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.

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.

Mothman wasn’t on my mind, just UFOs, but I had the following dream last night:

I’m on my way to Point Pleasant — road trip! A Mothman road trip. A couple of friends are with me. I have an idea to film all this, do a documentary, even though I don’t want to. I keep saying that there are so many documentaries on Mothman what could I possibly contribute, or uncover, that would be new for anyone? Same old same old. There is also the fact I don’t know a thing about making movies or documentaries. (And yet later, when it comes to editing, a tedious process I do not want to do, I can’t trust anyone else, even with years of editing experience, to touch the film. What if they miss something, lose something, or misnterpret my discovery? I’ll do it myself, even though it’s going to be a huge pain.)

We start off in the west; vast, beautiful landscape. Violets and blues and pinks and huge canyons and deserts, just absolutely amazing. Uninhabited by humans. A bit scary too; and suddenly, to my surprise, I realize Mothman is here as well. He, it, has been here. A giangantic shadow appears overhead, gliding silently across the sky. It’s the shadow of a Mothman/Thunderbird, but not the thing itself. I’m surprised we’d find Mothman out here right away, so far from Point Pleasant.

We keep going. Find petroglyphs in the Southwest that are definitely Mothman. Many Naitves are upset with me, accusing me of being a “twinkie” and appropriating and exploiting culture, others don’t and are helpful. We move on.

Make it to Point Pleasant. Turns out it’s the day after the Mothman Festival. Streets are littered with confetti, flyers, etc. I’m a little shocked, and disturbed, at the poverty of the place. A veneer has been set in place but it’ s flimsy; you can see right through things. There is sadness, confusion, loss, and a sense of being lost . . . I really want to leave.

We find a family who own an “antique” shop, more of a vintage, sort of, catch all thrift store. They remember Mothman well and to my surprise, are willing to talk to me. I would have thought everyone in the town would be talked out but they want people to understand, to know, and so they don’t mind me being there. And yet there is such an overall sense of desperation. Not from Mothman, but because of Mothman: because of how the world has responded to them, their town, their story.

I was a little surprised the host, Ian Punnett, didn’t mention Mothman, nor did the caller, but Punnett did reference Thunderbirds.

It was a good story; person walking alone, at night, in a lonely part of Blueberry Lake, and hearing the dsitinct sounds of someone following him, or tracking him, from within the brambly blueberry bushes lining the lake. The caller described the sounds as bare feet slapping down on the pavement. When he ran, the unseen creature ran, when he slowed down, so did the creature. When he got away from the bushes and closer to home, he heard a tremendous whoosing sound of wings above his head.

Witness had the feeling the entity was watching him and was “there” for him only. No other vehicles/persons present during sighting. Immediately after turning his head back to the road, he looked in rearview mirror, entity no longer visible. Did not see entity depart or disappear. Witness became extremely upset and scared. Felt that he paled, and his eyes began to water uncontrollably. First thought was to turn around and go home, calling off of work. He tried to call his wife at home, but cell phone would not work, either from the programmed address book, or manual input calling. Kept getting “call failed”, which has never happened before.

For rest of this very interesting story visit the Phantoms and Monsters blog!

“When I was at the garbage dump disposing garbage I saw it when I lift my head. It just stood there and it emitted multiple sounds but I can’t understand what it was trying to say, just like many sounds pile up in a stack. ”

Turns out the whole thing was part of an ad campaign:

DiGi Telecommunications has revealed itself as the advertiser responsible for the “Mysterious figure seen in KL” advertorial teaser campaign which caused a stir in the market earlier in the week. Today, the company launched its new “DG Family Plan” which among other things included an advertisement on page 3 of the New Straits Times clearly showing the identity of the mysterious figure as a DiGi customer supporting his entire family on his shoulders.

This video shows a white orb like UFO near a nuclear power in West Virginia. Hoax or the real thing, an unknown. I will say that the white sphere looks like ones I’ve seen here in Oregon, though not near any nuclear plant.

And a bit of synchronicity for myself; if you read the comments left at his blog, you’ll where he mentions listening to the interiview with Tim Binnall and the “Paranormal Pastor,” who warns against getting too obsessed about the darker side of esoterica. I was just again thinking about that today; I’ve had an idea for some months now about a project — maybe a blog, site, or a book, not sure where I wanted to go — about the “dark side” of one aspect of Forteana. Then thought better of it. I have enough going on and there’s enough dark side stuff on its own to occupy any student of high strangeness.