The Case of the Mothman
The very first case I ever accepted for investigation after the formation of Sodalitas Quaerito involved a fortean creature known as the Mothman. ("Fortean" is a catchall phrase that refers to any paranormal or strange phenomena that defies natural explanation, so named after American journalist Charles Fort (1874-1932).) There are eyewitness reports relating to the Mothman dating back to approximately 1837. One example of the era involves the appearance of a humanoid on the streets of London who was seen to leap clear across roads, from sidewalk to sidewalk, in a single bound; for this, he was nicknamed "Springheel Jack." His appearance is described as such in the book Alternate Realities by Leonard George, Ph.D. (1995):
"The intruder was tall, thin, and powerful. He had a prominent nose, and bony fingers of immense power which resembled claws. He wore a long flowing cloak, of the sort affected by opera-goers, soldiers, and strolling actors. On his head was a tall metallic-seeming helmet. Beneath the cloak were close-fitting garments of some glittering material like oilskin or metal mesh. There was a lamp strapped to his chest. Oddest of all, the creature's ears were cropped or pointed like those of an animal."
When citizens made actual contact with Springheel Jack, the encounters were most bizarre - he would usually loom from the shadows, or ring someone's doorbell and wait for them to answer, where he would then try to scratch their face with his claws while the lamp on his chest flashed. At times, Jack would spray witnesses in the face with an anaesthetic gas. The police eventually took the reports seriously and attempted to apprehend the culprit, but no evidence beyond the various sightings ever turned up.
This creature made his presence known in England again in 1877, where he was seen flying overhead for the first time. In 1904, he was seen leaping from rooftop to rooftop in Liverpool. Jack made his only appearance in America in 1944, when he was seen peering into people's windows in the state of Illinois. The most recent documented sighting occurred back in London in 1975. Springheel Jack has never been captured.
The Mothman has only been seen in America; it is unclear whether he is a mutation of the Springheel Jack legend, or simply some sort of related phenomena. The two do seem to have a connection, judging from their similarities. Mothman was the subject of multiple sightings by over 100 eyewitnesses. These encounters took place in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, from 1966 to 1967. Witnesses described the Mothman as a six foot tall grey humanoid with a wingspan of ten feet; instead of a head, he had two glowing red eyes spaced between his shoulders. Most often seen in flight, the Mothman sometimes emerged from aerial lights. His most favored activity seemed to be chasing cars - he often flew alongside them and could not be escaped even at speeds exceeding 100 miles per hour. The Mothman also pursued people up to the front doors of their homes, knocking and peering in their windows when they would not come out.
An American journalist by the name of John Alva Keel (no relation) became personally involved in the case while investigating it. Someone claiming to be this Mothman began telephoning him to make predictions, prophecies, of future events, some of which came true. Thirteen months to the day of the first Mothman sighting, the creature predicted there would be a tremendous blackout affecting several states. Mr. Keel prepared for a blackout that never occurred; instead, the bridge connecting Point Pleasant with the state of Ohio (Silver Bridge) collapsed into the Ohio River. Many drowned as their vehicles plunged into the waters below. Some witnesses reported seeing strange lights above the bridge shortly before its collapse, which led many to wonder if either the Mothman had been involved in its destruction, or if he was merely attempting to warn the drivers of the tragedy to follow.
The journalist's research did not end there. Mr. Keel was so affected by his experiences with the Mothman that he wrote more than one book about the creature and his theories about its origin, including The Mothman Prophecies (1975).
I stepped into the Mothman mythos when I was called in by a policewoman in Mountaineer, Vermont, to consult on the strange occurrences happening there. Mountaineer is nested in the Cold Hollow Mountains, not that far from Lake Champlain, the home of the infamous lake monster, Champ. Officer Marie McCann filled me in when I arrived; the details of the reports, of which there were already twenty, were almost identical to what took place in Point Pleasant in the late 1960s. Mountaineer's residents were being terrorized by a man with wings who chased their vehicles in flight or frightened them by skulking around the outside of their homes. Officer McCann escorted me to each witness to conduct my own interviews; each story remained consistent with the reports that had been previously given to the police. The local news agreed to run a plea for anyone who had encountered the Mothman, but not yet reported it, to come forward. Numbers for Officer McCann and me were given out as points of contact.
It was after my cell phone number was posted that I began receiving the calls. Of course, some were prank calls, but several were sincere reports from people who were previously afraid to come forward for fear of ridicule. Their reports were the same, or similar to, ones that had already been given. One woman had been chased from her driveway to her front door. The creature squeaked loudly like a mouse. (Reports from Point Pleasant also included the creature's tendency to make high-pitched, animal-like noises.) I recorded all the calls to make the task of compiling reports easier. The strangest call I received came from a man who claimed to be the Mothman himself. What follows is a transcript of that first and only conversation.
ALVA KEEL: (Answering the phone) Alva Keel.
MOTHMAN: Hello.
