@@justinmanson5055 Oh, probably some crazy piece of legislation we passed, or it's reputation for being uncool and boring. Or maybe he's from here, who knows. Ohio-bashing is very popular these days.
@@justinmanson5055 because everyone who knows anything about Ohio hates Ohio, and Ohio politicians hate Ohioans. Have you just missed the last 2 months of news entirely?
Fun Fact: the day before the bridge collapse a hunter showed up to a taxidermist claiming to have shot and killed the Mothman. The creature in question was a large Snowy Owl. Combine that with the fact that Snowy Owls are larger than any local Owl and that the initial reports described that being as white, not black. I find that to be pretty compelling. Still an awesome story.
Part of my family is originally from WV. And you’re correct - a lot of people who are still alive remember seeing Mothman. It’s such an odd thing to hear discussed by family members who are not the sort to believe fantastical tales. So…a solid I don’t know from me. There is a lot of uninhabited land in the world even today.
Mothman is my favorite cryptid. I love the Mothman YMCA song with my entire soul. Also honestly if I had survived some bad event I would say I saw Mothman on my deathbed before the event. It’s either true or my last prank before leaving this mortal plane you decided.
I'm from southeast Wisconsin, a little town called Lafayette, kind of near the Towns of Elkhorn and East Troy. About two turns off my childhood homes road, is a road called Bray Road. Ever since I was really little people from all over the area would always talk about this thing called The Bray Road Beast. Some people say it's like a werewolf type deal, some say it's just a big ass dog, and to be honest I never really believed in the thing but I can say for sure one thing. Grab a couple friends, some flashlights, and wander deep enough into rows of corn and/into enough unincorporated wooded land and trust me... You'll start hearing things and even seeing things that you were sure ain't real. Dunno if you've ever heard of The Beast of Bray Road or not because he's such a small town local Wisconsin thing but maybe consider doing a video on it if there's enough lore to dig up on him. You can have that one for free
I cannot even imagine being in the woods, in the dark, and seeing this man sized winged thing with red eyes fly at me screaming. I would be dead from fear before I even hit the floor.
Suuuuper late to the party, because I just found this channel and have been watching it nonstop. Keep up the good work, you make amazing videos. I definitely believe the barn owl explanation, and I can lend some personal experience to the idea that people mistake owls for paranormal creatures. So here goes. Teenage me lived in rural Ohio in the 2000s, along with my mother and younger siblings. Mother makes me walk the dog "around the block" at night. Now mind you, a country block means walking several miles along county roads until I circle back around to my house. So out I go, and about halfway through the journey, I am approaching a small house with a barn next to it. The barn has halogen lamp illuminating the entire front yard, minus an area next to the road that lies in shadow cast by a big tree. As I come to the corner of the shadow, I see a HUGE dark shape jump/fly from out of the tree and dissappear into the ground, completely silently about 30 yards from where I'm walking. I am terrified by what I just saw, but I pretend to be brave because I have my dog (a German Shepherd) with me. So we continue walking, my head and eyes fixed on the spot, and heart pounding it's way out of my chest. "I'm going to pretend that I did not just witness a demon jump out in front of me" I tell myself. As the angle between me and the spot changes, the barn light is no longer shining directly in my face, and I am able to just barely make out this paranormal monster I just encountered, an owl diving on a rat and getting some dinner. Sometimes, the benign, rational explanation makes the most sense. Cheers!
Many folks miss the other Paranormal type stuff that was taking place during these 13 months in Point Pleasant. There were unidentified lights in sky being reported,actual UFO craft,cattle mutilations,people reported Paranormal activity in their homes,a couple folks were having prophetic dreams,there were even MIB hassling the townspeople.There was a legend of a long ago Native American curse. Then the people started seeing this creature or cryptid or monster..the Mothman 😲 (All I know for certain..I woulda moved 😆)
The Ohio River may not be the oldest, longest, or most beautiful river in the world but it does a hell of a job keeping Ohio out of Wv so I love it. I've gotten to visit Point Pleasant and Braxton County, Wv (Home of the FLatwoods Monster along with several bigfoot or Old Men of the Mountains sightings.) Both areas seem to have a lot of paranormal, borderline poltergeist activity predating and continuing long after the cryptid sightings in there area. In about a month a friend and I are actually going to tour a historically haunted hotel in Braxton county. I'd definitely recommend a trip to the many festivals or one of the paranormal museums in the area if you ever find yourself in the Wild and Wonderfuls of The Mountain State. Also I love Mothman, there's a 24 hour live stream of his statue in Point Pleasant
I like the mothman story, but I lean towards great horned owl where frightened people are mistaken about the size. A large owl whose eyes reflect red flaring up suddenly in front of a car would look huge and frightening!
A friend's father was in his late teens in 1986, serving in the Soviet military and sent into Chernobyl with a Russian clean-up crew. He himself was half Russian, half Ukrainian for those interested - and it didn't really matter back then. He wasn't one of the "human robots" in heavy gear, who had to work in areas with the strongest radiation, but his unit got some very ineffective raincoats and started removing debris in the periphery of the reactor area. He himself didn't see anything, but he talked to people, who had been to the inner circle. Either as ground forces like him or flying over it in helicopters. Pilots often reported, that they had seen giant black birds. Both pilots and ground forces described them specifically as taking off from the ground like an eagle, from inside black clouds of smoke and fire. Some called them "phoenixes". They also saw humanoid figures in the smoke. According to Andrey (my friend's father) they were all sent to on-site doctors and examined both physically and mentally. They usually suffered from severe stress, hadn't slept in days, were dehydrated and very concerned about the consequences of the catastrophe (especially those with relatives from the nearby regions). Doctors told them, that the smoke figures they thought they had seen were a result of their mental state as well as of their eyes being affected by the smoke and most likely radiation, i.e. visual hallucinations. Some may have been oddly shaped explosions partially covered by smoke. Andrey died in 2010 of cancer.
