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.

I found this article from 2002 on the Pravda site. The image doesn’t have anything to do with Mothman, but it is from a Russian movie about what sounds like a Red Riding Hood kind of story. For some reason I got a bit of a mothy vibe.

If the above is true — that Mothman is global and not restricted to a specific region, like West Virginia — then the theory that Mothman is a government psy ops creation doesn’t hold up. It’s possible the government, in a dark rogue shadow mind control kind of way, has something to do with it; but responsible for Mothman? Probably not likely.

I came across this article on Pravda about Russian groups who study Mothman: Mothman phenomenon: I want to believe

Yes, it was on Pravda, so keep that in mind!

In John A. Keel’s Mothman Prophecies, he writes about a Russian encounter in 1908. (The year of the Tunguska event.) Writer V.K. Arsenyev found a man’s footprint while hiking. He had his dog, Alpha, with him, when he encountered an “unknown animal.”

I head the beating of wings. Something large and dark emerged from the fog and flew over the river. A moment later it disappeared into the dense mist. My dog, badly frightened, pressed itself to my feet.”

Arsenyev told his story to the people in the area, who:

“broke into a vividd story about a man who could fly in the air. Hunters often saw his tracks, tracks that appeared suddenly and vanished suddenly, in such a way that they could only be possible if the “man” alighted on the ground, then took off again into the air. (The Mothman Prophecies, John A. Keel, p28)

There are many more stories of winged human like beings from all over the world. Maybe it’s a mistake to think of Mothman as just a singular entity that is personnel to West Virginia.