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Many years before the movie was made, author John Keel wrote “The Mothman Prophecies” book, covering the same people and events. Yes, the movie was based on that book but while Hollywood often goes to great lengths to dramatize actual events this time they were spot on. John Keel’s experience with the Mothman is truly a frightening one, as he himself almost became a casualty of the Silver Bridge disaster in Point Pleasant, West Virginia that fateful December evening in 1967. It was the warning of the Mothman that seemingly spared his life.
Mr. Keel, who is from New York, was on a trip to the southern states searching for UFO’s and strange happenings, when he came across an article in a newspaper in Point Pleasant, West Virginia in 1966. It was a report of a group of teenagers who encountered a strange, flying, man-like beast that the local officials had dubbed “The Mothman”. With massive, red, glowing eyes and a wingspan the size of a small plane, the Mothman was reported repeatedly over the year between 1966 and 1967. Mr. Keel interviewed the people who had claimed to have seen the Mothman, which is what he based his famous book on. He has said that everyone he interviewed was in a state of panic; terrified by the events they witnessed. He was completely sold on the Mothman after a short time and decided to investigate the situation further.
As he dug deeper, Mr. Keel found even more bizarre twists to the tale at hand. Eyewitness accounts of UFO sightings over Point Pleasant coinciding with Mothman sightings were steadily snowballing into an eerie legend. One by one, Mr. Keel tracked down the people who had claimed to encounter the Mothman; soaking up every bit of information he could find. Then, as if it was meant to be, he began to witness the UFO sightings himself. He said the UFO’s he encountered at Point Pleasant had extremely bright lights and would respond if you flashed a light at them. It was like they were signaling with their lights.
Mr. Keel also reported he was planning a return trip to West Virginia to continue his research on the matter, when he began receiving strange phone calls warning him to “stay away” and to “not go back”. His return trip to the town of Point Pleasant was scheduled for December of 1967. He claimed that he would have to use the Silver Bridge to get into the town, and whoever had called him knew that. The unfortunate disaster that followed was a grim culmination of the unusual occurrences of the past thirteen months, when the Silver Bridge collapsed in December of 1967. Maybe Mr. Keel’s luck was on the up and up or, just maybe, he was warned so perhaps his work could inform others in the future.
Was the Mothman truly a harbinger of death or was it an angel in disguise trying to warn people of imminent dangers ahead?
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