WEBVTT FILE

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Downloaded from
YTS.MX

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Official YIFY movies site:
YTS.MX

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[air whooshes]

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[ominous music]

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[spooky ethereal music]

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- Fear is a funny thing.

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Where it begins and where it
ends is never a certainty.

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Fear can form seemingly out of
nowhere

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00:01:04.788 --> 00:01:07.032
and then disappear just as
quickly

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00:01:07.067 --> 00:01:08.896
and we might never really know
why.

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[somber violin music]

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00:01:19.182 --> 00:01:22.944
Some fears develop over
days, weeks, or years,

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sown from the time we're young,

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eventually bursting forth from
the seeds

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that were planted when we were
children.

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[footsteps patter]

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[door creaks]

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[birds chirp]

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But where did the seeds come
from?

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00:01:38.167 --> 00:01:39.340
Who first planted them?

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[calming music]

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[spooky music]

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Were they simply groomed over
centuries,

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or are they unique to each
generation?

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A story is a powerful thing,

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it can move us in unexpected
ways.

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00:02:02.639 --> 00:02:05.401
It can inspire hope or
create a sense of longing.

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[birds singing]

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00:02:09.715 --> 00:02:10.682
[light orchestral music]

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A story can manifest
sadness or depression,

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laughter or tears.

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And yes, a story can instill
fear.

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[light foreboding music]

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[feet shuffling]

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The question we might
begin to ask ourselves

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is not who put the fear there orwhy,

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[birds chirp]
[tense music]

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but what if the stories

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that instilled it to begin withare true,

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not simply fables, but somethingmore,

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something primal and ageless.
[water splashing]

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A something whose very survivaldepends

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on our telling of tales.

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[soft music]

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[feet shuffling]
[birds cawing]

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[soft ominous music]
[birds screeching]

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[thunder rumbles]

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[horse neighs]

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[ground rumbles]
[suspenseful music]

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[animal growls]
[air whooshes]

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00:04:02.725 --> 00:04:05.314
[person gasps]

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00:04:06.763 --> 00:04:07.557
[animal caws]

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00:04:07.592 --> 00:04:10.146
[person gasps]
[water splashes]

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[animal growls]
[person screams]

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[ominous orchestral music]
[feet pounding]

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[person gasps]

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[dramatic music]

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[bird caws]
[foreboding music]

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[camera clicks]
[object hums]

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[bird caws]

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[camera clicking]
[suspenseful music]

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[light bulb buzzes]

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[somber music]

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[object squishes]

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[fan blades whapping]

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[camera clicking]

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[metal bangs]

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[soft foreboding music]

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[object squishes]

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[clock chimes]

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[tense music]

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[spooky ethereal music]

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[somber piano music]

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[spooky ethereal music]

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[water sloshing]

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[birds cawing]

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[foreboding music]
[birds chirping]

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[spooky ethereal music]

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[feet shuffling]

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- Well, when the Silver Bridge
collapsed

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00:06:53.413 --> 00:06:57.451
in December of 1967, everybody'sattention immediately went

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to the recovery effort, the
rescue effort.

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00:07:01.628 --> 00:07:04.458
People weren't really
interested in lookin' for UFOs

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00:07:04.493 --> 00:07:06.909
or Mothman, even though they
did.

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[light foreboding music]

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00:07:13.433 --> 00:07:16.608
But it was such a horrible
tragedy

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00:07:16.643 --> 00:07:20.370
that the local population was
grieving

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and mourning the loss of, you
know,

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family members and friends
and things like that.

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So the attention went from
the weird stuff in the sky

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00:07:28.758 --> 00:07:32.382
or the Mothman sightings to
recovering bodies and cars

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from the Ohio River.

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- You know Main Street used
to be very hustle and bustle.

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00:07:38.043 --> 00:07:41.426
And after the bridge fell in the'60s,

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that kind of broke off that
connection

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00:07:44.256 --> 00:07:47.777
and so a lot of businesses
started to close

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and it became kind of a ghost
town

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until basically the museum
and the festival took off.

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And then, you know, during
the Mothman Festival

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you can't hardly move
there's so many people.

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You'd bring in like eight
to 10,000 people to a town

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00:08:06.002 --> 00:08:08.004
with a population of less than
5,000.

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- Between the years of 1966 and1967,

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00:08:14.252 --> 00:08:17.842
sightings of a red-eyed
monster, dubbed the Mothman,

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00:08:17.876 --> 00:08:20.534
helped put the town of Point
Pleasant, West Virginia

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on the map.

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However, it was the collapse ofa bridge

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spanning the Ohio River
in December of 1967

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that brought the town to a
tragic sort of prominence.

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00:08:31.752 --> 00:08:33.064
Since that time,

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this sleepy hamlet on the
banks of the mighty Ohio

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00:08:35.963 --> 00:08:39.553
and the Kanawha Rivers
has adopted a strange fame

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bolstered by their mostrenowned resident, the Mothman.

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Now over 50 years

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since the Silver Bridge
tumbled into the icy waters

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00:08:49.632 --> 00:08:52.048
and took with it 47 lives,

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00:08:52.083 --> 00:08:54.913
Point Pleasant has begun to
rebuild.

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- Life here in Point
Pleasant is laid back.

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I mean, you know, it's not yourhustle bustle of a big city

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00:09:03.163 --> 00:09:06.649
and I think that's why a lot
of people choose to stay here.

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- My dad is is Jeff Wamsley,

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the owner of the Mothman Museum.

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00:09:11.378 --> 00:09:13.898
So basically from my young
adulthood up,

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Mothman pretty much
surrounds a lot of my life.

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- You know, it's just a
little Main Street town

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00:09:21.388 --> 00:09:25.461
that just happens to have
a monster in it's history

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and it's a nice calling card.

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00:09:28.913 --> 00:09:31.778
- Mothman became something
they fell in love with

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00:09:31.812 --> 00:09:34.435
and then it was the town they
really fell in love with.

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00:09:34.470 --> 00:09:37.577
And I ultimately believeMothman is what gets them here,

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00:09:37.611 --> 00:09:40.649
but it's Point Pleasant that
brings them back every time.

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[dog barking]
[spooky music]

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00:09:49.312 --> 00:09:50.555
[light upbeat music]

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00:09:50.590 --> 00:09:53.213
- West Virginia is a jewel in
the rough, I always thought,

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00:09:53.247 --> 00:09:56.216
because you know the
landscape and the beauty.

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You've got all kinds of
different areas

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00:09:59.633 --> 00:10:04.604
like the mountains, the
streams, the river towns,

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00:10:04.811 --> 00:10:08.642
the ski lodges, all
kinds of different things

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00:10:08.677 --> 00:10:10.092
and I think they've done a
pretty good job

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00:10:10.126 --> 00:10:12.577
as far as capitalizing
on the tourism aspect.

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00:10:12.612 --> 00:10:17.582
- West Virginia is rolling
hills and beautiful creeks

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and green pastures and
football Friday night.

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- Isolated, at times boring.
[laughs]

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It's very beautiful.

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Not much happens,

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which allows being tuned
into certain things

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and also noticing things maybe

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that people in other areas may
not notice.

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It's a quiet, placid kind of
upbringing.

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Very beautiful, beautifulmountains and trees and streams.

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So that part is of course,
excellent.

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[birds singing]

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[lively fiddle music]

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- Point Pleasant sits on the
edge

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of what is known as Appalachia.

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The Appalachian Mountains are arange

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that stretches from Canada,
all the way down to Alabama.

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Rugged and rural, with a
landscape defined by jutting
rocks

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00:11:06.735 --> 00:11:08.288
and dense forestry.

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00:11:08.322 --> 00:11:10.014
The mountains are an essential
part

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of the Eastern United States.

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Appalachia derives its name
from the local inhabitants,

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as well as the mountains.

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It's a cultural statement

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as much as it is a geographicalone.

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A culture informed

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by the people who journeyed
through these lands

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00:11:26.582 --> 00:11:28.411
and who settled these lands,

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not to mention the lands
themselves,

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from Scotch-Irish immigrants
to the First Nations tribes

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00:11:34.624 --> 00:11:35.833
who occasionally traveled

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00:11:35.867 --> 00:11:38.801
through what is now
known as West Virginia.

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These places are still
alive with a history

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00:11:41.597 --> 00:11:44.704
that is passed down from
generation to generation.

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00:11:44.738 --> 00:11:46.326
[water splashing]

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00:11:46.360 --> 00:11:48.846
- The Scots-Irish settled West
Virginia.

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00:11:48.880 --> 00:11:52.435
So about 250,000 of them

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00:11:52.470 --> 00:11:53.540
got on a boat

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00:11:53.574 --> 00:11:55.369
and came over to the United
States.

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00:11:55.404 --> 00:11:57.026
Once they got here,

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the colonies were kind
of already established

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and these were sort of
outsiders,

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00:12:01.306 --> 00:12:04.447
so they started to push them
closer to the mountains,

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00:12:04.482 --> 00:12:06.829
the Appalachian Mountains.

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00:12:06.864 --> 00:12:09.798
Technically the English
didn't want anybody

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00:12:09.832 --> 00:12:11.420
moving past the mountains

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00:12:11.454 --> 00:12:13.594
because there was an
agreement with the French.

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00:12:13.629 --> 00:12:15.493
But we started chipping away atthat

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00:12:15.527 --> 00:12:18.772
and that ultimately led to
the French and Indian War.

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00:12:19.980 --> 00:12:21.879
- Well, the Natives
were kind of frightened

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00:12:21.913 --> 00:12:23.294
of West Virginia.

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They thought West Virginia was
cursed

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00:12:25.158 --> 00:12:28.748
and they only used West
Virginia mostly as hunting.

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00:12:30.025 --> 00:12:32.475
So the Shawnee were here quite abit.

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00:12:32.510 --> 00:12:35.133
The Saponi were kind of
like in the mountains

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00:12:35.168 --> 00:12:38.585
is where the Blackfoot
Saponi Indians were all

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00:12:38.619 --> 00:12:41.174
in the southern part of the
state, down into Virginia.

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00:12:41.208 --> 00:12:42.313
[soft jaunty music]

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00:12:42.347 --> 00:12:45.523
- When we started pushing into
the region

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00:12:45.557 --> 00:12:46.869
across the Appalachians,

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00:12:46.904 --> 00:12:51.322
the Natives chose to fight
on the side of the French.

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00:12:51.356 --> 00:12:53.773
When the English colonists werecoming in, it was a threat,

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00:12:53.807 --> 00:12:55.188
so the Native sided with French.

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00:12:55.222 --> 00:12:57.811
Well, ultimately that did not gowell

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and the French left the region,

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00:12:59.848 --> 00:13:01.366
[fighters shouting]
[weapons clanging]

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00:13:01.401 --> 00:13:03.783
leaving the Natives kind of on
their own.

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00:13:03.817 --> 00:13:05.819
The different tribes tried to
get together

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00:13:05.854 --> 00:13:08.753
to form alliances to fightagainst the English if need be.

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00:13:09.996 --> 00:13:15.104
- The Confederacy's made
up of many, many tribes

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00:13:15.139 --> 00:13:17.624
and they were all in
and out of West Virginia

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00:13:17.658 --> 00:13:19.729
throughout the years.

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00:13:19.764 --> 00:13:22.387
The Shawnee were big here,
the Cherokee were here,

214
00:13:23.250 --> 00:13:24.596
Lenape, Ojibwe.

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00:13:25.805 --> 00:13:27.841
There were many, 31 tribes.

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00:13:27.876 --> 00:13:30.292
There were villages, there werefamilies.

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00:13:30.326 --> 00:13:32.363
- Once the French left,

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00:13:32.397 --> 00:13:34.779
they were really kind of left ontheir own

219
00:13:34.814 --> 00:13:36.401
and it ultimately was not
something

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00:13:36.436 --> 00:13:38.541
that they could withstand

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00:13:38.576 --> 00:13:41.613
and so they slowly got
pushed out of the area.

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00:13:42.752 --> 00:13:45.686
- The traditions were extremelyimportant to pass down.

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00:13:45.721 --> 00:13:47.688
Our elders' pasts

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00:13:48.862 --> 00:13:49.932
were lost.

225
00:13:50.864 --> 00:13:54.557
It was extremely important to
listen and to pay attention

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00:13:54.592 --> 00:13:56.490
and to follow the traditions.

227
00:13:56.525 --> 00:13:58.596
- We do hold onto our stories.

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00:13:58.630 --> 00:14:00.874
You know it might be genetic aswell

229
00:14:00.909 --> 00:14:03.946
because if you look into the
Celts,

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00:14:03.981 --> 00:14:05.879
West Virginia is mostly Celtic.

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00:14:05.914 --> 00:14:09.469
We do have some Pennsylvania
Dutch Germans here as well,

232
00:14:09.503 --> 00:14:11.781
but that's like a natural
thing with the Celts

233
00:14:11.816 --> 00:14:14.301
and I think it's passed down
that way.

234
00:14:14.336 --> 00:14:17.511
Plus, that little bit of
Native American ancestry.

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00:14:17.546 --> 00:14:21.274
- Well I mean there's, again
a love of music and singing

236
00:14:21.308 --> 00:14:23.207
and passing stories through thatway.

237
00:14:23.241 --> 00:14:26.037
It's more of a human
characteristic
to want to tell stories

238
00:14:26.072 --> 00:14:28.729
and make sure that your
legacy is passed on

239
00:14:28.764 --> 00:14:30.593
in one way or another.

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00:14:30.628 --> 00:14:33.665
- As Appalachia began to
see more and more settlers,

241
00:14:33.700 --> 00:14:36.461
traditions and stories started
to merge,

242
00:14:36.496 --> 00:14:39.154
just as the remaining
Natives begin to exist

243
00:14:39.188 --> 00:14:42.226
alongside the Scotch-Irish
settlers inhabiting a land

244
00:14:42.260 --> 00:14:43.952
they once called their own.

245
00:14:43.986 --> 00:14:47.369
So too, did stories and
cultures begin to meld

246
00:14:47.403 --> 00:14:51.545
and what was born of this blendwas something wholly unique,

247
00:14:51.580 --> 00:14:53.030
Appalachian culture.

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00:14:53.996 --> 00:14:56.447
Folktales and lore were
absorbed and transmitted

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00:14:56.481 --> 00:14:58.932
from one generation to the next.

250
00:14:58.967 --> 00:15:02.211
Now the region was defined
as much by tales of ghosts,

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00:15:02.246 --> 00:15:04.317
witches and red-eyed banshees

252
00:15:04.351 --> 00:15:06.664
as it was the rugged wildernessbackdrop

253
00:15:06.698 --> 00:15:08.321
where they were told.
[haunting pipe music]

254
00:15:08.355 --> 00:15:11.703
When 1966 saw the rise of the
Mothman,

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00:15:11.738 --> 00:15:15.397
it was strangely familiar
despite its unique appearance.

256
00:15:15.431 --> 00:15:19.435
After all, it was simply
one more tale to be told

257
00:15:19.470 --> 00:15:22.714
as if a new face had been
put on an old legend.

258
00:15:23.577 --> 00:15:26.926
[soft foreboding music]

259
00:15:29.652 --> 00:15:31.447
[animal hoots]
[object thuds]

260
00:15:31.482 --> 00:15:33.656
- I grew up in Southeastern Ohio

261
00:15:33.691 --> 00:15:37.798
and during the original
sightings of the Mothman,

262
00:15:37.833 --> 00:15:40.836
I was about 10 years old.

263
00:15:40.870 --> 00:15:43.597
[ethereal music]

264
00:15:47.808 --> 00:15:51.640
Whenever I first heard about
Mothman

265
00:15:51.674 --> 00:15:54.746
was through my older male
cousins.

266
00:15:54.781 --> 00:15:56.886
One night they came over to
visit my dad

267
00:15:56.921 --> 00:15:59.751
and wanted to have a private
conversation with him.

268
00:15:59.786 --> 00:16:02.858
And they seemed very concerned,

269
00:16:02.892 --> 00:16:07.345
so of course I needed to know
what they were talking about.

