[*] The Mothman is a cryptid that lives in the area around of Point Pleasant, West Virginia. It is described as being a human-bird hybrid larger than a normal man (it’s wing span may be 10 feet). It is grey in color with red “glowing” eyes.

[*] The Mothman was seen during a period from November 1966 to December 1967, culminating in the collapse of the Silver Bridge, a disaster that is linked to the Mothman (through superstition) that killed 46 people. There is serious debate about whether the Mothman caused the bridge collapse or was merely warning people about it.

[*] Some believe the Mothman is connected to (or also known as) Indrid Cold, a name for “The Grinning Man” — a supernatural entity who grins at those who see him. The Grinning Man is believed to be an alien or alien species.

[*] Proximity to the Mothman causes confusion, extreme fear, and psychological distress that can last months and lead to death or insanity.

[*] The first known sighting of the Mothman in November 1966 was witnessed by 5 men at once. Over the next 13 months more than 100 sightings took place, with credible witnesses like couples, firefighters, and larger groups of people.

[*] Most people know about the Mothman because of The Mothman Prophecies, a book written by journalist and author John Keel and later turned into a movie staring Richard Gere. The book and movie connect the Mothman to the townspeople of Point Pleasant having psychic abilities and the collapse of the Silver Bridge.

[*] The Mothman was the subject of one episode of the TV series Unsolved Mysteries:

[*] There was also an entire episode of Paranormal Witness dedicated to a couple who claim to have had a terrifying encounter with the Mothman:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQngLP2h6Ng

[*] Since 2002 the town of Point Pleasant has celebrated a “Mothman festival” on the third weekend of every September. There is a 12-foot tall statue of the Mothman in Point Pleasant:

[*] People have explained away the Mothman as a large heron or a sandhill crane. The “glowing” eyes could simply be normal animal eyes reflecting light from another source, like a flashlight or car headlights.

[*] To this day people claim to have seen the Mothman before disasters like 9/11 and the collapse of the 35w bridge in Minneapolis.

[*] There are no confirmed photos of the Mothman, though many fake pictures exist.

Real Life Accounts Of The Mothman

Recently people have been seeing the Mothman in the Chicago area, prompting people to wonder if there’s an impending disaster coming, similar to the Silver Bridge collapse. Here are some eyewitness accounts:

***
“I was enjoying an evening with my girlfriend and taking a well deserved break from my studies. We decided to go out and enjoy the unusually warm weather that we were having and go for a walk. As we walked toward a community park near the campus, we were talking about our classes when a commotion amongst a group of people caught our attention. As we looked toward the group of about 4-5 people, something caught my eye and I looked up to see this thing fly overhead.

It looked like a man; it looked like a man with wings! He flew about 10-12 feet above us and was perfectly silhouetted against the evening sky. In all honesty, it looked like an immensely oversized Sugar Glider, the kind I would see back home in Tasmania . It had the rough shape of a sugar glider, but its eyes were nothing like the soft eyes of a glider. They glowed red! We saw it for about 4 seconds before it disappeared from view. At first I thought I saw a man in a hang glider, but it was those bloody eyes that made me thing otherwise!

I at first thought of ringing someone, but I didn’t want them to think I had gone crazy.”

***

“These are the events as they happened on Friday, September 30, 2011 in the area around Miller Park in the University Park neighborhood in Chicago , Illinois. Approximately 1 block from the main campus of the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Things began like any normal Friday night, I and a couple of friends were going to go out to have a few drinks at a local bar. As I got to my apartment, I jumped into the shower to start getting ready while my roommate went to her room to get ready. I finished and walked out of the bathroom to my room and started to get ready to head out for the night.

As I started to get dressed I heard my roommate scream loudly, I dropped what I was doing and ran to her room to see if she was alright. I walked in to see her cowering in the corner of her room, white as a ghost and shaking. She was babbling hysterically, saying that something was looking in at her from the window. I looked toward the window and didn’t see anything but the light coming from the other apartments across the court yard. I asked what she had seen and tried to tell her that she might have been mistaken, we live on the third floor of a five story apartment building and there is nothing outside the window but a 30 foot drop straight down to the courtyard below.

My roommate was hysterical and scared out of her wits; I took her to the living room and sat her on the couch. I then went to my room to put on a robe or a nightshirt on since I was only in my underwear. My roommate didn’t want to be left alone and actually followed me to my room and waited there as I put on a robe and joined her in the living room. After about 20 minutes of calming her down, she finally told me what she had seen in her window.

She stated that she was getting dressed and when she turned to face the mirror on her dresser, she saw a pair of orange eyes staring at her from the window. She turned around to see two brightly lit orange eyes staring out at her; these eyes were attached to a creature that was staring back at her through the window. My friend lost it and started screaming hysterically and backed herself into the corner. She said she was filled with this overwhelming feeling of complete and total terror, she felt like the creature was looking at her as though she was prey. She said she felt like a rabbit that was about to be pounced upon by an eagle.

I tried to rationalize with her what she had seen, telling her it could have been an optical illusion, or maybe it was the jitters from a week of hard studying. She dismissed everything, saying that she had seen what she had seen. As I sat there comforting her, my cell phone rang from my room. I got up and ran to my room and snatched it from my dresser top and answered it. It was my boyfriend and one of his buddies and they were talking a mile a minute, it sounded like they were out of breath, as I tried to get him to slow down, I walked past my roommates open door and to my absolute horror, I saw…a pair of glowing red eyes, looking through the window right at me!!

