Encounters with the Mothman

The Mothman 

Point Pleasant, West Virginia

It is impossible to discuss the strange and unusual history of the Appalachians without being drawn deep into the circle of the mysterious Mothman of Point Pleasant, West Virginia. His shadow is so great that he has permeated pop culture; even a blockbuster movie was made of his story. We will try to separate fact from fiction here. 

The first sighting of the creature that would become known as Mothman came on the night of November 12, 1966. Five gravediggers were working in a cemetery on a hill in Clendenin, West Virginia. One of them saw “a brown human being” jumping into the air from some nearby trees. The thing flew over them. The men were aghast, as it was not a bird but more like a man with wings. There would be other sightings soon to follow. 

A few days later on the night of November 15, two married couples were driving just past Point Pleasant in an area near an old, abandoned World War II munitions plant. The area was referred to as the “TNT area.” It was a well-known place to go and hide from the prying eyes of the town and let off some steam. 

While they were driving, one of the young ladies spotted two large eyes that glowed back at them. As she alerted the others, they described seeing the creature as “shaped like a man, but bigger. Maybe, six or seven feet tall. It had big wings folded against its back.” It had one wing tangled in a fence. It used muscular hands to pull itself free and then ran off into the nearby factory. 

The driver finally broke in terror and gunned the engine of the car, driving away as fast as he could. A minute passed and suddenly the creature was on the hillside near the road next to them. Its wings were spread wide, and it rose into the air like a rocket. It kept pace with their car, which was doing well over one hundred miles per hour. “That bird kept right up with us,” was the statement from one of the witnesses. They drove quickly back to town. It appeared perched at several locations along the road as they sped back to town as though it was moving at incredible speeds or even teleporting instantaneously. The creature stopped following them as they neared the city limits of Point Pleasant. 

The group in the car felt so uneasy that they drove straight to the Sheriff ’s Office. Deputy Sheriff Millard Halstead had the witnesses lead him out to the site of the encounter.

Often forgotten is that they were not the only ones to see the creature that night. Another group of four claimed to see a giant “bird” at several different times that same evening in a nearby area. About ninety miles away in the town of Salem, West Virginia, Newell Partridge, a local contractor, said that his television suddenly went dark at around 10:30 p.m. He then said it turned back on with a strange pattern on the screen, and he heard a loud, high-pitched whine coming from outside. “It sounded like a generator winding up,” he was quoted as saying. His dog, Bandit, began howling outside. Partridge went outside to have a look.

Once outside, he could see that Bandit was facing the barn. He turned on a flashlight to see what his dog was so intently observing. Two red circles that looked like eyes and glowed like bike reflectors greeted the beam of his flashlight. Bandit ran off toward the eyes, and Partridge went inside to get his gun.

Partridge was too shaken up to go back out. The next morning, he realized that Bandit had not returned. A few days passed, and he saw the articles about the incident in Point Pleasant. That was when he realized he had seen the same thing. Bandit was never seen again.

In one of the original accounts, one of the witnesses said that when they fled back into town, they passed the body of a large dog on the side of the road. When they returned later, it was gone. They had even stopped to look for it with the deputy sheriff, as it had been there just minutes before. Some researchers feel that might have been Bandit.

The next day, on November 16, Deputy Halstead and some of the witnesses held a press conference. The deputy assured the press that he had known all the witnesses and that they should be taken very seriously. Many of the local press knew the witnesses as well and vouched for them.

One of the local papers decided to call the creature Mothman due to the popularity of the 1966 Batman TV series starring Adam West. Even though the descriptions of the creature were nothing like a moth, the name stuck and has been associated with the creature ever since.

Hunters and curious onlookers swarmed the area of Point Pleasant in the aftermath of this press conference. The old munitions factory was now Mothman ground zero. The TNT area around it was the perfect place for a monster’s lair. There are acres and acres of wooded land. The concrete domes used to store explosives when the plant was active dotted the forest. There were even tunnels to explore to look for the creature.

The area is now the McClintock Wildlife Preserve and is a haven for hikers and nature enthusiasts. Is it any wonder that people thought the Mothman could have hidden out here for months if not for years to come?

Mark Muncy

Mark Muncy is the creator of Hellview Cemetery, a charity haunted house in Central Florida that was so infamous it was banned by the City of St. Petersburg. An author of horror and science fiction, Mark has spent more than three decades collecting ghostly tales and reports of legendary beasts. He is also the author of Eerie Florida and Freaky Florida. He lives in St. Petersburg, Florida, on the remains of an ancient midden with his wife, Kari Schultz. Occasionally, he is visited by his daughters when they remember he is still there.

Kari Schultz

Kari Schultz is a varied illustrator at Fox Dream Studio who enjoys fantasy and horror. She has been working on art as long as she can remember and reading folklore and horror almost as long. She is the author of Eerie Appalachia, Eerie Alabama, Eerie Florida and others.