The Mothman: Case File #015

November 15, 1966. Two young couples — Roger and Linda Scarberry, Steve and Mary Mallette — were driving past the abandoned West Virginia Ordnance Works near Point Pleasant when their headlights caught something standing near the old generator plant. It was shaped like a man, but it wasn't a man. It stood nearly seven feet tall. It had no head — or rather, its head seemed to be part of its chest. And its eyes, two enormous discs of brilliant crimson, glowed in the headlight beams like burning coals.

Roger Scarberry floored the accelerator. The creature unfolded a pair of massive wings — witnesses estimated the wingspan at ten to fifteen feet — and launched itself into the air. It followed the car. At speeds exceeding one hundred miles per hour on Route 62, the thing kept pace, its wings barely moving, gliding above the vehicle with a shrieking sound that Linda Scarberry would later describe as mechanical, like a giant mouse. They didn't stop until they reached the Mason County courthouse.

Deputy Millard Halstead saw their terror and believed them. He drove back to the old munitions plant with the couples. He found nothing — except that his police radio dissolved into static the moment they reached the site.

The Sightings

The Scarberry-Mallette encounter was not the first. Three days earlier, on November 12, five gravediggers at a cemetery near Clendenin reported seeing a brown, man-shaped figure lift off from nearby trees and glide over their heads. They didn't know what they'd seen. They didn't tell anyone outside their families for days.

After the Scarberry story hit the papers, Point Pleasant erupted. Over the next thirteen months, more than one hundred witnesses came forward. A contractor named Newell Partridge reported that his television dissolved into a herringbone pattern and his German Shepherd, Bandit, took off howling toward the barn. Partridge followed with a flashlight and saw two red circles — like bicycle reflectors — glowing in the darkness. Bandit never came home.

The creature appeared near the TNT area — the old munitions plant — with eerie regularity. It was seen perched on rooftops, standing in fields, and soaring above the Ohio River. Witnesses who looked into its eyes reported overwhelming dread, a feeling of paralysis, and nightmares that lasted for weeks. Some reported that the creature seemed to appear before accidents — a harbinger, not a hunter.

Then came December 15, 1967. At 5:04 PM, the Silver Bridge — a suspension bridge connecting Point Pleasant to Gallipolis, Ohio — collapsed during rush hour traffic. Forty-six people died. The bridge's eyebar chain suspension system had failed catastrophically due to a single corroded pin. After the collapse, the Mothman sightings stopped. Completely.

What They Saw

The consistency of the descriptions is striking. Six to seven feet tall. Gray or brown in color. Massive wings folded against its back. No discernible head — the glowing red eyes were set in its upper chest, or where a neck should have been. The wings didn't flap in conventional flight; the creature seemed to ascend vertically and glide at tremendous speed. Multiple witnesses reported a squeaking or screeching sound. Several noted a sulfurous smell.

Some researchers have suggested a misidentified sandhill crane, which stands up to four feet tall and has reddish patches near its eyes. Witnesses uniformly rejected this explanation. Linda Scarberry said: "If it was a bird, it was a bird from hell."

"It was like a man with wings. It wasn't like anything you'd see on TV or in a movie." — Linda Scarberry

The Aftermath

John Keel, a journalist who investigated the Mothman sightings in real time, published The Mothman Prophecies in 1975. He connected the creature to UFO sightings, Men in Black encounters, and poltergeist activity that he said plagued Point Pleasant during the same period. Keel believed the Mothman was not a flesh-and-blood creature but something stranger — an ultraterrestrial entity that existed outside normal perception.

Point Pleasant did not forget. The town erected a twelve-foot stainless steel Mothman statue in 2003. The Mothman Museum draws thousands of visitors annually. The Mothman Festival, held every September, is the town's biggest event. What was once a source of terror became a source of identity.

But the question lingers in the dark water beneath where the Silver Bridge once stood: Did the Mothman come to warn Point Pleasant? Or did it come to watch? Over one hundred people saw something in those thirteen months. Something with red eyes and wings that moved without flapping. Something that vanished the moment tragedy struck.

This case remains open.