I know I'm late, but as a West Virginian I enjoyed this in depth dive and I'm glad to hear about how much you love our geography and topography (as do I)
Just got back from vacation there and the very first store I went to was run by a local who was around when it all went down. Nobody had heard anything about Mothman involving prior to its collapse. Locals mostly called it the big bird
I doubt many people would confuse a barn owl as a moth man but going by head shape I could see it being a great horned owl. they are a lot bigger them people think and have glowing red eyes. I've worked with a few and they are about the size of my torso and I am a little over 6' 1" tall.
Don't underestimate the imagination one has in the dark. When I was little I had a distinct memory of having a bath around 5 am in my parent sbathroom. Now, right next to the tub, there was a window with a tree right up against it. And I saw the silhoutte of something huge perched right on the branch in front of me. Freaked out, thought it was the jersey devil and ran out of there. In hindsight, it was 100% a turkey buzzard or another large bird we have in the area. But that shit freaks you out when you first see a dark shape in the night.
When I was a kid I had a book called Monsters, Strange Dreams, and UFOs. It was basically a bunch of cryptid and unexplained stories of which mothman was one. I just remembered it having a really great illustration of a half man half moth flying over the bridge
I wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment, especially since normal moths are so fluffy and cute looking, and the idea of something man-sized like that going around and warning people of dangers beforehand is just about the most wholesome thing ever.
Just as a note, the description is not a barn Owl, the explanation with flatwoods is a Bard Owl because the way it moved along with the facial description is close to the look of the bard owl
Mothman has made several appearances near my town of East Peoria, IL. A lot of people think we just have our own version of the Mothman creature, but I like to think it's just the same one flying around the world warning anyone. In our stories, there was a particularly dangerous road that a lot of people died on from car crashes. Because of how shoddy the work was, the road developed a washboard aspect and people would loose control at high speeds. There were a bunch of reports in the 60s and 70s of a Mothman making appearances around that part of the road, and people started attributing it to all the deaths. When the city finally fixed the road in the 1980s, the reports stopped. Old timers still love to tell that story to this day.
Would there be possibility of going more in depth into Inuit lore, and lore from the North West and Yukon Territories of Canada? I hike up there all the time, my boyfriend grew up there, but lots of people don't really talk about it, or know much about it....
Not the same thing, but my whole family on the native side (mom's side) would always pack with us fresh water before we went camping. Mama and grandpa said we do that because the cranes will use their beaks to pierce through the tents and drink your blood if you don't. My mom's parents were from Nome Alaska and everyone on my mom's side are Inupiat, but i dunno if it's an old wives' tale that everyone knows, or if it was just a story from my grandparents. I assumed it was a badluck story to scare the kids into always packing fresh water before camping
I see sandhill cranes all the time. For birds they are extremely large but no larger than a child. We love hearing there chortles and always take pics. No way anyone would mistake them especially if you know of them prior.
You know, my dad said he just saw a massive black bird fly over Allegheny National Forest. He is a nature nut and he couldn't identify it which I find hard to believe. He said he had enough time to even use binoculars to look at it.
I've never seen the mothman but I've been to point pleasant many times. I'll never forget when we went looking for mothy once lol. There are big red reflectors on the replacement and current bridge just as you drive up. We were teenagers and got a good laugh when we realized they weren't, in fact, mothman eyes. Also, just for future reference, the river (and county), we pronounce it "kuh-naw-uh" in Southern wv.
My girlfriend was born in India, and she told me last night that when she was 9, she and her cousin (in India) ran up to their rooftop to play and saw a 9+ foot tall creature with: bat wings, sharp teeth, long fingers and toes with claws, glowing red eyes, and it flew around them before zipping away. It completely blew her mind when I was like "Oh you saw Mothman". She never heard of it. Apparently that year in India, there were power outages and floods that killed hundreds.
I do want to point out that a lot of people don’t realize just how big some wild animals are so a brief close encounter with a large bird by someone unfamiliar with said bird may make the animal seem larger than it is because it’s larger than the person thinks it should be.
