The Mothman Legend

Part 3

Who is the Mothman?

[Back To Mothman Legend Part 1]

Several theories exist about this creature, and some of the least believable are claims that this was simply a very large bird that had been misidentified. Skeptics suggest that the Mothman legend can be explained by the Sandhill Crane, a large bird with red coloring around the eyes (the eyes themselves are not red). It's interesting to note that this is the same bird that skeptics also claim to be the true identity of the Jersey Devil. 

Being a rural town, most of the witnesses are hunters and fisherman, which makes it hard to imagine that so many of them would mistake a bird for a seven-foot tall winged humanoid with glowing red eyes.  Interestingly, though, the TNT area housed small semi-underground buildings called "igloos" that it was later discovered were leaking mutagenic toxic waste into the nearby Wildlife Preserve.  Is it possible that the Mothman was some kind of mutant version of a Sandhill Crane or other creature?

What is often left out of the retelling of the Mothman legend is that at the time of the sightings, there were simultaneously several sightings of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) in the same area.  Several witnesses of either the Mothman or UFOs reported being visited by strange men in all black suits, hats, and sunglasses, who would threaten them to keep quiet about what they had witnessed.  Were these government agents who already knew what these sightings were, or were these emissaries from the Mothman's world trying to keep things quiet?

Many believed that the Mothman was a prophetic creature, a herald of unknown tragedies to come. On December 15, 1967 that theory was put to the test. The Silver Bridge, a shiny steel bridge joining the states of Ohio and West Virginia, and a main route into Point Pleasant, collapsed, killing 46 people.  Some witnesses claimed to have seen the Mothman on the bridge that same day, though a faulty eye-bar was found to be the cause of the collapse.  A true tragedy for the small town, many wondered if the Mothman had been there to warn them of the disaster, though others wondered if the Mothman was part of a curse put on the town by an old Native American chieftain who had been famously murdered two hundred years earlier.  Either way, after the collapse of the Silver Bridge, the Mothman legend was put to rest.  It was never seen again.

Return from the Mothman Legend to the List of Mythical Creatures.