270
00:16:07.380 --> 00:16:11.798
My cousins were concerned
about going night fishing

271
00:16:11.832 --> 00:16:14.421
and they were afraid that if
they did,

272
00:16:14.456 --> 00:16:18.701
that they might see or
be taken by Mothman.

273
00:16:18.736 --> 00:16:21.325
So I listened in on the
conversation

274
00:16:21.359 --> 00:16:23.913
and that's how I first
heard about Mothman.

275
00:16:25.191 --> 00:16:29.022
[haunting music]
[frogs croaking]

276
00:16:29.057 --> 00:16:32.094
Later in the summer,

277
00:16:32.129 --> 00:16:34.545
I was asleep one night,

278
00:16:34.579 --> 00:16:36.064
I heard something outside.

279
00:16:36.098 --> 00:16:39.101
I woke up.
[wings fluttering]

280
00:16:39.136 --> 00:16:40.861
[animal screeches]
I went over to the window,

281
00:16:40.896 --> 00:16:45.418
looked out and I saw red eyes inthe yard.

282
00:16:45.452 --> 00:16:48.007
Whatever it was could
have been, I don't know,

283
00:16:48.041 --> 00:16:51.286
maybe six feet or more in
height.

284
00:16:51.320 --> 00:16:54.634
And so I ran to my parents'
bedroom.

285
00:16:54.668 --> 00:16:58.845
My dad, I told him, I
thought Mothman was outside

286
00:16:58.879 --> 00:17:01.951
and he tried to tell me he
didn't think

287
00:17:01.986 --> 00:17:03.712
that that was probably Mothman.

288
00:17:04.816 --> 00:17:07.095
Now, you know, like sometimes
they'll say

289
00:17:07.129 --> 00:17:11.306
that Mothman's there to
either mourn you or whatever.

290
00:17:11.340 --> 00:17:15.482
Like just a few months
after I saw those red eyes,

291
00:17:15.517 --> 00:17:18.106
my dad was in an airplane
accident.

292
00:17:18.140 --> 00:17:19.038
[film reel clicks]

293
00:17:19.072 --> 00:17:21.833
He was one of 16 people that
survived.

294
00:17:21.868 --> 00:17:24.319
It happened in Cincinnati.

295
00:17:24.353 --> 00:17:26.045
It was like TWA 128.

296
00:17:27.425 --> 00:17:31.326
It was a flight coming
from San Diego, California

297
00:17:31.360 --> 00:17:35.226
going to Boston, but it
stopped in Cincinnati

298
00:17:35.261 --> 00:17:38.988
and there wasn't enough
runway for the jet.

299
00:17:39.023 --> 00:17:44.097
And so it went on and went intoa orchard and caught on fire

300
00:17:44.132 --> 00:17:46.582
and just like threw
people out of the plane

301
00:17:46.617 --> 00:17:47.618
all over the place.

302
00:17:47.652 --> 00:17:50.552
My dad, the seat that he was in,

303
00:17:50.586 --> 00:17:53.244
the seat right beside him was onfire

304
00:17:53.279 --> 00:17:56.903
and there was a husband
and wife behind him.

305
00:17:56.937 --> 00:17:59.457
The wife was killed and
my dad turned around

306
00:17:59.492 --> 00:18:00.941
and grabbed this guy by the hand

307
00:18:00.976 --> 00:18:03.289
and said, "If you want
to live, come with me."

308
00:18:03.323 --> 00:18:08.328
[somber music]
[film reel clicks]

309
00:18:08.949 --> 00:18:11.952
- Flight TWA 128 crashed on
approach

310
00:18:11.987 --> 00:18:16.543
to the Cincinnati airport
on November 20th, 1967,

311
00:18:16.578 --> 00:18:18.511
just shy of one month prior

312
00:18:18.545 --> 00:18:20.306
to the collapse of the Silver
Bridge

313
00:18:20.340 --> 00:18:23.136
in nearby Point Pleasant, West
Virginia.

314
00:18:23.171 --> 00:18:25.311
If there was one overwhelming
takeaway

315
00:18:25.345 --> 00:18:26.967
from the activity running
rampant

316
00:18:27.002 --> 00:18:31.144
around Point Pleasant
during 1966 and 1967,

317
00:18:32.076 --> 00:18:35.355
it was the feeling that
everything was accelerating,

318
00:18:35.390 --> 00:18:37.909
heading towards some inevitableconclusion

319
00:18:37.944 --> 00:18:40.291
that couldn't be avoided.

320
00:18:40.326 --> 00:18:44.882
When the Silver Bridge collapsedon December 15th, 1967,

321
00:18:44.916 --> 00:18:48.437
it seemed that the unavoidable
collision had been reached

322
00:18:48.472 --> 00:18:52.269
and with it, the story
of the Mothman had ended.

323
00:18:52.303 --> 00:18:54.512
The book had closed.

324
00:18:54.547 --> 00:18:55.686
For the next few months,

325
00:18:55.720 --> 00:18:58.896
stories of encounters with
the creature were absent.

326
00:18:58.930 --> 00:19:00.967
It seemed that the bridge
collapse had led

327
00:19:01.001 --> 00:19:03.072
to the departure of the being.

328
00:19:03.107 --> 00:19:06.869
However, nothing could have
been further from the truth.

329
00:19:06.904 --> 00:19:08.940
The book had never closed

330
00:19:08.975 --> 00:19:13.186
and in some ways the Mothman
story was just beginning.

331
00:19:13.221 --> 00:19:16.465
- I've read and collected
several newspaper articles

332
00:19:16.500 --> 00:19:19.088
from the late '60s, early '70s.

333
00:19:19.123 --> 00:19:21.298
I've talked to people
that were still seeing

334
00:19:21.332 --> 00:19:24.128
whatever this thing was in the
TNT Area

335
00:19:24.163 --> 00:19:27.235
and it was well after 1966, '67.

336
00:19:27.269 --> 00:19:28.822
A lot of the people that I've
talked to,

337
00:19:28.857 --> 00:19:32.136
I will specifically ask
them what the timeframe was

338
00:19:32.171 --> 00:19:37.176
and you know, '71, '73, '75.
[film reel clicks]

339
00:19:37.555 --> 00:19:39.143
- The Mothman frenzy
went from 1966 into 1967,

340
00:19:41.628 --> 00:19:43.389
but the activity continued.

341
00:19:43.423 --> 00:19:45.667
We lived close to the
Scarberrys.

342
00:19:45.701 --> 00:19:49.912
I grew up on a hillside in WestUnion called Shannon's Knob

343
00:19:49.947 --> 00:19:51.224
and late at night,

344
00:19:51.259 --> 00:19:55.642
it would sound like someonehad jumped out of a helicopter.

345
00:19:55.677 --> 00:19:56.609
[dark tense music]

346
00:19:56.643 --> 00:19:59.163
The roof would go, boom, just
like that.

347
00:20:00.026 --> 00:20:01.372
[animal screeching]

348
00:20:01.407 --> 00:20:04.927
There would be a pause
and then these footsteps,

349
00:20:04.962 --> 00:20:07.654
somebody was walking on our
roof.

350
00:20:07.689 --> 00:20:11.244
[feet stomping]
[roof creaking]

351
00:20:11.279 --> 00:20:13.039
[foreboding music]

352
00:20:13.073 --> 00:20:18.078
[feet stomping]
[roof creaking]

353
00:20:19.666 --> 00:20:22.290
And they might be up
there at 10, 15 minutes

354
00:20:22.324 --> 00:20:25.845
and the footsteps would stopas if something had flown away.

355
00:20:25.879 --> 00:20:28.330
And of course my parents
did not believe me,

356
00:20:28.365 --> 00:20:30.401
you know, [laughs] when
I kept telling them

357
00:20:30.436 --> 00:20:31.782
about these footsteps.

358
00:20:31.816 --> 00:20:33.922
Until I woke up early one
morning

359
00:20:33.956 --> 00:20:36.476
and I heard them talking to eachother,

360
00:20:36.511 --> 00:20:39.583
saying, "Wonder what those
footsteps are on the roof?"

361
00:20:39.617 --> 00:20:43.034
And I was pretty small, Iwasn't even quite in school yet

362
00:20:43.069 --> 00:20:46.175
and I was thinking, "I want to
go outside.

363
00:20:46.210 --> 00:20:49.869
I want to go outside and,
you know, and hide the bushes

364
00:20:49.903 --> 00:20:52.492
and see if I can see the
Mothman."

365
00:20:52.527 --> 00:20:54.805
But I never developed
the courage to do that.

366
00:20:57.635 --> 00:21:01.294
[dark violin music]

367
00:21:01.329 --> 00:21:02.882
- I talked to one lady,

368
00:21:02.916 --> 00:21:05.643
and she specifically mentioned
early '70s,

369
00:21:05.678 --> 00:21:09.268
who had a morning paper
route in the Gallipolis area.

370
00:21:09.302 --> 00:21:11.856
She'd deliver papers
about five in the morning

371
00:21:11.891 --> 00:21:16.309
and she told me that as she
was coming down the street,

372
00:21:16.344 --> 00:21:18.622
on the other side of the
street was like a guard rail,

373
00:21:18.656 --> 00:21:20.727
right beside the Ohio River.

374
00:21:20.762 --> 00:21:23.351
There's a little island that's
right off of that guard rail

375
00:21:23.385 --> 00:21:25.422
that goes out into the Ohio
River

376
00:21:25.456 --> 00:21:26.940
and she said she looked up

377
00:21:26.975 --> 00:21:29.529
and saw the biggest bird that
she'd ever seen in her life,

378
00:21:29.564 --> 00:21:31.220
sittin' there starin' at her.

379
00:21:31.255 --> 00:21:34.638
And she said it scared
her and she turned to run

380
00:21:34.672 --> 00:21:37.468
and she said, the bird
raised up, flew across

381
00:21:37.503 --> 00:21:39.712
and landed in the trees
over on this island.

382
00:21:39.746 --> 00:21:41.300
She said it was enormous.

383
00:21:41.334 --> 00:21:43.060
She was very detailed about it.

384
00:21:43.094 --> 00:21:46.615
And I asked her specifically,
you know, when this happened

385
00:21:46.650 --> 00:21:50.447
and she said, it was the
late '60s, early '70s era.

386
00:21:50.481 --> 00:21:54.416
- In the 1970s, I met my
husband and married him

387
00:21:54.451 --> 00:21:56.349
and he is from Point Pleasant.

388
00:21:56.384 --> 00:21:59.559
He and his dad were
actually out in their car,

389
00:21:59.594 --> 00:22:01.768
driving around and looking for
Mothman.

390
00:22:02.666 --> 00:22:04.392
And he was camping out in his
backyard

391
00:22:04.426 --> 00:22:08.257
hoping to find Mothman,
where I was, you know,

392
00:22:08.292 --> 00:22:11.606
40 miles away, terrified at thesame time.

393
00:22:11.640 --> 00:22:13.021
- You know there were sightingsin Ohio,

394
00:22:13.055 --> 00:22:14.919
there were sightings in West
Virginia,

395
00:22:14.954 --> 00:22:16.956
Pennsylvania, Kentucky.

396
00:22:16.990 --> 00:22:20.235
It's just that that rash
of sightings didn't last

397
00:22:20.269 --> 00:22:23.307
nearly as long as it did
here in Point Pleasant.

398
00:22:23.342 --> 00:22:25.344
- Major players in the Mothman
story

399
00:22:25.378 --> 00:22:28.795
during the 1960s and
'70s included the likes

400
00:22:28.830 --> 00:22:32.903
of West Virginia UFO author
and investigator, Gray Barker

401
00:22:32.937 --> 00:22:34.283
and a newspaper reporter

402
00:22:34.318 --> 00:22:37.356
and Point Pleasant local, Mary
Hyre.

403
00:22:37.390 --> 00:22:40.324
Hyre chronicled the ongoing
activity taking place

404
00:22:40.359 --> 00:22:42.913
following the collapse
of the Silver Bridge,

405
00:22:42.947 --> 00:22:45.916
relaying sightings of Mothman,
UFOs

406
00:22:45.950 --> 00:22:48.021
and the infamous Men in Black

407
00:22:48.056 --> 00:22:50.541
in her "Athens Messenger" columntitled,

408
00:22:50.576 --> 00:22:52.750
"Where the Waters Mingle."

409
00:22:52.785 --> 00:22:55.270
Hyre herself had a run-in
with a Man in Black

410
00:22:55.304 --> 00:22:57.790
in her Point Pleasant office
following the collapse

411
00:22:57.824 --> 00:23:01.552
of the Silver Bridge in Decemberof 1967.

412
00:23:01.587 --> 00:23:04.452
However, in February of 1970,

413
00:23:04.486 --> 00:23:08.110
Hyre would pass away
after an extended illness.

414
00:23:08.145 --> 00:23:09.491
Around Point Pleasant,

415
00:23:09.526 --> 00:23:12.460
the Mothman became less
of a talking point,

416
00:23:12.494 --> 00:23:14.082
although the UFO activity,

417
00:23:14.116 --> 00:23:16.912
which accompanied the
initial wave of strangeness,

418
00:23:16.947 --> 00:23:18.397
continued unabated.

419
00:23:20.019 --> 00:23:22.228
While Hyre was tracking ongoingreports

420
00:23:22.262 --> 00:23:24.920
during the late '60s and early
'70s,

421
00:23:24.955 --> 00:23:27.129
New York based author, John
Keel,

422
00:23:27.164 --> 00:23:29.166
was laboring over his own
recounting

423
00:23:29.200 --> 00:23:32.272
of the 13-month-winged-creaturesiege.

424
00:23:32.307 --> 00:23:33.895
Keel would release his book,

425
00:23:33.929 --> 00:23:38.071
"The Mothman Prophecies" in
1975.

426
00:23:38.106 --> 00:23:40.902
The nonfiction saga
would become a bestseller

427
00:23:40.936 --> 00:23:43.663
and reignite an interest in thetopic.

428
00:23:43.698 --> 00:23:46.252
Keel continue to write about theMothman,

429
00:23:46.286 --> 00:23:49.082
but no longer made
trips to Point Pleasant.

430
00:23:49.117 --> 00:23:51.050
And with Mary Hyre no longer
around

431
00:23:51.084 --> 00:23:53.190
to update Keel on the Mothman,

432
00:23:53.224 --> 00:23:55.606
no one was keeping tabs on the
creature,

433
00:23:55.641 --> 00:23:57.746
who was now making its presencefelt

434
00:23:57.781 --> 00:23:59.092
around much of Appalachia.

435
00:24:00.473 --> 00:24:02.751
- I think the planets kind of
aligned

436
00:24:02.786 --> 00:24:04.581
with the sightings in Point
Pleasant

437
00:24:04.615 --> 00:24:08.343
because number one, you had
all these people seeing UFOs,

438
00:24:08.377 --> 00:24:11.311
the Men in Black, the Mothman,
the Silver Bridge collapse.

439
00:24:11.346 --> 00:24:13.659
John Keel comes to town

440
00:24:13.693 --> 00:24:17.110
and it isolated the
Point Pleasant sightings.

441
00:24:17.145 --> 00:24:20.044
- I came across "The Mothman
Prophecies," the book,

442
00:24:20.079 --> 00:24:24.463
in the mid-'90s and it
immediately got my attention

443
00:24:24.497 --> 00:24:26.188
'cause it sort of was my sweet
spot

444
00:24:26.223 --> 00:24:27.845
in terms of my interest in the
paranormal,

445
00:24:27.880 --> 00:24:30.330
which is, well it had
tons of phenomenon in it,

446
00:24:30.365 --> 00:24:33.748
UFOs, poltergeists, the Mothman.

447
00:24:33.782 --> 00:24:35.370
And at the same time,

448
00:24:35.404 --> 00:24:37.821
the story was told from the
point of view of John Keel,

449
00:24:37.855 --> 00:24:39.650
the guy who was there
investigating it,

450
00:24:39.685 --> 00:24:43.136
and it focused so much on his
interaction

451
00:24:43.171 --> 00:24:45.794
with the phenomenon and theway it affected him personally,

452
00:24:45.829 --> 00:24:47.244
which I found fascinating.

