"Mothman is real and is my love slave."
--Graffito on a rock, the TNT Region
Point Pleasant, West Virginia is a vibrant town with a famous monster. Mothman's popularity over other small town cryptids it owes in part to the way in which history unfolded-- and some of that history is tragic. The incident drew greater interest, too, from certain noted writers on the paranormal and extraterrestrial. John Keel popularized a lot of our notions about UFOs and aliens and frankly, accepted as fact a lot of highly questionable material. From a forgotten nineteenth-century book he concluded that West Virginia was a region that the First Nations had never settled (false) and from sources unknown that women are more likely to experience paranormal and extraterrestrial phenomena when menstruating (WTF?). Gray Barker was not above launching sometimes sinister hoaxes and lying outright in order to enhance his narratives.
A little more than a year after the original Mothman sighting, the Silver Bridge collapsed, leading the American Congress to improve laws with regards to bridge safety. The notion that Mothman had something to do with the collapse, or that he was trying to warn people about it, became a popular notion. Keel promoted the idea in his book, The Mothman Prophecies, which became a movie in 2002. Point Pleasant's Mothman Museum opened in 2005. No real evidence suggests that the proximity of the Mothman sightings and the bridge's collapse are anything but coincidental. The proximity of the movie's release and the museum's opening are intimately linked.
The bridge joins Point Pleasant, WV (population 5000) with Gallipolis, Ohio (slightly smaller), where most people visiting the area stay. During the Mothman Festival, the population swells by 10-20,000.
"There's quite a few of us at church who carry."
--Man at next booth, lunch, sushi restaurant in Point Pleasant.
The Point's downtown boasts a silvery statue of Mothman. The buff, lepidopteran-headed, ragged wing beast brings to mind the best of Halloween frights: charming, frightening, and campy all at once. It also looks decidedly unlike the bird-like creature reported in 1966, and eventually named "Mothman" because of the then-popular Batman tv series.*
Nancy and I posed with the statue, as tourists do, but anyone can find its image online. More interesting to me were the bits of authentic Mothman folk art we found here and there: writings on museum's washroom walls, graffiti in the "TNT Area" where Mothman first appeared.
The museum is larger than the one for the Flatwoods Monster, with a greater range of items and merchandise. They have a section of props from The Mothman Prophecies, and a list of changes the film made to the source book. Rooms are dedicated to the Men in Black, and to a local diner whose owner told visitors, in the days before mainstream Mothman tourism, tales from '66. It provides a lot of diverse information about Mothman and the surrounding mythos. We found it less charming, however, than the one in Sutton.
We were grateful to have arrived before noon. By the time we left, the place was crowded. I cannot imagine negotiating it on the following weekend, when the Festival took place.
"I'll be back."
--Graffito on a pipe, the TNT Region
The locals refer to the region as the TNT. It lies outside of town, off a rural road. During World War II, the forested area contained a factory for munitions. The buildings still stood, decaying, in '66. Kids went there to party and make out. Two such young couples-- one of them married-- first reported Mothman at the TNT.
A side road takes you in. An unpaved laneway off one side is now closed to cars, and unmarked. Helpful graffiti indicates where to enter what has become a wilderness preserve. The factory has been torn down, but the bunkers remain. Visitors-- a lot of them, one suspects, teens-- have decorated their interiors with painted messages and drawings. Some of the bunkers still have metal doors. It's all very Blair Witch, even on a bright day. I felt a little disappointed that our little safari never took us out of WiFi range.
Of course, there is no illumination beyond natural light and any artificial sources that you bring. That people might see monsters here at night leaves me unsurprised.
"For God's sake or Satan's or whoever, register to vote!"
--Retro-Goth-looking girl, the Mothman Museum.
Hot Diggity Dog! It's the Loveland Frog! It's the better title of a little-known musical, more commonly produced-- though not, in fact, commonly produced-- as Hot Damn! It's the Loveland Frog! Had we started our trip in Loveland, Ohio a little over a week earlier, we might have caught its most recent performance here, one night only. It's what Loveland has for their local cryptid, in place of a museum or monument. That, and the creeping feeling that they must have overslept on the day the universe was handing out small town monsters.
The Loveland Frogman has been spliced together mainly from two events, one in 1955 and another in 1972. These involve beings who don't seem any more froglike, particularly, than Mothman was mothlike, but the occurrences definitely qualify as odd.
The local historic hotel has a fine restaurant. That section, just across one of the two bridges, still looks like the Loveland of older photographs. The community has grown significantly in the last forty years. It's very much a part of the greater Cincinnati area, though one could live there and ignore the fact. The roads along the Little Miami River also show little change, and it is alongside the river where people encountered the Frog, and where one finds a monument and tourist attraction.
Harry D. Andrews, local eccentric, medievalist, veteran of World War I, and Boy Scouts of America troop leader, spent most of his life building the Château Laroche, often called the Loveland Castle. He used medieval and Renaissance construction techniques, local material, and his own hands to raise the edifice, which has become a tourist draw and museum. It became a lose headquarters for The Knights of the Golden Trail, a group founded by Andrews. Their members were supposed to live by the the Ten Commandments and help restore America, which he believed was deteriorating as a country.
A small part of the garden features some frog ornaments. Otherwise, no connection exists between the local amphibian and the anachronistic castle.
If you cut off my reproductive choice, can I cut off yours?
--bumper sticker on a car in a small town where we stopped for gas and coffee, with signs that otherwise leaned heavily towards Trump/Vance
We spent the final night with our friends in Detroit.
Just before we left, our niece in town and her husband had their first child, a girl.
We were able to see her, finally, when we returned.
Our futures remain unwritten. Doubtless, we shall encounter both monsters and mysteries.
I hope, too, that we will keep some of our better angels.
Cryptid Trail Video
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*Claims are often made that Mothman took his name from a specific member of Batman's Rogues Gallery. While the lesser-known villain Killer Moth has fluttered in and out of Gotham City since 1951, there was no specific "Mothman" character in the 1960s, and Killer Moth's one appearance on the 60s TV series was never aired, though it now turns up at conventions and on bootleg video. However, the fact of the series and its popularity appears to have suggested the name, Mothman instead of Batman.