| On the 15th November 1966, late one evening two young couples drove past a abandoned TNT mine near Point Pleasant, West Virginia. The couples spotted two large eyes, two inches wide and six inches apart, attatched to something that was shaped like a man. It was was between six and seven feet tall and had big wings folded against its back. The two couples said "the eyes were hynotic". When the creature started to move the four people panicked and sped away. They saw the same or a similar creature on the hill side near the road! The creature spread its batlike wings and rose in the air and, followed the car - which by now was doing more than 100mph. The creature kept up with the car and was not flapping its wings. Thw witnesses told the local deputy sheriff Millard Halstead that it made a sound like a "record played at high speed or the squeak of a mouse." The creature followed them on highway 62 to the Point Pleasant city limits. The two couples were not the only people to see the creature that night, there was another group of four people that saw the creature. There was a third sighting that night at 10.30pm, by Newell Partridge, a builder that lived outside Salem, West Virginia (about 90 miles from Point Pleasant). He was watching television when the screen went blank and a fine herringbone pattern appeared on the screen and the set started to make a whining sound like a generator. Partridge dog Bandit started to howl on the porch. Partridge steped outside where he saw Bandit facing the barn about 150 yards away Partridge shone his torch in that direction. he told West Virginia writer Gray Barker "and it picked up two red circle or eyes, which looked like bicycle reflectors" - only much larger. The sight frightened him and he was certain that they were not animal eyes. Bandit the dog ran of towards the creature, Partridge called him to stop but the dog would not listen. Partridge ran inside to grab his gun but then decided to stay inside the house. He slept the night with the gun by his side. In the morning he realized that the dog not returned. the dog still had not turned up two days later when Partridge read the newspaper report about the Point Pleasant sightings. One of the details that grabbed Partridges attention was that the two couples had seen a body of a big dog by the side of the road as they entered the Point Plesant's city limits. A few minutes later on the way back out of town the dog was gone. Partridge immediatly thought of Bandit, all that remained of him were his prints in the mud. The trackes were going in circles, as if he was chasing his tail, "the dogs master said the dog never did chace his own tail". There were no other tracks of any kind. The next day a press meeting was called by sheriff George Johnson, the story was reported across the country, one newspaperman dubbed the creature " Mothman". after the villain on the Batman television series. John Keel, a investigator of the Mothman sightings, wrote that there were at least 100 people had seen the creature. From their accounts he put together a description of the creature. It stood between five and seven feet tall, was broader than a man, and walked in a clumpsy shuffling manner on humanlike legs. It made a squeeky sound. The eyes were the most terrifying part of the creature, they are set near the top of its shoulders, its wings were batlike but did not flap when it flew.When it took off from the ground, it went straight up like helicopter. The creatures skin colour was either brown or grey. Two witnesses said they heard a mechanical humming sound as it flew above them. After 1967 the Mothman sightings died away, the last known sighting was from Elma, New York in 1974. REFERENCES. Strange & Unxplained Happenings Vol. 2 Jerome Clark Pear Nanncy. International Thompson Publishing Company. |
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| By Jeff Fausch Paranormal Field Investigators |
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