Paranormal Studies > Cryptozoology - Bigfoot, Monsters and other Critters
Mothman - Fact or Fiction
zorgon:
Mothman
The following us reprinted by permission from Viewzone...
By Gary David for Viewzone
From late 1966 though late 1967 the small town of Point Pleasant, West Virginia along the Ohio River was terrorized by a series of sightings of an uncanny creature that became known as Mothman. He was typically described as a broad-shouldered black or gray humanoid at least seven feet in height with moth-like wings that extended about ten feet. His glowing red eyes seemed to have a hypnotic effect. Sometimes the creature appeared headless, with round, reflective eyes set into his shoulders.
Artist's sketch of one variation of Mothman.
The eerie entity would reportedly swoop down on people or cars and chase them at very high speeds. Sometimes it would suddenly shoot straight up in the air and completely disappear. The same period saw increased sightings of luminous balls or other UFOs and unexpected appearances of Men In Black.
This 12-foot-high, stainless steel statue of the Mothman located in Point Pleasant, West Virginia was created by artist Robert Roach.
Were all these sightings of Mothman and other anomalous incidents just a weird precursor to the brief psychedelic era in popular culture when hallucinations and altered states of consciousness became the norm? Or are there precedents for this phenomenon in the distant past?
Cut to the high plain of central New Mexico in about 1350 AD. On the western bank of a turbulent, muddy river we see a flat-topped pyramid where a bizarre ritual is taking place. It involves a ring of elders wearing feathered headdresses, geometric medallions, white sashes, and brightly painted capes. Some are holding round shields and eagle-talon staffs.
At the center stands a tall being with the gray wings and coiled proboscis of the night flying hawk moth. One of the elders raises a woven plaque heaped with tiny black and yellow seeds and brown spiny pods. The participants begin to eat the seeds, while low chants punctuated by a lone cottonwood drum rise into the endless desert night.
An uncertain period passes as dizzy heads spin in swirling silver smoke. The creature then extends his massive wings and rockets high above the lone pyramid. He soars over whispering cornfields and circles the bulwark of the pueblo. Suddenly in a burst of purple light the Mothman disappears into gauzy clouds while moths flutter gently over jimsonweed blossoms glowing ghostlike in silent moonlight.
--- Quote --- One of the most striking aspects of murals is the variety of brilliant colors: eight shades of red, three of yellow, two of green, two of blue, as well as purple, lavender, maroon, orange, pink, salmon, white, gray, and outlines of black. From three to 38 layers of plaster, each one providing a visual space for the paintings, were found on the kiva walls. Thus, the total prehistoric murals numbered about 800!
Some murals seem to have been plastered, painted, and then re-plastered after just a couple days when their ritual purpose had been fulfilled. This practice is similar to the destruction of Navajo sand paintings or Tibetan mandalas at the conclusion of certain sacred ceremonies.
Among the plethora of images are non-indigenous green parrots and scarlet macaws, which also suggest a wide trade network with Mexico. One fresco even depicts a jaguar and an eagle, which may refer to the ancient Mexican jaguar-eagle cult. Another shows a rattlesnake superimposed on an "eagle-man." Just add a cactus and you'd have the traditional symbol for Mexico.
One disturbing image shows an unfortunate man painted purple with a red equilateral, outlined cross on his chest being eaten by a horned serpent with sharp teeth and a feathered ruff. This creature is, of course, the archetypal plumed serpent named Quetzalcoatl. Another mural shows a horned serpent with a zigzag body cradling a four-pointed star with a circular face at the center. This star-face (which, by the way, is frowning) supposedly signifies a "soul-face," possibly the soul of a warrior killed in battle. (See painting below.)
Some of the most unusual murals, however, are those that depict what we today call the Mothman. One shows the creature with a red body, white sash, black kilt with geometric designs, and a red headdress. His translucent wings are crosshatched and painted with a few lavender spots. One wing's lower edge has three red spots on a white jagged background.
