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Fwd: Mothman Solved By: Mark Morgan on 1/31/2002; 1:43 PM X-Apparently-To: mark_morgan@yahoo.com via web13907.mail.yahoo.com; 31 Jan 2002 10:24:47 -0800 (PST) X-RocketRCL: 6439;1;976788317 Approved-By: SkeptInq@AOL.COM Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 11:39:16 EST Reply-To: CSICOP Announcement <CSICOP-ANNOUNCE@LISTSERV.AOL.COM> Sender: CSICOP Announcement <CSICOP-ANNOUNCE@LISTSERV.AOL.COM> From: Barry Karr <SkeptInq@aol.com> Subject: Mothman Solved To: CSICOP-ANNOUNCE@LISTSERV.AOL.COM The following column will appear in the March/April 2002 issue of the Skeptical Inquirer, now at the printer. We thought we'd send it out now, in advance of the issue, because based upon the general drubbing the movie has taken in the review columns, it likely won't be up at the theater when the issue comes out. Barry Karr Skeptical Inquirer 'Mothman' Solved! Joe Nickell Joe Nickell is CSICOP's Senior Research Fellow and author of numerous investigative books. A 2002 movie, The Mothman Prophecies, tells the story of a reporter (played by Richard Gere) who is drawn to a West Virginia town by eyewitness accounts of a flying monster. From November 1966 to November 1967, residents in the vicinity of Point Pleasant (near the Ohio State line) were frightened by "Mothman" (whose appellation was a reporter's takeoff on the then-current Batman TV series). The movie is based on a book of the same title by arch paranormal mystery monger John A. Keel (1975). Keel rounded up giant bird reports, both local and worldwide, and combined them with UFO sightings, visits by Men in Black, telephone predictions from alleged extraterrestrials and their "contactees" (precursors of the "abductees"), plus a tragic bridge collapse and sundry other elements. "Mothman" was encountered one night about seven miles from town when two couples drove through an abandoned complex popularly called the TNT area (after its World War II use for making munitions). About 11:30 p.m. they saw the glowing red eyes of a creature, "shaped like a man, but bigger," one witness would say. "And it had big wings folded against its back." It was further described as greyish and walking on sturdy legs with a shuffling gait. As it took flight and seemed to follow them, it "wasn't even flapping its wings" but "squeaked like a big mouse" (quoted in Keel 1975, 52-53). Soon others were seeing the winged enigma, including two Point Pleasant firemen who visited the TNT area just three nights after the couple's sighting. They too saw the red eyes and described the creature as "huge" but were emphatic: "It was definitely a bird" (Keel 1975, 56). Most reports described it as headless yet with large, shining red eyes set near the top of its body. Not all accounts agreed, however: One woman stated that what she saw "had a funny little face" although she "didn't see any beak," just those "big red poppy eyes." Keel also describes some "gigantic birds" about seventy miles to the north, in Ohio, that had a ten-foot wingspan and heads with "a reddish cast," yet lacking "the famous glowing red eyes" (Keel 1975, 60-61). Allowing for an exaggeration of size-perhaps caused by an overestimate of the intervening distance-the Ohio birds seem to fit the appearance of the common turkey vulture which can have a six-foot wingspan and an unfeathered red head (Audubon 1977). But what about the red-eyed "Mothman" sightings? The creature at the old munitions area "had two big eyes like automobile reflectors," and others echoed that description, including one man who, alerted by his dog in the direction of his hay barn, spotted it with a flashlight (Keel 1975, 49, 52). Revealingly, according to Frank B. Gill's Ornithology (1994), "At night some birds' eyes shine bright red in the beam of a flashlight or automobile headlights. This 'eyeshine' is not the iris color but that of the vascular membrane-the tapetum-showing through the translucent pigment layer on the surface of the retina." At this point it seems relevant to consider a real West Virginia winged creature-one that has "nocturnal habits" and "large, staring eyes" of the type that yield crimson eyeshine, plus "facial discs" that can make the eyes appear even larger. It has a large head and (unbirdlike) is "monkey-faced," but looks "quite neckless" (its very short neck sloping into its body so it could seem headless in silhouette). It has "oversized wings and long legs," the latter being "powerful" and (unlike the spindly legs of many birds) covered with feathers, making them look relatively thick. Its flight is "noiseless" and indeed "mothlike," although during flight it may vocalize a "loud, trailing 'khree-i.'" Its broad range includes West Virginia, and it is a "widespread nester in human habitations"; in fact it "hides in old buildings" (like those of the TNT complex), as well as barns, etc. Because it is active only at night, it is "seldom disturbed or even seen by humans," so when it is encountered it has an unfamiliar as well as "sinister appearance" (Bent 1961; Cerny 1975; Coe 1994; Peterson 1957, 1980; Steward 1977). Its name is Tyto alba, the common barn owl. While it is far from man-sized, due to its big wings (some