The Mothman Sightings
Partially explainedSummary
In November 1966 two couples near Point Pleasant, West Virginia, reported a winged, man-sized figure with red eyes, and more sightings followed. The two birds proposed to explain it, a sandhill crane and an owl, each fits part of the description and not the rest.
Local news named the creature Mothman. Thirteen months after the first report, the Silver Bridge over the Ohio River at Point Pleasant collapsed and 46 people died. Federal investigators traced the collapse to a cracked eyebar. A 1975 book tied the bridge to the sightings, and most retellings now lead with that connection. The investigation gives it no support.
What is documented
The first report. On the night of 15 November 1966, Roger and Linda Scarberry and Steve and Mary Mallette were driving through the TNT area, the overgrown bunkers of a Second World War munitions plant north of Point Pleasant. They reported a man-shaped figure about six feet tall, with wings, whose red eyes shone in the car's headlights. They drove away and said it followed them on silent, unmoving wings.
The name and the flap. Local news coverage called the creature "the Mothman". Further sightings were reported through the following year.
The crane. In 1966 Robert L. Smith, a wildlife biologist at West Virginia University, suggested that the couples had seen a sandhill crane. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology gives the species a length of about 120 centimetres and a wingspan of about 200 centimetres, and adults have a bright red crown. In 2018 Audubon magazine objected that the species is not native to West Virginia.
The owl. In 2002 the investigator Joe Nickell proposed an owl, and identified it as a barn owl. In 2018 Asher Elbein reported in Audubon that Nickell had come to favour the barred owl: it is common in the region, flies silently, and has a strong red eyeshine from the blood vessels around the eye, while the barn owl's eyeshine is relatively weak. A barred owl is far smaller than the figure described: 43 to 50 centimetres long, with a wingspan of 99 to 110 centimetres.
The bridge. At about 5 p.m. on 15 December 1967 the Silver Bridge, which carried US Route 35 across the Ohio River from Point Pleasant, collapsed. Forty-six people died. The National Transportation Safety Board traced the failure to a fracture in eyebar 330 of the bridge's north suspension chain, where a small crack had grown through stress corrosion and corrosion fatigue.
The book. John Keel, who had investigated the reports in Point Pleasant, published The Mothman Prophecies in March 1975. It set the Mothman reports among sightings of lights and other claims, argued for a paranormal rather than an extraterrestrial origin, and connected the whole sequence to the bridge collapse. The Kirkus Reviews notice of the book observed that Keel never saw the creature himself. A film adaptation starring Richard Gere followed in 2002, and Point Pleasant now holds an annual Mothman Festival on the third weekend of September.
Leading explanations
Misidentified large birds (the leading hypothesis, not established). Two candidates have been published. Smith's sandhill crane comes closest to the reported size and has red on its head, but Audubon objected that it is not native to the state, although the species is on West Virginia's official state bird list. The owl, in Nickell's later barred-owl version, accounts for the red eyes in the headlights, the silent flight and a local population, but it is far smaller than the figure the couples described. Neither bird was ever tied to a specific report, and neither can be tested now.
A paranormal entity (untested). This is Keel's account, in which Mothman, the lights and the collapse belong to one sequence. It rests on reports he collected (he never saw the creature himself), and it makes no prediction that could be checked.
What the popular version gets wrong
"Mothman was a warning of the Silver Bridge collapse." The bridge fell because one eyebar in its north suspension chain fractured where a small crack had grown through stress corrosion and corrosion fatigue. The federal investigation found a metallurgical cause, and nothing in it touches the sightings. The connection was drawn afterwards, and its most influential form, Keel's book, appeared more than seven years after the collapse.
"No one could explain what the couples saw." A university wildlife biologist offered an explanation at the time, and a second followed in 2002. Neither is proven. The case has never lacked an ordinary candidate; it has lacked a way to test one.
"Its eyes glowed red." The witnesses saw the eyes when the car's headlights caught them. Audubon's 2018 analysis reads this as eyeshine: the eyes of many nocturnal animals reflect a light back at its source, and in the barred owl the reflection is strong and red.
Current status
Partially explained. The bridge collapse is fully explained, and it is unrelated. The sightings are not explained. Two ordinary birds have been proposed; each fits part of the first description and fails another, and no animal was ever connected to a particular report. The case rests on press coverage from 1966 and 1967 and on a book published in 1975. Only new contemporaneous records of individual reports are likely to move it.
Sources
- Elbein, A. (2018). "Is the Mothman of West Virginia an Owl?" Audubon, 26 October 2018.
- LeRose, C. (2001). "The Collapse of the Silver Bridge." West Virginia Historical Society Quarterly, vol. 15, no. 4, October 2001. West Virginia Division of Culture and History.
- National Transportation Safety Board. Highway Accident Report: Collapse of U.S. 35 Highway Bridge, Point Pleasant, West Virginia, December 15, 1967. Report HAR-71-01. Findings as summarised by LeRose (2001).
- Keel, J. A. (1975). The Mothman Prophecies. New York: Saturday Review Press/Dutton.
- Kirkus Reviews (1975). Review of John A. Keel, The Mothman Prophecies, 1 March 1975.
- Cornell Lab of Ornithology. All About Birds, identification pages for the sandhill crane and the barred owl (measurements).
- Carroll, R. T. "Mothman." The Skeptic's Dictionary (skepdic.com). Cites Nickell, J. (2002), "Mothman Solved!", for the barn owl identification.
Last reviewed: September 2026. Records are provisional. Where the evidence changes, the entry changes. Found an error? Tell us.