The haunting of Point Pleasant is one of the strangest cases in

the history of Fortean phenomena. For thirteen months from

1966 to 1967, this town was haunted by a bizarre creature

known as Mothman. The fuzzy monster had blazing red eyes,

huge bat-like wings, and the arms and legs of a man.

Thousands of people saw the creature, as well as other demonic

beings. The first sighting happened driving down Route 2

along the Ohio River in 1961, a car driver and her passenger had been frightened by a very similar creature. It was standing
in the middle of the road as the car approached, but suddenly opened its enormous wings, spanning 10 feet (3 meters), and
took off vertically into the air.

Roger Scarberry, his wife and two friends were driving past a disused wartime explosive factory close to Point Pleasant
West Virginia around 11:30 p.m. on November 15, 1966. This strange creature gray in color, with a large pair of folded
wings, which stood 6-7 feet (2 meters) tall on two human like legs. This creature stared at the approaching car, and started
to shuffle towards it with its blazing red eyes that seemed to peer out from the top of its body, because it had no head, or at
least no discernible neck. Petrified, they sped away, accelerating to 100 mph. They later saw the same or similar creature
on a hillside near the road. It then spread its batlike wings, rose into the air, and followed the car. (the same creature - or a
second one - flew after them, emitting eerie high-pitched squeaks and effortlessly pacing their car without even flapping its
huge wings.) Once they neared Point Pleasant, it vanished and when they reached the Mason County courthouse they
reported their terrifying encounter to Deputy Millard Halstead. He went back with them to the factory, but nothing was found.
The witnesses said that the creature's eyes were "hypnotic," and it was when the creature started to move towards the plant
door, is when the four panicked and sped away. Roger Scarberry said, "That bird kept right up with us," and "It wasn't even
flapping its wings."

That night, the two couples were not the only ones to witness the creature. Two other separate groups claimed to have seen
the creature multiple times. That evening on the fifteenth, at 10:30, Newell Partridge, outside of Salem, West Virginia
(approximately 90 miles northeast of Point Pleasant), was watching television when suddenly the screen blanked out, a
"fine herringbone pattern appeared on the tube, and at the same time the set started a loud whining noise, winding up to a
high pitch, peaking and breaking off, as if you were on the musical scale and you went as high as you could and came back
down and repeated it… It sounded like a generator winging up." Partridges dog began howling on the porch, and even
continued after he turned the set off. Partridge stepped outside to investigate and shined a light in the direction of the barn
about 150 yards away. "It picked up two red circles, or eyes, which looked like bicycle reflectors," but apparently much
larger. For some reason this deeply frightened him because he knew they were not animals eyes. Partridge's dog then shot
off in the direction of the figure, and he ran inside to get a gun, but decided to not go back outside. He slept that night with
his weapon by his side, and his dog had not returned in two days after this incident, and this is when Partridge read a
newspaper reporting the incidents in Point Pleasant.

Homes were plagues with ghostly manifestations, while mysterious UFOs traveled silently through skies. One of the UFOs
pursued a Red Cross bloodmobile filled with fresh blood for several miles along a darkened highway. Automobiles stalled
and electronic appliances ran amok. Researcher John Keel spent a year at the site and concluded that the Mothman
sightings and the collapse of the seven hundred foot high Silver Bridge at Point Pleasant were connected to a race of
"ultraterrestrials", who would do anything - even kill- to remain anonymous. Scores of people were injured, and thirty-eight
died in the December 15, 1967, disaster.

Nevertheless, it was the Scarberry incident that focused media attention upon this bizarre being, which soon became
known as "Mothman" from a reporter naming it after a villain on the Batman television series. During the next 13 months, it
was allegedly seen by more than 100 other eyewitnesses in or around Point Pleasant, whose descriptions were mostly
consistent with Scarberry's version.

Mothman abroad

Mothman's one known appearance outside Ohio and West Virginia was in England, along a rural road near Sandling Park,
Hythe, Kent, on November 16, 1963. Four young people allegedly saw a "star" ascend from the night sky and disappear
behind trees not far from them. Frightened, they took to their heels but stopped soon afterwards to watch a golden, oval-
shaped light floating a few feet above a field 80 yards from them. The object then moved into the wooded area and was lost
in view.

Suddenly the witnesses saw a dark shape shambling toward them from across the field. It was black, human-sized, and
headless, and it had wings that looked like a bat's. The four then chose to leave the scene.

Other people sighted a similar object over the next few nights. On the twenty-third, two men who had come to investigate
found a "vast expanse of bracken that had been flattened." They also claimed to have seen three huge footprints, two feet
long and nine inches wide, pressed an inch deep in the soil.

(Point Pleasant is on the Ohio River is northwest Mason County. From Charleston, follow highway 35 north sixty miles.)

Bibliographies:

Clark, Jerome. (1993). Unexplained!. Washington, D.C.: Visible Ink Press.

Holzer, H. (1995). Where the Ghosts Are: The Ultimate Guide to Haunted Houses. New York: Citadel Press.

Mothman