Paranormal phenomena are so widespread, so diversified, and so sporadic
yet so persistent that separating and studying any single element is not
only a waste of time but also will automatically lead to the development
of belief. Once you have established a belief, the phenomenon adjusts
its manifestations to support that belief and thereby escalate it. If
you believe in the devil he will surely come striding down your road one
rainy night and ask to use your phone. If you believe that flying
saucers are astronauts from another planet they will begin landing and
collecting rocks from your garden.
John Keel, The Mothman Prophecies
On December 15, 1967, the Silver Bridge that spanned the Ohio River between
Gallipolis, Ohio and Point Pleasant, West Virgina collapsed in the middle of
rush hour. 46 people were crushed or drowned, including two who were never
found. As always happens with disasters, people were left seeking some sort of
explanation or meaning for the suffering. Local folklore had an answer: the
Mothman, a mysterious winged figure that supposedly had been haunting the
backroads and abandoned places of West Virginia for thirteen months before the
bridge collapse, and theorized by some to be a harbinger of disaster. In the
years since, the legend has only grown, aided greatly by John Keel's 1975 non-fiction
book
The Mothman Prophecies (a more grotesquely hilarious
collection of paranormal crankery you'd be hard-pressed to find) and later its
2002 film adaptation of the same name, starring none other than Richard Gere. The Mothman now exists somewhere between folk devil, monsterfucker bait, and a cuddly creature to be commodified and sold to the type of people who wear T-shirts of Pikachu wielding a lightsaber. How did we get here?
