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That's allbrds dot com. You're listening to Unexplained, Season six, episode twenty seven, All that we See, Part two of three. It wasn't until two am that the Scabreeze and Mallets finally arrived back at Rocha and Linda's trailer on the
thirtieth Street. Still trembling from all they'd experienced, the friends hastily switched on the lights and double locked the doors, and so it remained for the rest of the night while they kept an anxious vigil on the skies outside, until finally the first rays of daylight crept into the valley.
In towns like Point Pleasant, news can sometimes seem to travel so quickly among its residents it brings the very laws of physics into question, even more so when that news involves disturbing reports of strange, monstrous creatures stalking the local skies. With gossip and rumor already spreading rapidly through the town by the following morning, Mason County Sheriff George Johnson promptly called a press conference in the hope of
nipping it all in the bud. A few hours later, number of somewhat skeptical local journalists arrived at the Sheriff's office, eager to hear directly from Linda, Roger, Mary and Steve as to what exactly had occurred the night before. What they certainly hadn't expected was to find the four apparent witnesses visibly shaken up and genuinely convinced that what they
had seen was not of this world. When the articles were written up the next day, many struck an open minded tone, carrying headlines such as couples see man sized bird creature something as the point Pleasant Register put it. The official line from Sheriff Johnson, however, was that the something was nothing more than an unusually large bird. Many
other residents were far less sympathetic. Before long, rumors were circulating about the reputations and drinking habit of the so called witnesses, with many suspecting they had just made the halting up for a bit of attention. Deeply hurt by what they felt to be slanderous accusations, the four friends soon realized there was only one way to shut their detractors up. Despite all their better instincts, they would simply have to go back, find the creature and capture it
for all to see. Just after midday on Wednesday, November sixteenth, Roger Scarberry's black Chevy pulled up once again outside the North Power Plant, but this time they'd come prepared. After suggesting to the others that they wait in the car while he had a cursory look around, Roger grabbed his gun from the trunk and headed off toward the plant. He didn't want to have to use the rifle, but he thought it was safe to assume that they had no idea what they were dealing with, and he wasn't
about to take any chances. The huge, monolithic, red bricked building was vastly more imposing up close. Though he tried to hide it, there was no, denying his apprehension as he approached the main entrance, taking a deep breath before pulling open the door and stepping inside. After making it through the first room, he found himself in a vast central chamber. Two levels of gangways skirted the edges, while in the middle sat the rusted remains of the plants
for boilers. On the ground, small puddles and broken bricks mingled with pockets of leafy growth and scatterings of rusted metal. All along the walls, vines crept over a litany of painted marks kings bearing the names and initials of those who'd come before. All was quiet, save for the sound of dripping water that echoed throughout and the occasional flutter of pigeon wings from high up in the rafters. Just then, Roger heard something coming from one of the old corroded boilers.
Heading over to it, he grabbed the handle on the door and braced himself. The others were relieved to see him emerge a few minutes later, if a little disappointed that he'd found no sign of anyone or anything in side. Deciding it was safe enough, the four of them then ventured inside together, Linda and Mary stayed close to the exit as Roger and Steve headed off to explore the upper levels. The men had only been gone a few minutes when Linda caught sight of a peculiar set of
markings on the floor, like horse hoof prints. She thought, if only horses walked on two legs. She was just about to show Roger when a terrifying scream echoed through the lower chamber. It's here, cried Steve, suddenly appearing from a back room. It's in the boiler. In terror, the four of them raced out at the building and bundled back into the car and drove off as fast as
they could back to Point Pleasant. Steve recounted what had happened later, claiming that he saw something very large shifting behind a boiler door and had moved in for a closer look. As soon as he put his hand on the door to open it further, whatever it was inside disappeared immediately up the chimney. That afternoon, the story worry of the initial apparent sighting hit the news stands throughout Mason and Athens County, and as it filtered through to
the many surrounding towns. By Wednesday afternoon, it was all anybody could talk about. By early evening, Route sixty two out of Point Pleasant was so clogged up by excitable armed residents intent on capturing what had by then been dubbed the red eyed Thing, that the fire department were drafted in to keep things in order. By nighttime, the peaceful wilderness of the tnt area was well and truly shattered by a continual revving of engines, excited shouts, and
the occasional sound of gunshots. But the bird, as others were calling it, remained elusive. At least it did for all those who were looking in the wrong place. It had just gone eight thirty PM when twenty one year old Marcella Bennett, along with her two year old daughter Tina, set off toward the TNTE area from their home in Point Pleasant with her brother Raymond Walmsley and his wife Cathy.