I do love the mothman stories but I've always found it odd that it happens around the birth of the hippy/ counter culture genre. So I've always wondered how much drugs played into these. Either way loved this vid
Idk if I'd really call it Mothman, but I did see something similar one time that stuck with me. When I was 19, I worked at a Burger King in a nearby town to where my parents' house was (we lived out in the country in SE Ohio, so not too far from Point Pleasant actually in the grand scheme of things) and I did the closing shift so I would be driving home at like 3 am every night on back dirt roads. It never bothered me, like not one bit but one night, as I came up on a specific corner I'd taken hundreds of times, I felt a sudden sense of dread. Like I just became terrified, idk why, I hadn't seen anything yet but it was like I knew what was about to happen. As I rounded the corner, I saw something crouched in the middle of the road that--in the moment--looked like something that I can only describe as a cross between the Mothman and the Rake. Big glowing eyes, long arms and legs bent at unnatural angles. I screamed like I'd never screamed before or since, and once I stopped the car... it turned out it was three deer. I'm not joking. Three deer, all lined up behind one another, all positioned in such a way that from the angle I saw them they looked like one weird crouching humanoid creature. They all ran off into the forest, and I laughed it off, despite still feeling sort of uneasy. I remember thinking as I drove off, "what if that was some sort of premonition or something like people say Mothman is or whatever? Nahh, lol" Three weeks later, while driving back through that same exact spot, the steering in my car went out while I was driving and I spinned into a telephone pole. If the pole had hit the other side I would have died. I managed to crawl out of the wreck, couldn't find wherever my cellphone got flung to so I had to go to the nearest house to use their phone and the crazy hillbilly who lived there almost shot me because I was 'trespassing'. Dude could literally see my wrecked car (got woke up by the noise actually), I was bleeding everywhere and he was convinced the whole thing was somehow a trick and I was really a burglar lol. I managed to talk him down, got an ambulance and got the hell out of there. Despite almost dying twice in five minutes, I didn't have any lasting medical issues and was relatively fine. But I couldn't stop thinking about those deer and the... thing they made. I know, logically, it was just three deer. But a part of me has always wondered if, maybe, something used the deer to show a version of itself to me. Or if it was some kind of forest spirit that, like... shapeshifted into three deer and then left. It was just so surreal that it was in that same exact spot, I could cut the air with a knife and I swear the thing had an almost human face and hands before I blinked and then all of a sudden it was just some deer in the same general shape of what I was just looking at. Maybe it was paradolia. But I've experienced some other weird stuff out in the woods that has made me reconsider what kind of stuff I believe and don't believe. It's weird, out there it seems like reality gets... thin, sometimes. Idk. I have no idea what it was, even if it genuinely was just three deer I have this overwhelming feeling that they were sent by something or were there to warn me about what was going to happen. There isn't really a sense of closure to this story, lol. I've just kinda been going over it in my head every once in a while for the past eight years. Thanks for reading. I hope I didn't ramble on too long lol
im a huge believer in mothman for no reason other than i just love him and i dont think my brain has the capacity to not believe in him, similar with sasquach, nessie, and altie (the altamaha-ha in GA aka my home state). i wish ppl talked more abt altie
I literally grew up really close to the sandhills, and there is nothing about one of those cranes that you can mistake for a mothman like figure. For one, like all cranes, they are really thin and sleek. Even if you saw one in your headlights facing you with it's wings spread, you wouldn't be able to miss the long skinny neck. Mothman is more or less described as humanoid with wings.
I knew I loved you -- we share a hatred of Ohio! 💜 I lived there from 7th to 9th grade and was bullied by the whole school, BOTH schools, the entire time. Halfway through 9th grade I ran away and was ironically relieved to find myself back at my grandmother's house in Detroit. Yep, Detroit, of all places, was a step up. I refused to go back. And their water tastes like shit! Like it's filtered through a dirty sock. I'd be interested to learn why you hate Ohio.😆
I grew up in PA hearing tales of the Mothman from my grandmother, who lived in WV when it started. She and many others in the area were terrified of him. In 2019, my bestie and I attended the festival. Lots of cool stuff to buy, but the organization is nonexistent. We arrived an hour and a half early for our tour and missed it because we had to wait THREE hours for the shuttle from the parking area.
I think the most man is just something we use when we don't understand something so we can wrap our non understanding something that we can understand and explain
Born and raised in West Virginia, and I can attest that we also dislike the fact that we share a border with Ohio. Also, the “bunkers” in the TNT area are shaped like igloos, and they’re all empty now. I’ve been in almost every one of them (except for a couple that are too overgrown with foliage. Point Pleasant is a great place to visit, and you have to visit the statue when you’re there. You don’t realize just how jacked the Mothman was until you see his likeness up close. We’re talking 6 pack with a butt you could bounce a quarter off of, on that thing.
Speaking of the Flatwoods Monster, it may have been the inspiration for the aliens that invade Romani Ranch in Majora’s Mask. I don’t think Nintendo actually confirmed that this was the inspiration, but, when you compare the earliest stretches of the Flatwoods Monster and the design of the aliens in the game, they look remarkably similar. Not to mention, Japan was apparently going through a UFO craze during the time the game was being developed, so I’d imagine at least some of the people working on the game where looking up famous alien encounters from around the world either casually or for game ideas and they became enamored with the depiction of the Flatwoods Monster enough to use it for a side quest.
I’m from WV. I’ve been very lucky with my life, I’ve survived things that I have no business being alive form and I’m not scared of much. But the day I see moth man is the day that I think I’ll just stay home and not do anything. WV is a beautiful place, but the people that were alive in the 60s were very hard people, they were coal miners and lumber men, they sort of people who fetched water from a well. The sort that don’t really need to make up story’s.
One theory about the Mothman that I don't think gets discussed often is that it's some mutated bird or animal. The theory goes that some birds living near the TNT area would eventually get mutated due to the strange chemicals there so their offspring would have a deformed appearance thus creating the Mothman.
Promise you I saw him in 2016 on July 22nd. The longest night ever. He was on my house, like he was claiming it, I slept outside on the screen porch and witnessed the birth of hundreds of baby Moths. Things got weird after that! I am in NC and the year is 2023, I will never forget it. I hadn’t told anyone this, I did not want to be ridiculed. I’m already bonkers, didn’t want to help my accusers! But he was there, and he did not want me in the house that night, so I wasn’t. I’m a West Virginian by Birth, recently traveled through the radio free zone where stuff takes place. I saw a winged thin darkly shadowed man with two legs and two arms and what looked like bat wings!
