curiosity: the mystery behind Point Pleasant, West Virginia’s Mothman.”
-Statue of Mothman located in Point Pleasant, WV