WARNING: This part of our Haunted Museum
deals with strange News stories. The reported discovery creatures,
Cryptids and just weird nature. Some of the photos are art may be
disturbing to some so please be ready to close down the actual page
if you wish or click on the Panic button provided to take you elsewhere
on the Internet or another page in this site so you may regain your
composure. The things you see here are reported as real. This part
of the Haunted Museum is not for the Squeamish by any means!
Mothman was the name given to a strange creature
reported in the Charleston and Point Pleasant areas of West Virginia
between November 1966 and December 1967. The creature was sporadically
reported to be seen before and after those dates, with some sightings
as recent as 2005. And a Mothman "SIGHTING" on video from
BeiJing China Aug 20 2006
Most observers describe the Mothman as
a winged man-sized creature with large reflective red eyes. It often
appeared to have no head, with its eyes set into its chest. A number
of hypotheses have been presented to explain eyewitness accounts, ranging
from misidentification and coincidence to paranormal phenomena and conspiracy
theories.
The Mothman was reportedly first sighted
on November 12, 1966. A group of five men were preparing a grave in
a cemetery near Clendenin, West Virginia when they reportedly saw a
"brown human shape with wings" soaring from behind trees and
flying over their heads. The sighting was not made public until later,
and the first sighting reported in the media occurred three days later.
On November 15, two young married couples from Point
Pleasant, Roger and Linda Scarberry and Steve and Mary Mallette, were
on a late night drive in the Scarberrys' car. They were passing the
West Virginia Ordnance Works, an abandoned World War II TNT factory,
about seven miles north of Point Pleasant, in the 2500 acre (10 km²)
McClintic Wildlife Station, when they noticed two red lights in the
shadows by an old generator plant near the factory gate. They stopped
the car, and were startled to discover that the lights were actually
the glowing red eyes of a large animal, "shaped like a man, but
bigger, maybe six and a half or seven feet tall, with big wings folded
against its back," according to Roger Scarberry. Terrified, they
drove toward Route 62.
A plaque on the Roach statue gives a version of the original legend:
"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."Going down the exit road, they saw
the creature standing on a nearby ridge. It spread its wings and flew
alongside their car to the city limits. They drove to the Mason County
courthouse to alert Deputy Millard Halstead, who later said "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." He
followed Roger Scarberry's car back to the TNT factory, but found no
sign of the strange creature. According to the book Alien Animals, by
Janet and Colin Bord, a poltergeist attack on the Scarberry home occurred
later that night, during which the creature was seen several times.
The following night, on November 16, several armed
townspeople combed the area around the TNT plant for signs of Mothman.
Mr and Mrs Raymond Wamsley and Mrs Marcella Bennett with baby daughter
Teena in tow were in a car enroute to visit friends, Mr and Mrs Ralph
Thomas, who lived in a bungalow among the "igloos" (concrete
dome-shaped dynamite storage structures erected during WWII) near the
TNT plant. The igloos were now empty, some owned by the county, some
by companies intending to use them for storage. They were headed back
to their car when a figure appeared behind their parked car. Mrs Bennett
said it seemed like it had been lying down, slowly rising up from the
ground, large and gray, with glowing red eyes. While Wamsley phoned
the police, the creature walked onto the porch and peered in at them
through the window.
An eyewitness's sketch of the Mothman.On November 24, four people saw
the creature flying over the TNT area. On the morning of November 25,
Thomas Ury, who was driving along Route 62, just north of the TNT, claimed
to have seen the creature standing in a field, and then spread its wings
and flew alongside his car as he sped toward the Point Pleasant sheriff's
office.
On November 26, Mrs Ruth Foster of Charleston, West
Virginia reportedly saw Mothman standing on her front lawn, but the
creature was gone by the time her brother-in-law went out to look. On
the morning of November 27, it apparently pursued a young woman near
Mason, West Virginia, and was reported again in St. Albans the same
night, by two children.[citation needed]
A Mothman sighting was again reported on January 11,
1967, and several other times that same year. Fewer sightings of the
Mothman were reported after the collapse of the Silver Bridge, when
46 people died. The Silver Bridge, so named for its aluminum paint,
was an eyebar chain suspension bridge that connected the cities of Point
Pleasant, West Virginia and Gallipolis, Ohio over the Ohio River. It
was built in 1928 and collapsed on December 15, 1967; investigation
of the wreckage pointed to the failure of a single eye-bar in a suspension
chain due to a small manufacturing flaw.
In the wake of Mothman and Other Curious Encounters
(ISBN 1-931044-34-1), author Loren Coleman was contacted by those linked
to the events issuing from Point Pleasant, and he began a study of the
so-called "Mothman Curse, adding more to the list in April 2007.
Reports of sightings similar to the Mothman occasionally
appear in different parts of the world. Most recently in the small town
of Kerrville, Texas at a local university located next to a cemetary.
Many locals refer to the monster as Tooden which is the pet name of
James Earlson, a mass murderer who slaughtered 36 men on July 25th of
1902. Witnesses of Tooden have developed a very strong fear of weather,
particularly of rain and thunder However, alleged sightings from the
area of Chernobyl before the nuclear accident in 1986 seem to spring
from a fictional reference - the Mothman Prophecies film.
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