A few months ago for school I did a cryptid article on mothman and I got to be on it because I didn't have enough evidence? I stated five reasons and I stated facts. I provided photos and I even got a video from somebody who actually seen it in the 1900s that I asked to speak for my article
The first time I saw a Sandhill Crane I turned around and asked my dad why we had pterodactyls in the front yard. So that I could understand. Not so much the Mothman thing though.
Kanawha Pronunciation: “Cah” (like a bird) - “Nah” (like “nah man”) I know someone previously said above to say it fast, but they just completely ignore the last two letters. 😂
I mean, people also see Jesus in their toast and really believe its meaningful. (To be clear, I'm religious, but unless the toast also bleeds, heals wounds, or smites the wicked, its probably just circumstance and human perception.) People are deeply untrustworthy, especially about things that finance their entire town. That said, the whole Mothman thing is super interesting, especially when layered in with the Flatwoods monster and the Indrid Cold thing. Does that mean I think any of them are truly supernatural? No, but its interesting to see the composition of belief that forms in the region from those stories, how they form or highlight things about the people of the region, and also to question if this is the process by which ancient pagan religions formed. From misunderstandings and pattern recognition, or if there was a little something to the old myths that becomes more over the centuries of telephone. And how would that game have affected something like the Mothman? If we went back to oral histories magically, would our descendants treat the being as a deific entities? Would its relationship to tragedy transform it into a psychopomp?
Thank you for mentioning Indrid Cold! He's one of my favorite cryptids. He's a tricky one to explain, as there were numerous witnesses that have all proven to be reliable. Even Woodrow himself was found to be perfectly healthy. As a religious person myself, I believe it's some sort of demon in the west virginia area. As demons do, it's looking to scare the masses. It tested out the Flatwoods Monster, that wasn't scary enough, It tested Indrid Cold, still wasn't scary enough, then when mothman was effective it used that. The enemy is out to humiliate and torment humans as he was tormented with Jesus dying on the cross.
I lived in W.V for years in my childhood, born in Ohio unfortunately, it so beautiful but so is Colorado different kind of area. I miss the mountains so much...
Humans find coincidences even when non are there. (I'd have to wonder why mothman would hang out for 13 months before the disaster? There had to have been other disasters going on that would require it's foreboding presence.) I'm in favor of mass hysteria simply because of the year and age of the two couples who first sighted it. And now that it is associated with disaster, people are going to think they saw it just before or during the disaster. (I mean it is nice to be able to blame -something- on the seemingly random stuff that happens.) I am a skeptic, but do not dismiss the idea completely. I just don't blindly believe everyone who claims they've had a sighting of one supernatural thing or another.
If Mothman's original disaster warning was a 13 month period, why did he start only warning people a few weeks or days before disaster? If you see mothman, report it immediately, and if accidents start happening in areas after reports instead of vice versa, maybe we'll have something
That savage comment about Ohio 😂
Yeah, whatsamatter, you still sore about sucking up our polyvinyl chloride?
New-ish to the channel. Why does he hate Ohio?
@@justinmanson5055 Oh, probably some crazy piece of legislation we passed, or it's reputation for being uncool and boring. Or maybe he's from here, who knows. Ohio-bashing is very popular these days.
@@justinmanson5055 because everyone who knows anything about Ohio hates Ohio, and Ohio politicians hate Ohioans. Have you just missed the last 2 months of news entirely?
Rolling on the floor laughing my ass off!!😂
"Look son, everywhere the light touches is West Virginia"
" what about that shadowy place?"
" that's Ohio son, you must never go there"
Lol to good 🦁
I don't understand the weird mythos of hate towards Ohio.
🤣🤣
New Rule: If you think you see a Mothman, you have to say something about it to everyone right away instead of after a disaster happens.
Finally the Mothmussy!
You make me hate that I learned how to read.
@@arisenprestige5717 it’s an inside joke on the discord server
@@arisenprestige5717 it’s my specialty
Need it in my room. NOW
@@MattyPan118 at least get consent from the mothmussy 😂
Fun Fact: the day before the bridge collapse a hunter showed up to a taxidermist claiming to have shot and killed the Mothman. The creature in question was a large Snowy Owl. Combine that with the fact that Snowy Owls are larger than any local Owl and that the initial reports described that being as white, not black. I find that to be pretty compelling. Still an awesome story.
Yes I’ve always thought of the Mothman as the most “we know what it is” thing.
Part of my family is originally from WV. And you’re correct - a lot of people who are still alive remember seeing Mothman. It’s such an odd thing to hear discussed by family members who are not the sort to believe fantastical tales. So…a solid I don’t know from me. There is a lot of uninhabited land in the world even today.
My grandmother used to tell me the story of this cryptid. You should also look into the Jersey Devil.
I’ve lived in Jersey my whole life. Jersey Devil is nonsense. Sasquatch is real though.
Mothman is my favorite cryptid. I love the Mothman YMCA song with my entire soul. Also honestly if I had survived some bad event I would say I saw Mothman on my deathbed before the event. It’s either true or my last prank before leaving this mortal plane you decided.
The Mothman Festival is amazing, people dress up in cosplay and theres just so much cool stuff.
Been keen for this one, Mothmussy delivered!
I'm from southeast Wisconsin, a little town called Lafayette, kind of near the Towns of Elkhorn and East Troy. About two turns off my childhood homes road, is a road called Bray Road. Ever since I was really little people from all over the area would always talk about this thing called The Bray Road Beast. Some people say it's like a werewolf type deal, some say it's just a big ass dog, and to be honest I never really believed in the thing but I can say for sure one thing.