Just like everyone else, Marcella and Raymond had also heard about the bizarre creature that supposedly terrorized the scarberries and mallets just the night before. However, unlike the many others hopeful for a glimpse of the apparent beast with red eyes, that night, Marcella and her brother had merely decided to pay a spontaneous visit to their sister, Virginia, who lived just past the northeastern edge of the former ordnance works.
Having finally got past the busy throng of erstwhile monster hunters, they were just making their way through the outer fringes of the region when Marcella caught a glimpse through the trees of what appeared to be a large red light moving about in the sky. Thinking little of it, she said nothing to the others as they continued on their way,
arriving finally at her sister's bungalow just after nine pm. Sadly, the trip proved to be a wasted journey when they discovered that, although their three kids were home, Virginia and her husband Ralph, had gone out for the evening. Deciding not to wait for them, the visitors said a brief hello to the children and were just heading back to their car when Raymond became suddenly distracted by something in
the sky above. What's that, he said, stepping back onto the porch and pointing at a couple of distant lights hovering in the darkness above the trees. Cold and eager to get back home. Marcella ignored her brother, then lit a cigarette and pushed Tina toward the car. It's just a plane, she said, but couldn't take his eyes off the lights. That's no plane, he replied. The way she would describe it later, Marcella had just put her keys in the car door when something moved from out of
the darkness behind it. The thing was well over six feet tall, with muscular legs that appeared to be covered in small gray feathers, and a large torso behind which she could clearly discern were a gigantic pair of wings. There might have been ahead, but from what she could tell in the low light, it was pressed down into its chest and difficult to make out. In that moment, she felt nothing but sheer paralyzing terror. From the porch. Raymond and Cathy had also seen the thing emerge from
behind the car. Marcella could hear them screaming for her to make a run for it, but however hard she tried, she couldn't move her legs. It was as if the thing were somehow holding her there. Finally, after then becoming aware of the terrified cries of her daughter standing beside her, she found the will to break free from her momentary paralysis, she grabbed Tina and made a run for the front door.
Moments later, she was sent inexplicably tumbling to the floor, knocking her daughter to the ground in the process, finding herself paralyzed again as her daughter screamed uncontrollably. It was only when Marcella felt the burn of her cigarette on her face that she found the strength to get up. As she pulled her daughter toward the safety of the porch, Raymond grabbed them from the top of it, and together
they fell headlong into the house. Yond locked the door behind them, then frantically pulled down all the blinds as Cathie did her best to calm Virginia's children, who'd heard it all from inside. In a daze, Marcella said, she then made her way to the sofa with Tina as Raymond went to the kitchen to call the police. After checking to make sure her daughter wasn't injured, Marcella noticed that her own hands and knees were bleeding. Catching her face in the mirror, she saw that it too had
been badly grazed in the panic. She then became aware of Raymond's voice coming through from the kitchen as he yelled down the phone, demanding an officer be sent out to them immediately. You don't understand, he kept telling them. The thing is still outside. What do you mean it's still outside, said Marcella, begin to panic again. Then she
heard something shuffling about on the porch. Raymond rushed back in at the sound of Marcella's screams to find her pointing at the window with Tina tightly clasped to her chest. Go away, she shouted. Sh everyone be quiet, ordered Raymond as he tiptoed softly to the blinds, hearing it himself now.
As whatever it was moved slowly up to the window, he carefully pried apart the blinds with his fingers, took a deep breath, then peeped through the gap with his eyes slowly widening in horror, Raymond could just about make out some sort of body pressed up against the glass. Trying not to panic, he quietly closed the blinds again and backed away from the window, taking his place with the others on the sofa as they waited for police to arrive. Fifteen minutes later, the family jumped in terror
as a loud, insistent knock shook the door. The sobering sound of a police officer's voice broke through the noise, and moments later the officer was stepping inside to find four children and three adults, one bleeding from the face and legs, in a desperate state of panic, back out near the North power plant, the time having gone just past midnight, news of Marcella's sighting began to filter through
the crowd. Having left empty handed from their earlier excursion, the Mallets and Scarborreries returned to the TMPTY area and joined the throng of hopeful onlookers for Linda. Especially the excess of people who continued to turn up from all across the county served only to exacerbate their fears at confronting the creature again. Spinning round in the dark, with all the bodies out there picking their way through the back roads and abandoned buildings, every shadow loomed larger in
her mind. Spying something on top of a nearby maintenance building, what was left of her resolve finally crumbled, and she yelled for Roger to take her home, deciding it best to stay with Linda's parents that night. They were barely through the door when Linda became convinced that the creature had followed them there. Linda's fear was by now escalating into a full on panic attack, as her heart began to race ever faster and her breathing threatened to spiral
out of control. Roger and her father rushed her to the local hospital, where she was eventually calmed by the medical staff. The following morning, down at the front desk of the Mason County Sheriff's Office, police struggled to keep up with the avalanche of calls flooding the switchboard as one sighting after another was reported from the previous few nights.
