INTRO:
Hello and welcome to Myth Monsters, my name is Erin and I’ll be your host for these little snack bite size podcasts on folklore and mythical monsters from around the world.
These podcasts focus on the actual cryptids, folklore and mythic monsters from global mythology, rather than focusing on full stories of heroes and their big adventures.
I’ll also be dropping in some references that they have to recent culture and where you can see these represented in modern day content so you can learn more, and get as obsessed as I am about these absolute legends of the mythological world.
I know a lot of you loved my little Maneater jingle from the Jorogumo episode a few weeks back and I wanted to pay a homage to another great tune for this weeks’ monster.
DESCRIPTION
Mothman, there’s no need to feel down.
I said, Mothman, lift that man off the ground.
I said, Mothman, ‘cause you’re in a new town
And there’s kids to be abducted.
'Cause you’re a really big M-O-T-H.
A really, really big M-O-T-H.
You have big flappy wings, creepy glowing red eyes,
And the element of surprise…
Rights of those lyrics completely go to a couple of tumblr users who wrote this version. I found them on yeah-yeah-beebiss-1’s, so thanks for that. You can find a much better version to the actual YMCA song on YouTube - highly recommended.
So Mothman is who our episode is on today - he’s a cryptid, so kind of different from our normal monsters! Let me tell you about cryptids before we get into specifics about our monster of the week. Oxford Dictionary defines cryptids as ‘an animal whose existence or survival is disputed or unsubstantiated, such as the yeti.’ Other examples of these are Bigfoot, Nessie, Yowies, and even the Jersey Devil which we looked at in our second episode.
Now Mothman, other than Nessie, is my favourite cryptid of all time - you know why? Because it's ridiculous, and the name is so unimaginative that it just makes me DIE whenever I hear something about it.
Now Mothman is described as a 5-9ft tall man and moth hybrid, with giant red eyes, massive wings and antenna included. The details of his face have never really been revealed, however, one witness who saw his face clearly, could only say that it was horrible and monstrous. She went on to have horrific nightmares about him, and then suffered a mental breakdown.
Anyone who seems to get a close look at Mothman seems to suffer from extreme fear and psychological distress, sometimes lasting for months or years afterwards. People have even said that a sense of pure evil overcame them when they saw Mothman's eyes. He’s reported to have a wingspan of 10-15 feet wide, and can fly up to 100mph. But no one has ever reported him flapping his wings, apparently he just shoots up into the air and can glide super fast on the wind.
Despite all this, he’s been said to not be aggressive towards people, but will stalk and follow cars in the area he ‘haunts’.
He’s only ever been seen in a specific place, which is Point Pleasant in West Virginia but he has been reported several times in the last 60 years. Now Mothman has specifically and mostly seen around what residents of the town call the ‘TNT Zone’ of Point Pleasant, this is where a whole bunch of munitions factories were based during WW2, and funnily enough they used to make TNT there. Now it’s just a bunch of old hangers and it’s creepily abandoned, but a lot of kids apparently hang around there in the night for a hookup or for doing teenager stuff. Hey, I’m no snitch, I’m not gonna tell you what they do up there, jeez. Snitches get stitches and teenagers are so much scarier than Mothman.
Speaking of sightings, let’s get into those shall we?
Apparently the first sighting of Mothman was when a group of five guys were digging some graves in the area on 12th November 1966, when they saw a "brown human shape with wings" fly off behind them and flew over their heads. However, this sighting was not told to the public, and the first sighting described in the media happened three days later.
So the first proper reported sighting of Mothman was reported on November 15, 1966, when two young couples, Roger and Linda Scarberry, and Steve and Mary Mallet told the police that they saw a large gray-white creature whose eyes "reddened" when the headlights of the car hit it. So they said that as they went through this TNT zone, that ‘it was shaped like a man, but bigger, maybe six and a half or seven feet tall, with big wings folded against its back’, it then followed their car overhead, all the way to the highway. They actually reported this to the police, and they were so frightened that the coppers did go and check it out, obviously they didn’t find anything.
Now eerily enough, the same evening a builder called Newell Partridge, was watching television when the screen suddenly went dark. He said that the screen started making weird sounds and showing blurry pictures. In the hub-bub, his dog called Bandit was also very riled up and started howling at the hay barn which was about 150 yards away from the house. When Newell turned on his flashlight, he had two red circles that looked like eyes staring back at him. Bandit raced off across the property, and even though they tried to call him back, he did not return. Apparently Newell was so scared, he went back inside and slept with a gun loaded propped up against his bed.
Bandit never came back, and a few days later, Newell read about the experience the two couples had, and in the report Roger Scarberry said that he had seen the body of a dog near the roadside just before Mothman appeared.