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Mothman mural. Pink-spotted hawk moth on a jimsonweed bloom.[/i][/b]
The other figure in basically the same pose has a yellow body and a brown and yellow headdress. This one has star symbols on his wings and a couple of dragonfly symbols beneath him. With his left hand he is grasping a lightning bolt emanating from a bowl balanced on a maiden's head. (She is not seen in the this picture, but she is, by the way, holding a macaw in each hand.) Both of the Mothman figures have a coiled or curved proboscis.
Another Mothman mural.
Sphinx moth.
What prompted the depiction of this strange human-insect hybrid? One of the archaeological interns who originally excavated Pottery Mound and helped to copy its murals has put forth an intriguing theory. In a poster presentation at the Society for American Archaeology conference, March 2005 in Salt Lake City, Utah, independent researcher and anthropologist Paul T. Kay provided some interesting links between the night flying hawk moth (Manduca sexta, also called sphinx moth) and the Datura plant. "There exists a mutualistic relationship in nature between the hawk moth and the Datura plant. ALL of this is related to the widespread ritualistic use of Datura during SHAMANISTIC practices..." [3] The pink-spotted hawk moth (Agrius cingulata) may also have been intended.
Datura wrightii is known as devil's weed, thorn apple, or jimsonweed. The latter term is a corruption of "Jamestown weed," after the Virginia colony where Europeans first unwittingly ingested a similar species. This perennial grows throughout the American Southwest in open land with well-drained soil. Its nocturnally blooming, white trumpet-shaped flowers are pollinated by the hummingbird-sized hawk moth, which inserts its long proboscis into the fragrant flower tube to reach the profuse nectar.
Kay furthermore believes that the classic plumed serpent traditionally depicted on ceramics, murals, and rock art is actually the instar, or larva, of this moth. The only problem with this part of Kay's theory, however, is that the 'horn' is at the posterior, not the head. Ancient Pottery Mound inhabitants would surely have known this.
Mural of star-face and horned serpent with feather ruff.
Hawk moth larva.
http://www.viewzone.com/mothman.html
Pot with painted moth from the ruins of Puaray, located on the southern edge of the modern town of Bernalillo, New Mexico, a little over 40 miles north of Pottery Mound. Occupied between 1300 and some time prior to 1680 AD, Puaray was known as the "Pueblo of the Worm" (or "Insect"), which may refer to the hawk moth larva. This whole region, then, may have been the domain of Mothman.
Top view of Hopi "butterfly vase." The six insects are actually moths, which represent the four directions plus the zenith and nadir.
Copyright © 2008 by Gary A. David. All rights reserved.
zorgon:
Mothman
--- Quote ---Mothman is a legendary creature reportedly seen in the Point Pleasant area of West Virginia from 15 November 1966 to 15 December 1967. The first newspaper report was published in the Point Pleasant Register dated 16 November 1966, entitled "Couples See Man-Sized Bird...Creature...Something".
Mothman was introduced to a wider audience by Gray Barker in 1970, later popularized by John Keel in his 1975 book The Mothman Prophecies, claiming that Mothman was related to a wide array of supernatural events in the area and the collapse of the Silver Bridge. The 2002 film The Mothman Prophecies, starring Richard Gere, was based on Keel's book.
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History
--- Quote ---On Nov. 15, 1966, two young couples from Point Pleasant, Roger and Linda Scarberry, and Steve and Mary Mallette told police they saw a large white creature whose eyes "glowed red" when the car headlights picked it up. They described it as a "flying man with ten foot wings" following their car while they were driving in an area of town known as 'the TNT area', the site of a former World War II munitions plant.
During the next few days, other people reported similar sightings. Two volunteer firemen who sighted it said it was a "large bird with red eyes". Mason County Sheriff George Johnson commented that he believed the sightings were due to an unusually large heron he termed a "poopepoke". Contractor Newell Partridge told Johnson that when he aimed a flashlight at a creature in a nearby field its eyes glowed "like bicycle reflectors", and blamed buzzing noises from his television set and the disappearance of his German Shepherd dog on the creature. Wildlife biologist Dr. Robert L. Smith at West Virginia University told reporters that descriptions and sightings all fit the Sandhill Crane, a large American crane almost as high as a man with a seven foot wingspan featuring circles of reddish coloring around the eyes, and that the bird may have wandered out of its migration route.
