The Mothman Legend
Part 2
[Back to Mothman Legend Part 1]
One would think that five young locals who came running into a courthouse hollering about a "flying man" would bring nothing but immediate doubt, but to his credit, Deputy Millard Halstead could tell that this was no hoax. "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 would later say. Even in separate rooms, every witness told the exact same story, and the terror in their eyes told the Deputy that something had definitely happened to these kids. Halstead took them so seriously that he followed Scarberry back to the TNT area to look for the creature. They found nothing there, but it wouldn't be long before the Mothman legend continued.
It didn't take long for word of the Mothman to spread. The very next night, on November 16th, 1966, frightened townspeople took up arms and combed the TNT area for the creature. They wouldn't find it, but at a nearby home someone who wasn't looking for the Mothman would.
That night a young woman named Marcella Bennett was visiting her friends, the Thomas family, who lived very close to the TNT area. As she approached her car, parked just outside the house, a large grey human-like creature with giant wings and glowing red eyes rose up from the ground nearby. Bennett was so terrified that she literally dropped her infant daughter Teena to the ground and fell on top of her. For minutes Bennett lay paralyzed in fear, staring into the hypnotic red eyes of the creature. She would later tell others that she was aware of what was happening but was quite literally unable to move her body.
Finally, Bennett broke free of her paralysis, grabbed her daughter, and ran into the house. As they called the police, Bennett, along with the other witnesses in the house said that the Mothman walked up onto their porch and peered curiously through the windows. By the time the police arrived, it was gone.
As more and more sightings of this creature became known, other townspeople would come forward with details to add to the Mothman legend. As small town residents many witnesses had stayed quiet, fearing that others would think they were lying - or worse - crazy. But as more witnesses began to come forward, it became very clear that the Mothman legend was no legend at all - it was very real indeed.
Over the course of the next year, many of the locals would witness this creature. Over time, sketch artists were able to compile drawings of what the creature looked like. In every case, the intense red eyes were what captured everyone's attention. In fact, even after dozens of descriptions, just about every detail of the Mothman could be identified, except for one. Nobody seemed to know what its face looked like. One after another, every witness described being so drawn into the creatures eyes that not one of them could recall the surrounding face. Even more strange, everyone who had witnessed this creature take off in flight described the same strange phenomenon. It seems that though the Mothman would spread his enormous wings before ascending into the air, he never flapped them, like any bird would do. Instead, with wings extended, he seemed to simply rise effortlessly into the air, like a balloon.