Another incident happened not too long after, when a couple and their infant daughter were visiting friends in the neighbourhood of the TNT zone. They were heading back to their car when a figure appeared behind it. They said that it seemed like it had been lying down, slowly rising up from the ground, large and gray, with glowing red eyes. They got back into the house and phoned the police, but as they did they heard the creature walk onto the porch and saw it peering in through the windows. By the time the police got to the house, it had gone. This story actually FREAKS ME OUT.
On November 24, four people saw the Mothman flying over the TNT area and on the morning of November 25, it was reported that Mothman was standing in a field by the road, then spread its wings and took off, following the spectators car down Route 62. On November 26, Mrs. Ruth Foster saw the Mothman standing on her front lawn, but he flew off quickly when her brother in law went to go see it.
These are just a few examples of sightings, but reports of Mothman continue to this day. Strangely enough, "strange flying creatures" and "winged men" have been reported in many other American states as well in Europe, Asia and the Middle East, including a supposed sighting in Chernobyl, Ukraine, shortly before the horrific Nuclear Disaster in 1986.
Another really sad sighting was the collapse of the Silver Bridge, a suspension bridge which connects Point Pleasant to Gallipolis in Ohio. It was built in 1928 and collapsed on December 15, 1967, killing 46 people. It was said that Mothman stood on the bridge before and after the disaster, and researchers have said that seeing Mothman might be a warning of a tragic event to come. Some have even said that is why Mothman hung about in Point Pleasant, as it knew that the disaster was coming. The bridge collapsed as it had an issue from the day it was built, and was inevitably bound to happen, unfortunately, it took those 46 people’s lives when it did.
ORIGIN:
Mothman sightings have been associated with at least two other cryptids. They’ve been linked to the amazing Thunderbirds from US mythology, who have gray bodies and red heads that were sighted in the same area at the same time and Owlman who is a very similar boy with wings and red eyes seen in Cornwall, in the UK in 1976. We’re going to cover Thunderbirds another time, there’s not much else to say on Owlman to be honest - so you’ll have to live with that.
Also, in the same kind of area, known as the Appalachia, where a whole bunch of Mountains are across the Northeast states, other big name cryptids have originated, such as Bigfoot, Sheepsquatch (I know, don’t laugh), The Brown Mountain Lights, Moon-Eyed People, The Flatwoods Monster and the Bell Witch hauntings are to name a few - so it might just be a breeding ground for spooky cryptid creatures.
Mothman most often believed to be either a crane or an owl, due to the glowing red eyes and wings, as when you shine a light at either of these creatures, their eyes will reflect. Some sightings have even been disputed saying that they were bike lights! Some people even believe that Mothman might be an angel, demon or the spawn of a blood curse placed upon the town - which some also say the Silver Bridge collapse is linked to, rather than the structural weakness in the bridge itself.
People have tried to hunt down the Mothman, and it is fully accepted that the TNT plant is where Mothman makes his lair, however, the area around it is made up of hundreds and hundreds of acres of woodland, and eerily, a network of tunnels that they used during the war - making it pretty good for a man who is also a moth to get around unnoticed. Also, the wood is protected by a local Wildlife charity too, and a lot of the wood is inaccessible to cars and trucks, making it pretty difficult to stage a whole big Mothman intervention.
There also are no photos that show Mothman, although there have been a fair share of hoaxes, including of supposedly Mothman standing on a bridge, however, it was very literally a piece of the bridge that was falling off. Any pictures that have been ‘taken’ are most likely doctored or are just made for artistic purposes, and I would highly recommend checking them out to see how he would look!
CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE:
Before we even start with the media, I’ve just got to say that Mothman is one of the most popular cryptids in the world. I’d not heard of him till my late teens, but considering what a sleepy little town he comes from, he’s really quite famous.
Okay firstly, art. If you just google Mothman, you will find a million and one amazing independent drawings of Mothman by content creators worldwide, but in terms of official stuff - and hold onto your hats for this one, there is a full size statue of Mothman in Point Pleasant, and people hysterically, leave offerings to it sometimes. It’s a 12-foot-tall metallic statue created by sculptor Bob Roach in 2003. Honestly, google it please - it’s hysterically funny that it even exists - I’ll put a photo on twitter too.
Now we’re going to talk about something a little odd for this section but it’s 100% worth talking about because Point Pleasant actually holds an Annual Mothman Festival every year. LEGIT. They held the first one in 2002, and it’s been going ever since, with more and more people coming each year. The town thought this would be a great way to bring in tourism, and it definitely worked, the average attendance for the Mothman is an estimated 10–12 thousand people per year. The festival is held on the third weekend of every September with panels, exhibits, pancake-eating contests, and hayride tours of apparent sighting zones! This sounds like my kind of festival to be honest, and I would destroy that pancake eating competition.
