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The Mothman

The West Virginia Mothman was a strange creature, the story of which has similarities with that of the Cornish Owlman. Both incidents took place at around the same time, both involved what appeared to be a giant flying creature, both happened when other strange events were occurring locally and both were one-off flaps (pardon the pun) that have not recurred since.

Sightings

The Mothman story took place towards the end of the 1960s around the Charleston and Point Pleasant areas. The first sighting appears to have taken place in 1965 when a witness saw what was described as an "angel". It's not clear whether this was actually the Mothman "monster" or a seperate unconnected incident.

The main sightings appeared between 1966 and 1967. As always in these cases the descriptions from witnesses - frequently scared - vary considerably. Most describe a winged creature slightly larger than a man. One witness described it as like a giant butterfly. The Mothman was frequently described as having a grey or brown body, sometimes with red eyes. It was often seen in flight.

Although the Mothman itself didn't appear to threaten anyone directly its appearance did coincide with a number of other strange phenomena. UFO sightings, animal mutilations, etc also occured about the same time.

And, of course, the end of 1967 saw the Silver Bridge disaster. The Silver Bridge that connected Point Pleasant and Gallipolis collapsed killing 47 people. This happened towards the end of the Mothman period. Coincidence? Probably, but an interesting one.

What Was The Mothman?

Even skeptics accept that something was seen during the Mothman incident. The number of witnesses is simply too high to dismiss it out of hand. The explanations, of course, vary tremendously.

To many skeptics the whole Moth man incident was simply a misidentification of some natural if unusual species, perhaps a large bird. In 2002 the Skeptical Inquirer published an article entitled Mothman Solved which suggested the whole thing was simply Tyto alba - the common barn owl.

Personally I have difficulty with the barn owl hypothesis. The creature isn't rare enough to have been wrongly identified by so many people over such a period of time. And if such incorrect identification happened once, why has it not happened again possibly elsewhere?

Another hypothesis is that the Mothman was a creature rather more rare than the common owl, possibly a sandhill crane. Again, similar objections can be raised - why has not such misidentification also arisen elsewhere?

An idea that makes more sense to me is that the Mothman was an extremely rare creature, possibly one of a kind - a cryptid. Perhaps it was a totally non-native creature that had escaped captivity, or one of the few remaining members of a nearly extinct species.

Others prefer more paranormal explanations. The link with aliens and possible UFO activity is easy to make. Could the Mothman have been the result of alien genetic experiments? Might it have been an alien creature itself, possibly an intelligent one?

Of course it's not only aliens who conduct experiments. Some people have suggested that the whole thing was a result of secret cold war experiments into propaganda or mind control.

Or was the Mothman some form of supernatural entity? Something like a Banshee, foreshadowing the Silver Bridge disaster.

Unfortunately we'll probably never know.