Grab a couple friends, some flashlights, and wander deep enough into rows of corn and/into enough unincorporated wooded land and trust me... You'll start hearing things and even seeing things that you were sure ain't real.
Dunno if you've ever heard of The Beast of Bray Road or not because he's such a small town local Wisconsin thing but maybe consider doing a video on it if there's enough lore to dig up on him. You can have that one for free
Oh damn. I'm in Wisconsin too. I might have to check into this
I cannot even imagine being in the woods, in the dark, and seeing this man sized winged thing with red eyes fly at me screaming. I would be dead from fear before I even hit the floor.
Suuuuper late to the party, because I just found this channel and have been watching it nonstop. Keep up the good work, you make amazing videos.
I definitely believe the barn owl explanation, and I can lend some personal experience to the idea that people mistake owls for paranormal creatures. So here goes.
Teenage me lived in rural Ohio in the 2000s, along with my mother and younger siblings. Mother makes me walk the dog "around the block" at night. Now mind you, a country block means walking several miles along county roads until I circle back around to my house.
So out I go, and about halfway through the journey, I am approaching a small house with a barn next to it. The barn has halogen lamp illuminating the entire front yard, minus an area next to the road that lies in shadow cast by a big tree.
As I come to the corner of the shadow, I see a HUGE dark shape jump/fly from out of the tree and dissappear into the ground, completely silently about 30 yards from where I'm walking.
I am terrified by what I just saw, but I pretend to be brave because I have my dog (a German Shepherd) with me.
So we continue walking, my head and eyes fixed on the spot, and heart pounding it's way out of my chest. "I'm going to pretend that I did not just witness a demon jump out in front of me" I tell myself.
As the angle between me and the spot changes, the barn light is no longer shining directly in my face, and I am able to just barely make out this paranormal monster I just encountered, an owl diving on a rat and getting some dinner.
Sometimes, the benign, rational explanation makes the most sense. Cheers!
My favourite thing on is Wendigoon during the Red Thread in the Mothman episode laughing at the report of a woman dropping her baby when she saw it.
Many folks miss the other Paranormal type stuff that was taking place during these 13 months in Point Pleasant. There were unidentified lights in sky being reported,actual UFO craft,cattle mutilations,people reported Paranormal activity in their homes,a couple folks were having prophetic dreams,there were even MIB hassling the townspeople.There was a legend of a long ago Native American curse. Then the people started seeing this creature or cryptid or monster..the Mothman 😲
(All I know for certain..I woulda moved 😆)
The blood drinking truck!
Hey mate! I'm down from Perth in Aus, you go any interesting flesh pedestrians and of such for down under (Western aus in particular )
The Ohio River may not be the oldest, longest, or most beautiful river in the world but it does a hell of a job keeping Ohio out of Wv so I love it.
I've gotten to visit Point Pleasant and Braxton County, Wv (Home of the FLatwoods Monster along with several bigfoot or Old Men of the Mountains sightings.) Both areas seem to have a lot of paranormal, borderline poltergeist activity predating and continuing long after the cryptid sightings in there area. In about a month a friend and I are actually going to tour a historically haunted hotel in Braxton county. I'd definitely recommend a trip to the many festivals or one of the paranormal museums in the area if you ever find yourself in the Wild and Wonderfuls of The Mountain State.
Also I love Mothman, there's a 24 hour live stream of his statue in Point Pleasant
I like the mothman story, but I lean towards great horned owl where frightened people are mistaken about the size. A large owl whose eyes reflect red flaring up suddenly in front of a car would look huge and frightening!
it should be said that the Kelly-Hopkinsville incident (also in west virginia) was also attributed to barred owls
A friend's father was in his late teens in 1986, serving in the Soviet military and sent into Chernobyl with a Russian clean-up crew. He himself was half Russian, half Ukrainian for those interested - and it didn't really matter back then.
He wasn't one of the "human robots" in heavy gear, who had to work in areas with the strongest radiation, but his unit got some very ineffective raincoats and started removing debris in the periphery of the reactor area. He himself didn't see anything, but he talked to people, who had been to the inner circle. Either as ground forces like him or flying over it in helicopters.
Pilots often reported, that they had seen giant black birds. Both pilots and ground forces described them specifically as taking off from the ground like an eagle, from inside black clouds of smoke and fire. Some called them "phoenixes". They also saw humanoid figures in the smoke.
According to Andrey (my friend's father) they were all sent to on-site doctors and examined both physically and mentally. They usually suffered from severe stress, hadn't slept in days, were dehydrated and very concerned about the consequences of the catastrophe (especially those with relatives from the nearby regions). Doctors told them, that the smoke figures they thought they had seen were a result of their mental state as well as of their eyes being affected by the smoke and most likely radiation, i.e. visual hallucinations. Some may have been oddly shaped explosions partially covered by smoke.
Andrey died in 2010 of cancer.
I know I'm late, but as a West Virginian I enjoyed this in depth dive and I'm glad to hear about how much you love our geography and topography (as do I)
Just got back from vacation there and the very first store I went to was run by a local who was around when it all went down. Nobody had heard anything about Mothman involving prior to its collapse. Locals mostly called it the big bird
I doubt many people would confuse a barn owl as a moth man but going by head shape I could see it being a great horned owl. they are a lot bigger them people think and have glowing red eyes. I've worked with a few and they are about the size of my torso and I am a little over 6' 1" tall.
Don't underestimate the imagination one has in the dark. When I was little I had a distinct memory of having a bath around 5 am in my parent sbathroom. Now, right next to the tub, there was a window with a tree right up against it. And I saw the silhoutte of something huge perched right on the branch in front of me. Freaked out, thought it was the jersey devil and ran out of there.
