{"id":349,"date":"2010-09-15T09:40:42","date_gmt":"2010-09-15T07:40:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/?p=349"},"modified":"2015-04-03T17:23:31","modified_gmt":"2015-04-03T15:23:31","slug":"mothman-lives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/mothman-lives\/","title":{"rendered":"Mothman lives!"},"content":{"rendered":"

From November 1966 to December 1967, a number of people in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, claimed to have been frightened by a large, man-like creature with glowing red eyes and wings. As they drove near it, it rose up and followed them in the air. A reporter called it Mothman<\/span>.<\/p>\n

No one knows exactly what Mothman looked like, since the sightings occurred<\/span> late at night. It was often observed near an abandoned<\/span> dynamite factory outside of town. It also appeared several times on top of a large suspension bridge<\/span> spanning<\/span> the Ohio River.<\/p>\n

In December 1967, the bridge suddenly collapsed<\/span>. After that, Mothman was not seen again. Some believe the creature was trying to warn people \u2014 however ineffectively \u2014 about the coming disaster.<\/p>\n

All this was dramatized quite nicely in the 2002 film The Mothman Prophecies<\/i>, with Richard Gere. The film does a particularly good job of allowing the interpretation of Mothman both as a living creature and as a variety of optical and acoustic illusions.<\/p>\n

The film was based upon John Keel’s 1975 book of the same name. Both works have drawn tourists to Point Pleasant, making it the Roswell of the East. A four-meter-high statue of Mothman now greets visitors there.<\/p>\n

Each year on the third weekend of September, the town celebrates Mothman as part of its local history. This year’s festival<\/a>, on September 18 and 19, offers conversations with eyewitnesses<\/span> and a nighttime hayride<\/span> to the abandoned dynamite factory. Mothman pancakes<\/span> will be sold, and a Mothman 5K run<\/span> will be held in the streets of downtown Point Pleasant.<\/p>\n

There is even a Miss Mothman Festival Pageant<\/span>, in which women of all ages are chosen to represent and promote the festival. Disappointingly, the contestants<\/span> do not dress as monsters. The contest would be so much more effective if they did.<\/p>\n

The Mothman Museum in Point Pleasant is open year-round. It displays notes and drawings from interviews, personal artifacts and newspaper articles from the time. I’d love to go there. Maybe next time!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From November 1966 to December 1967, a number of people in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, claimed to have been frightened by a large, man-like creature with glowing red eyes and wings. As they drove near it, it rose up and followed them in the air. A reporter called it Mothman. No one knows exactly what Mothman looked like, since the … >><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[152,14,22,25,151],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=349"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":350,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349\/revisions\/350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}