Games non-people play

"Mothman: The facts behind the legend" is a collection of interviews, newspaper clippings and letters about a series of bizarre events in Point Pleasant, WV 1966-67. Some local residents were seeing UFOs and a bird-like monster nicknamed Mothman by the media. The paranormal happenings were followed by the tragic collapse of the Silver Bridge, killing 46 people. The events were immortalized and turned into local folklore by John Keel's book "The Mothman Prophecies", first published in 1975. In 2002, Hollywood released a film with the same title, starring Richard Gere.

But what really happened in Point Pleasant? "Mothman: The facts behind the legend" doesn't give an answer, but it does present the reader with a lot of interesting material about the case.

First, there are original newspaper articles from 1966-67 about the purported UFO sightings and (of course) the sensational encounters with the winged monster itself. The first article about the creature later known as Mothman was published in The Point Pleasant Register on November 16, 1966 and somewhat facetiously titled "Couples See Man-Sized Bird...Creature...Something!" The original four witnesses were Linda Scarberry, Roger Scarberry, Steve Mallette and Mary Mallette. The local story about Mothman went national almost immediately. Three days after the Scarberry-Mallette encounter with "the red eyed creature", the U.S. armed forces in Vietnam could read about it in "Pacific Stars and Stripes", where the Mothman report was featured on the front page immediately below more important news about UN threats against Ian Smith's Rhodesia!

I couldn't help noticing the sexist conventions of the day, since Linda and Mary are frequently not mentioned by name in the newspaper reports. In one article, the four eye witnesses are called "Mr. and Mrs. Steve Mallette and Mr. and Mrs. Roger Scarberry", in another they are "Steve Mallette and Roger Scarberry and their wives". Ironically, it was Linda Scarberry who would become the most important eye witness, since the three others eventually refused to give further interviews.

Second, the book contains previously unpublished reports on the original Mothman encounter, letters from John Keel to Linda Scarberry and her parents, and a recent (2001) interview with Linda made by the editors.

I felt the plot (or fog) thickening after reading this book. For instance, Scarberry's present account of her encounter with Mothman seems to be embellished compared to her original story, both as reported by the newspapers and as reported by herself in a private notebook. The original report didn't mention that Mothman had arms, in fact Scarberry's private notes explicitly says that it *didn't* have arms. There is also a classic sketch of the creature made by Scarberry, which doesn't show any arms. Nor did the original report say that one of Mothman's wings had gotten stuck in some wires. As far as I can make out, these details aren't mentioned in Keel's book, either. Yet, in Scarberry's recent statements (both in this book and elsewhere), the arms and the stuck wing are important parts of the story. Of course, if the present version is correct, Mothman would be more human-like, while in the original story the creature is more bird-like. Sceptics, of course, claim that Mothman may indeed have been a misidentified bird...

The newspaper clips does confirm one of Keel's claims: the Mothman sightings took place concurrently with a UFO flap. However, Keel also claims that the town of Point Pleasant was virtually besieged by Men in Black (MIBs) who harassed witnesses and investigators, including Linda Scarberry and the local newspaper columnist Mary Hyre. This was not mentioned in the local newspapers. Admittedly, this doesn't prove much either way - perhaps Scarberry and Hyre were afraid of being seen as paranoid, and therefore kept quite about their bizarre experiences. Hyre died in 1970, five years before Keel's book was published. In the 2001 interview, Scarberry does indeed claim to have been harassed by some kind of supernatural entities, and reveals details not mentioned in Keel's book.

This brings me to the most interesting and curious part of the story: the close relationship between John Keel and Linda Scarberry. During his investigations, Keel quite literally lived in the house of Scarberry's parents. So did Linda and her husband. Keel lived "upstairs" while "Mr. and Mrs. Roger Scarberry" lived in the basement! Judging by both Keel's book and Linda Scarberry's 2001 interview, Linda is well-versed in ufological and paranormal lore, from MIBs and alien abductions to exorcisms and government conspiracies. I think it's obvious that John Keel groomed her. While this doesn't disprove that Linda Scarberry had paranormal experiences, it does make the case somewhat more complex...

In a letter to Linda's parents, we get a glimpse of Keel's own state of mind during the period in question: "Hope you are all okay. The invisible characters are playful but harmless *unless* you smell a very strong odor of some kind. Don't let 'em upset you. They feed on fear. If you panic, they get much worse. If you have a very strong feeling that someone is around...try talking to them. Tell them very firmly that you know they are there and you wish they would go away. (I know this sounds insane so please don't repeat it to "outsiders". They'll think we're all nuts.)". In a letter to Linda herself, Keel writes: "Mary [i.e. Mary Hyre] has been bothered by a lot of cranks and weirdos and she has apparently taken some of them seriously. My own life is threatened by some nut about once a week. If I took them seriously, I would have been in the booby hatch long ago. When such threats fail, `they' often take to issuing threats to people who know me". In the 2001 interview, Scarberry reveals that Keel told her to carry out what was essentially an exorcism, featuring a gilded crucifix. Keel suspected that the MIBs wanted to abduct Linda's baby! The crucifix stopped the demonic beings from harming the toddler, something Scarberry claims to have witnessed up front. That Keel was rapidly getting paranoid is obvious from "The Mothman Prophecies", but many of the details seem to be new.

So what happened in Point Pleasant 50 years ago? A sceptic would surely say that the UFOs and Mothmen were misidentified natural phenomena, later fuelled by mass hysteria, while the MIBs and "aliens" mostly existed in John Keel's imagination. Keel then influenced some of the local residents, most notably Mary Hyre and Linda Scarberry. Of course, the MIBs might also have been real people, presumably cranks who believed in UFOs and demanded information from eye witnesses. In his book, Keel admits that such very human kooks were all over West Virginia at the time, and that *he* was once confused with the Devil during a nocturnal excursion.

Forteans, true believers in the paranormal and perhaps evangelical Christians will presumably have other explanations. About a dozen different species of birds have been proposed as an explanation for the Mothman sightings (including Canadian geese?!), but some of the reported behaviour of Mothman doesn't fit any bird known to science. Apparitions, haunting and mysterious lights in the sky often go together. And sure, crucifixes are said to scare away the Evil One...

Perhaps the verdict of the reader on this complex case will be wholly dependent on his or her fundamental worldview.

Such are the games people play. And, I suppose, non-people. ;-)