Mothman

Winged red-eyed “man-sized bird” chased cars in Point Pleasant

The Mothman is not a creature defined by violence, but by warning. Its legend is inseparable from disaster, and unlike most cryptids, it is remembered less for what it did than for what followed its appearances. Between 1966 and 1967, residents of Point Pleasant, West Virginia, encountered a winged humanoid whose sightings seemed to cluster around one of the deadliest tragedies in the town’s history.

The first modern Mothman sighting occurred on November 12, 1966, in a cemetery near Clendenin, West Virginia. Gravediggers reported seeing a brown, winged figure rise silently from the trees and fly overhead. The encounter was unsettling, but isolated—until three nights later.

On November 15, two young couples driving near an abandoned TNT plant outside Point Pleasant encountered something they could not explain. They described a large, humanoid figure with massive wings and glowing red eyes standing beside the road. When their car approached, the creature spread its wings and began chasing them at speeds exceeding 100 miles per hour, keeping pace without flapping. Terrified, the witnesses reported the incident to police immediately.

Over the next thirteen months, dozens of sightings were reported. The creature was described consistently: roughly seven feet tall, winged, with no visible neck and eyes that glowed intensely red when illuminated. Witnesses often remarked on its silence—no wingbeats, no vocalizations—only sudden appearances and equally sudden departures.

What set the Mothman apart was the psychological impact of the encounters. Witnesses reported overwhelming dread, recurring nightmares, and a sense that the creature was not hunting, but watching. Some claimed to receive strange phone calls or experience electrical disturbances shortly after sightings.

The sightings culminated on December 15, 1967, when the Silver Bridge, connecting Point Pleasant to Ohio, collapsed during rush hour traffic, killing 46 people. In the aftermath, many witnesses realized they had seen the Mothman in the area shortly before the disaster. Sightings ceased almost immediately after the collapse.

This correlation transformed the Mothman from a cryptid into an omen.

Later reports of Mothman-like entities appeared elsewhere—near disasters or moments of upheaval—including sightings near Chernobyl, Fukushima, and the September 11 attacks, though these accounts remain anecdotal and heavily debated. Whether coincidence, retroactive pattern recognition, or something more, the association persists.

Skeptics suggest the original sightings were misidentified sandhill cranes, whose red eye reflections and large wingspans could appear monstrous at night. However, cranes do not chase cars, lack humanoid silhouettes, and do not explain the volume and consistency of reports—or the emotional aftereffects described by witnesses.

One particularly chilling account comes from a Point Pleasant resident who claimed the creature appeared on a hill overlooking the town weeks before the bridge collapse, standing motionless as if surveying the area. The witness later said the encounter felt less like being hunted, and more like being observed by something that already knew what was coming.

In Dread Lore, the Mothman is not a predator lurking in darkness. It is a harbinger—a silent presence that appears before catastrophe and disappears once the damage is done. Whether misidentified animal, psychological projection, or something that exists outside our understanding of cause and effect, the Mothman leaves behind a uniquely unsettling possibility: that some disasters announce themselves, and that sometimes, someone—or something—is there to witness the warning before it’s too late.