453
00:24:47.278 --> 00:24:50.489
- Well "The Mothman Prophecies"book didn't come together

454
00:24:50.523 --> 00:24:53.526
until about 10 years after the
events.

455
00:24:53.561 --> 00:24:55.701
He did do some, there was an
article

456
00:24:55.735 --> 00:24:59.187
in "The Flying Saucer Review"
and I think "Saga Magazine"

457
00:24:59.221 --> 00:25:00.706
where he did talk about it

458
00:25:00.740 --> 00:25:02.846
and he talked about
certain elements of it.

459
00:25:02.880 --> 00:25:06.056
Apparently his publisher told
him, he said, "Hey, look,

460
00:25:06.090 --> 00:25:08.437
it's time we put together
a book on the Mothman."

461
00:25:08.472 --> 00:25:11.993
So Keel talks about how he
got his tattered briefcase out

462
00:25:12.027 --> 00:25:15.272
and went through all his notes
and articles and so forth

463
00:25:15.306 --> 00:25:17.619
and kind of pieced together a
book.

464
00:25:17.654 --> 00:25:19.552
- What was happening in Point
Pleasant

465
00:25:19.587 --> 00:25:21.692
felt extremely personal.

466
00:25:21.727 --> 00:25:22.935
And what was interesting to me

467
00:25:22.969 --> 00:25:24.971
was this sort of interactive
nature

468
00:25:25.006 --> 00:25:27.215
of his experience with the
phenomenon.

469
00:25:27.249 --> 00:25:28.423
The more he studied it

470
00:25:28.457 --> 00:25:31.771
and the more he tried
to really nail it down

471
00:25:31.806 --> 00:25:33.739
and be totally objective,

472
00:25:33.773 --> 00:25:38.778
the more the phenomenon seemed
to want to bring him on stage

473
00:25:39.089 --> 00:25:42.195
as it were and make his
experience less objective

474
00:25:42.230 --> 00:25:45.129
and more subjective and
that's exactly what happened.

475
00:25:46.545 --> 00:25:49.720
[rain patters]
[foreboding music]

476
00:25:49.755 --> 00:25:54.725
[bird calls]
[thunder crashes]

477
00:25:55.174 --> 00:25:57.279
- In November of 1966,

478
00:25:57.314 --> 00:26:00.559
Roger and Linda Scarberry
and Steve and Mary Mallette

479
00:26:00.593 --> 00:26:02.906
had the first
regionally-reported encounter

480
00:26:02.940 --> 00:26:04.424
with the Mothman.

481
00:26:04.459 --> 00:26:06.254
The incident took place in an
area

482
00:26:06.288 --> 00:26:08.567
frequently tied to Mothman lore,

483
00:26:08.601 --> 00:26:10.361
an abandoned munitions facility

484
00:26:10.396 --> 00:26:12.743
just outside of Point Pleasant.

485
00:26:12.778 --> 00:26:16.126
The area was known as the
McClintic Wildlife Management
Area

486
00:26:16.160 --> 00:26:20.579
or as locals referred to it, theTNT Area.

487
00:26:20.613 --> 00:26:23.616
While the bizarre entity would
become known as the Mothman

488
00:26:23.651 --> 00:26:25.066
a short time later,

489
00:26:25.100 --> 00:26:29.726
it was initially referred to
as the Bird or the Birdman.

490
00:26:29.760 --> 00:26:30.692
[entity laughs]

491
00:26:30.727 --> 00:26:33.177
Its association with a known
avian animal

492
00:26:33.212 --> 00:26:35.628
was based in part on the
creature's wings,

493
00:26:35.663 --> 00:26:37.250
its ability to fly

494
00:26:37.285 --> 00:26:40.944
and its occasional
comparison to a large owl.

495
00:26:40.978 --> 00:26:43.740
In other words, many
encounters detailed a being

496
00:26:43.774 --> 00:26:45.880
that looked and behaved like a
bird.

497
00:26:45.914 --> 00:26:46.708
[entity caws]

498
00:26:46.743 --> 00:26:47.951
Despite stranger features

499
00:26:47.985 --> 00:26:50.470
described in later Mothman
reports,

500
00:26:50.505 --> 00:26:52.921
the ID of a man-sized winged
creature

501
00:26:52.956 --> 00:26:54.371
that descends from the sky

502
00:26:54.405 --> 00:26:57.063
to terrify people when
they least expect it

503
00:26:57.098 --> 00:27:00.791
is an ancient one and one foundworldwide.

504
00:27:02.137 --> 00:27:03.932
- John Keel, his original title,

505
00:27:03.967 --> 00:27:05.831
which never made it to press
obviously,

506
00:27:05.865 --> 00:27:07.349
was the "Year of the Garuda."

507
00:27:07.384 --> 00:27:09.489
He saw sort of a connection

508
00:27:09.524 --> 00:27:13.562
with the Hindu mythology ofthe Garuda, this winged entity.

509
00:27:13.597 --> 00:27:15.875
Of course he was knocked
down by the publisher.

510
00:27:15.910 --> 00:27:18.464
- But the Garuda is in
multiple traditions.

511
00:27:18.498 --> 00:27:22.641
In Hinduism, the Garuda
is a massive sun bird

512
00:27:22.675 --> 00:27:25.540
that ultimately becomes
the vehicle, the mount,

513
00:27:25.574 --> 00:27:26.714
for the god Vishnu.

514
00:27:26.748 --> 00:27:30.200
It is depicted as some human
features,

515
00:27:30.234 --> 00:27:32.374
sometimes two arms, sometimes
four arms,

516
00:27:32.409 --> 00:27:36.206
but the body of an eagle,
massive wings as well.

517
00:27:36.240 --> 00:27:37.414
- And you know,

518
00:27:37.448 --> 00:27:39.209
when you read some aspects
of "The Mothman Prophecies,"

519
00:27:39.243 --> 00:27:41.590
"The year of the Garuda was at
hand.

520
00:27:41.625 --> 00:27:43.696
A shadow was passing over a
little town

521
00:27:43.731 --> 00:27:46.906
I had never even heard of,Point Pleasant, West Virginia."

522
00:27:46.941 --> 00:27:51.221
This winged apparition,
sometimes
winged-demon or whatever,

523
00:27:51.255 --> 00:27:54.534
I think it just lends it to theidea

524
00:27:54.569 --> 00:27:57.779
that whatever Mothman was,
it is kind of an archetype.

525
00:27:57.814 --> 00:28:01.162
[haunting violin music]

526
00:28:03.509 --> 00:28:04.752
- I remember back,

527
00:28:04.786 --> 00:28:08.169
and it started out they
didn't even call it Mothman.

528
00:28:08.203 --> 00:28:10.412
There for several months,
they called him Birdman.

529
00:28:10.447 --> 00:28:11.897
I do remember that.

530
00:28:11.931 --> 00:28:13.174
And then something went around

531
00:28:13.208 --> 00:28:17.005
that it was a sandhill
crane, the rather large crane

532
00:28:17.040 --> 00:28:19.525
that had red feathers around itseyes.

533
00:28:19.559 --> 00:28:23.149
- The kind of explanations
that get talked about a lot,

534
00:28:23.184 --> 00:28:25.496
one of them is a sandhill crane.

535
00:28:25.531 --> 00:28:27.498
A friend of mine, Forrest
Burgess,

536
00:28:27.533 --> 00:28:30.847
once said that, "The
sandhill crane is to Mothman

537
00:28:30.881 --> 00:28:33.677
what swamp gas is to UFOs."

538
00:28:33.712 --> 00:28:35.852
You know, it's the go-to
explanation

539
00:28:35.886 --> 00:28:38.095
that makes absolutely no sense.

540
00:28:38.130 --> 00:28:40.753
- Other people thought, youknow, well, maybe it was a bird,

541
00:28:40.788 --> 00:28:42.893
but it was a mutated bird.

542
00:28:42.928 --> 00:28:45.240
You know, the TNT Area,
the waste in the TNT Area

543
00:28:45.275 --> 00:28:48.140
and the chemicals used in WorldWar II

544
00:28:48.174 --> 00:28:49.762
contaminated the ground.

545
00:28:49.797 --> 00:28:53.801
Which makes a perfect scenario
for a Boris Karloff movie.

546
00:28:53.835 --> 00:28:56.355
- I know that back in the
'80s, that they came in

547
00:28:58.322 --> 00:28:59.772
and it was an EPA disaster site

548
00:28:59.807 --> 00:29:02.430
and they had to shave two or
three inches of top soil off

549
00:29:02.464 --> 00:29:05.019
within an eight mile radius
just to clean the place up.

550
00:29:05.053 --> 00:29:07.331
- But that was maybe a way
for a lot of those people

551
00:29:07.366 --> 00:29:09.851
to validate, "Hey, yeah, it
was some sort of a monster

552
00:29:09.886 --> 00:29:12.785
because it got into this toxic
waste

553
00:29:12.820 --> 00:29:15.098
and it resembled a monster."

554
00:29:15.132 --> 00:29:16.789
It scared people, you know,

555
00:29:16.824 --> 00:29:19.930
and it's no secret that the
TNT Area was contaminated

556
00:29:19.965 --> 00:29:21.829
with a lot of stuff.

557
00:29:21.863 --> 00:29:22.899
[light haunting music]

558
00:29:22.933 --> 00:29:25.073
- It's not a natural
creature to this area.

559
00:29:25.108 --> 00:29:27.144
There wouldn't be anything
that would match that.

560
00:29:27.179 --> 00:29:30.389
There's no birds that would
have wings anywhere close

561
00:29:30.423 --> 00:29:33.323
to the size of Mothman,
you know, his wings.

562
00:29:33.357 --> 00:29:35.463
- Yes, there are many
researchers

563
00:29:35.497 --> 00:29:39.916
that look at the giant birds
as something very tangible.

564
00:29:39.950 --> 00:29:41.503
There have been a sightings

565
00:29:41.538 --> 00:29:43.643
that look like they were just
giant owls.

566
00:29:43.678 --> 00:29:46.301
and the Mothman, it's seen
in the dark sometimes,

567
00:29:46.336 --> 00:29:48.787
did look quite like kind of a
giant owl.

568
00:29:48.821 --> 00:29:49.822
[owl hoots]

569
00:29:49.857 --> 00:29:52.342
- It's common in folklore
for a screech owl.

570
00:29:52.376 --> 00:29:54.240
In Welsh there's the Corpse
Bird.

571
00:29:54.275 --> 00:29:57.071
It's a screech owl that
comes banging at the window

572
00:29:57.105 --> 00:29:59.211
of someone who's ill or sick.

573
00:29:59.245 --> 00:30:02.593
And then that motif follows
its way into Appalachia, too.

574
00:30:02.628 --> 00:30:04.664
If you see or hear an owl

575
00:30:04.699 --> 00:30:06.839
outside of your window
at night making a call,

576
00:30:06.874 --> 00:30:08.737
it's a sign that someone's goingto die.

577
00:30:08.772 --> 00:30:12.845
Likewise, if a bird flies in
your house,

578
00:30:12.880 --> 00:30:14.260
that's really bad news.

579
00:30:14.295 --> 00:30:17.505
Someone is probably going
to get hurt or die as well.

580
00:30:17.539 --> 00:30:21.164
- The Native American of coursehave the Thunderbird legend,

581
00:30:21.198 --> 00:30:23.545
which some people
associate with the Mothman,

582
00:30:23.580 --> 00:30:25.754
I think maybe John Keel did
even.

583
00:30:25.789 --> 00:30:27.998
- The Thunder Bird is a
Southwest tribal,

584
00:30:28.033 --> 00:30:30.759
it is not Shawnee, it's
not Eastern Woodland.

585
00:30:30.794 --> 00:30:33.279
So it is said that the
Mothman could be tied

586
00:30:33.314 --> 00:30:36.835
to the Thunderbird, but wedidn't have a Thunderbird here.

587
00:30:37.801 --> 00:30:40.183
[foreboding music]
[object crashes]

588
00:30:40.217 --> 00:30:42.910
- Tom Ury, one of the Mothman
witnesses,

589
00:30:42.944 --> 00:30:45.774
that's really what he
saw was a giant bird,

590
00:30:45.809 --> 00:30:48.225
about a 10 to 12 foot wingspan.

591
00:30:48.260 --> 00:30:51.332
I was able to talk to him one
on one about his experience.

592
00:30:51.366 --> 00:30:53.196
In fact, Tom, for a while,

593
00:30:53.230 --> 00:30:55.888
thought that the other
people like Linda Scarberry

594
00:30:55.923 --> 00:30:57.959
and Marcella Bennett and so
forth,

595
00:30:57.994 --> 00:30:59.340
saw the same thing he did,

596
00:30:59.374 --> 00:31:01.756
but thought perhaps it was so
shocking

597
00:31:01.790 --> 00:31:04.414
that they've maybe added the
details.

598
00:31:04.448 --> 00:31:05.553
[feet stomping]

599
00:31:05.587 --> 00:31:07.279
But the thing is about the
Mothman,

600
00:31:07.313 --> 00:31:08.487
the Mothman was a paradox.

601
00:31:08.521 --> 00:31:10.075
Some people got a pretty good
look at it,

602
00:31:10.109 --> 00:31:13.354
and it was about seven feet,
tall, dark gray, or black,

603
00:31:13.388 --> 00:31:14.803
about a 10 foot wingspan.

604
00:31:14.838 --> 00:31:17.599
A 10 foot wingspan probably
isn't gonna lift something

605
00:31:17.634 --> 00:31:18.877
that's seven foot tall.

606
00:31:18.911 --> 00:31:22.018
Just biologically it didn'twork, but people kept seeing it.

607
00:31:23.882 --> 00:31:27.092
[ominous music]

608
00:31:27.126 --> 00:31:29.957
[birds cawing]

609
00:31:29.991 --> 00:31:33.098
- While the 1980s were a dead
zone for Mothman research,

610
00:31:33.132 --> 00:31:34.927
sightings of winged humanoids

611
00:31:34.962 --> 00:31:37.274
and giant birds continued
around Appalachia.

612
00:31:38.172 --> 00:31:39.587
In Northern Pennsylvania,

613
00:31:39.621 --> 00:31:42.141
a string of reports of a
pterosaur-like creature

614
00:31:42.176 --> 00:31:45.524
made regional headlines
during the early '80s.

615
00:31:45.558 --> 00:31:48.907
Meanwhile, around Point
Pleasant and West Virginia,

616
00:31:48.941 --> 00:31:51.185
the red-eyed creature
that dominated headlines

617
00:31:51.219 --> 00:31:56.017
during the late 1960s had
faded into relative obscurity.

618
00:31:56.052 --> 00:31:58.847
Despite the Mothman's lack of
popularity,

619
00:31:58.882 --> 00:32:00.470
kids still warned one another

620
00:32:00.504 --> 00:32:03.956
about venturing into
the TNT Area after dark.

621
00:32:03.991 --> 00:32:06.614
Tales also circulated amongst
the locals,

622
00:32:06.648 --> 00:32:08.202
such as one in which hunters

623
00:32:08.236 --> 00:32:10.342
encountered a mysteriously largebird

624
00:32:10.376 --> 00:32:12.447
in the early morning hours.

625
00:32:12.482 --> 00:32:15.036
A group of teenagers even
claimed to have found a pile

626
00:32:15.071 --> 00:32:16.969
of abnormally large feathers

627
00:32:17.004 --> 00:32:19.351
in one of the abandoned TNT
bunkers.

628
00:32:20.455 --> 00:32:21.905
As the years tick by,

629
00:32:21.940 --> 00:32:24.563
the reality of what was
encountered began to fade

630
00:32:24.597 --> 00:32:26.875
and was replaced by something
else,

631
00:32:26.910 --> 00:32:29.361
a modern folktale in the making.

632
00:32:29.395 --> 00:32:31.397
Still, an absence of evidence

633
00:32:31.432 --> 00:32:34.642
doesn't necessarily indicate
evidence of absence,

634
00:32:34.676 --> 00:32:38.473
as Leah Wilson discovered
in the summer of 1987.