In hindsight, it was 100% a turkey buzzard or another large bird we have in the area. But that shit freaks you out when you first see a dark shape in the night.
When I was a kid I had a book called Monsters, Strange Dreams, and UFOs. It was basically a bunch of cryptid and unexplained stories of which mothman was one. I just remembered it having a really great illustration of a half man half moth flying over the bridge
I love mothman stories. Whether you say it's a creature from another plane, a big owl, or an alien, it's cool no less. One of my fave cryptids.
I wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment, especially since normal moths are so fluffy and cute looking, and the idea of something man-sized like that going around and warning people of dangers beforehand is just about the most wholesome thing ever.
I have been listening to you for a few weeks. I enjoy all the research you do. Very well put together.
Just as a note, the description is not a barn Owl, the explanation with flatwoods is a Bard Owl because the way it moved along with the facial description is close to the look of the bard owl
Mothman has made several appearances near my town of East Peoria, IL. A lot of people think we just have our own version of the Mothman creature, but I like to think it's just the same one flying around the world warning anyone.
In our stories, there was a particularly dangerous road that a lot of people died on from car crashes. Because of how shoddy the work was, the road developed a washboard aspect and people would loose control at high speeds.
There were a bunch of reports in the 60s and 70s of a Mothman making appearances around that part of the road, and people started attributing it to all the deaths.
When the city finally fixed the road in the 1980s, the reports stopped. Old timers still love to tell that story to this day.
Would there be possibility of going more in depth into Inuit lore, and lore from the North West and Yukon Territories of Canada? I hike up there all the time, my boyfriend grew up there, but lots of people don't really talk about it, or know much about it....
Not the same thing, but my whole family on the native side (mom's side) would always pack with us fresh water before we went camping. Mama and grandpa said we do that because the cranes will use their beaks to pierce through the tents and drink your blood if you don't. My mom's parents were from Nome Alaska and everyone on my mom's side are Inupiat, but i dunno if it's an old wives' tale that everyone knows, or if it was just a story from my grandparents. I assumed it was a badluck story to scare the kids into always packing fresh water before camping
I see sandhill cranes all the time. For birds they are extremely large but no larger than a child. We love hearing there chortles and always take pics. No way anyone would mistake them especially if you know of them prior.
I don't know if they would have, though, considering they're not super common to the area (which also makes the theory less plausible imo).
You know, my dad said he just saw a massive black bird fly over Allegheny National Forest. He is a nature nut and he couldn't identify it which I find hard to believe. He said he had enough time to even use binoculars to look at it.
I've never seen the mothman but I've been to point pleasant many times. I'll never forget when we went looking for mothy once lol. There are big red reflectors on the replacement and current bridge just as you drive up. We were teenagers and got a good laugh when we realized they weren't, in fact, mothman eyes.
Also, just for future reference, the river (and county), we pronounce it "kuh-naw-uh" in Southern wv.
I've also hearI'd just "kuh-naw", but I'm not sure where this pronunciation is most prevalent. Possibly northern WV? Idk.
@@TH3MIN3R3000 that's pretty common in southern too but it seems that most people throw the "uh" on the end.
My girlfriend was born in India, and she told me last night that when she was 9, she and her cousin (in India) ran up to their rooftop to play and saw a 9+ foot tall creature with: bat wings, sharp teeth, long fingers and toes with claws, glowing red eyes, and it flew around them before zipping away.
It completely blew her mind when I was like "Oh you saw Mothman". She never heard of it.
Apparently that year in India, there were power outages and floods that killed hundreds.
I do want to point out that a lot of people don’t realize just how big some wild animals are so a brief close encounter with a large bird by someone unfamiliar with said bird may make the animal seem larger than it is because it’s larger than the person thinks it should be.
2 years late but I need to put my piece in:
Goddamnit do I love The Mothman, the story is just _too_ good!
i love the mothman so much he is my everything i’m so happy lorelodge did a vid on him!!!! MOTHMUSSY!!!!!!
I remember being about 12 and writing a speech about Mothman for school because I was OBSESSED with the stories lol 😬
Im excited! I just did woodburning work of mothman. I did wendigo too
Got a link for pictures of those?
I do love the mothman stories but I've always found it odd that it happens around the birth of the hippy/ counter culture genre. So I've always wondered how much drugs played into these. Either way loved this vid
About those barn owl explanations, you could say that... the owls are not what they seem
I'll see myself out
ITS HERE I LOVE YOU TWO FUCK YEAH
I want to the mothman museum last year for my 40th bday . It was fascinating
as someone who lives in the gallipolis/point pleasant area i can say most people around here think it was people high on acid seeing sandhill cranes
that would explain why they only seen them for a certain time period, also people think man’s killed the bridge lmao
I’ve listened to this video before but I’m driving through pt pleasant rn for the first time, so I had to throw it on
Idk if I'd really call it Mothman, but I did see something similar one time that stuck with me.
When I was 19, I worked at a Burger King in a nearby town to where my parents' house was (we lived out in the country in SE Ohio, so not too far from Point Pleasant actually in the grand scheme of things) and I did the closing shift so I would be driving home at like 3 am every night on back dirt roads. It never bothered me, like not one bit but one night, as I came up on a specific corner I'd taken hundreds of times, I felt a sudden sense of dread. Like I just became terrified, idk why, I hadn't seen anything yet but it was like I knew what was about to happen.
