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| By Mark Turner Images |
Demon or Harbinger of Doom? A little back story . . .
On the night of November 12th, 1966, in Point Pleasant West Virginia, two young couples went to the secluded TNT area, a former munitions storage dump used by the government during World War II. That evening, someone saw red lights. As they went to investigate, they saw that the lights were actually eyes attached to a man like creature that stood taller than any man. They ran back to the car, and sped off as the thing took flight, chasing them and keeping-up with the speed of the car, even flying in-front of the car. Eventually it took off leaving the frightened teenagers. They ran to the police station and told their story. As time went on, more reports were made, a news man called it the Mothman after the popular Batman TV show, people saw UFO's in the area, odd men dressed in black began to ask questions of anyone that made reports of Mothmen or UFO's, some evening threatening witnesses not to tell their story. There was so much activity that the military even began to take notice. Then, just before Christmas on December 15th 1967, the Silver Bridge, spanning the Ohio River between Point Pleasant West Virginia to Gallipolis Ohio, collapsed, killing 46 people. There were some that said the creature had been seen near the bridge only hours before. After the collapse, no more sightings of the Mothman were made.
Birthplace of a Moth . . .
In 2008, a day before the Mothman Festival in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, we made a stop by the Mothman Museum. The owner/curator was kind enough to give us a map of the places where people had reported seeing the monster back in the late 1960's. We had been to the festival a year before but never ventured to the sites where the creature had been sighted.
We had lunch at the Iron Gate Grill and took a tour of the very nice building beside it. A place that you can reserve for business parties, meetings and so on. It was a location ripe for some old ghost stories. I do not know if they have any, but it's full of history.
Then we were off to the TNT area, the sight of the very first Mothman sighting. It is a dangerous place, and just last year, one of the bunkers, or igloos, exploded during the night! No one was hurt, but if I had known how dangerous it was, I would not have ventured into one of them, in the pitch black, like you see me doing here. I took a photo inside but it was too dark. You could see large, old cans. I believe probably gun powder and god knows what else was in them. They had simply been left behind some 50 or 60 years ago. It was from this site that the Mothman creature was first spotted.
Later I'll talk about Chief Cornstalk and the Curse on Point Pleasant.
Other Mystery Creature Stories on this site . . .