635
00:32:38.508 --> 00:32:40.820
- I was in Calhoun County, WestVirginia,

636
00:32:40.855 --> 00:32:44.169
Leading Creek Road, it's
outside of Grantsville,

637
00:32:44.203 --> 00:32:47.517
my aunt and uncle's old farm
house.

638
00:32:47.551 --> 00:32:49.450
A few months before
that, like in the spring,

639
00:32:49.484 --> 00:32:50.485
people were talkin' about,

640
00:32:50.520 --> 00:32:53.937
like their chickens and
stuff coming up missing,

641
00:32:53.972 --> 00:32:55.145
you know overnight.

642
00:32:55.180 --> 00:32:57.389
But they would talk about weirdnoises,

643
00:32:57.423 --> 00:33:00.944
but no one had ever talkedabout actually seein' anything.

644
00:33:00.979 --> 00:33:03.360
The farmhouse, there's nothing
around it.

645
00:33:03.395 --> 00:33:05.949
So there's no other residents
for like a half a mile

646
00:33:05.984 --> 00:33:07.744
from the house that I was
stayin' in.

647
00:33:07.778 --> 00:33:11.023
And it was probably 1987, '88,

648
00:33:11.058 --> 00:33:12.818
somewhere around there,
summertime,

649
00:33:14.509 --> 00:33:16.028
it was like two o'clock in the
morning,

650
00:33:16.063 --> 00:33:17.098
I was just goin' to bed

651
00:33:17.133 --> 00:33:19.031
from after watching movies and
stuff.

652
00:33:20.101 --> 00:33:21.240
[voices murmuring]
[foreboding music]

653
00:33:21.275 --> 00:33:25.279
And across the street from
the farmhouse is a holler

654
00:33:25.313 --> 00:33:29.317
that goes up on the hill and
I started hearing this noise.

655
00:33:29.352 --> 00:33:31.802
[creature screeches]

656
00:33:31.837 --> 00:33:33.252
You could tell us some kind of,

657
00:33:33.287 --> 00:33:35.013
I thought it was kind
of a bird-type thing.

658
00:33:35.047 --> 00:33:37.463
I thought maybe it was
an owl or somethin',

659
00:33:37.498 --> 00:33:40.501
but it just kept getting closerand closer

660
00:33:40.535 --> 00:33:42.675
and louder and louder.

661
00:33:42.710 --> 00:33:43.918
[creature screeches]

662
00:33:43.952 --> 00:33:46.783
The only way I can describe
it is the Hollywood movies,

663
00:33:46.817 --> 00:33:48.543
the pterodactyl noises, you
know,

664
00:33:48.578 --> 00:33:49.786
that's the only way I can
describe it.

665
00:33:49.820 --> 00:33:54.687
It was that loud and that
piercing and it kind of had,

666
00:33:55.102 --> 00:33:57.069
I don't know, kind of a
giggling,

667
00:33:57.104 --> 00:33:59.071
loud giggling noise to it, too.

668
00:33:59.106 --> 00:34:00.935
I mean, it's really hard to
describe.

669
00:34:01.970 --> 00:34:05.077
By the time I sat up
to look out the window,

670
00:34:05.112 --> 00:34:07.079
'cause I thought whatever this
was

671
00:34:07.114 --> 00:34:09.737
was gonna fly right into the
window,

672
00:34:09.771 --> 00:34:13.879
the wingspan of this covered thewindows.

673
00:34:15.536 --> 00:34:18.090
[spooky music]

674
00:34:18.987 --> 00:34:21.921
And then when it got to
that part of the house

675
00:34:21.956 --> 00:34:24.752
and went up over the house,
you actually could hear it.

676
00:34:24.786 --> 00:34:28.100
You actually heard the whoosh
sound.

677
00:34:28.135 --> 00:34:31.724
Again, not sure what I wasgonna do or what I'd just seen.

678
00:34:31.759 --> 00:34:33.968
I turned around to the
back window of the bedroom

679
00:34:34.002 --> 00:34:36.350
and you could see the shadow
of whatever this was flyin'

680
00:34:36.384 --> 00:34:39.318
over the field to the back of
the house.

681
00:34:39.353 --> 00:34:41.251
I've never heard anything like
that.

682
00:34:41.286 --> 00:34:46.291
I have stayed at that country
house all my life, you know,

683
00:34:46.705 --> 00:34:49.052
never heard it, never seen
it, anything like that again.

684
00:34:49.087 --> 00:34:51.537
So not sure what it was,

685
00:34:51.572 --> 00:34:54.471
but it was something that was
very large

686
00:34:54.506 --> 00:34:56.749
and very loud and very fast.

687
00:34:56.784 --> 00:34:58.130
'Cause that holler that it cameout

688
00:34:58.165 --> 00:35:00.028
was probably about a mile long.

689
00:35:00.063 --> 00:35:03.342
You know, I was the first one
on that Leading Creek Road

690
00:35:03.377 --> 00:35:05.931
that actually seen somethin'.

691
00:35:07.001 --> 00:35:09.417
[bird screeches]

692
00:35:09.452 --> 00:35:11.316
- You know I think there
were things going on

693
00:35:11.350 --> 00:35:13.145
all the way through the '80s and'90s.

694
00:35:13.180 --> 00:35:15.699
It's real hard to validate
a lot of that stuff

695
00:35:15.734 --> 00:35:18.806
because sometimes it
comes from other states,

696
00:35:18.840 --> 00:35:20.739
but it's hard for me to pinpointand say,

697
00:35:20.773 --> 00:35:25.640
that's exactly what they were
seeing here in 1966, '67.

698
00:35:26.641 --> 00:35:28.850
[soft foreboding music]

699
00:35:28.885 --> 00:35:31.163
- We had that other
sighting in Parkersburg

700
00:35:31.198 --> 00:35:34.166
of the girl having seen it on
Quincy Hill.

701
00:35:34.201 --> 00:35:38.860
She said when she was
in high school in 1987,

702
00:35:38.895 --> 00:35:41.553
she and her boyfriend were
driving

703
00:35:41.587 --> 00:35:43.624
to the top of Quincy Hill,

704
00:35:43.658 --> 00:35:46.730
which is the highest
location in Parkersburg.

705
00:35:46.765 --> 00:35:48.007
Something very similar,

706
00:35:48.042 --> 00:35:51.114
they saw this huge creature
was walking across the street.

707
00:35:51.149 --> 00:35:54.600
She said, it looked like
six-and-a-half-foot insect.

708
00:35:54.635 --> 00:35:56.878
She said its knees were on
backwards,

709
00:35:56.913 --> 00:35:58.570
you know like an insect's leg

710
00:35:58.604 --> 00:35:59.433
[camera clicks]

711
00:35:59.467 --> 00:36:00.951
and had these huge wings as
well.

712
00:36:00.986 --> 00:36:04.472
But she said, the thing
that stood out to her was

713
00:36:04.507 --> 00:36:07.889
this creature had a shuffling
gait,

714
00:36:07.924 --> 00:36:11.445
like it was not used
to walking on its feet.

715
00:36:11.479 --> 00:36:14.068
That told me she was tellin' thetruth

716
00:36:14.102 --> 00:36:16.381
because I had read a lot
of the written accounts

717
00:36:16.415 --> 00:36:17.761
down a Point Pleasant,

718
00:36:17.796 --> 00:36:20.523
they all described the
Mothman as walking that way.

719
00:36:21.455 --> 00:36:23.008
- In the early 1990s,

720
00:36:23.042 --> 00:36:25.217
a Point Pleasant local named
Darren Hayes

721
00:36:25.252 --> 00:36:28.151
encountered the Mothman in the
TNT Area.

722
00:36:28.186 --> 00:36:31.223
While talking to Jeff Wamsley
in an interview for his book,

723
00:36:31.258 --> 00:36:33.777
"Mothman, Behind the Red Eyes,"

724
00:36:33.812 --> 00:36:36.159
Hayes recalled while
driving into the area,

725
00:36:36.194 --> 00:36:40.163
a massive winged humanoid-bird
appeared above the car.

726
00:36:40.198 --> 00:36:41.785
As Hayes stepped on the gas,

727
00:36:41.820 --> 00:36:44.685
the creature made five or
six passes over the car

728
00:36:44.719 --> 00:36:46.963
before the vehicle eventually
outran it

729
00:36:46.997 --> 00:36:49.793
as the men headed back to PointPleasant.

730
00:36:49.828 --> 00:36:50.691
[creature caws]
[air whooshes]

731
00:36:50.725 --> 00:36:52.658
Darren's account wouldn't becomepublic

732
00:36:52.693 --> 00:36:54.867
until the publication of
Wamsley's book

733
00:36:54.902 --> 00:36:56.662
nearly a decade later.

734
00:36:56.697 --> 00:36:57.870
The story illustrates

735
00:36:57.905 --> 00:37:01.564
that the Mothman was still
making its presence felt.

736
00:37:01.598 --> 00:37:04.222
Perhaps no one felt the
creature's presence more

737
00:37:04.256 --> 00:37:05.982
than John Keel.

738
00:37:06.016 --> 00:37:08.053
Despite living states away

739
00:37:08.087 --> 00:37:10.055
and making an effort to distancehimself

740
00:37:10.089 --> 00:37:11.953
from "The Mothman Prophecies,"

741
00:37:11.988 --> 00:37:14.508
the author felt himself
pulled back to the story

742
00:37:14.542 --> 00:37:15.923
over the years.

743
00:37:15.957 --> 00:37:16.786
[birds chirping]
[somber music]

744
00:37:16.820 --> 00:37:18.443
- People thought he had the
answers

745
00:37:18.477 --> 00:37:20.928
because he had spent so
much time in Point Pleasant.

746
00:37:20.962 --> 00:37:23.724
He stayed with Linda's family,
Linda Scarberry's family.

747
00:37:23.758 --> 00:37:24.966
In "The Mothman Prophecies,"

748
00:37:25.001 --> 00:37:28.038
it talks about how his
life became intertwined

749
00:37:28.073 --> 00:37:29.730
with the people of the Ohio
Valley,

750
00:37:29.764 --> 00:37:31.835
especially in Point Pleasant.

751
00:37:31.870 --> 00:37:32.871
- Here's how it went.

752
00:37:32.905 --> 00:37:34.769
When John Keel was there,

753
00:37:34.804 --> 00:37:37.082
the entire town was sort of
haunted.

754
00:37:37.116 --> 00:37:40.982
The people that he was
speaking to were very scared

755
00:37:41.017 --> 00:37:42.052
about what was going on.

756
00:37:42.087 --> 00:37:43.882
There seemed to be a general
understanding

757
00:37:43.916 --> 00:37:46.816
that all of this was going
to lead to something bad,

758
00:37:46.850 --> 00:37:49.508
at least that's certainly
what John Keel felt.

759
00:37:49.543 --> 00:37:52.097
- He had proposed some
ideas for other books

760
00:37:52.131 --> 00:37:53.271
that never came about.

761
00:37:53.305 --> 00:37:56.343
He seemed to kind of move away
from it.

762
00:37:56.377 --> 00:37:58.862
I remember hearing people
that interviewed him,

763
00:37:58.897 --> 00:38:00.416
they want to talk about the
Mothman,

764
00:38:00.450 --> 00:38:01.900
he would change the subject,

765
00:38:01.934 --> 00:38:03.936
he would want to talk
about something else.

766
00:38:03.971 --> 00:38:05.317
- Because he was solving his ownmystery

767
00:38:05.352 --> 00:38:07.146
and he really wanted an answer.

768
00:38:07.181 --> 00:38:09.873
And like most of us do
when we first get involved

769
00:38:09.908 --> 00:38:12.359
in the paranormal,

770
00:38:12.393 --> 00:38:15.569
we think, on a certain level,
we're gonna figure it out.

771
00:38:15.603 --> 00:38:19.711
The experience typically
does not provide an answer

772
00:38:19.745 --> 00:38:21.540
and it certainly didn't for JohnKeel.

773
00:38:21.575 --> 00:38:24.647
- When people would ask
him, "What was the Mothman?

774
00:38:24.681 --> 00:38:25.682
What was it all about?"

775
00:38:25.717 --> 00:38:28.202
He'd have to be honest
and say he didn't know.

776
00:38:28.236 --> 00:38:29.514
I mean, he didn't have the
answers.

777
00:38:29.548 --> 00:38:32.344
He was someone that chronicled
the events.

778
00:38:32.379 --> 00:38:34.381
A very important thing about
Keel,

779
00:38:34.415 --> 00:38:38.143
he didn't reject stuff that
didn't fit a certain paradigm.

780
00:38:38.177 --> 00:38:42.285
And that's how he became towrite books like "Trojan Horse,"

781
00:38:42.320 --> 00:38:44.460
because he began to see
the interconnectedness

782
00:38:44.494 --> 00:38:46.151
of all paranormal activity.

783
00:38:47.325 --> 00:38:50.466
[soft brooding music]

784
00:38:51.812 --> 00:38:54.366
[spooky music]

785
00:38:59.406 --> 00:39:02.374
[birds cawing]

786
00:39:02.409 --> 00:39:06.551
- So I grew up pretty much
right near the woodlot.

787
00:39:08.967 --> 00:39:10.451
We were the last house actually,

788
00:39:10.486 --> 00:39:12.039
before it turns into the woods

789
00:39:12.073 --> 00:39:14.213
and you know, a very small area.

790
00:39:14.248 --> 00:39:16.181
And there was a community area,

791
00:39:18.666 --> 00:39:20.427
an old community area

792
00:39:20.461 --> 00:39:23.464
and passed down, you
know, family to family,

793
00:39:23.499 --> 00:39:24.879
one of those kind of deals.

794
00:39:26.329 --> 00:39:27.572
I've been going over it in my
head

795
00:39:27.606 --> 00:39:28.918
and this is pretty much how it
went.

796
00:39:29.988 --> 00:39:32.611
We were comin' home, it
was either 1999 or 2000,

797
00:39:34.786 --> 00:39:35.787
[engine roars]
We were comin' home

798
00:39:35.821 --> 00:39:37.202
and it was late in the evening.

799
00:39:38.514 --> 00:39:40.032
We're coming around the first
curve

800
00:39:40.067 --> 00:39:43.242
and the first curve will be
near a graveyard actually,

801
00:39:43.277 --> 00:39:46.625
it's an old family graveyard,
it's up on a hill there.

802
00:39:46.660 --> 00:39:49.904
And as we go around the
curve, we slowed down

803
00:39:49.939 --> 00:39:53.632
and the headlights hit
somethin' in the road.

804
00:39:57.464 --> 00:39:59.397
What they hit was a form

805
00:40:00.570 --> 00:40:02.883
and for a split second, I
thought, "Oh, it's a large
bird,"

806
00:40:02.917 --> 00:40:04.056
and all that.

807
00:40:04.091 --> 00:40:06.438
And then, we're sitting there
you know,

808
00:40:06.473 --> 00:40:09.337
and this thing, whatever it was,

809
00:40:09.372 --> 00:40:11.236
you notice really quickly it's
not a bird

810
00:40:11.270 --> 00:40:13.100
because you can kinda
almost see through it.

811
00:40:13.134 --> 00:40:15.343
It has this weird, not
translucent,

812
00:40:15.378 --> 00:40:17.553
but almost like it was
phasing or shifting.

813
00:40:18.485 --> 00:40:20.763
It kinda stands up a little bit

814
00:40:20.797 --> 00:40:23.455
and puts out what I assume werewings,

815
00:40:23.490 --> 00:40:24.698
I mean, arms somethin'

816
00:40:24.732 --> 00:40:26.769
and they reached almost
to the sides of the road.

817
00:40:26.803 --> 00:40:30.600
But with just one movement,
it shot straight up.

818
00:40:30.635 --> 00:40:32.533
And as it's shootin'
straight up, you know,

819
00:40:32.568 --> 00:40:34.293
we're sitting there and you
could hear it

820
00:40:34.328 --> 00:40:35.467
and you can see it, too.

821
00:40:35.502 --> 00:40:37.573
There were twigs fallin', you
know?

822
00:40:37.607 --> 00:40:39.126
It made no sense.