They stared at me for about 3-4 seconds before what ever it was abruptly left. Like my friend, I totally lost it and screamed at the top of my lungs and sprinted to the living room. My boyfriend was now screaming into the phone “What’s wrong, what’s wrong!”

Within 2 minutes, he and his best friend were pounding on the door to our apartment, followed shortly thereafter by one of our neighbors who had heard us screaming.Once we assured the neighbors that we were fine and that they did not have to call the CPD for us, we shut the door and I immediately lost it when my boyfriend held me.

We told him what my roommate had seen in the window and that what ever it was had come back again, that’s when I had seen it. He then began to tell us that he and his buddy were on their way to our apartment to pick us up when they had seen what they describe as a large bat with large glowing eyes. It was perched on top of a basketball hoop in the neighborhood park. They stated that it saw them and had alighted into the air with an audible whoosh.

He states that there were about 6 people in the park and all of them had seen it when it had taken off. He states that there was no way anyone could have missed it, it was about 6-7 feet tall, dark grey to black and those eyes glowed with the intensity of two glowing embers.

He says that they saw it easily when it took off and headed away from the park due to both the lights of the city as well as the nearly full moon that night. They lost sight of the creature after about 5 seconds, that’s when he picked up the phone and called me. He says that when they heard me start screaming, they sprinted the block and a half to the apartment.

Needless to say, none of us went out that night and my boyfriend and his buddy stayed with us through the weekend. My roommate refused to go back to her room till it was well after daylight, she closed and locked the window and drew the blinds shut. She says that it’s the only way that she felt secure to be in there after dark.

I’m still weary about coming home or going out after dark; even though I know I have to do it for both school and work. I hope that what ever it was, was sufficiently scared off by two insanely screaming college students and that I hope that I NEVER see it again. I don’t think that neither I nor my roommate will ever be the same again after this.

There is one interesting fact; my boyfriend told me when I saw him on Tuesday that a few students around the campus (UIC) had been talking about a large bat that some people had seen on Friday night. A lot of the people who spoke about it were spooked by it. I never figured that anything like this would or could be seen in a city as large as Chicago , or a campus as busy and bustling as UIC.

It totally makes me wonder what it truly was and if it meant us an harm.”

***

“I was out with my son by the banks of the Little Calumet, on the Northwestern side off of Hedgewisch Park at a spot where we have had some success catching fish in the past. It’s located by the trestle bridge that runs east to west over near 130th street. It’s a spot that takes a little effort to get to, but it has had some payoffs in catching some medium sized catfish.

It was about 7:30pm and we were packing up our gear when we heard something that sounded like train brakes when the train slowing down. The problem was there was no train going by at the moment. When the train goes by, you usually feel it going by, you also hear it as it’s pretty loud. On this day, it was quiet with the occasional sound of trucks or cars going about. We heard the sound again and saw something fly from our left toward some trees on the other side of the river. We thought it looked like a giant bird, but it was solid black. Within a minute, we heard the sound again and this thing straight up and over the trestle bridge and headed off down the river. This thing was unlike any bird we have seen in our lives. It was solid black and had to be about the size of a full grown man. It had wings that must have been 10 feet from tip to tip. It flew up and out of sight within seconds. We couldn’t really get many details as this thing flew like a literal bat out of hell and was still on the other side of the river.

We stood there and watched it fly away, I was just blown away but then my son piped up and said he had read about some giant bat sightings that have occurred in Chicago lately, maybe this was one of them. We packed up our gear and got the hell out of there as fast as we could. We didn’t want this thing to come back and see us there as we were not supposed to be there fishing in the first place. Later that night my son showed me the websites where the reports were listed and that lead me to report this sighting. I’m sorry that I couldn’t give you more details on this thing, but frankly, I thank my lucky stars that we weren’t close enough to see any details.”

***

“I was out with my daughter and mother celebrating my daughter’s recent graduation and after dinner and some light shopping, we decided to go out and check out the newly opened Chicago river walk that had just opened after construction. We accessed the river walk via the entrance on Michigan avenue and walked east toward the lake, looking at the sights and enjoying the beautiful view.

As we passed under the Columbus Drive bridge, we heard this strange sound and my daughter said “Look at that!” As we looked up, we saw a large winged “person” flying just above the water and then pulling up and going OVER the bridge! It looked like a huge owl or even a bat, but completely black with the exception of the two large eyes that appeared red. I’m not sure if it was the actual color of its eyes or just the light reflecting off of them, either way it looked very spooky.

We watched it go over the bridge and then continue flying right above the water and out of sight. It didn’t seem to care of anyone else saw it, it just let flying above the water until it was out of sight. My daughter and me tried to get pictures of it, but by the time we took pictures. All we got were blurry images of mostly black. My daughter did sketch what she saw and I have included it in this email.

We have never seen anything like this before, it never flapped its wings while we were in sight. At first glance, it looked like a person in a wing suit, but I don’t think anyone would be suicidal enough to go for a stunt like that along the waterfront.

I have gone skydiving before and have seen demonstrations of wingsuits in the past. This lead me to rule out that this would be a person in one of those suits or anything similar as it would be a sure fire recipe for disaster.

This thing also had wings that did bit seem like the wings on a bat as the seemed to form one big wing from the back to the bottom of the legs and seemed more of a membrane than feathered wings like an owl.

There was no sound at all, just an audible whoosh as it flew over. It was up and over the bridge in a matter of seconds and then it was gone. We were a bit shaken up after this thing flew away, she didn’t know what it was that we had seen.”