There were no Mothman reports in the immediate aftermath of the December 15, 1967 collapse of the Silver Bridge and the death of 46 people, giving rise to legends that the Mothman sightings and the bridge collapse were connected.
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Claims of later sightings
--- Quote ---UFOlogist Jerome Clark writes that many years after the initial events, members of the Ohio UFO Investigators League re-interviewed several people who claimed to have seen Mothman, all of whom insisted their stories were accurate. Linda Scarberry claimed that she and her husband had seen Mothman "hundreds of times," sometimes at close range, commenting, "It seems like it doesn’t want to hurt you. It just wants to communicate with you."
Cryptozoologist Loren Coleman claims that sightings of Mothman continue, and told USA Today he re-interviewed witnesses described in Keel's book who said Mothman was "a huge creature about 7 feet tall with huge wings and red eyes" and that "they could see the creature flapping right behind them" as they fled from it.[/size][/color]
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Explanations
Paranormal
--- Quote ---Some UFologists, paranormal authors, and cryptozoologists believe that Mothman was an alien, a supernatural manifestation, or an unknown cryptid. In his 1975 book The Mothman Prophecies, author John Keel claimed that the Point Pleasant residents experienced precognitions including premonitions of the collapse of the Silver Bridge, unidentified flying object sightings, visits from mysterious or threatening men in black, and other bizarre phenomena. However, Keel has been criticized for distorting established data, and for gullibility.
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Skeptical
--- Quote ---Skeptic Joe Nickell says that a number of hoaxes followed the publicity generated by the original reports, such as a group of construction workers who tied red flashlights to helium balloons. Nickell attributes the Mothman reports to pranks, misidentified planes, and sightings of a barred owl, an albino owl, or perhaps a large snowy owl, suggesting that the Mothman's "glowing eyes" were actually red-eye effect caused from the reflection of light from flashlights or other bright light sources.
Folklorist Jan Harold Brunvand notes that Mothman has been widely covered in the popular press, some claiming sightings connected with UFOs, and others claiming that a military storage site was Mothman's "home". Brunvand notes that recountings of the 1966-67 Mothman reports usually state that at least 100 people saw Mothman with many more "afraid to report their sightings", but observed that written sources for such stories consisted of children's books or sensationalized or undocumented accounts that fail to quote identifiable persons. Brunvand found elements in common among many Mothman reports and much older folk tales, suggesting that something real may have triggered the scares and became woven with existing folklore. He also records anecdotal tales of Mothman supposedly attacking the roofs of parked cars inhabited by teenagers in lovers lanes.
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Festivals and statue
--- Quote ---Point Pleasant held its first Annual Mothman Festival in 2002 and a 12-foot-tall metallic statue of the creature, created by artist and sculptor Bob Roach, was unveiled in 2003. The Mothman Museum and Research Center opened in 2005 and is run by Jeff Wamsley. The Festival is a weekend-long event held on the 3rd weekend of every September. There are a variety of events that go on during the festival such as guest speakers, vendor exhibits, and hayride tours focusing on the notable areas of Point Pleasant.
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Mothman From Wikipedia
zorgon:
Point Pleasant, Mason County
W. Virginia Sightings
Newspaper Clippings and Eye Witness Accounts
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Source: Mothman US
zorgon:
Point Pleasant, Mason County
W. Virginia Sightings
Eyewitness Sketches
Source: Mothman US
zorgon:
--- Quote ---The Loren Coleman sketch is above. Below is a scan of the Thunderbird artifact from the book The New England Indians by C. Keith Wilbur. It may also be found in The Western Abenaki by Colin Calloway.
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Source: Mothman US
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