823
00:40:39.160 --> 00:40:41.404
The speed at which it
moved, I have no idea.

824
00:40:41.439 --> 00:40:44.165
Now I never thought for one
second when this happened,

825
00:40:44.200 --> 00:40:45.753
by the way, you know,

826
00:40:45.788 --> 00:40:47.755
that was Mothman or that was
somethin'.

827
00:40:47.790 --> 00:40:52.070
Nope, what I felt was
absolute, 100% fear, terror.

828
00:40:52.104 --> 00:40:53.796
I hit the gas as hard as I
possibly could.

829
00:40:53.830 --> 00:40:56.661
I don't think I ever got
that car to go as fast

830
00:40:56.695 --> 00:40:57.938
as I did that night.

831
00:40:57.972 --> 00:40:59.042
And it weird about that,

832
00:40:59.077 --> 00:41:01.079
and I looked back at it to thisday,

833
00:41:01.113 --> 00:41:05.117
but something said, "Get
out," and I got out.

834
00:41:05.152 --> 00:41:05.946
[tires screeching]

835
00:41:05.980 --> 00:41:07.292
Yeah, it was pretty scary.

836
00:41:07.326 --> 00:41:10.260
[foreboding music]

837
00:41:14.713 --> 00:41:17.820
But what is really weird about
the story

838
00:41:17.854 --> 00:41:19.442
is not my sighting,

839
00:41:21.306 --> 00:41:23.515
the part that gets me is,

840
00:41:23.550 --> 00:41:25.586
where it happened is only about

841
00:41:26.518 --> 00:41:28.624
just maybe a couple hundred
yards

842
00:41:28.658 --> 00:41:31.834
from where my mom had a sighting

843
00:41:31.868 --> 00:41:34.699
and that would have been in the'50s.

844
00:41:34.733 --> 00:41:38.426
And her and four other people atthe time

845
00:41:38.461 --> 00:41:41.084
had seen what they
described as a gray ghost.

846
00:41:42.120 --> 00:41:45.882
They were walking along
the ridge line at the time.

847
00:41:45.917 --> 00:41:49.541
They said that this gray thing
appeared near the graveyard

848
00:41:50.473 --> 00:41:51.888
and

849
00:41:51.923 --> 00:41:52.717
to them,

850
00:41:52.751 --> 00:41:53.718
it just

851
00:41:55.098 --> 00:41:56.099
went up in the air.

852
00:41:56.134 --> 00:41:58.377
That was their words.
"It went up in the air."

853
00:41:59.551 --> 00:42:00.725
I didn't even, you know,

854
00:42:00.759 --> 00:42:02.554
we've heard that story so much
growin' up

855
00:42:02.589 --> 00:42:05.246
and it's just like, you
know, it never really clicked

856
00:42:05.281 --> 00:42:06.420
until that night I saw that
thing.

857
00:42:06.454 --> 00:42:08.353
I'm like, "This is where they
saw it."

858
00:42:09.699 --> 00:42:13.358
[spooky music]
[birds calling]

859
00:42:13.392 --> 00:42:17.327
- From sandhill crane to
giant owl, to mythical birds,

860
00:42:17.362 --> 00:42:19.882
during the 1960s and up until
the release

861
00:42:19.916 --> 00:42:23.506
of John Keel's seminal book in
1975,

862
00:42:23.541 --> 00:42:26.578
the most common theories as
to what the creature might be

863
00:42:26.613 --> 00:42:30.340
all revolved around tangible
flesh and bone beings,

864
00:42:30.375 --> 00:42:33.343
animals that either existed
within known science

865
00:42:33.378 --> 00:42:35.138
or on its fringes.

866
00:42:35.173 --> 00:42:38.072
Yet with the release of
"The Mothman Prophecies,"

867
00:42:38.107 --> 00:42:39.971
something new is proposed.

868
00:42:40.005 --> 00:42:43.008
Suddenly, the answers as
to what the entity might be

869
00:42:43.043 --> 00:42:45.908
weren't being sought in
the pages of science,

870
00:42:45.942 --> 00:42:48.117
but in the realms of physics.

871
00:42:48.151 --> 00:42:51.569
As Keel put forth his own ideasabout alternate dimensions

872
00:42:51.603 --> 00:42:54.123
and realities to explain the
Mothman,

873
00:42:54.157 --> 00:42:58.023
similar theories were beingpresented for various phenomena.

874
00:42:58.058 --> 00:42:59.577
Could the Mothman be a visitor

875
00:42:59.611 --> 00:43:01.717
from another plane of existence,

876
00:43:01.751 --> 00:43:03.822
one beyond our own?

877
00:43:03.857 --> 00:43:06.825
If so, was there something
about Point Pleasant,

878
00:43:06.860 --> 00:43:08.447
or even all of Appalachia,

879
00:43:08.482 --> 00:43:12.037
that acted as a gateway
between these realities?

880
00:43:12.072 --> 00:43:14.074
Legends suggest that Native
Americans

881
00:43:14.108 --> 00:43:17.422
avoided much of the land
where West Virginia now sits,

882
00:43:17.456 --> 00:43:18.665
leading to speculation

883
00:43:18.699 --> 00:43:22.047
that the earth itself in
this place was cursed.

884
00:43:22.082 --> 00:43:24.394
In later years, an unfounded
story

885
00:43:24.429 --> 00:43:27.363
regarding a supposed curse
placed on Point Pleasant

886
00:43:27.397 --> 00:43:29.054
began to circulate.

887
00:43:29.089 --> 00:43:30.711
It involved the real life murder

888
00:43:30.746 --> 00:43:33.749
of a Native chief named
Cornstalk.

889
00:43:33.783 --> 00:43:36.648
Though likely having
little basis in reality,

890
00:43:36.683 --> 00:43:39.168
it is possible that some kernelof truth

891
00:43:39.202 --> 00:43:41.480
does exist in the story.

892
00:43:41.515 --> 00:43:44.967
Perhaps the curse in question
was simply a word ascribed

893
00:43:45.001 --> 00:43:48.626
to a location that seemed
to invite strangeness,

894
00:43:48.660 --> 00:43:49.937
if not tragedy.

895
00:43:52.215 --> 00:43:53.251
[animal whines]
[dark haunting music]

896
00:43:53.285 --> 00:43:55.460
[creature calls]

897
00:43:55.494 --> 00:43:58.566
[wings flapping]
[birds calling]

898
00:43:58.601 --> 00:43:59.844
- What I have gathered

899
00:43:59.878 --> 00:44:02.570
is that there are parts in the
Ohio Valley

900
00:44:02.605 --> 00:44:05.021
that are kind of believed to becursed.

901
00:44:05.056 --> 00:44:06.229
They're a land of the dead.

902
00:44:06.264 --> 00:44:09.163
It was common for people
to be buried closer

903
00:44:09.198 --> 00:44:10.061
to bodies of water.

904
00:44:10.095 --> 00:44:11.649
That's where we find some of themounds.

905
00:44:11.683 --> 00:44:13.133
It's a valley of the dead,

906
00:44:13.167 --> 00:44:16.861
so I would think that
any place along a river

907
00:44:16.895 --> 00:44:18.034
is kind of the same thing.

908
00:44:18.069 --> 00:44:19.622
There's probably a lot of
burials there.

909
00:44:19.657 --> 00:44:22.142
Different Native American
tribes believed so strongly

910
00:44:22.176 --> 00:44:23.661
that they wouldn't come at
night.

911
00:44:23.695 --> 00:44:24.558
They would not.

912
00:44:24.592 --> 00:44:25.766
- There's a lot of people that
believed

913
00:44:25.801 --> 00:44:27.665
the movement of water is
conducive

914
00:44:27.699 --> 00:44:31.772
to helping to produce
some of this activity.

915
00:44:31.807 --> 00:44:33.878
And yes, I find it easy to
believe

916
00:44:33.912 --> 00:44:35.914
that there is something
about the confluence

917
00:44:35.949 --> 00:44:38.192
of the rivers coming together.

918
00:44:38.227 --> 00:44:40.229
There's even the lore
about crossroads, you know,

919
00:44:40.263 --> 00:44:41.920
the Devil's Crossroads or
whatever,

920
00:44:41.955 --> 00:44:45.337
and that's where Indrid Cold
was supposed to have shown up

921
00:44:45.372 --> 00:44:47.132
along Route 77 there.

922
00:44:48.893 --> 00:44:51.516
- That's common in a lot
of different cultures.

923
00:44:51.550 --> 00:44:53.967
The idea that a river or a
confluence

924
00:44:54.001 --> 00:44:57.522
of bodies of water is a
gateway somewhere, yes.

925
00:44:57.556 --> 00:45:01.112
[somber ethereal music]

926
00:45:01.146 --> 00:45:02.182
- Keel did not believe

927
00:45:02.216 --> 00:45:04.667
that we were interacting
with extraterrestrials.

928
00:45:04.702 --> 00:45:06.531
He called them
ultra-terrestrials.

929
00:45:06.565 --> 00:45:08.775
In other words, something
that is earth bound,

930
00:45:08.809 --> 00:45:11.985
some sort of phenomenon
that originates on earth

931
00:45:12.019 --> 00:45:15.333
that we can sometimes
see and interact with.

932
00:45:15.367 --> 00:45:18.957
And it might be from another
dimension,

933
00:45:18.992 --> 00:45:22.133
or it might simply be a little
bit outside

934
00:45:22.167 --> 00:45:25.757
our normal perceptual abilities.

935
00:45:25.792 --> 00:45:28.139
- Keel used the term
ultra-terrestrial

936
00:45:28.173 --> 00:45:29.657
and he revealed in later years,

937
00:45:29.692 --> 00:45:31.556
he used it as a literary device.

938
00:45:32.799 --> 00:45:34.214
Again, he wasn't really fixed

939
00:45:34.248 --> 00:45:35.594
in his thinking about these
things.

940
00:45:35.629 --> 00:45:39.771
It was really a term used to
suggest that these entities,

941
00:45:39.806 --> 00:45:42.705
whatever they are, wherever
they actually come from,

942
00:45:42.740 --> 00:45:44.811
may be a natural condition of
the planets,

943
00:45:44.845 --> 00:45:47.952
suggesting that they're not
necessarily from off world

944
00:45:47.986 --> 00:45:50.299
or are even necessarily
from another dimension.

945
00:45:50.333 --> 00:45:53.992
- They're your radio
waves and ultraviolet rays

946
00:45:54.027 --> 00:45:56.857
and various things that
exist and we know they exist,

947
00:45:56.892 --> 00:45:58.031
but we can't see them.

948
00:45:58.065 --> 00:46:00.827
But what if under somecircumstances we could see them,

949
00:46:00.861 --> 00:46:02.552
what else would we see?

950
00:46:02.587 --> 00:46:04.623
And I think his notion was that

951
00:46:04.658 --> 00:46:09.249
what we might see is
Indrid Cold or the Mothman.

952
00:46:09.283 --> 00:46:10.491
- So the idea would be

953
00:46:10.526 --> 00:46:14.495
that perhaps we can't really
conceive of other dimensions

954
00:46:14.530 --> 00:46:18.499
and these creatures or whatever,while they exist with us,

955
00:46:18.534 --> 00:46:21.261
can hide or pass into
these other dimensions.

956
00:46:21.295 --> 00:46:24.471
People will use the
term vortex or a portal

957
00:46:24.505 --> 00:46:26.438
or a window area.

958
00:46:27.474 --> 00:46:31.409
- I do know that in the
1980s and even before,

959
00:46:31.443 --> 00:46:36.448
the TNT Area was a hub for a
lot of occult type activity,

960
00:46:36.828 --> 00:46:40.211
you know, the activity in the
TNT Area for all those years.

961
00:46:40.245 --> 00:46:42.765
Is it possible that maybe
somebody did something

962
00:46:42.800 --> 00:46:45.941
to open up some kind of portal

963
00:46:45.975 --> 00:46:47.943
to let some kind of activity in?

964
00:46:47.977 --> 00:46:49.772
Why would it just choose Point
Pleasant?

965
00:46:49.807 --> 00:46:51.809
Or there's all kinds of
questions

966
00:46:51.843 --> 00:46:53.707
and even John Keel himself
thought

967
00:46:53.741 --> 00:46:56.020
that there was some kind
of portal in the TNT Area.

968
00:46:56.054 --> 00:46:58.160
And if you've ever been to the
TNT Area,

969
00:46:58.194 --> 00:47:00.610
there very well could
be, you'd never know it,

970
00:47:00.645 --> 00:47:03.786
if you believe in that kind
of thing because it's so vast.

971
00:47:03.821 --> 00:47:05.615
[mysterious music]

972
00:47:05.650 --> 00:47:07.341
I've talked to several people

973
00:47:07.376 --> 00:47:11.035
that have seen hooded figures upthere.

974
00:47:11.069 --> 00:47:12.174
When I was a kid,

975
00:47:12.208 --> 00:47:13.209
there was a rumor going around

976
00:47:13.244 --> 00:47:15.487
that the 13th gate to
hell was in the TNT area

977
00:47:15.522 --> 00:47:17.765
and that's what I remember
about my childhood.

978
00:47:17.800 --> 00:47:19.595
Kind of makes you want to stay
away.

979
00:47:21.079 --> 00:47:23.150
My dad's sister, I'm gonna out
her,

980
00:47:23.185 --> 00:47:26.740
but she snuck out in highschool with a bunch of friends,

981
00:47:26.774 --> 00:47:28.052
went up to the TNT Area.

982
00:47:28.086 --> 00:47:29.087
That's not unusual,

983
00:47:29.122 --> 00:47:30.882
a lot of people used to
do that kind of thing.

984
00:47:30.917 --> 00:47:32.435
Inside the igloos that are up
there,

985
00:47:32.470 --> 00:47:35.300
there's like 100 of these
bunkers.

986
00:47:35.335 --> 00:47:38.062
Well, there's just a few of
those that are open today,

987
00:47:38.096 --> 00:47:40.512
but people like to go
up there and investigate

988
00:47:40.547 --> 00:47:41.997
and all that kind of stuff.

989
00:47:42.031 --> 00:47:43.861
Well, they had went into one

990
00:47:43.895 --> 00:47:45.932
and said that there was all
these symbols

991
00:47:45.966 --> 00:47:48.348
written all over the walls

992
00:47:48.382 --> 00:47:52.317
and there was a table with a
outline

993
00:47:52.352 --> 00:47:53.905
of a cat,

994
00:47:53.940 --> 00:47:55.873
where somebody had sacrificed acat.

995
00:47:55.907 --> 00:47:58.737
There was always stories
that, once a year,

996
00:47:58.772 --> 00:48:01.671
that there was a large group ofoccultists

997
00:48:01.706 --> 00:48:03.087
that would come and meet.

998
00:48:03.121 --> 00:48:05.261
I know another girl that
was one of my neighbors

999
00:48:05.296 --> 00:48:07.022
that lived up in that area

1000
00:48:07.056 --> 00:48:10.094
that said that she was
walking in the TNT Area

1001
00:48:10.128 --> 00:48:11.819
with her parents one day

1002
00:48:11.854 --> 00:48:13.373
and said that she'd looked over

1003
00:48:13.407 --> 00:48:16.169
and she'd seen this giant fire

1004
00:48:16.203 --> 00:48:18.136
and there was all these
people in these hoods

1005
00:48:18.171 --> 00:48:20.794
just like standing there aroundit.

1006
00:48:20.828 --> 00:48:23.003
And she said she freaked out andran off.

1007
00:48:23.038 --> 00:48:25.937
[frantic music]
[cat screaming]

1008
00:48:25.972 --> 00:48:27.732
- You know, some of the
people that encountered this,

1009
00:48:27.766 --> 00:48:31.149
you know, Mothman,
giant bird-type creature

1010
00:48:31.184 --> 00:48:35.188
that said it was more on a
supernatural type of basis.

1011
00:48:35.222 --> 00:48:37.155
They felt that what they were
seeing

1012
00:48:37.190 --> 00:48:41.159
was not a tangible thing they
could reach out and touch,

1013
00:48:41.194 --> 00:48:43.817
but it was more of a vision of
evil.