As I rounded the corner, I saw something crouched in the middle of the road that--in the moment--looked like something that I can only describe as a cross between the Mothman and the Rake. Big glowing eyes, long arms and legs bent at unnatural angles. I screamed like I'd never screamed before or since, and once I stopped the car...
it turned out it was three deer. I'm not joking. Three deer, all lined up behind one another, all positioned in such a way that from the angle I saw them they looked like one weird crouching humanoid creature. They all ran off into the forest, and I laughed it off, despite still feeling sort of uneasy. I remember thinking as I drove off, "what if that was some sort of premonition or something like people say Mothman is or whatever? Nahh, lol"
Three weeks later, while driving back through that same exact spot, the steering in my car went out while I was driving and I spinned into a telephone pole. If the pole had hit the other side I would have died. I managed to crawl out of the wreck, couldn't find wherever my cellphone got flung to so I had to go to the nearest house to use their phone and the crazy hillbilly who lived there almost shot me because I was 'trespassing'. Dude could literally see my wrecked car (got woke up by the noise actually), I was bleeding everywhere and he was convinced the whole thing was somehow a trick and I was really a burglar lol. I managed to talk him down, got an ambulance and got the hell out of there. Despite almost dying twice in five minutes, I didn't have any lasting medical issues and was relatively fine. But I couldn't stop thinking about those deer and the... thing they made.
I know, logically, it was just three deer. But a part of me has always wondered if, maybe, something used the deer to show a version of itself to me. Or if it was some kind of forest spirit that, like... shapeshifted into three deer and then left. It was just so surreal that it was in that same exact spot, I could cut the air with a knife and I swear the thing had an almost human face and hands before I blinked and then all of a sudden it was just some deer in the same general shape of what I was just looking at. Maybe it was paradolia. But I've experienced some other weird stuff out in the woods that has made me reconsider what kind of stuff I believe and don't believe. It's weird, out there it seems like reality gets... thin, sometimes. Idk. I have no idea what it was, even if it genuinely was just three deer I have this overwhelming feeling that they were sent by something or were there to warn me about what was going to happen. There isn't really a sense of closure to this story, lol. I've just kinda been going over it in my head every once in a while for the past eight years.
Thanks for reading. I hope I didn't ramble on too long lol
The barn owl references keep reminding me of Trey the Explainer.
im a huge believer in mothman for no reason other than i just love him and i dont think my brain has the capacity to not believe in him, similar with sasquach, nessie, and altie (the altamaha-ha in GA aka my home state). i wish ppl talked more abt altie
My grandfather was resting one night and there was a tree right outside of his window and all of a sudden movement and eyes looking in, it was an owl
I literally grew up really close to the sandhills, and there is nothing about one of those cranes that you can mistake for a mothman like figure. For one, like all cranes, they are really thin and sleek. Even if you saw one in your headlights facing you with it's wings spread, you wouldn't be able to miss the long skinny neck. Mothman is more or less described as humanoid with wings.
Excuse me I didn't know the thornbussy was up for grabs
No he is only up for grabs for Izzy Long/j
I knew I loved you -- we share a hatred of Ohio! 💜
I lived there from 7th to 9th grade and was bullied by the whole school, BOTH schools, the entire time. Halfway through 9th grade I ran away and was ironically relieved to find myself back at my grandmother's house in Detroit. Yep, Detroit, of all places, was a step up. I refused to go back. And their water tastes like shit! Like it's filtered through a dirty sock. I'd be interested to learn why you hate Ohio.😆
I grew up in PA hearing tales of the Mothman from my grandmother, who lived in WV when it started. She and many others in the area were terrified of him. In 2019, my bestie and I attended the festival. Lots of cool stuff to buy, but the organization is nonexistent. We arrived an hour and a half early for our tour and missed it because we had to wait THREE hours for the shuttle from the parking area.
If you've seen a Luna moth, you understand where moth man can come from
The movie with Richard Gere scared the crap out of me man.
I think the most man is just something we use when we don't understand something so we can wrap our non understanding something that we can understand and explain
Born and raised in West Virginia, and I can attest that we also dislike the fact that we share a border with Ohio. Also, the “bunkers” in the TNT area are shaped like igloos, and they’re all empty now. I’ve been in almost every one of them (except for a couple that are too overgrown with foliage. Point Pleasant is a great place to visit, and you have to visit the statue when you’re there. You don’t realize just how jacked the Mothman was until you see his likeness up close. We’re talking 6 pack with a butt you could bounce a quarter off of, on that thing.
Speaking of the Flatwoods Monster, it may have been the inspiration for the aliens that invade Romani Ranch in Majora’s Mask. I don’t think Nintendo actually confirmed that this was the inspiration, but, when you compare the earliest stretches of the Flatwoods Monster and the design of the aliens in the game, they look remarkably similar. Not to mention, Japan was apparently going through a UFO craze during the time the game was being developed, so I’d imagine at least some of the people working on the game where looking up famous alien encounters from around the world either casually or for game ideas and they became enamored with the depiction of the Flatwoods Monster enough to use it for a side quest.
Almost certainly an owl at least to me
I know someone that swore until the day she died that she encountered the Loveland Frogman.
I really think it was an owl, but still, it is interesting and I always watch stories about the Mothman.
Not only do we have the mothman festival, there’s a mothman museum and a statue of him
Also love Flatwoods Monster 🤣
I’m from WV. I’ve been very lucky with my life, I’ve survived things that I have no business being alive form and I’m not scared of much. But the day I see moth man is the day that I think I’ll just stay home and not do anything.