When the papers hit the stand that day, a number of intriguing stories from as far as a hundred miles away began to emerge, including one of a resident of Salem detailing the strange disappearance of their family dog Bandit.
Others spoke to the press to offer more sober opinions as to what the bizarre sightings could be raging from quote a large owl, a migrating goose, and boys playing pranks with a rigged device, As local paper, The Huntingdon Advertiser had it, one local high school teacher suggested the seven foot tall, red eyed thing with wings may in
fact be nothing more than an experimental balloon. By now, the apparent creature, thanks to one imaginative copy editor, had also been given the name which from that day forward it would forever become known, the Mothman, inspired by the recently released Batman TV series. Over the next few days, thousands of onlookers traveled up from Point Pleasant and even further afield to get a glimpse of the supposed aberration.
The highways and intersections were jammed with hopeful heroes, many carrying rifles and shotguns, with only one thing in mind. For Linda, Roger, Mary and Steve, the shadow that had apparently been cast over their car by the creature's wings. That Tuesday night had been a long one, with still no credible roof of their sighting. Many had taken to calling them out in the street, or simply pointing and
whispering derogatorially as they passed. For Linda especially, it was all she could do to keep her eyes down and try not to let it get to her. But there was one local reporter who refused to be so dismissive. Like many local journalists, the fifty four year old Mary Higher hadn't quite known at first what to make of
all the sudden talk of unidentified creatures flying about the sky. Ordinarily, the pugnacious twenty five year veteran of the Ohio based Athens Messenger would have taken it all with a pinch of salt. That summer, however, it just so happened that
she had experienced a peculiar event of her own. Higher had been making her way back home from just across the other side of the Ohio River, which marked the border between Ohio and West Virginia, when she caught sight of what she first took to be a plane in the sky. Having forgotten all about it, she was surprised to look up a few minutes later, only to find
that the plane hadn't moved an inch. She grew even more surprised when, having drawn closer to it, she realized that it wasn't a plane at all, but some other sort of aircraft oddly spherical in shape. A similar object was later reported hovering high up in the sky above
Tiny's diner. Furthermore, just two weeks previously, a local construction worker whom Higher was familiar with, had walked into her office on Point Pleasant sixth Street, claiming to have seen an elongated object descend from the sky and land right
in front of him while he was driving home. Mary had listened with patients as the construction worker went on to describe how a man in a black coat had exited the vehicle and asked him a series of inane questions before returning to the aircraft, which then took off into the sky, never to be seen again. Incredibly, at roughly the same moment the construction workers encounter had allegedly occurred, West Virginia State Police were dealing with an oddly similar
incident of their own. Sewing machine seller would Row Derenburger had been returning home from work that evening when he was apparently overtaken on the motorway by a strange elongated craft that had pulled out in front of him, forcing him to stop his car. He too, had then allegedly seen a smartly dressed man exit the vehicle before approaching
him to ask a series of odd questions. Darrenburger, who claimed the man's name to be Indured Cold, went on to give an interview to West Virginia's WTAP TV alongside police chief Ed Plum, detailing has supposed encounter. Darrenburger's account has since become known as one of the most bizarre, if less believable examples of a UFO citing on record.
For Mary Higher, whose primary job for many years had been little more exciting than collating point pleasants, birth deaths, and marriages, it was certainly a welcome break from the norm, though she had yet to draw any firm conclusions from it all, it was hard to resist the thought that something peculiar was beginning to cent her on her own
quiet patch of the Ohio River Valley. With her interest piqued by the Scarberry and Mallet's sightings and hearing about Marcella Bennett's experience, Higher began to wander if all the recent strangeness was somehow connected. Determined to get to the bottom of it, that afternoon, she invited the Mallets and the Scarberries to escort her to the TNT area to help her paint a clearer picture of what they'd seen. The four were reluctant at first, wary of how Higher
might portray them. However, when they realized that Mary's interest was completely genuine, they eventually agreed to accompany her. Before long they were back trawling through the abandoned zone of the North Power Plant, picking their way along the twisted and rusted piping of the vast boily unit. Steve pointed out to hire where he claimed to have seen the creature wandering aloud if it might not in fact be
living there. Roaching that same boiler, he took a moment to compose himself before wrenching the door open wide, but there was nothing inside. Though in one sense relieved, the group was disappointed to once again have nothing tangible to show the reporter. Steve slammed the door shut, sending some pigeons scattering up toward the ceiling, before leading the group back out of the building. A moment later, they heard
a loud metallic clatter echo through the plant. Running back to the main hall, they were stunned to find the same door that Steve had closed only seconds before was now wide open again. By the end of the week, with Linda and her friends having by now made formal statements to the police, there had been at least eight specific sightings of a man sized winged creature from as far as Cheshire and Rutland, as well as quote an isolated home near the TNT plant and one in Doddridge
County east of Parkersburg. According to the Athens Messenger, West Virginia University Associate professor of wild life doctor Robert Smith had also contacted Mason County Sheriff George Johnson to offer his expert opinion. It was Smith's belief that the creature was, as Johnson suspected, nothing more than a sandhill crane. Such a bird, which as an average wing span of seven feet and can stand up to six feet tall, could well have stopped off in the area while migrating south
for the winter. Though sightings continued to trickle in over the next few days, the Sheriff's department were growing impatient with the hordes of armed and trigger happy onlookers clogging up the TNT area. There was the very real concern that they might end up killing nothing more than a harmless crane. By the next Tuesday, November twenty second, the department concluded their investigation and the case was officially closed.