1014
00:48:43.851 --> 00:48:44.852
They said, you know,

1015
00:48:44.887 --> 00:48:47.717
"This wasn't an animal
or anything like that,

1016
00:48:47.752 --> 00:48:50.720
it was more of somethin'
that just popped up

1017
00:48:50.755 --> 00:48:52.343
and I couldn't explain it."

1018
00:48:52.377 --> 00:48:53.620
[ominous music]

1019
00:48:53.654 --> 00:48:56.071
I think there's a lot of
people that tend to think

1020
00:48:56.105 --> 00:48:58.901
that it was more of a
vision or a spiritual thing.

1021
00:48:58.936 --> 00:49:00.420
- Well I think the Mothman is
some kind

1022
00:49:00.454 --> 00:49:02.111
of an inter-dimensional being

1023
00:49:02.146 --> 00:49:05.528
and I think it's very
odd that he is described

1024
00:49:05.563 --> 00:49:08.566
as being a flesh and blood
creature.

1025
00:49:08.600 --> 00:49:12.052
Some people describe the wings
as looking like bat wings.

1026
00:49:12.087 --> 00:49:15.124
Some describe him as having
feathers.

1027
00:49:15.159 --> 00:49:16.884
He looked flesh and blood,

1028
00:49:16.919 --> 00:49:20.026
but yet his eyes looked
electrical.

1029
00:49:20.060 --> 00:49:23.684
I guess he could be from
either another planet

1030
00:49:23.719 --> 00:49:26.791
or another dimension that
sort of slipped through.

1031
00:49:26.825 --> 00:49:29.828
- There really is no
explanation as far as I know.

1032
00:49:29.863 --> 00:49:34.385
I don't know if there's aparticular unconscious archetype

1033
00:49:34.419 --> 00:49:36.490
that's being accessed.

1034
00:49:36.525 --> 00:49:39.666
I have a general theory of the
paranormal,

1035
00:49:39.700 --> 00:49:42.013
which is if it does exist,

1036
00:49:42.048 --> 00:49:44.257
if there is an exterior force atwork,

1037
00:49:44.291 --> 00:49:46.776
that it might be presenting
itself

1038
00:49:46.811 --> 00:49:50.263
as almost just as a sort of
incoet energy,

1039
00:49:50.297 --> 00:49:52.575
almost like snow on a TV.

1040
00:49:52.610 --> 00:49:54.888
And as people experience it,

1041
00:49:54.922 --> 00:49:57.995
whatever that energy is that
they're interacting with,

1042
00:49:58.029 --> 00:49:59.375
interacts with their mind

1043
00:49:59.410 --> 00:50:03.655
and as human beings we try
to unscramble the signal.

1044
00:50:03.690 --> 00:50:05.416
It's like a Rorschach test.

1045
00:50:05.450 --> 00:50:07.487
Here's this thing, but what do
you see?

1046
00:50:07.521 --> 00:50:08.936
Some people will see Mothman,

1047
00:50:08.971 --> 00:50:11.974
other people will maybe
see a dead relative,

1048
00:50:12.009 --> 00:50:13.389
other people will see aliens.

1049
00:50:13.424 --> 00:50:16.530
It's just sort of your mind
flipping through things,

1050
00:50:16.565 --> 00:50:18.394
trying to attach to something.

1051
00:50:18.429 --> 00:50:21.535
Maybe that exterior energy
is interacting with your mind

1052
00:50:21.570 --> 00:50:24.504
and helping you select
something that works for you

1053
00:50:24.538 --> 00:50:26.540
and then you move on to
phase two of the experience,

1054
00:50:26.575 --> 00:50:29.716
which is whatever the content
of the communication is.

1055
00:50:31.097 --> 00:50:32.443
- As decades passed,

1056
00:50:32.477 --> 00:50:34.928
the effects of the initial
events still lingered

1057
00:50:34.962 --> 00:50:36.964
with some of the original
witnesses.

1058
00:50:36.999 --> 00:50:40.037
Marcella Bennett and Linda
Scarberry were among those

1059
00:50:40.071 --> 00:50:41.900
who saw the Mothman for
themselves

1060
00:50:41.935 --> 00:50:45.973
during the 1966-67 wave of
sightings.

1061
00:50:46.008 --> 00:50:48.631
As time went on, their
recollections of who

1062
00:50:48.666 --> 00:50:50.702
or what the Mothman might have
been

1063
00:50:50.737 --> 00:50:53.188
couldn't have been further
apart.

1064
00:50:53.222 --> 00:50:54.085
[foreboding music]
[wings flapping]

1065
00:50:54.120 --> 00:50:55.949
Marcella Bennett encountered theMothman

1066
00:50:55.983 --> 00:50:58.745
outside the home of a
friend late one evening.

1067
00:50:58.779 --> 00:51:00.712
Her encounter took a turn for
the worst

1068
00:51:00.747 --> 00:51:02.266
when she dropped her infant
daughter

1069
00:51:02.300 --> 00:51:04.371
and fell on top of her in terror

1070
00:51:04.406 --> 00:51:07.719
as she claimed the Mothmanswooped toward them from above.

1071
00:51:07.754 --> 00:51:08.548
[baby cries]

1072
00:51:08.582 --> 00:51:09.721
Bennett, in later years,

1073
00:51:09.756 --> 00:51:12.103
would recall the creature
as looking every bit

1074
00:51:12.138 --> 00:51:14.174
like the devil himself.

1075
00:51:14.209 --> 00:51:17.004
Meanwhile, Linda Scarberry
would recount the being

1076
00:51:17.039 --> 00:51:20.077
in a way that painted it
in a sympathetic light,

1077
00:51:20.111 --> 00:51:23.459
as an entity lost in a
place it did not recognize

1078
00:51:23.494 --> 00:51:27.532
with no way to communicate
or relay a cry for help.

1079
00:51:27.567 --> 00:51:29.707
- After Linda Scarberry,

1080
00:51:29.741 --> 00:51:31.881
her initial sightings in '66,

1081
00:51:31.916 --> 00:51:36.231
you know for years after,
she told me and others that,

1082
00:51:36.265 --> 00:51:39.061
you know, weird things
happened in her house.

1083
00:51:39.096 --> 00:51:42.202
She always had this premonitionof somethin' watching her.

1084
00:51:42.237 --> 00:51:43.272
In later years,

1085
00:51:43.307 --> 00:51:46.033
she lived in the downtown
area in an apartment

1086
00:51:46.068 --> 00:51:48.553
above just a vacant building orwhatever.

1087
00:51:48.588 --> 00:51:49.968
- She said it was winter,

1088
00:51:50.003 --> 00:51:53.524
it was like really,
really cold, like January.

1089
00:51:53.558 --> 00:51:55.560
And she heard a thump
[object thumps]

1090
00:51:55.595 --> 00:51:57.044
and she had one of those roof
lines

1091
00:51:57.079 --> 00:52:00.082
like came right up to the
window, two story house.

1092
00:52:00.117 --> 00:52:02.326
And said she opened up
the window and she looked

1093
00:52:02.360 --> 00:52:04.017
and it was sittin' there.

1094
00:52:04.051 --> 00:52:06.088
And it was cold and it was
shivering.

1095
00:52:06.123 --> 00:52:09.436
and it had taken its wings
and wrapped around itself.

1096
00:52:09.471 --> 00:52:12.405
[wind howling]
[somber music]

1097
00:52:12.439 --> 00:52:13.406
- A few years after that,

1098
00:52:13.440 --> 00:52:15.718
I found the newspaper clipping

1099
00:52:15.753 --> 00:52:20.171
of a police officer in
Charleston, West Virginia,

1100
00:52:20.206 --> 00:52:23.588
who took a phone call from
someone

1101
00:52:23.623 --> 00:52:25.832
who was looking out their window

1102
00:52:25.866 --> 00:52:28.075
to the roof facade of their
house

1103
00:52:28.110 --> 00:52:30.423
and they described it the exactsame way.

1104
00:52:30.457 --> 00:52:33.564
And the police officer said,
you know, "What is it doing

1105
00:52:33.598 --> 00:52:34.392
and where's it at?"

1106
00:52:34.427 --> 00:52:35.669
And the person said,

1107
00:52:35.704 --> 00:52:38.879
"It's sitting on our roof, justright outside of our window

1108
00:52:38.914 --> 00:52:40.674
and I'm starin' at it."

1109
00:52:40.709 --> 00:52:43.643
[foreboding music]

1110
00:52:44.920 --> 00:52:46.715
- You know, is it possible thatLinda,

1111
00:52:46.749 --> 00:52:48.682
I mean she had a traumatic
experience,

1112
00:52:48.717 --> 00:52:51.547
is it possible some of this wasimagined?

1113
00:52:51.582 --> 00:52:55.172
I've spoken to Linda
Scarberry, very credible lady,

1114
00:52:55.206 --> 00:52:57.139
and I don't think she made up
any of this.

1115
00:52:57.174 --> 00:52:58.589
Even I would have to wonder,

1116
00:52:58.623 --> 00:53:01.143
if I had that original
experience

1117
00:53:01.178 --> 00:53:04.215
and then saw it again
afterwards, am I really seeing
it

1118
00:53:04.250 --> 00:53:06.735
or is it something, a sort of
artifact

1119
00:53:06.769 --> 00:53:07.977
of what happened before?

1120
00:53:09.186 --> 00:53:11.222
- I think even up to when she
passed away,

1121
00:53:11.257 --> 00:53:13.776
she was always very wary

1122
00:53:15.295 --> 00:53:16.503
of things around her.

1123
00:53:16.538 --> 00:53:19.299
You know, she seemed like she
was always on the lookout.

1124
00:53:19.334 --> 00:53:22.026
[ominous music]

1125
00:53:26.617 --> 00:53:29.551
[mysterious music]

1126
00:53:33.934 --> 00:53:37.697
- I would say I was
probably 10, 11 at the time

1127
00:53:37.731 --> 00:53:39.837
and the holler that we lived in,

1128
00:53:39.871 --> 00:53:42.149
like the last street light was
probably,

1129
00:53:42.184 --> 00:53:44.807
I'd say 100 feet away
from where the house was

1130
00:53:44.842 --> 00:53:46.602
that I saw the Mothman.

1131
00:53:46.637 --> 00:53:47.603
[crickets chirping]
[foreboding music]

1132
00:53:47.638 --> 00:53:50.227
I knew to be home before
dark, but I wasn't.

1133
00:53:50.261 --> 00:53:53.264
So when I was pushin' my
bike up to the holler,

1134
00:53:53.299 --> 00:53:54.886
the asphalt ended, the gravel
started,

1135
00:53:54.921 --> 00:53:56.302
that's where that house was.

1136
00:53:56.336 --> 00:53:58.269
The house was abandoned.

1137
00:53:58.304 --> 00:54:00.409
The guy that lived there, he
got killed in the coal mines.

1138
00:54:01.410 --> 00:54:02.549
And I happened to hear a noise

1139
00:54:02.584 --> 00:54:03.826
and I just happened to look over

1140
00:54:03.861 --> 00:54:06.898
and I seen somethin' standing
doorway and it had red eyes.

1141
00:54:08.106 --> 00:54:08.900
[creature moans]

1142
00:54:08.935 --> 00:54:09.901
It was really tall.

1143
00:54:09.936 --> 00:54:11.696
I really remember the eyes,

1144
00:54:11.731 --> 00:54:14.112
like the reddest red you'd eversee.

1145
00:54:14.147 --> 00:54:15.942
He was at least seven foot tall.

1146
00:54:15.976 --> 00:54:18.082
[grasses rustling]

1147
00:54:18.116 --> 00:54:21.258
So I started cryin' and I
felt like I stood there cryin'

1148
00:54:21.292 --> 00:54:24.468
and lookin' at it for
like at least 15 minutes.

1149
00:54:24.502 --> 00:54:26.849
And here come my brother's
friend, actually,

1150
00:54:26.884 --> 00:54:29.127
out of the holler and he'd seenit, too.

1151
00:54:29.162 --> 00:54:31.716
He picked up a rock, threw it atit

1152
00:54:31.751 --> 00:54:34.271
[rock whooshes]
and it just kind of vanished.

1153
00:54:34.305 --> 00:54:36.963
[ominous music]

1154
00:54:37.895 --> 00:54:40.138
I would say probably, maybe a
year later,

1155
00:54:41.001 --> 00:54:43.349
that me and one of my
buddies went in that house

1156
00:54:44.384 --> 00:54:45.454
we went in the basement part

1157
00:54:45.489 --> 00:54:47.076
and there was these weird
footprints.

1158
00:54:47.111 --> 00:54:50.010
It looked like they was
burnt into the concrete.

1159
00:54:50.045 --> 00:54:52.634
The best I can describe
it, they was in a Y shape

1160
00:54:52.668 --> 00:54:56.879
and like, they had blackaround them, like they got hot.

1161
00:54:58.122 --> 00:54:58.985
[foreboding music]

1162
00:54:59.019 --> 00:55:00.676
Yeah, I've thought about it fora lot,

1163
00:55:02.299 --> 00:55:05.302
I never really did go out
into the bottom by myself,

1164
00:55:05.336 --> 00:55:07.787
I was always home before dark
after that.

1165
00:55:07.821 --> 00:55:09.133
I was scared of that house

1166
00:55:09.167 --> 00:55:11.515
and finally, when they tore
it down, I was pretty happy.

1167
00:55:11.549 --> 00:55:13.827
If somebody talks about the
Mothman,

1168
00:55:13.862 --> 00:55:15.726
I'll tell my story, you know?

1169
00:55:15.760 --> 00:55:18.625
I always tell everybody,
"Hey, I've seen that thing."

1170
00:55:18.660 --> 00:55:21.594
[mysterious music]

1171
00:55:21.628 --> 00:55:26.150
- If the 1980s and '90s were
a down time regarding Mothman,

1172
00:55:26.184 --> 00:55:29.429
then the 2000s were to be the
creature's come-back tour.

1173
00:55:29.464 --> 00:55:31.914
In the year 2000, Jeff Wamsley

1174
00:55:31.949 --> 00:55:34.917
and fellow Mothman
enthusiast, Donnie Sergeant,

1175
00:55:34.952 --> 00:55:38.680
started a website dedicated to
tracking the Mothman legend,

1176
00:55:38.714 --> 00:55:40.923
called "Mothman Lives."

1177
00:55:40.958 --> 00:55:43.029
The website served to answer
questions

1178
00:55:43.063 --> 00:55:46.101
regarding the initial
wave of Mothman sightings

1179
00:55:46.135 --> 00:55:49.898
and was as much about promotingthe town and the TNT Area

1180
00:55:49.932 --> 00:55:51.451
as it was the creature.

1181
00:55:52.418 --> 00:55:54.799
However, the Mothman's
popularity

1182
00:55:54.834 --> 00:55:56.767
was just beginning to grow.

1183
00:55:56.801 --> 00:55:59.770
In 2002, a feature film
adaptation

1184
00:55:59.804 --> 00:56:02.013
of "The Mothman Prophecies"
would see

1185
00:56:02.048 --> 00:56:05.465
a successful theatrical
launch in North America.

1186
00:56:05.500 --> 00:56:08.710
While the movie would bolster
the title character's stardom,

1187
00:56:08.744 --> 00:56:11.678
it would also serve to
enhance ongoing reports

1188
00:56:11.713 --> 00:56:13.162
of its presence.

1189
00:56:13.197 --> 00:56:15.786
- When I read the book,
"The Mothman Prophecies,"

1190
00:56:15.820 --> 00:56:19.272
I immediately knew that it
was addressing something

1191
00:56:19.306 --> 00:56:22.551
that had been brewing inside
me for a while, which was,

1192
00:56:22.586 --> 00:56:24.450
is there a way to write a movie

1193
00:56:24.484 --> 00:56:27.038
in which someone
experiences the paranormal,

1194
00:56:27.073 --> 00:56:31.698
but does not come away
solving a mystery or a crime?

