From Jon Downes across the pond, on Still on the Track, a report of a Mothman/Owlman sighting in Seaham, on England’s northeast coast from Davey Curtis. A couple were walking home from a pub around 10:00 pm. On that walk, they encountered something very unusual:
As they got to the end of the lane something caught their eye in the field next to the fence. At first they thought it was a Shire horse because of its size but it was definitely not a Shire horse. Phil and Kate both told me that it was man-shaped, at least 7 feet tall, jet black with piercing red eyes, and it just stood there, motionless.
Phil and Kate looked at it in disbelief for about 15 seconds, then it let out a scream like a fox before “disappearing straight down like it had fell down a well or trap door!”
That did it! Phil and Kate then ran like Hell onto the main road until they stopped near the recently built water treatment plant, exhausted and out of breath. Phil tried to phone a taxi but found his mobile phone was dead, although it was working fine back at the pub. So half running, half walking, constantly looking about them, they got back home, terrified out of their wits, unable to understand what they had just witnessed.
Curtis has known the couple for twenty years and believes their story. There’s more to the story; read the entire account here.
I’ve been feeling the urge to paint Mothman images — do a whole series of small paintings with UFOs and entities as the theme — and this is my first Mothman attempt. Just scribbling, really. This is a pen and pencil sketch I did, then manipulated it with the Photobooth tools. The original drawing has more color (didn’t have the tools I wanted, and too lazy to walk out to the studio in the back to get them) and I’ve cropped the image a bit.
The story of the Mothman is very widely known, if you’re into that sort of thing. When asked if they have heard of the Mothman, many people in Frostburg, Maryland, replied, “What in the hell is a Mothman?” Brett Showalter is among a handful of FSU students that have seen the movie, know the story, and quite frankly are very spooked by it. “There aren’t a lot of ghost stories that really get to me, to be honest,” claimed Showalter as he ran his slender fingers through his dark gel-tipped hairdo. “Honestly, if a dozen people around here started saying they saw giant green bunnies, I might say I saw one too just to be part of the hype. But the movie inspired me to do research, and after just a few days of looking around, I can tell you that Point Pleasant is NOT somewhere I would visit anytime soon.”
Posted in Andrew Colvin by Regan Lee on the December 15th, 2009
Mothman’s Photographer Andrew Colvin has an interesting mothy post on his blog at L.O.W.F.I. 1111 vs. 111L.
As you may recall, the 11:11 phenomenon visibly introduced itself into the Mothman scene in late 2006, when the sighting of a government van with the license 11-1L seemingly portended two tragic deaths and led local investigators to ponder certain questions: Who were the men in black in the van seen near Akron? Were they associated with the 1111 Independence Ave. address in the Chapel Hill Mall area of Akron, once an Indian sacred area? To get more answers, I recently made a second trip to Ohio to check out this Akron site, as well as the Mason, OH area, where I felt the famous Jesuit scrolls – regarding Egyptian tribes in Ohio – may have been hidden. The scrolls are said to have been the creative impetus for infamous Mason (and probable Moor) Joseph Smith to start the Mormon religion.
From the blog Strange Planet, a fascinating post about the author’s experiences involving mechanical voices, where he describes hearing at 3:00 a.m. (a time noted for being a kind of UFO/paranormal, magical time, as he notes) a very strange sound
Approximately two months ago, I awoke in the middle of the night, roughly within the magical 3am hour (That in itself is worthy of more study, as it always seems to be at that particular hour. But I won’t veer off course here). What I began to hear, was in fact, as best I can describe, the sound of a LARGE ‘mechanical and metallic’ bird(?) outside of my window. I was stunned by this sound, but not afraid. I didn’t even feel the urge to look, to be honest. I just paid attention to the sound itself. It was fascinating. For the better part of ten minutes, it would ’squawk’ several times, take a break for about 30 seconds, then resume the vocalization. I heard it that one night, and never again. If I were to match the scope and size of this ‘bird’ with the size of the sound, this thing would’ve been 8ft. tall. Better I not look after all.
He goes on to write about synchronicity; contacts with others experiencing similar things, and some of what he’s discovered via research, past experiences, and the movie The Fourth Kind.
What struck me as interesting was the immediate “mothy” vibe I got from reading this account. Even though there is no mention of Mothman or indication of any Mothman phenomena, I couldn’t help but be reminded of Mothman. There is the bird like imagery of this encounter of course, but I thought of the electronic voices Keel described in The Mothman Prophecies.
Ed Walters, author of The Gulf Breeze Sightings, described hearing weird electronic or metallic voices outside his bedroom windows at night in connection with his UFO experiences.
I was also reminded of Greg Taylor’s article Her Sweet Murmur, in DarkLore volume 1, which explores the rushing, roaring, bell clanging/chiming sounds many (including myself) experience during esoteric events. These episodes appear diverse and often unconnected from each other; UFOs, BVM (Blessed Virgin Mary) appearances, Mothman, Bigfoot or other crypto sightings, aliens, OOBEs, etc. but, Taylor asks, is there a common source from where these entities emerge? These strange sounds of clicking, clacking, singing, bells and the like are shared by fringe phenomena; possibly pointing to the idea they are related. UFOs, aliens, abductions, contactees, Bigfoot weirdness, BVM sightings, MIBS, fairies, maybe they are kaleidoscopic manifestations of the same thing.
As far as Mothman goes, Mothman wasn’t, or isn’t, an isolated and specific event. There’s a whole high strangeness context enveloping Mothman: UFOs, MIBS, telepathic messages, OOBEs, electronic voices, premonitions, heavy dreams laden with messages and communications, curses and legends, synchronicities and a thread of violence that trails Mothman. This is not to say Mothman itself is violent, or responsible for the aura of violence connected with the phenomena, but a response to it.
From 2002’s The Mothman Prophecies with Richard Gere, some of my favorite quotes:
“The nocturnal butterfly. In ancient cultures, the moth represents a form of the psyche, or the soul immortally trapped in the hellish death realms. Mothman. Well, that’s what the Ukrainian’s called him. Rough translation of course. There were a hundred sightings in Chernobyl when the nuclear pump went down. Galveston, nineteen sixty nine, just before the hurricane. They saw it. But seeing isn’t always believing.” ~ character of Alexander Leek, played by Alan Bates.
John Klein: I think we can assume that these entities are more advanced than us. Why don’t they just come right out and tell us what’s on their minds?
Alexander Leek: You’re more advanced than a cockroach, have you ever tried explaining yourself to one of them?
Alexander Leek: If there was a car crash ten blocks away, that window washer up there could probably see it. Now, that doesn’t mean he’s God, or even smarter than we are. But from where he’s sitting, he can see a little further down the road.
