How Mothman Became an American Folk Legend

In November 1966, a group of gravediggers reported a 6-foot-tall winged creature soaring through the trees near Point Pleasant, West Virginia. Since then, the legend of the cryptid known as Mothman—a flying creature with large red glowing eyes—has grown from a local mystery into a pop culture fixture.

Here’s how a handful of strange sightings became one of America’s favorite folk legends.

On November 15, 1966, two young couples, Roger and Linda Scarberry and Steve and Mary Mallette, reported a similar encounter. While driving past an abandoned World War II ammunition plant known as the “TNT AREA”—about 7 miles north of Point Pleasant—they claimed a creature chased their car. Reportedly, it sped past them, issuing a shriek described as a record player at high speed.

“If I had seen it by myself, I wouldn’t have said anything. But there were four of us who saw it,” recalled Roger.

The Point Pleasant Register published a piece on November 16 with the headline: “Couples See Man-Sized Bird … Creature … Something!” As the story spread, an enterprising editor at The Athens Messenger dubbed the creature “Mothman”—a name inspired by Batman and his foe, Killer Moth. Over the years, an estimated 100 Mothman sightings were reported. Witnesses claimed to see the creature rising from the ground, stalking airplanes and chasing cars.

As the legend goes, reports of Mothman sightings in the area abruptly ended after a tragedy struck. On December 15, 1967, the Silver Bridge, connecting Point Pleasant to Ohio, collapsed. Forty-six people died in the incident, making it one of the deadliest bridge collapses in American history. The timing led some to recontextualize Mothman as a harbinger of doom—a reputation popularized by investigative journalist John Keel’s 1975 book, The Mothman Prophecies.

Many have questioned whether the Mothman sightings were real. Keel explored that question in his book, combining eyewitness accounts with theories about phenomena like UFOs, CIA conspiracies and interdimensional beings.

But a more revealing question may be why the legend caught on. Mothman’s appeal lies partly in the meaning people later assigned to him, says Andrea Kitta, a folklorist and professor of multicultural and transnational literature at East Carolina University. In a crisis, she explains, it’s human instinct to cling to predictability.

“Mothman gives us that,” Kitta says. “Our world is just chaos, and we don’t know what’s going to happen next. But if we see Mothman, we know something is going to happen—as opposed to a non-Mothman Day.”

There is also an element of social contagion. Chelsey Weber-Smith, host of the “American Hysteria” podcast, which explores moral panics, urban legends and fringe beliefs, says legends once spread more slowly, giving them plenty of time to adapt from region to region.

“You called your cousin across the country, and then your cousin told that story in a different part of the country,” Weber-Smith says. “Now with the internet, that all happens at hyperspeed.”

Alleged Mothman sightings spread to Illinois and Ohio, while reports of a similar creature known as the “Owlman” emerged in southern Cornwall, England, between 1976 and 1978. There were also claims that a creature matching Mothman’s description was seen in Russia before explosions in Volgograd and Moscow. From 2011 through 2020, sightings of the creature were reported in Chicago, seemingly unlinked to any overarching tragedy.

What Kitta finds most interesting about the story is how Mothman’s mission and location seem flexible across regions and cultures. “It’s just sort of large and looming with red eyes,” she notes. That vagueness leaves room for people to interpret the creature in their own way. “So, you’ve got this generic idea of a harbinger,” Kitta says, “and that makes it pretty easily transferable to other cultures and to other people.”

The legend has also morphed to echo other local folklore. “Some people have theorized that Mothman is a little bit like the Thunderbird tradition in some Native American cultures,” Kitta says. “It does help the spread because it sounds like something you already know.”

In 2002, Mothman began to take on new meaning when The Mothman Prophecies movie, starring Richard Gere, brought global attention to the legend. Capitalizing on the new hype, Point Pleasant held its first annual Mothman Festival in 2002 and revealed a 12-foot metallic Mothman statue by artist Bob Roach in the town square the following year.

Once a symbol of a local tragedy, Mothman evolved into a mascot for societal outsiders. By the mid-2010s, the statue’s highly polished, muscular backside became an internet joke with “sexy Mothman” memes, fan art and T-shirt designs. Pulpy romance novels like I’m in Love With Mothman or I Married Mothman followed.

But as Weber-Smith points out, perhaps one of the most interesting facets of the story is how cryptids like Mothman have gone from legends that keep us afraid of the dark to something that brings us together. “I think the coolest thing about cryptids in our modern era is how communities come together to celebrate them,” Weber-Smith says. “I want people to know about cryptids and to check out their local cryptid festival. You never know what you might learn.”