In addition to this, The Mothman Museum and Research Center opened in 2005, which is basically a massive museum dedicated to all things Mothman, they even have a shop with souvenirs! Now this next bit is my favourite fact, and you may have seen this last year but in June 2020, during the BLM protests and the worldwide tearing down of famous racist statues, there was a petition going round for all the Confederate statues in the US to be replaced with Mothman ones! As of the time of recording, which was Monday 3rd May, it has nearly 20,000 signatures - count mine as one of them, I’ll pop the petition in the description of this episode if you wanted to add your signature (I think it’s genuinely a good idea).
Okay, okay - Erin enough with the fangirling. Let’s talk about media - so movie wise, you’ve got an actual movie based on Mothman, called the Mothman Prophecies that came out in 2002 with Richard Gere and Laura Linney, I’ll be honest, I’ve not seen it, but it does have a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 52% so I’m not sure it’s worth it, but if you’re super into Mothman, then why not right? It’s based on a book of the same name, written by John Keel - the book is apparently much better, so I’d probably advise reading this rather than watching the movie.
In TV, he’s in Monsters and Mysteries in America, which I actually watched for the first time a few weeks ago. Mothman is actually mentioned in episode 1 by some guys that were hanging around the TNT zone. He’s also in the same kind of show called Mountain Monsters, where they try and hunt these kinds of monsters down. Lastly, there’s a documentary called the Mothman of Point Pleasant from 2017 which is a retelling of the couples’ story I told towards the beginning of this podcast.
Amazingly I can also add Batman to this, because the Batman TV series was massive at the time, and one of the Batman villains, definitely more of a forgotten one due to his ‘powers’ is Killer Moth, real name Drury Walker. He’s described in the comics, the older and more comical ones being in a ridiculous Adam West stylle moth costume, with a garish green, purple and orange jumpsuit - with this he has a cocoon gun and has a whole bunch of Moth-pun gadgets such as Mothmobile and Moth-signal - hysterical honestly.
However, in later, grittier DC comics, he has the appearance of an actual sentient man sized moth, who can fly, has superhuman strength, endurance and a bulletproof exoskeleton - the worst power and probably best, is that he can secrete a people dissolving acid from his bod, how lovely. Sorry, back to actual Mothman, due to the popularity of this at the time, it’s often considered the inspiration for Mothman’s name!
Video games wise, there’s not much - but he is in Fallout 76 if anyone has played that. Or you can play as Killer Moth in all the Batman LEGO games, or he makes a tiny debut in Batman: Arkham Asylum, and you can see his victims cocoon-ed up in the Botanical Gardens.
I have two book recommendations for this week! The first being Mothman: The Facts Behind the Legend by Jeff Walmsey, and the second being Mothman and other curious encounters by Loren Coleman, they’re both really great and don’t get me wrong, you can find other books with Mothman in, but these two are the best specific ones. Or you can read the Mothman Prophecies as I said earlier.
DO I THINK THEY EXISTED?
Now it’s time for, do I think it existed? I’m not sure about this one, I really really want to believe this one is real, but I’m gonna say no. Although the thought of a giant man-moth hybrid sounds ridiculous, it also sounds pretty terrifying - could you imagine something like this being real?
I imagine just like the Jersey Devil sightings, this one has been miss-seen and mistook for many other creatures, however, I’m not sure what other creatures lay about in the woods that look kind of humanoid - however, it could just be owls, or cranes as people have said or maybe just a bear standing on hind legs, I don’t know.
But yeah, I’m pretty glad, although as I said earlier, you can go and see the statue in Point Pleasant and maybe get the closest you can to the real life Mothman - or attend the convention and look at loads of people dressed as him - I’m not gonna judge you.
OUTRO:
Oh my god, that was a little bit amazing. Mothman is so ridiculous that I think he’s one of the best cryptids out there, and I just thoroughly enjoy anything about him - even if the idea creeps me out the tiniest bit.
Also I’d just love to give a quick shout out to a fabulous artist creator this week, Leon Gardiner, who makes the cutest merchandise with some of the monsters and cryptids we’ve covered or are yet to cover, including stickers, plushies and clothing! I’ve got a Mothman plushie on order, and I’m SO excited - you can check out their stuff on depop or redbubble at linktr.ee/leoneon or follow his instagram @Leonlionman.
Next week we’re heading back to Scotland and Scandinavia to look at the shapeshifting seal maidens, Selkies. I love me a water based monster, so I’m looking forward to this one. Come dive in with me next Thursday!
For now thank you so much for listening, it’s been an absolute pleasure. If you enjoyed this podcast, please give it a rating on the service you’re listening on - I’ve got the twitter for any questions, or suggestions on what monsters to cover next and I’d love to hear from you. The twitter is @mythmonsterspod or the instagram is @mythmonsterspodcast. Or you can email me, old fashioned-style on mythmonsterspodcast@gmail.com And share this with your pals, they might love me as much as you do.
Stay spooky and I’ll see you later babes.