1195
00:56:31.733 --> 00:56:35.633
Where they are left as
destabilized, to a certain
degree,

1196
00:56:35.668 --> 00:56:37.566
as real people are

1197
00:56:37.601 --> 00:56:39.499
when they typically
experienced the paranormal.

1198
00:56:39.534 --> 00:56:42.260
The arc of John Keel's
experience

1199
00:56:42.295 --> 00:56:45.712
and his trying to make senseof the events in Point Pleasant

1200
00:56:45.747 --> 00:56:48.335
and ultimately not being able
to,

1201
00:56:48.370 --> 00:56:52.443
and then having to
simply take a step back,

1202
00:56:52.478 --> 00:56:55.032
accept that there are things
he's not ever going to be able

1203
00:56:55.066 --> 00:56:56.758
to totally understand,

1204
00:56:56.792 --> 00:56:58.415
and then go on with the rest ofhis life,

1205
00:56:58.449 --> 00:57:00.451
which is essentially what he
did.

1206
00:57:00.486 --> 00:57:03.350
- When Keel first found
out about the screenplay

1207
00:57:03.385 --> 00:57:06.457
for the film that was actually
made, he was actually giddy.

1208
00:57:06.492 --> 00:57:08.252
He had held off for a long time.

1209
00:57:09.771 --> 00:57:13.533
He felt that finally somebody
was kind of getting the,

1210
00:57:13.568 --> 00:57:15.742
sort of the underlying ideas orthemes

1211
00:57:15.777 --> 00:57:17.054
of "The Mothman Prophecies."

1212
00:57:17.088 --> 00:57:19.919
- I mean it was not a huge hit
when it came out by any means

1213
00:57:19.953 --> 00:57:22.715
and yet I do hear from
people who have seen it

1214
00:57:22.749 --> 00:57:25.269
and the ones who saw it

1215
00:57:25.303 --> 00:57:26.132
and

1216
00:57:26.995 --> 00:57:27.858
"liked it,"

1217
00:57:27.892 --> 00:57:29.135
They had a reaction to it.

1218
00:57:29.169 --> 00:57:32.587
The reaction, the one
I hear most often is,

1219
00:57:32.621 --> 00:57:37.626
"That was so scary and
I don't even know why."

1220
00:57:38.178 --> 00:57:40.802
- Following the release of
"The Mothman Prophecies,"

1221
00:57:40.836 --> 00:57:42.769
Point Pleasant found itself at
the center

1222
00:57:42.804 --> 00:57:45.496
of a second wave of Mothman
sightings.

1223
00:57:45.531 --> 00:57:46.601
As new encounters

1224
00:57:46.635 --> 00:57:49.500
with Appalachia's infamous
legend came to light,

1225
00:57:49.535 --> 00:57:52.503
Jeff Wamsley set aboutdocumenting as much information

1226
00:57:52.538 --> 00:57:56.921
about the 1966 and '67
sightings as possible.

1227
00:57:56.956 --> 00:58:00.200
He interviewed witnesses and
unraveled long-buried accounts

1228
00:58:00.235 --> 00:58:03.583
for publication in two books
he would eventually publish,

1229
00:58:03.618 --> 00:58:06.517
"Mothman, The Facts Behind the
Legend,"

1230
00:58:06.552 --> 00:58:09.037
and "Behind the Red Eyes."

1231
00:58:09.071 --> 00:58:12.799
He also compiled physical
artifacts relating to the
Mothman

1232
00:58:12.834 --> 00:58:16.009
and in 2005, he opened his
collection to the public

1233
00:58:16.044 --> 00:58:19.288
inside the walls of what
would auspiciously become

1234
00:58:19.323 --> 00:58:22.533
the world's only Mothman Museum.

1235
00:58:22.568 --> 00:58:23.465
[haunting music]

1236
00:58:23.500 --> 00:58:25.709
Meanwhile, the TNT Area itself

1237
00:58:25.743 --> 00:58:28.263
became a hub of activity once
again,

1238
00:58:28.297 --> 00:58:29.471
whether through chance

1239
00:58:29.506 --> 00:58:31.680
or due to the new found
attention brought on

1240
00:58:31.715 --> 00:58:33.061
by the release of the film.

1241
00:58:34.234 --> 00:58:36.789
In 2001, a paramedic driving

1242
00:58:36.823 --> 00:58:38.860
along the Kanawha River near
Leon

1243
00:58:38.894 --> 00:58:40.827
sighted a large winged creature

1244
00:58:40.862 --> 00:58:42.657
following the path of the water.

1245
00:58:43.589 --> 00:58:44.762
[wind whistling]
[mysterious music]

1246
00:58:44.797 --> 00:58:48.041
Four years later, a structural
engineer saw a creature

1247
00:58:48.076 --> 00:58:50.354
he described as having no arms,

1248
00:58:50.388 --> 00:58:52.805
but wings that bent and folded
inward

1249
00:58:52.839 --> 00:58:55.842
with a gray skin stretched overthe bone.

1250
00:58:55.877 --> 00:58:57.326
He claimed the creature
attempted

1251
00:58:57.361 --> 00:58:59.466
to communicate telepathically
with him

1252
00:58:59.501 --> 00:59:03.091
before taking to the sky at
a speed he estimated to be

1253
00:59:03.125 --> 00:59:05.300
over 50 miles per hour.

1254
00:59:06.715 --> 00:59:08.786
Hunter Bellamy, a Point Pleasantlocal,

1255
00:59:08.821 --> 00:59:10.995
recalled seeing red eyes in a
tree

1256
00:59:11.030 --> 00:59:13.584
as he drove within the TNT Area.

1257
00:59:13.619 --> 00:59:16.276
Eventually, a shadowy being
could be seen

1258
00:59:16.311 --> 00:59:18.555
as it took to the skies.

1259
00:59:18.589 --> 00:59:20.384
Two reports from hunters came in

1260
00:59:20.418 --> 00:59:24.181
during the years of 2009 and
2013.

1261
00:59:24.215 --> 00:59:27.805
They both claimed to have seen
a creature in the TNT Area.

1262
00:59:27.840 --> 00:59:30.428
In one case, it was
spotted directly behind

1263
00:59:30.463 --> 00:59:32.672
one of the abandoned munitions
bunkers.

1264
00:59:33.570 --> 00:59:35.433
As the 2000s ticked by,

1265
00:59:35.468 --> 00:59:38.195
a new element was added
to the Mothman lore,

1266
00:59:38.229 --> 00:59:41.819
one that was as rooted in
the original 1960 sightings

1267
00:59:41.854 --> 00:59:44.546
as it was in the current
activity.

1268
00:59:44.581 --> 00:59:46.479
A piece of the legend that had
been added

1269
00:59:46.513 --> 00:59:49.344
by none other than John Keel.

1270
00:59:49.378 --> 00:59:51.795
[somber music]
[clock chimes]

1271
00:59:51.829 --> 00:59:53.831
[air whooshes]

1272
00:59:53.866 --> 00:59:55.902
[clock chimes]

1273
00:59:55.937 --> 00:59:58.491
- There's the idea that
Mothman was a harbinger

1274
00:59:58.525 --> 01:00:01.011
and that it culminated

1275
01:00:01.045 --> 01:00:04.428
with the collapse of the SilverBridge in December of '67.

1276
01:00:04.462 --> 01:00:07.673
- Over the years, you
know, the Mothman sightings

1277
01:00:07.707 --> 01:00:10.641
and the Mothman activity has
brought up the subject of,

1278
01:00:10.676 --> 01:00:12.332
was it a harbinger of doom?

1279
01:00:12.367 --> 01:00:15.957
Was it here to warn people of
the Silver Bridge collapse?

1280
01:00:15.991 --> 01:00:17.752
Honestly, a lot of the people,
you know,

1281
01:00:17.786 --> 01:00:19.201
when the bridge fell,

1282
01:00:19.236 --> 01:00:21.445
nobody really talked
about that a whole lot.

1283
01:00:21.479 --> 01:00:23.723
They were shocked the
bridge had collapsed,

1284
01:00:23.758 --> 01:00:26.484
but then, you know, the
movies were comin' out,

1285
01:00:26.519 --> 01:00:28.038
John Keel's book

1286
01:00:28.072 --> 01:00:30.385
and different little things
were poppin' up sayin',

1287
01:00:30.419 --> 01:00:32.905
hey, you know, every time
somethin' bad happens,

1288
01:00:32.939 --> 01:00:34.941
you know, there's a
sighting of this creature.

1289
01:00:34.976 --> 01:00:37.806
- The idea that it was a
harbinger of doom

1290
01:00:37.841 --> 01:00:39.912
was sort of baked into the book.

1291
01:00:39.946 --> 01:00:44.502
And then as I was
adapting it for the movie,

1292
01:00:44.537 --> 01:00:47.402
that also seemed a link I wantedto make,

1293
01:00:47.436 --> 01:00:49.507
that there was, you know,
I mean, obviously that

1294
01:00:49.542 --> 01:00:52.372
that sort of gives the story
the propulsion that it had,

1295
01:00:52.407 --> 01:00:55.893
the feeling that all of thisstuff was leading to something.

1296
01:00:55.928 --> 01:01:00.760
- Because of circumstantial
events that happened,

1297
01:01:00.795 --> 01:01:04.453
Mothman has been kind of labeledas this harbinger of doom.

1298
01:01:04.488 --> 01:01:07.284
You know, he's been allegedly
sighted

1299
01:01:07.318 --> 01:01:11.322
before Chernobyl happened
and I've heard 9/11,

1300
01:01:11.357 --> 01:01:12.461
[creature moans]
[static hisses]

1301
01:01:12.496 --> 01:01:14.360
you know, and of course
that here in Point Pleasant

1302
01:01:14.394 --> 01:01:15.844
before the bridge collapsed.

1303
01:01:15.879 --> 01:01:17.674
- I've talked to some of
the original witnesses

1304
01:01:17.708 --> 01:01:20.677
and some of them firmly
believe that that's true.

1305
01:01:20.711 --> 01:01:24.784
Some people believe that
it created the disaster.

1306
01:01:24.819 --> 01:01:27.097
Others say, no, it just
coincided with it.

1307
01:01:27.131 --> 01:01:29.478
- The notion that the Mothman isseen

1308
01:01:29.513 --> 01:01:33.068
at the site of later
disasters is something

1309
01:01:33.103 --> 01:01:34.863
that I'm pretty sure I made up.

1310
01:01:34.898 --> 01:01:38.315
But again, because it was
part of the original story,

1311
01:01:38.349 --> 01:01:41.007
it felt like let's
extrapolate this outward.

1312
01:01:41.042 --> 01:01:43.113
I almost get the feeling
that once it was suggested

1313
01:01:43.147 --> 01:01:46.703
in the movie that people had
seen the Mothman at Chernobyl,

1314
01:01:46.737 --> 01:01:50.361
I think it became sort
of part of urban legend

1315
01:01:50.396 --> 01:01:51.811
because then I began to hear

1316
01:01:51.846 --> 01:01:54.745
that story being reported
back to me from other sources.

1317
01:01:54.780 --> 01:01:56.126
- People will compare it to,

1318
01:01:56.160 --> 01:01:59.854
obviously the banshee wailing
before someone's about to die

1319
01:01:59.888 --> 01:02:02.235
and there are several
traditions like that.

1320
01:02:02.270 --> 01:02:05.480
- The banshees are part of Irishfolklore.

1321
01:02:05.514 --> 01:02:08.759
They're women that
appear and scream, weep,

1322
01:02:08.794 --> 01:02:10.002
whenever someone,

1323
01:02:10.036 --> 01:02:14.040
that is part of the familyline that they're connected to,

1324
01:02:14.075 --> 01:02:15.801
is doomed to die.

1325
01:02:15.835 --> 01:02:18.389
It's kind of not the thing
that you want to hear.

1326
01:02:18.424 --> 01:02:22.117
- A banshee is an
Irish-Scottish death fairy.

1327
01:02:22.152 --> 01:02:24.913
And even though she
does not cause a death,

1328
01:02:24.948 --> 01:02:26.777
she will announce the death

1329
01:02:26.812 --> 01:02:29.918
with her high-pitched wailing
cries.

1330
01:02:29.953 --> 01:02:32.162
And we've got a banshee
in the Parkersburg area

1331
01:02:32.196 --> 01:02:34.095
called the Banshee of Marrtown

1332
01:02:34.129 --> 01:02:36.269
and I consider that folklore ofcourse.

1333
01:02:36.304 --> 01:02:39.548
Something happened, it's
been added onto over time,

1334
01:02:39.583 --> 01:02:41.723
but it's interesting that
she does have red eyes

1335
01:02:41.758 --> 01:02:44.277
and she is a harbinger of doom,

1336
01:02:44.312 --> 01:02:46.210
they say much like the Mothman.

1337
01:02:46.245 --> 01:02:48.626
[wind howls]

1338
01:02:48.661 --> 01:02:50.939
- The key to the Mothman's
origins may be found

1339
01:02:50.974 --> 01:02:54.011
in the Native American or
Scotch-Irish oral traditions

1340
01:02:54.046 --> 01:02:56.186
of those that first inhabited
Appalachia.

1341
01:02:57.359 --> 01:02:59.810
Stories of banshees, enormous
owls,

1342
01:02:59.845 --> 01:03:03.055
and even the Garuda all
have ancient origins.

1343
01:03:03.089 --> 01:03:05.402
Passed from generation to
generation,

1344
01:03:05.436 --> 01:03:09.371
these tales bear a startling
similarity to one another.

1345
01:03:09.406 --> 01:03:11.304
Their central character arrives,

1346
01:03:11.339 --> 01:03:14.791
carried on the wind by its
wings to offer a warning,

1347
01:03:14.825 --> 01:03:18.415
a warning of death,
destruction and tragedy.

1348
01:03:18.449 --> 01:03:21.694
Behind the red eyes of a new
figure, like the Mothman,

1349
01:03:21.728 --> 01:03:24.248
might lie an ancient secret,

1350
01:03:24.283 --> 01:03:27.113
one which can still be found
today,

1351
01:03:27.148 --> 01:03:31.359
though seeking it might be the
last thing we should attempt.

1352
01:03:31.393 --> 01:03:34.120
[haunting music]

1353
01:03:37.503 --> 01:03:39.574
- Well, five years ago,

1354
01:03:39.608 --> 01:03:43.681
my dad was diagnosed with heart
disease

1355
01:03:43.716 --> 01:03:44.855
and was goin' through heart
failure.

1356
01:03:44.890 --> 01:03:48.652
Then finally, the doctors got
him stable.

1357
01:03:48.686 --> 01:03:52.242
It went on and then this year,
Father's Day of this year,

1358
01:03:52.276 --> 01:03:54.071
we all went to the mountains.

1359
01:03:54.106 --> 01:03:55.866
The following weekend, he callsme

1360
01:03:55.901 --> 01:04:00.319
and said, "Hey, I've fallin'
and I can't get back up."

1361
01:04:00.353 --> 01:04:05.013
So I go to his house and he
was unable to feel his legs.

1362
01:04:05.048 --> 01:04:07.464
He spent some time in the
hospital.

1363
01:04:07.498 --> 01:04:09.121
He didn't want nothin' else
to do with the hospital,

1364
01:04:09.155 --> 01:04:10.501
so we brought him home.

1365
01:04:11.571 --> 01:04:13.573
We had to have two people
with him at all times.

1366
01:04:13.608 --> 01:04:17.267
I was there most days and
I was actually sleeping

1367
01:04:17.301 --> 01:04:19.510
on the dining room
floor on an air mattress

1368
01:04:19.545 --> 01:04:20.891
and my brother was sleeping

1369
01:04:23.652 --> 01:04:26.000
on the couch beside the hospitalbed.

1370
01:04:26.034 --> 01:04:28.692
As a laid on the mattress, I'd
dozed off,

1371
01:04:28.726 --> 01:04:31.971
I immediately started
feeling like I was dreaming.

1372
01:04:32.006 --> 01:04:37.011
[wings whapping]
[ethereal music]

1373
01:04:38.426 --> 01:04:42.292
I had a dream that my son
was standin' beside my bed.

1374
01:04:42.326 --> 01:04:43.120
- Daddy.

