Mothman Returns

When I read a recent article about the possible causes of the Minneapolis bridge collapse, I was reminded of a publicity stunt that I did to bring attention to the issue of overweight coal trucks on rural bridges.

First, a little history: On December 15, 1967, a bridge over the Ohio River connecting Point Pleasant, West Virginia to Gallipolis, Ohio suddenly collapsed. The “Silver Bridge” was crowded with holiday shoppers, and 46 people plunged to their deaths in the frigid river. An engineering investigation later determined that the chain-link suspension bridge had been designed so that if any one link in the chain failed, the entire bridge would go down. Similarly-designed bridges in St. Marys, West Va. and Brazil were quickly closed.

Following the Silver Bridge disaster there was much discussion in certain circles about the “Mothman,” a mysterious winged creature with huge red eyes that had been seen at an old WWII munitions plant and other places near around Point Pleasant in the year prior to the Silver Bridge collapse. Some people said that the Mothman had come to warn people of the imminent danger, and the legend of the Mothman persists to this day, spawning a 1975 book by John Keel and a 2002 movie starring Richard Gere, “The Mothman Prophecies,” as well as an annual Mothman festival in Point Pleasant. If you are really interested, there are approximately 750,000 webpages devoted to the Mothman issue, as well as a pretty good website www.mothmanlives.com.

Anyway, I lived in West Virginia from 2002 to 2003, working as an organizer for the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition fighting mountaintop removal mining and other coal industry abuses. When the Coal River Mountain Watch women of Whitesville, West Virginia began fighting overweight coal trucks in their community, OVEC joined their cause and tried to help bring more public attention to the issue. The coal trucks in West Virginia had caused numerous horrible, fatal accidents, killing mothers, sons and daughters and were terrorizing local coalfield residents by speeding and tailgating. Rural roads and bridges were also being damaged by these monsters.

So I thought up a silly publicity stunt to try and bring some media attention to the overweight trucks issue. I decided to dress up as a Mothman and hang around on some West Virginia bridges. So I went to a costume store and bought a black Dracula cape and some big black feathered wings. Then I bought a black ski mask and a pair of cheap sunglasses and glued on two big red driveway reflectors for eyes. I sewed two handles on the wings and I was ready for my close-up. Patty and I drove down to Racine, West Virginia where we found an old rickety-looking iron bridge, and I lurked around the bridge for a while, flapping my wings and trying to look ominous while Patty snapped photos.

I sent the photos to Vivian Stockman for the OVEC website, and we wrote up a ridiculous script about recent Mothman sightings in West Virginia for the webpage : “The Mothman has been spotted again, flitting about coalfield bridges that are groaning under the weight of overloaded coal trucks. Is the Mothman trying to send another warning?”

It was all in good fun, and later that month I spent another day dressed up as Mothman in the West Virginia State Capitol, walking around the marble hallways and harassing Bill Raney and Chris Hamilton of the West Virginia Coal Association, and getting a ton of media attention.

I had pretty much forgotten about the whole Mothman thing until a few months ago, when Vivian sent me a web link to Unexplained-Mysteries.com, in which the chat room participants, a group of dedicated amateur paranormal investigators, were discussing the credibility of the OVEC website photos of me standing on a bridge in my Mothman suit.

The first chat room post noted that there had also been several Mothman sightings in Indonesia prior to the 2004 tsunami, and sent a hyper-link to the OVEC web page with the pictures of me posing on the bridge.

One of the chat room participants replied “Interesting link, but I couldn’t see the Mothman in the photo. Was it behind the man wearing a cape and sunglasses?”

“That’s not the Mothman, that’s my Uncle Burty, with Granddads war goggles on.”

“That’s the lamest, fakest, worst hoax I have ever seen.”

I had to laugh, but I couldn’t believe what I was reading. Evidently these amateur sleuths decided that the good folks at OVEC were trying to hoax the public with phony photos of the Mothman, a subject that they took very seriously.

The mood in the chat room turned darker. Someone was making fun of the Mothman! “I think the ‘Mothman’ in these photos should jump...talk about a cry for attention.” “I reckon I could do a better fake picture than that.” “If it’s a joke, its not particularly funny.”

Finally one of the sharper knives in the drawer solved the unexplained mystery: “Its an environmentalist protesting about the weight of coal trucks going across the bridge.”

Great detective work, Sherlock. Another unexplained mystery, solved!