By Jeremy D. Wells
Carter County Times
The year 2017 marked the 50th anniversary of the Silver Bridge collapse in Point Pleasant, West Virginia – an event that is largely seen as the culmination of a year of strange events centering around sightings of UFOs, poltergeist type activity, and something that locals called “the bird,” but that media would dub the Mothman.
It was also the year Small Town Monsters released their documentary film The Mothman of Point Pleasant, and the year that a new batch of sightings described as Mothman-like began coming in from the Chicago area.
It was an amazing coincidence, one that led some in the fields of UFOlogy, Cryptozoology, and Forteana to wonder if the Chicago sightings weren’t a bit of guerilla marketing undertaken by producer Seth Breedlove and the Small Town Monster’s crew. It was a charge that Breedlove denied, and the community soon dismissed.
But the sightings continued, coming in not just from Chicago, but the surrounding suburbs and across the region, leading to a new moniker. This wasn’t just the Chicago Mothman anymore. This was the Lake Michigan Mothman, the name that graces one of STM’s latest releases in their On the Trail of series, On the Trail of The Lake Michigan Mothman.
First things first, ignore the negative review on Amazon and other streaming services. These appear to be from folks who aren’t familiar with the On the Trail of format – or that this film was originally part of a stretch goal for Kickstarter backers. They also ignore the fact that this documentary isn’t about an event that’s already cemented in folklore, the way most of the other STM offerings have been. Rather, this is a film about the developing folklore of an ongoing phenomenon. As such, it approaches it from a different angle. Breedlove and crew do interview witnesses to the phenomenon, despite the erroneous claims of some reviewers. But this film is as much about the differences of a paranormal investigation in the internet age, spread over a large area, versus an investigation in a specific and more insular locale where locals were more familiar with – and trusting of – one another.
If there is more anonymity in the reports of the Lake Michigan Mothman than there was in the Point Pleasant sightings, that says as much about the state of internet culture as it does about the validity of the reports.
But Breedlove and crew don’t ignore the elephant in the room that is the anonymous report. They tackle that issue head on, acknowledging both the desire for and the problems with anonymity while also finding witnesses who are willing to go on camera to share their stories.
While these accounts are far from conclusive evidence, the willingness of at least some witnesses to attach their names and images to their stories does lend some weight to their claims.
But the earnestness of the witnesses raises another interesting question; if these witnesses truly believe they saw something, what did they see?
The easy answer, like with the original sighting, is a bird of some sort. Both Point Pleasant and the Lake Michigan area are home to abundant waterfrontage and wetlands. This led some folks to initially identify the original sighting as a misidentified sandhill crane. The crane raises its head again in explanations for the Lake Michigan sighting, as do great blue herons and other large waterfowl. The fact that West Virginia locals originally referred to the creature as “the bird” leads some credence to this supposition.
But unlike the original sightings which became conflated with the Silver Bridge tragedy – catapulting the Mothman into the role of omen as it was reported in other locales around the globe – there has been no grand tragedy in the Lake Michigan area to wrap up these sightings.
Maybe that’s because the bridge collapse, while an integral part of the high strangeness experienced by researcher, and author of The Mothman Prophecies, John Keel wasn’t really the end of Mothman sightings in the area. Rather, as locals note, it was a somber and tragic event that refocused the priorities of journalists and community members alike. It wasn’t that “the bird” necessarily went away, it was that the public lost their appetite for such fare in the wake of the bridge collapse.
Taken in this light, folklorist Eleanor Hasken-Wagner explains in the film, it not only makes sense that Mothman sightings have continued within, and spread outside of, the Chicago area without that big omen context, it makes sense.
First Mothman stories migrated to other areas of tragedy, then they just migrated as people – seeing something they couldn’t explain – sought a framework to fit it into and seized upon the image of the Mothman.
It also explains how the Chicago sightings, while lacking in the same kind of high strangeness reported in the 1967 sightings, can still carry personal significance for witnesses like John, who shared his random roadside encounter with other motorists who pulled over to take in the sight. Motorist whom, he hints, may have saved his life with their kind words and a shared experience.
Maybe most of the Lake Michigan sightings, and maybe even some of the Point Pleasant sightings, were instances of mistaken identification of known animals. Breedlove’s own response to capturing a large bird while shooting b-roll footage stands as testament to how easy that can be. But that doesn’t mean they don’t carry personal significance for the witness.
And, ultimately, that is what folklore is about – allowing an individual to take a familiar story frame and share their own and others’ experiences through that lens.
While the focus might not be what those looking for a spooky story are seeking, as a snapshot of developing folklore, Breedlove and crew have delivered spectacularly.
On the Trail of the Lake Michigan Mothman is available for purchase or rent on your favorite streaming platforms now.
Contact the writer at editor@cartercountytimes.com
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