WV is a beautiful place, but the people that were alive in the 60s were very hard people, they were coal miners and lumber men, they sort of people who fetched water from a well. The sort that don’t really need to make up story’s.
Mothman is my favorite cryptid. Why? Well, it never seemed particularly malicious. It just exists.
One theory about the Mothman that I don't think gets discussed often is that it's some mutated bird or animal. The theory goes that some birds living near the TNT area would eventually get mutated due to the strange chemicals there so their offspring would have a deformed appearance thus creating the Mothman.
I haven't heard anything about the mothman since that documentary with Richard Gere
Missed the lore about Chied Cornstalk putting a 200 year curse on the valley.
Great job, as always. Keep up the good work!
As someone who actually lives in West Virginia, a lot of people will tell you that Kanawha is pronounced "Ca-Nah-Wah" but we pronounce it "Ca-Naul".
Mothman, my beloved
Promise you I saw him in 2016 on July 22nd. The longest night ever. He was on my house, like he was claiming it, I slept outside on the screen porch and witnessed the birth of hundreds of baby Moths. Things got weird after that! I am in NC and the year is 2023, I will never forget it. I hadn’t told anyone this, I did not want to be ridiculed. I’m already bonkers, didn’t want to help my accusers! But he was there, and he did not want me in the house that night, so I wasn’t. I’m a West Virginian by Birth, recently traveled through the radio free zone where stuff takes place. I saw a winged thin darkly shadowed man with two legs and two arms and what looked like bat wings!
I LOL'd at Mothmussy lol
A few months ago for school I did a cryptid article on mothman and I got to be on it because I didn't have enough evidence? I stated five reasons and I stated facts. I provided photos and I even got a video from somebody who actually seen it in the 1900s that I asked to speak for my article
The first time I saw a Sandhill Crane I turned around and asked my dad why we had pterodactyls in the front yard. So that I could understand. Not so much the Mothman thing though.
My father swears up and down that he saw the mothman when he was hunting one time.
Thanks I live in West Virginia
Kanawha Pronunciation:
“Cah” (like a bird) - “Nah” (like “nah man”)
I know someone previously said above to say it fast, but they just completely ignore the last two letters. 😂
I like these early videos that sound like he’s in a tin can
It was a Turkey Buzzard. 100%. If you've ever seen one roosting, you know how uncanny they are.
Eat
Sleep
✨Praise Mothman✨
I'm from Ohio and still live here I love all your videos
Awww, West Virginia is very pretty yes, thank you. We too regret Ohio. 😩🤷♀️
Ok so I wrestle and the only thing I've had to eat today is the toast I'm crunching now.and crackers this morning and your channel keeps me saine
I may or may not have been spreading some mothman street art around town 🙊🙊
Mothmussy caught me so offguard
Moth mussyyyyyyyyyyyyy
I mean, people also see Jesus in their toast and really believe its meaningful. (To be clear, I'm religious, but unless the toast also bleeds, heals wounds, or smites the wicked, its probably just circumstance and human perception.) People are deeply untrustworthy, especially about things that finance their entire town.
That said, the whole Mothman thing is super interesting, especially when layered in with the Flatwoods monster and the Indrid Cold thing. Does that mean I think any of them are truly supernatural? No, but its interesting to see the composition of belief that forms in the region from those stories, how they form or highlight things about the people of the region, and also to question if this is the process by which ancient pagan religions formed. From misunderstandings and pattern recognition, or if there was a little something to the old myths that becomes more over the centuries of telephone. And how would that game have affected something like the Mothman? If we went back to oral histories magically, would our descendants treat the being as a deific entities? Would its relationship to tragedy transform it into a psychopomp?
Thank you for mentioning Indrid Cold! He's one of my favorite cryptids. He's a tricky one to explain, as there were numerous witnesses that have all proven to be reliable. Even Woodrow himself was found to be perfectly healthy. As a religious person myself, I believe it's some sort of demon in the west virginia area. As demons do, it's looking to scare the masses. It tested out the Flatwoods Monster, that wasn't scary enough, It tested Indrid Cold, still wasn't scary enough, then when mothman was effective it used that. The enemy is out to humiliate and torment humans as he was tormented with Jesus dying on the cross.
giving fox mulder vibes rn
I lived in W.V for years in my childhood, born in Ohio unfortunately, it so beautiful but so is Colorado different kind of area. I miss the mountains so much...
It’s either a demon a spider man villain or an owl. Wow
Humans find coincidences even when non are there. (I'd have to wonder why mothman would hang out for 13 months before the disaster? There had to have been other disasters going on that would require it's foreboding presence.)
I'm in favor of mass hysteria simply because of the year and age of the two couples who first sighted it. And now that it is associated with disaster, people are going to think they saw it just before or during the disaster. (I mean it is nice to be able to blame -something- on the seemingly random stuff that happens.)
I am a skeptic, but do not dismiss the idea completely. I just don't blindly believe everyone who claims they've had a sighting of one supernatural thing or another.
I’m not saying I love moth man, I’m just not not saying that I love moth man
Mothman moved to Chicago. I guess he went urban.
If Mothman's original disaster warning was a 13 month period, why did he start only warning people a few weeks or days before disaster? If you see mothman, report it immediately, and if accidents start happening in areas after reports instead of vice versa, maybe we'll have something
Mothman and Flatwoods monster are my parents 🥰
Bring forth the moth milk
Ok the bell buzzards were definitely a joke someone did because they were bored.
Finally the mothman✨✨✨
Old Greg is much more terrifying