forty-four inches) and long legs it nevertheless "appears deceptively large, especially in flight" ("barn" 2001; Coe 1994). Allowing for such deception-compounded by multiple unknowns (distance, true size, size of nearby objects for comparison), as well as darkness, surprise, fear, and other magnification factors-we have what I believe is the most likely candidate for "Mothman." (Of course, given the many reports, there is unlikely to be a single explanation for all, and hoaxes, hallucinations, other birds, etc., may have been involved in the contagion.) We are thus faced with a choice between a plausible, naturalistic explanation on the one hand, and a fanciful, incredible one on the other, the evidence for which is based solely on the most undependable evidence: reports by excited eyewitnesses. I think we must choose the former, while realizing that the latter will be preferred by Hollywood producers and others bent on selling a mystery. References "barn owl." 2001. At www.thebigzoo.com/ Animals/Barn_Owl.asp. Bent, Arthur Cleveland. 1938. Life Histories of North American Birds of Prey, part 2; reprinted New York: Dover, 1961, 140-153. Cerny, Walter. 1975. A Field Guide in Color to Birds. London: Cathray Books, 136-137. Coe, James. 1994. Eastern Birds: A Guide to Field Identification of North American Species. New York: Golden Press, 86-87. Gill, Frank B. 1994. Ornithology, 2nd ed. New York: W. H. Freeman and Co., 188. Keel, John A. 1975. The Mothman Prophecies. New York: Signet. Peterson, Roger Tory. 1957. How to Know the Birds. New York: Signet, 85, 100-101. ---. 1980. Eastern Birds. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 172-175. Steward, Laura, ed. 1977. The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Birds. London: Octopus Books, 208-209. _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
Re: Fwd: Mothman Solved By: Brian Carnell on 1/31/2002; 2:15 PM At 01:43 PM 1/31/2002 -0500, Mark Morgan wrote: >'Mothman' Solved! You know, I kept seeing the ads for this movie and couldn't figure out what the heck it was about, and then when USA Today had a feature on it I couldn't help but LOL. I can't believe someone gave the go-ahead for this film.
Re: Fwd: Mothman Solved By: Brian Carnell on 1/31/2002; 2:15 PM At 01:43 PM 1/31/2002 -0500, Mark Morgan wrote: >About 11:30 p.m. they saw >the glowing red eyes of a creature, "shaped like a man, but bigger," one >witness would say. "And it had big wings folded against its back." And then it said, "I'm Batman!"
RE: Fwd: Mothman Solved By: Mark Morgan on 2/1/2002; 12:23 PM I can't believe someone gave the go-ahead for this film. Sounds like a bad X-Files episode, doesn't it?
RE: Fwd: Mothman Solved By: Sean McMains on 2/1/2002; 4:16 PM It was actually a pretty decent film, especially if you have sympathy for Hamlet's view that "there are more things in heaven and on earth...than are dreamt of in your philosophy." Though, as one with rationalistic tendencies, I think I would have found it more satisfying if they had come to some conclusion about the mysterious events, rather than the "some things man was not meant to know" note that the film ends on. Pi handled that theme much more interestingly. An interesting thing about the "mothman" sightings I've read about is that according to various accounts, the sightings happen before some catastrophe, and then stop abruptly. Were all the barn owls perhaps killed in the bridge collapse in Pt. Pleasant? ;-) And, to keep the film mysteries coming, it appears that Signs, the next film by M. Night Shyamalan (rama lama ding dong), focuses largely on crop circles, at least to judge by the previews. Boy, am I stream-of-consciousness today. Too much good Mexican/Polynesian food at lunch, I think. Sean
Re: Fwd: Mothman Solved By: Matthew Patterson on 2/1/2002; 4:33 PM > Sounds like a bad X-Files episode, doesn't it? Actually, it sounds rather a lot like the first season episode "Jersey Devil." Similar premise, local monster and all.
RE: Fwd: Mothman Solved By: Brian Carnell on 2/1/2002; 8:32 PM At 04:32 PM 2/1/2002 -0500, Sean McMains: >An interesting thing about the "mothman" sightings I've read about is that >according to various accounts, the sightings happen before some >catastrophe, and then stop abruptly. Oddly enough, though, this is one of the areas that the film gets wrong. The sightings did continue after the brdige collapse. OTOH, btw, I'm not so sure which is more frustrating -- a movie that takes seriously some mass hysteria episode, or a movie about a genius mathematician that whitewashes anything it doesn't find appealing about its subject. It's sad when the most true-to-life film this year was apparently LOTR.
Re: Fwd: Mothman Solved By: Matthew Patterson on 2/2/2002; 1:40 AM > It's sad when the most true-to-life film this year was apparently LOTR. According to a teacher of mine who's a Tolkien scholar (having written several journal articles on various and sundry topics related to his books, and you just *think* I'm joking), Harry Potter was more accurate than Fellowship of the Ring. I really don't know - Fellowship the book bored me to death, so I never bothered with the movie.
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