1375
01:04:43.155 --> 01:04:44.259
- There beside the bed

1376
01:04:44.294 --> 01:04:47.124
and I remember in the
dream asking him, you know,

1377
01:04:47.159 --> 01:04:49.713
why he was there, who brought
him there

1378
01:04:49.747 --> 01:04:50.887
and how'd he get there.

1379
01:04:51.818 --> 01:04:54.062
And I guess I had enough
consciousness to know

1380
01:04:54.097 --> 01:04:55.995
he shouldn't be there.

1381
01:04:56.030 --> 01:04:57.238
So I immediately woke up

1382
01:04:59.240 --> 01:05:01.242
and when I did there was this,

1383
01:05:02.208 --> 01:05:05.694
the figure standing beside
the bed had long arms,

1384
01:05:05.729 --> 01:05:07.489
skinny, like fingers, skinny
arms,

1385
01:05:08.594 --> 01:05:12.149
skinny legs with kind
of bulky lookin' feet,

1386
01:05:13.116 --> 01:05:16.567
wings above his shoulders and
its face,

1387
01:05:16.602 --> 01:05:21.607
I could see like dark largecircles where its eyes would be.

1388
01:05:22.504 --> 01:05:25.093
I stared at it for
probably five seconds or so

1389
01:05:25.128 --> 01:05:25.956
and then it just,

1390
01:05:27.889 --> 01:05:29.511
I don't want to say walk
'cause it didn't walk,

1391
01:05:29.546 --> 01:05:33.343
it glided quickly across
the top of my feet

1392
01:05:33.377 --> 01:05:34.482
and into another room.

1393
01:05:35.517 --> 01:05:36.760
[mysterious music]
[object rustling]

1394
01:05:36.794 --> 01:05:38.589
I laid there for a second,

1395
01:05:38.624 --> 01:05:41.247
tryin' to figure out what I wasseein'.

1396
01:05:41.282 --> 01:05:43.111
I got up later that morning,

1397
01:05:46.252 --> 01:05:47.391
Dad was doin' pretty good.

1398
01:05:47.426 --> 01:05:49.462
Sat there with him with my
brother.

1399
01:05:49.497 --> 01:05:52.741
We got up early on the 14th,

1400
01:05:52.776 --> 01:05:54.364
or about nine o'clock on the
14th,

1401
01:05:54.398 --> 01:05:56.504
hospice called and said they
were comin'.

1402
01:05:56.538 --> 01:05:58.299
I said, "Okay, he's not doin' sowell.

1403
01:05:58.333 --> 01:05:59.645
I'll see you in a little bit."

1404
01:05:59.679 --> 01:06:01.716
As soon as I hung up the phone,

1405
01:06:01.750 --> 01:06:04.339
I noticed him gaspin' for air.

1406
01:06:04.374 --> 01:06:07.515
I went in, helped him lay down
on his bed,

1407
01:06:07.549 --> 01:06:09.206
held his hand and he passed
away.

1408
01:06:10.276 --> 01:06:13.072
So
[somber music]

1409
01:06:13.107 --> 01:06:14.660
that's when I, you know,

1410
01:06:14.694 --> 01:06:18.112
we called everybody and
my brothers come over.

1411
01:06:18.146 --> 01:06:19.423
I would draw all this,

1412
01:06:19.458 --> 01:06:22.495
I kept drawin' this figure thatI'd seen.

1413
01:06:22.530 --> 01:06:23.876
I couldn't figure out
what it was, you know,

1414
01:06:23.910 --> 01:06:25.015
or I was tryin' to figure out itwas

1415
01:06:25.050 --> 01:06:26.637
and drawin' it was kind of
helping me

1416
01:06:26.672 --> 01:06:28.846
trying to figure it out, I
guess.

1417
01:06:28.881 --> 01:06:31.194
We're sitting at the
table, my brothers and I,

1418
01:06:31.228 --> 01:06:34.576
and I explained to 'em what I
saw

1419
01:06:34.611 --> 01:06:36.406
and my middle brother looks at
me

1420
01:06:36.440 --> 01:06:39.547
and goes, "Do you remember whatdad told us five years ago?

1421
01:06:39.581 --> 01:06:40.997
You know when he was going
through heart failure

1422
01:06:41.031 --> 01:06:41.859
the first time?"

1423
01:06:43.240 --> 01:06:45.484
[pencil scratching]

1424
01:06:45.518 --> 01:06:48.832
And it was a dark figure
stood in a corner.

1425
01:06:48.866 --> 01:06:52.732
[thunder rumbling]
[foreboding music]

1426
01:06:52.767 --> 01:06:55.459
- The Mothman and other
strange winged creatures

1427
01:06:55.494 --> 01:06:58.566
are still seen around Appalachiatoday.

1428
01:06:58.600 --> 01:07:01.189
Jeff Wamsley's Mothman Museum
continues

1429
01:07:01.224 --> 01:07:03.985
to document the original
rash of sightings,

1430
01:07:04.020 --> 01:07:06.953
as well as the more modern day
accounts.

1431
01:07:06.988 --> 01:07:09.853
John Keel passed away in 2009,

1432
01:07:09.887 --> 01:07:11.924
but not before he finally made areturn

1433
01:07:11.958 --> 01:07:13.615
to the town of Point Pleasant,

1434
01:07:13.650 --> 01:07:15.583
where he was able to see what
had become

1435
01:07:15.617 --> 01:07:18.517
of one of the more prominent
pieces of his legacy.

1436
01:07:18.551 --> 01:07:20.312
- I think John Keel was very
pleased

1437
01:07:20.346 --> 01:07:21.520
with what Jeff had done.

1438
01:07:21.554 --> 01:07:25.420
He had seen the original
incarnation of the museum.

1439
01:07:25.455 --> 01:07:28.251
It's there because of him,
because of his efforts.

1440
01:07:28.285 --> 01:07:31.944
Something he did years ago is
finally coming to fruition.

1441
01:07:31.978 --> 01:07:34.153
So I think that he was very
pleased.

1442
01:07:34.188 --> 01:07:36.880
He warned the people of
Point Pleasant early on

1443
01:07:36.914 --> 01:07:40.125
about this idea that this
is folklore in the making

1444
01:07:40.159 --> 01:07:42.920
and this little town may
not be prepared for it.

1445
01:07:42.955 --> 01:07:45.923
And he gave the warning
again when the film came out,

1446
01:07:45.958 --> 01:07:49.030
to just a small town of
just several thousand,

1447
01:07:49.065 --> 01:07:53.172
and the film may be bringing
a lot more people in droves

1448
01:07:53.207 --> 01:07:54.277
than they're used to.

1449
01:07:55.968 --> 01:07:56.796
[water rushing]

1450
01:07:56.831 --> 01:07:59.937
- It is a very personal movie tome,

1451
01:07:59.972 --> 01:08:01.215
but what's odd about it

1452
01:08:01.249 --> 01:08:05.736
is that I have never experiencedanything.

1453
01:08:05.771 --> 01:08:07.945
I've never seen a UFO,
I've never seen a ghost,

1454
01:08:07.980 --> 01:08:10.500
I've never had a weird phone
call, I mean, none of it.

1455
01:08:10.534 --> 01:08:12.191
When I talk about the
supernatural,

1456
01:08:12.226 --> 01:08:15.401
I say, "You've got the
Mozarts and the Salieris.

1457
01:08:15.436 --> 01:08:17.576
You know, the guys who
actually experience it

1458
01:08:17.610 --> 01:08:20.406
and the guys that wish
they could, but haven't

1459
01:08:20.441 --> 01:08:22.132
and can only stare at those

1460
01:08:22.167 --> 01:08:25.031
who have seen behind the veil ofreality

1461
01:08:25.066 --> 01:08:26.757
and look upon them with envy."

1462
01:08:26.792 --> 01:08:28.863
And I used to look upon them
with envy and I used to think,

1463
01:08:28.897 --> 01:08:31.486
"Wow, as soon as have a
few bucks in my pocket,

1464
01:08:31.521 --> 01:08:34.696
I'm gonna give it all,
you know, get out of LA,

1465
01:08:34.731 --> 01:08:37.906
go investigate the hauntedhouses and the haunted places,"

1466
01:08:37.941 --> 01:08:40.944
and now I don't feel
that way anymore at all.

1467
01:08:40.978 --> 01:08:44.913
I say, let the Mozart's
deal with their experiences,

1468
01:08:44.948 --> 01:08:47.157
I'm happy to be a Salieri.

1469
01:08:47.192 --> 01:08:50.056
- Like Keel, Jeff Wamsley's
research continues

1470
01:08:50.091 --> 01:08:53.059
to keep Point Pleasant on
the international stage.

1471
01:08:53.094 --> 01:08:56.132
Thousands attend the
Mothman Festival each year,

1472
01:08:56.166 --> 01:08:58.444
making it one of the
two best attended events

1473
01:08:58.479 --> 01:09:00.688
in the state of West Virginia.

1474
01:09:00.722 --> 01:09:02.276
The museum, meanwhile,

1475
01:09:02.310 --> 01:09:05.348
continues to grow,
attracting scores of people

1476
01:09:05.382 --> 01:09:08.213
to a town they might
never have even heard of

1477
01:09:08.247 --> 01:09:10.007
were it not for the Mothman.

1478
01:09:10.905 --> 01:09:13.597
The museum acts as a sort of
living story,

1479
01:09:13.632 --> 01:09:16.428
part of a tradition of
storytelling come to life

1480
01:09:16.462 --> 01:09:19.776
that is rooted in the cultural
heritage of the region.

1481
01:09:19.810 --> 01:09:23.228
A tradition that stretches
back far beyond North America

1482
01:09:23.262 --> 01:09:25.333
and helps to highlight today,

1483
01:09:25.368 --> 01:09:29.372
this lone page among the
centuries of Appalachian
history.

1484
01:09:29.406 --> 01:09:31.822
- What Jeff did was he went back

1485
01:09:31.857 --> 01:09:34.239
and he interviewed some
of the original witnesses.

1486
01:09:34.273 --> 01:09:36.793
And the thing is that it had
been, at that point in time,

1487
01:09:36.827 --> 01:09:39.968
it had been 35, 40 years after
the events

1488
01:09:40.003 --> 01:09:41.522
and he corrected some of the
things

1489
01:09:41.556 --> 01:09:44.939
that were not quite right
in "The Mothman Prophecies."

1490
01:09:44.973 --> 01:09:47.286
That was so, so valuable.

1491
01:09:47.321 --> 01:09:49.564
[bright hopeful music]

1492
01:09:49.599 --> 01:09:52.326
- Dad's legacy, [sighs]

1493
01:09:52.360 --> 01:09:55.743
I just, I would say it's gotta
be Mothman.

1494
01:09:55.777 --> 01:09:57.952
I mean, it is bigger than that
though.

1495
01:09:57.986 --> 01:10:00.610
Whether locals or whatever
want to admit it or not,

1496
01:10:00.644 --> 01:10:04.407
Mothman has really reversed
a lot of the negative stuff

1497
01:10:04.441 --> 01:10:05.339
of Point Pleasant.

1498
01:10:05.373 --> 01:10:07.617
What I mean is lack of business,

1499
01:10:07.651 --> 01:10:09.929
lack of interest, lack of
opportunity.

1500
01:10:11.276 --> 01:10:15.245
It's kind of just blossomed overtime.

1501
01:10:15.280 --> 01:10:17.143
That in itself is major.

1502
01:10:20.146 --> 01:10:24.220
- I'm a grandfather now,
so I think, you know,

1503
01:10:24.254 --> 01:10:26.705
if I left a legacy, it would be,

1504
01:10:26.739 --> 01:10:30.156
be motivated, go out
and chase your dreams.

1505
01:10:30.191 --> 01:10:32.124
I mean, you know, I've
done that all my life

1506
01:10:32.158 --> 01:10:34.920
and some have come true
and some you know have not.

1507
01:10:34.954 --> 01:10:37.992
But you know, be creative
and be nice to other people.

1508
01:10:38.026 --> 01:10:39.856
That's probably the
bottom line is, you know,

1509
01:10:39.890 --> 01:10:41.409
be nice to other people.

1510
01:10:41.444 --> 01:10:43.342
I learned that from my parents
though.

1511
01:10:44.999 --> 01:10:47.001
Well, my daughter, Ashley, you
know,

1512
01:10:47.035 --> 01:10:50.004
from a young age was brought
up a lot differently probably

1513
01:10:50.038 --> 01:10:51.177
than most kids.

1514
01:10:51.212 --> 01:10:52.455
I always tell her, I'll say, youknow,

1515
01:10:52.489 --> 01:10:55.527
"I'm retirin' here in a
year, you can have all this

1516
01:10:55.561 --> 01:10:57.598
and take care of all the museum

1517
01:10:57.632 --> 01:11:00.048
and the festival and all that,"you know.

1518
01:11:01.049 --> 01:11:04.329
[light uplifting music]

1519
01:11:06.434 --> 01:11:10.956
- It's very important to hold
onto these old tales, legends.

1520
01:11:10.990 --> 01:11:15.788
I think Mothman has kinda movedinto the area of folklore,

1521
01:11:15.823 --> 01:11:19.205
where people are continuing
to add to the story.

1522
01:11:19.240 --> 01:11:23.279
The folktales tell us who we
are.

1523
01:11:23.313 --> 01:11:26.074
It helps us remember who we are.

1524
01:11:26.109 --> 01:11:28.939
It helps us remember those
Celtic roots,

1525
01:11:28.974 --> 01:11:33.979
those Native American roots,
so we know who we are.

1526
01:11:34.013 --> 01:11:36.844
And really, that's an importantthing for every person

1527
01:11:36.878 --> 01:11:40.744
is to know who you are, to
know what your talents are.

1528
01:11:40.779 --> 01:11:41.987
That's very important

1529
01:11:42.021 --> 01:11:45.887
and I think it's a good reason
to remember these stories.

1530
01:11:45.922 --> 01:11:47.751
[crickets chirping]

1531
01:11:47.786 --> 01:11:52.756
[water splashes]
[dark foreboding music]

1532
01:11:54.517 --> 01:11:56.519
- Fear is a funny thing.

1533
01:11:56.553 --> 01:11:59.694
In the end, it's part of our
life.

1534
01:11:59.729 --> 01:12:02.697
You can't outrun it or hide fromit.

1535
01:12:02.732 --> 01:12:07.012
All we can do is name it,
embrace it and learn from it.

1536
01:12:08.185 --> 01:12:11.016
Maybe the true power of an
event isn't fully realized

1537
01:12:11.050 --> 01:12:12.845
until it's retold.

1538
01:12:12.880 --> 01:12:15.917
Until we can put into
words our own experiences

1539
01:12:15.952 --> 01:12:17.333
and share them with others.

1540
01:12:18.299 --> 01:12:22.579
What we share might be laughteror tears, joy or sorrow.

1541
01:12:23.615 --> 01:12:25.271
Occasionally though,

1542
01:12:25.306 --> 01:12:30.173
it's something more,
something primal and ageless.

1543
01:12:30.207 --> 01:12:33.625
[suspenseful music]

1544
01:12:33.659 --> 01:12:37.939
Sometimes what we share is
nothing more than our fear,

1545
01:12:39.009 --> 01:12:42.323
but at least for a moment, we
are together

1546
01:12:43.738 --> 01:12:45.084
in the dark.

1547
01:12:45.119 --> 01:12:47.777
[ominous music]

1548
01:12:50.366 --> 01:12:53.196
[thunder crashes]

1549
01:13:01.377 --> 01:13:04.518
[soft haunting music]

1550
01:13:52.911 --> 01:13:55.983
[gentle flute music]

1551
01:14:01.298 --> 01:14:04.440
[somber violin music]

1552
01:14:18.384 --> 01:14:21.491
[soft haunting music]

1553
01:14:35.091 --> 01:14:38.508
[light foreboding music]

1554
01:15:14.924 --> 01:15:18.203
[bright hopeful music]

1555
01:15:43.124 --> 01:15:45.713
[somber music]

1556
01:15:55.481 --> 01:15:58.864
[light foreboding music]