The Mothman Documentary

Now, improvised search parties are attempting to find it. Just what it is, no one is sure. And then, when it came up over the trees, I could see it was a bird, a huge bird.

We couldn't believe what we really saw. This thing was standing there, but it had a body just like a man. It seemed massive in its legs.

We sit there for a minute and looked at each other, and then we took off. It's been almost 50 years since the first sighting of the so-called Mothman. But what was it?

Just an urban legend, or is there really some truth in the bizarre encounters with this bird-like creature? The first recorded sighting of it was on November 12th, 1966, when five gravediggers working near Point Pleasant, West Virginia, a small town with a very tight-knit community, claim to have seen a man-like figure with huge bat wings fly down from nearby trees, straight over their heads. Then, just a few days later, on November 15th, Roger Scarberry, his wife and three other people, ran terrified into the Mason County Courthouse and reported that they had witnessed a seven-foot creature with glowing red eyes and huge wings.

At first they thought the red eyes were car lights, but when they realized it was in fact a creature, they sped it off very quickly, with everyone in the car later reporting that the creature followed them closely but flew off into the night sky as they approached the courthouse. Deputy Millard Halstead, who had been on duty the night of the incident, said he was convinced the people were not lying. Everyone knew everyone in the community and he knew the people had never been in any trouble before.

All five of them gave exactly the same account of what they had seen, even though they were interviewed in separate rooms, and the deputy said the terror in their eyes was very real and that he was convinced they were not lying and did see something that followed them. The incident was taken so seriously that the deputy went with Scarberry back to the site near the MacLinton Wildlife Management area where the creature had first been spotted, and although nothing was found, it wasn't long before this sighting and the gravedigger sighting got around and frightened the locals. In fear that this creature was roaming nearby, the townspeople took up arms and started combing the area to try and track down and kill it, but their efforts were futile and nothing was found.

Not long after, Marcella Bennett, who was completely unaware of the sightings, was visiting a friend who lived close to the wildlife area. As she left the house to walk to her car, she was confronted by a large grey, human-like creature that had giant wings and glowing red eyes. Marcella was so terrified she said she dropped her infant daughter and then fell on top of her to protect her from whatever this thing was.

Marcella stayed like this for several minutes and was paralyzed with fear. She said she then stared into the glowing red eyes of the Mothman and was eventually able to get up and run back to the house with her daughter where the police were quickly called. Her friends also witnessed this creature as it reportedly walked up to the porch of the house trying to peer in, but disappeared as police approached.

Throughout the year, many more locals came forward with similar sightings, some saying that they had kept quiet about their encounter for fear they would not be believed. To the locals and everyone else, it was becoming clear that the Mothman was not a figment of imagination but could in fact be real. All the witnesses described the exact same creature with its dark human-like face, glowing red eyes, a huge wingspan and also the strange way it took off.

There was no flapping of wings, just a vertical take off from the ground as if it was jumping into the sky. There have of course been many theories on what the creature could have been, ranging from an alien to a mutant sandhill crane. John Keel, who was a famous journalist, ufologist and author of the Mothman prophecies, even said that he thought a few reports could have just been flying owls.

The mutant sandhill crane idea came from the fact that near the location at which Roger Scarberry and the passengers in his car claimed to have spotted the Mothman was called the TNT area, which during WW2 was used as a devoted area for ammunition manufacturing. While on that site are bunkers that were discovered to be leaking toxic waste into the nearby wildlife preserve. Now many people think the Mothman could have been a mutated sandhill crane or other similar animal.

But probably the most believed theory is that the Mothman was some kind of prophetic creature who had come to warn the people of Point Pleasant of an impending tragedy. This theory was brought about when on December the 15th 1967, just over a year since the first sighting, the Silver Bridge, a steel bridge connecting the state of Ohio and West Virginia and the main route into the town of Point Pleasant mysteriously collapsed. The accident took the lives of 46 people, two of which were never found, and on the day of the disaster people witnessed something stood on top of the bridge.

Many think that this is the Mothman and it showed itself to warn the townspeople of the imminent disaster or that it was responsible for the collapse of the bridge. After the bridge collapsed, the Mothman sightings completely stopped and it has never been seen again. Despite the tragedy, the town of Point Pleasant have kept this legend alive now more so than ever and the town attracts hundreds of tourists every year who have an interest in the Mothman.

It even held its first Mothman festival in 2002 that continues on the third weekend of every September, has unveiled a 12-foot metallic statue of the creature and in 2002 opened the Mothman Museum and Research Centre. Along with the films, books, stories and documentaries, the Mothman legend will continue to live on and leave us wondering what exactly did the people of Point Pleasant witness during the 1960s. So that's it for this short documentary.

I hope you've enjoyed and let me know what you think the Mothman could have been. Was it a real one-off creature, a mutation or just the people's imagination? Thanks for watching and I will see you again in the next video.

Thanks for watching.