Celebrate Mothman at the Festival in Point Pleasant - ThrillistSkip to main content Like Thrillist on Facebook.Follow Thrillist on Instagram.Follow Thrillist on Twitter.Follow Thrillist on Snapchat.Subscribe to Thrillist on YouTube.Follow Thrillist on TikTok.SUBSCRIBEGo to NavigationContributor/The Washington Post/Getty ImagesTravelFestivals
Hang with Mothman and Paranormals at This East Coast Supernatural Festival
Attend the party or just get into a really great meme
By Billy HallalPublished on 9/12/2022 at 5:52 PM If you stroll down the quaint Main Street of Point Pleasant, past antique shops and a historic hotel cheerily advertising itself as haunted, and walk onward to the quiet town square, you might be surprised by the statue there. It’s not Washington or any of the pre-Revolutionary War figures that make up the town’s early history. It’s a towering, humanoid monster with red eyes, ripped abs, and, most importantly, enormous wings. This is the Mothman, Point Pleasant’s most famous resident. And this September on the 17th and 18th, around 15,000 people are celebrating him at West Viriginia’s Mothman Festival. Mothman is a cryptid, a catch-all term for fantastic beasts like the Loch Ness Monster or Bigfoot for which we have no substantial proof but which could, in theory, exist. You may know him from paranormal researcher John Keel’s 1975 account The Mothman Prophecies: A True Story, or, more likely, from that book’s 2002 film adaptation with Richard Gere and Laura Linney. While he may not have the household name recognition of Nessie, Mothman has amassed a significant following since he first terrified Ohio Valley denizens more than five decades ago. Point Pleasant’s Mothman Museum draws visitors year round, and since its founding 20 years ago, the Mothman Festival has grown from a sparsely-attended gathering into a national sensation. Here’s the real story and explanation behind Mothman, as well as how this paranormal phenomenon became a—well, a national phenomenon. RelatedRelated The Creepiest Urban Legend in Every State
Thrillist TVHistory ofThe History of the McRibDavid Wall/Moment/Getty Images What s up with this moth man
We don’t want to be pedantic, but Mothman doesn’t look like a moth. Since his first Point Pleasant sighting, descriptions of the creature have stayed remarkably consistent: around 7 feet tall with a 10-foot wingspan, piercing red eyes, and a grey body covered in fur or feathers. Witnesses almost invariably compare him to a bird. But early on, a reporter (perhaps a fan of Batman deep cuts) labeled the creature Mothman, and the name has stuck ever since. The first Mothman sighting was on November 15, 1966 near an abandoned munitions factory just outside town known as the TNT area. Two young couples, the Scarberrys and Manettes, were out for an aimless nighttime drive around a town that had, according to Mothman Prophecies author John Keel, “twenty-two churches and no barrooms.” Suddenly, their headlights hit a pair of eyes: red, glowing, and “hypnotic,” as one would later describe them. Then the creature stood and took flight right at them. The teens would claim it chased them all the way back into town, matching the speed of the Chevy to over a hundred miles an hour. In the weeks and months that followed, similar sightings continued across Point Pleasant and the surrounding area. Keel, who spent months in town interviewing witnesses, claimed over a hundred people spotted the Mothman in a span of a little over one year. Then tragedy struck. On December 15, 1967—13 months exactly, some will point out, after the first Mothman sighting—Point Pleasant’s Silver Bridge collapsed in the midst of Christmas shopping rush hour. Forty six people were killed. Though the cause was later revealed to be a neglected suspension chain, some claimed Mothman was responsible. The Silver Bridge incident mostly put an end to Point Pleasant’s Mothman sightings, which fell off completely and immediately. But that didn’t mean interest died off. Mothman Festival The Paranormal Convention of the East
Mothman mania took several decades to really catch on. “Main Street was dead,” says Denny Bellamy, tourism director for Mason County, when describing pre-festival Point Pleasant. The festival’s origins were humble. The first one launched in 2002 to capitalize on buzz from the movie, and according to Bellamy comprised just “[Mothman Museum founder] Jeff Wamsley with two card tables selling his books and someone selling hot dogs across the street.” But the unveiling of the metal Mothman plus savvy online marketing—since, as Bellamy explains, “Jeff, early on, jumped both feet into the Internet,”—helped expand the festival’s reach. In our current post-nerd moment, where fandoms reign supreme and cosplay and cons are expected content-generators, the festival has become a significant event in the cryptid and wider sci-fi community. Attendees come dressed as the Men in Black, Ghostbusters, and of course, the Mothman himself. “They call us the paranormal convention of the east,” Bellamy says. The festival has been an economic boon to Point Pleasant. “It’s like Black Friday for us,” says Marqkita Sexton, co-owner of the Counterpoint local artisan shop on Main. “People are elbow to elbow in the store.” A popular attraction is the Mothman Museum, collecting documented sightings, movie props, and decades of Mothman memorabilia. There are hay rides through town and bus tours to the TNT area where the creature was frequently sighted. The festival also features live music and guest speakers giving talks on ufology, cryptid hunting, and other Mothman-adjacent topics. RelatedRelated How a California Small Town Became the Bigfoot Capital of the World
Hear the stories see the proof scour the woods—and decide for yourself
Photo by Billy Hallal So what s the real story
Though there have been scattered Mothman appearances since the Silver Bridge incident—in Russia before the 1999 apartment bombings and Chicago in 2017—there has never been such a geographically and chronologically concentrated burst of sightings as there was in Point Pleasant in the ‘60s. Ideas vary as to the “true” nature of the Mothman. Is he an alien? Maybe. The product of a Native American curse? Who knows. One popular explanation (bolstered by the flawed-but-creepy 2002 film) posits Mothman as a harbinger of doom, manifesting before disasters to either warn humans or troll us. Of course, there are less fun explanations: researchers have made the case that the Mothman is actually a barred owl. It’s fair to ask why, of the hundreds of monsters and local legends lurking in the US, the Mothman has gained so much popularity. “That bridge has a lot to do with it,” Bellamy speculates. There’s no other cryptid that can claim a link, however tenuous, to real-world loss of life. There’s also his imminent memeability, helped in large part by the statue. Since his initial frightful appearance, he has become a plush toy, an object of thirst, and best of all, the subject of a petition to replace all Confederate statues with—what else?—Mothman. “I know Mothman is weird,” says Sexton, but she loves him anyway. “He attracts some interesting people… I think [he’s] our own little Mickey Mouse.” It’s unlikely we’ll ever have definitive answers on Mothman. He may be an ultraterrestrial prophet of doom; he may simply be the product of small-town boredom and creepy owls. He is linked indelibly to tragedy, but like the comic book hero who likely gave him his name, Mothman has transcended his tragic origin story. He is more than a man or a moth. He’s a legend. In the valleys of West Virginia, around disaster sites worldwide and in the hearts of his fans everywhere, Mothman lives. Want more Thrillist? Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, TikTok, and Snapchat!Billy Hallal writes nonfiction and fiction. The Mothman movie shaped his understanding of the universe to a probably unhealthy degree.By signing up, I agree to the Terms and Privacy Policy.