The following Sunday, eighteen year old Connie Carpenter made her way home from church toward the quaint riverside town of New Haven, roughly twenty kilometers north of Point Pleasant. As she passed the Mason County golf Course, she thought nothing of what she took to be an oddly stiff looking man standing just off the road ahead of her. That was until she saw what she later described to be a pair of ten foot wings suddenly unfurled from behind
its back. Then whatever it was shot straight into the air and headed straight toward her car. Connie screamed as it drew near and clocked its red eyes before it almost smashed into the windscreen, and then veered away at the last minute, only to vanish from sight. Two weeks later, a stranger approached Linda Scarborough's parents home on Thirteenth Street in Point Pleasant and knocked on the door. When her mother, Mabel opened it, the man introduced himself as John Keel,
a writer from New York. Earlier that year, having become increasingly intrigued by the subject of UFOs, Keel had been commissioned by Playboy to write an article about it. He'd been traveling the country ever since, investigating UFO flaps and interviewing witnesses. When he caught wind of the unusual events taking place in Point Pleasant taken by the bright young man from out of town, and sat As spied that
he hadn't come to stir up trouble. Mabel invited him inside and suggested he take a seat while she made a few phone calls. Soon, Keel was being introduced to Mabel's daughter Linda and her husband Roger, as well as to Mary and Steve Mallett. He was also introduced to a young woman with red and irritated eyes, which he assumed to be conjuncti vitus. After apologizing for the infliction,
the young woman introduced herself as Connie Carpenter. She explained that the eyes had turned red the morning after her own apparent encounter with the infamous mothman. This was especially intriguing to Keel and not the first time that he'd encountered such a thing. In fact, many of the apparent witnesses to UFO phenomenon that he had recently interviewed also claimed to have suffered from pinkeye in the idiot aftermath of their sighting. Finally, Keel was also introduced to Connie's aunt,
who was none other than local journalist Mary Higher. Together, the apparent witnesses all gathered in Linda's parents living room and huddled around Keel's tape recorder as one by one they detailed their various stories. None of their accounts had changed at all in the weeks since they occurred. Writer John Keel then chanced a suggestion would they accompany him back to the power station for one last attempt at finding the creature. Linda shifted in her seat and looked
nervously toward Roger. Neither had been back since the night of her panic attack. However, with all the name calling and being only brandished as drunks and liars, just as fresh in their minds, having the writer from New York as another witness might just be enough to convince the
town they hadn't made it up. Driving into the TNT area shortly after nine pm, they found the place once more restored to its former, eerily deserted glory, as it had been back before that terrifying night of November fifteenth. They stepped out of their vehicles into the frigid night air. The main gate at the plant was now padlocked shut, but fortunately there was a gap in the fence just
large enough for the more to squeeze through. Though some had initially been enthusiastic about going back, by the time they were stood out there in the dark in front of that imposing facade, Keel could sense a quiet panic spreading throughout the group. When he asked for volunteers to accompany him in sight, only Connie and Keith raised their hands. It was fair enough, he thought, after everything they claimed to have been through. He was grateful at least that
he wouldn't have to go in there alone. And with that the three of them, John, Connie and Keith steeled themselves then pressed on into the power plant. You've been listening to Unexplained, Season six, episode twenty seven, All that We See, Part two of three. The third and final part, will be released next Friday, January twentieth. If you enjoy Unexplained and would like to help supporters, you can now
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Richard mc clane smith. Please subscribe and rate the show wherever you listen to podcasts, and feel free to get in touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps you have an explanation of your own you'd like to share. You can reach us online at Unexplained podcast dot com or Twitter at Unexplained Pod and Facebook at Facebook dot com, Forward slash Unexplained Podcast