From: UFO UpDates - Toronto <ufoupdates@virtuallystrange.net>
Date: Fri, 07 Dec 2001 11:09:04 -0500
Fwd Date: Fri, 07 Dec 2001 11:09:04 -0500
Subject: The Real Story Of 'The Mothman Prophecies'

http://filmforce.ign.com/articles/316677p1.html

The Real Story Of 'The Mothman Prophecies'

IGN FilmForce talks with cryptozoologist Loren Coleman about the
spooky true-life events that inspired the upcoming Richard Gere
film.

by Scott B.

2001-12-06

If you've been following news on films to be released in 2002,
you have probably heard about a movie called 'The Mothman
Prophecies' starring Richard Gere and Laura Linney, and directed
by Mark Pellington (Arlington Road). You might even have seen a
poster or a trailer for the film, due out January 25, 2002,
which comes with the ominous warning "Based on true events." But
what are those true events? And what the heck is a 'Mothman',
anyway? IGN FilmForce recently had the opportunity to talk with
Loren Coleman, famed 'cryptozoologist' (literally "the study of
unknown animals") and author of fifteen books, including the
upcoming Mothman and Other Curious Encounters, about the whole
Mothman story.

"On November 15, 1966, four individuals - two married couples -
were at what was essentially a lovers lane in Point Pleasant,
West Virginia," explains Coleman, who has been researching
so-called "Fortean Phenomena" (from Charles Fort) since 1960.
"These two couples saw two giant red eyes, and it very much
scared them...they didn't know what to make of it."

This, then, was the first reported sighting of the 'Mothman',
which Coleman goes on to say "was described as 6-to-7 feet tall
with red eyes and no head, as if the eyes were in the breast
area, and with huge wings." The creature "came toward them. They
took off and the creature followed them right up to the city
limits of Point Pleasant." The incident was reported to the
local sheriff, who went to the lovers lane and "searches around,
sees a puff of smoke in a nearby area from possibly this
creature taking off and landing again."

While Coleman reports that the account was "ridiculed in the
local press," something very strange began to happen: "More and
more people started seeing this creature. For the next thirteen
months, over 200 individuals had some interaction with some
strange phenomena - and about a hundred of those said they
actually saw Mothman."

And why that bizarre name - Mothman? Apparently, it was the work
of "some copyeditor at the local newspaper. At the time, the
Batman series was on TV, so they didn't want to call it
'Batman,' but it did have wings, so the copyeditor called it
'Mothman.' We have no other information than that - I've been
trying to track that copyeditor down for twenty years."

But the creepy events in Point Pleasant during 1966-67 weren't
limited to appearances of the Mothman. "There were [also]
mutilated dogs, UFO sightings, and other things going on," says
Coleman. And that's where John Keel, a longtime friend of
Coleman's and author of the book The Mothman Prophecies, came
in.

"About a month after [the initial sightings], John Keel got an
assignment to go there as a news reporter," explains Coleman.
"He sort of showed up, had a very low kind of profile; John was
on a contract to write a book about UFOs."

As Keel began to talk to people and gather information, the
journalist found himself getting more deeply involved in the
events, to the extent that "There were entities that
communicated with John by phone." Coleman explains that as Keel
analyzed the events, he found Point Pleasant to be "a vortex of
phenomena, and couldn't really tell one from the other. It was a
scary situation for John."

Whatever one thinks of the validity of Keel's claims, there's no
arguing the horror of what happened next. Keel had begun to be
given "prophecies" by the entities he was dealing with in Point
Pleasant, one in particular that said that "when President
Johnson turned on the Christmas lights at the White House, the
whole northeast was going to go into a blackout." However, by
that point, Coleman says that Keel had "started to get fooled by
the phenomena.

"On December 15, John Keel is in his apartment in Manhattan,"
Coleman continues. "[Waiting for the blackout] with his bottled
water and his batteries, and nothing happens. About six minutes
later, on the TV set across the bottom: 'Bridge collapses across
Ohio River.' And he just freaks out."

Keel "freaked out" because the bridge in question was the Silver
Bridge, which crossed the Ohio River between Gallipolis, Ohio,
and - you guessed it - Point Pleasant, West Virginia. "67 people
fell into the river. 46 died. They found 44 bodies," says
Coleman. "Several people who died were related to witnesses of
Mothman."

The collapse of the Silver Bridge has been seen as the climax of
Keel's Mothman experience, but Coleman is quick to say "I don't
think it stopped. What I think is that it has continued on but
people did not report it. It never got to the fever pitch of,
say, a Roswell."

John Keel published his account of these events in 1975 -
interestingly, until Coleman's upcoming book, "Keel's had been
the only book. There have been chapters and mentions, but
there's never been a movie or a documentary. Mothman is a case
that has almost been too scary for people to get close to. At
the time, everyone knew about Mothman but it was so bizarre no
one could characterize it."

And, apparently, neither does the upcoming film version, of
which Coleman has seen footage as well as consulting with the
director. "My understanding is that Mothman is described and
talked about but not seen in the movie," he says. "But I don't
know - it's 95% done and they could always change their mind."

As discussion turns to the movie, a natural question comes up:
Does this kind of exposure help or hurt the work done by
Coleman, who considers himself "an investigative reporter" who
"comes into these things very skeptically." After all, this
relatively obscure story is about to become very famous due to
the film. Does Coleman worry that the movie will encourage a
rash of "Mothman" sightings or hoaxes? "I'm a professor of
documentary film back in Portland, Maine, and a lot of my work
deals with Behavior Contagion and the media effect, so that's a
very interesting question to me," explains Coleman. "After Close
Encounters of the Third Kind came out, everybody was predicting
that we'd have this rush of fake UFO reports and all of that. It
doesn't happen. What happens is that people get more interested
in the subject, dig up old reports, or - if they have seen
things - they talk about it."

For those interested in 'Mothman' lore, the film's official
website is up and running, presenting a detailed chronology of
the events in Point Pleasant. Also, Coleman himself maintains
the website The Cryptozoologist, which has information on his
own research into the Mothman and other phenomena.

---

UFO UpDates thanks The Anomalist

http://www.anomalist.com/

for the lead.