(The voice sounded quite strange, almost inhuman. Although it had a decidedly male quality to it, a fluttering noise like insect wings was present as part of the man's voice. At the time I thought this had to be some sort of special effect due to a voice disguising mechanism. Curiously, my Caller ID could not identify who the call came from, but phone company records show that it was made from a pay phone in Mountaineer.)
AK: Hello. To whom am I speaking?
MM: I am your 'Mothman.'
AK: You have a sighting to report?
MM: Every time I look in the mirror. (His voice carried an amused tone to it while speaking this sentence.)
AK: You're saying that you really are the Mothman?
MM: Yes. The other man named Keel was skeptical too, at first.
AK: Well, it's not often that giant moths figure out how to use telephones, much less exist.
MM: (He snickered.) I know much more than that. I will prove it to you.
AK: Oh? Will you first explain to me why you are terrorizing the people of this town? What purpose does it serve?
MM: How would you explain your existence to a cockroach?
AK: You are a superior being to the rest of us?
MM: On this plane.
AK: Provide me with some of this superior knowledge.
MM: I will. I can see you right now. Receive your thoughts.
AK: Really? Where am I?
MM: In your hotel room. There are two full size beds. You are sitting on the one furthest from the door.
(This was true.)
AK: Lucky guess. What am I wearing?
MM: Black slacks, a green sweater with a white dress shirt underneath, black socks...
(Before he could mention the watch I was wearing, I took it off, placed it in one of my shoes, and pushed the shoe under the opposite bed. I intended this to be a test to see if this person had simply observed me on my travels through town and was now describing what he saw me wearing that day.)
MM: ...but no watch.
AK: I do own a watch.
MM: You are no longer wearing it. You just took it off.
AK: Where is it?
MM: In your shoe. Under the bed. 'To Mango, on his 18th birthday.'
(The Mothman had quoted what my mother had inscribed on the back of the watch, which she had given me for my eighteenth birthday.)
AK: How did you... (Astonished, I stood up and began searching the room for hidden cameras. At the time, I thought someone was playing a game with me.) Well, you do know things, don't you?
MM: Yes. You won't find any cameras in your hotel room.
AK: (I decided to test the caller to my satisfaction, so I reached into one of the drawers of the night table and grabbed an item without looking at it, and without opening the drawer enough for any possible cameras to peer inside. It would have been impossible for anyone without x-ray vision to see what I had in my hand.) What do I have in my hand?
MM: Chap-stick.
AK: What flavor?
MM: Cherry.
(At this time, I opened my hand. I indeed held a tube of Cherry Chap-stick.)
AK: Why did you call me?
MM: Once this is all done, you must look up hemography. 'God is Nowhere.' It will lead you to him.
AK: Who?
MM: Danielle will tell you his name.
AK: Danielle?
MM: It's a pity how it all ends up for her.
AK: I don't know what you mean.
MM: You will.
AK: Anything else?
MM: I have a message for Marie.
AK: Officer McCann?
MM: Oh, but you call her Marie, don't you? Tell her, "Look out, number 37."
AK: What does that mean?
MM: All will make sense in time. I will call again. (A simple click and the call ended.)
The next day, Officer McCann helped me to contact a sound expert from the closest TV station who could help me analyse the voice of the Mothman. Mr. Sancho Vasquez performed a full spectrum analysis on voice samples from the tape of the call and went on official record that, based on his seventeen years of professional experience, he was certain the voice could not have been produced by human vocal cords. Moreover, he identified part of the sound present in the voice as being the fluttering of insect wings, or at least something very close to it. Mr. Vasquez believed the voice had been artificially produced. I surmised that perhaps we were dealing with a crypto-zoological creature after all, one with clairvoyant abilities. Clairvoyance, the ability to see events not discernible through normal senses (a type of supranormal sight), would explain how he was able to "see" me in my hotel room the night of the phone call. The Mothman also had precognitive abilities in that he knew my reading up on hemography, and subsequently interviewing Danielle Franklin, would inevitably lead me to Paul Callan. Danielle Franklin was indeed the first person ever to tell me his name. The Mothman also knew she would come to a bad end years before she was murdered by Chad Goodwell.
The next communication I received from him came in the form of a voice mail left on my cell phone. This call also came from Mountaineer, but from a separate pay phone. The message was filled with feedback whine and the sound of insect wings fluttering. I took the message to Mr. Vasquez, who was kind enough to also analyze this new tape. Imbedded within the sounds, once they were slowed down, were voices and other messages. The voices included:
The Cold Hollow Lodge was a ski resort where the Mothman had been seen in twenty out of the twenty-six current sightings. I received this message on January 25th. Knowing what had happened in Point Pleasant, I took this warning in all seriousness. I tried speaking to the owners of the lodge about closing down on the 31st. They refused, scoffing that they would lose too much money. When I told them of the Mothman's prophecy, their reaction was just as negative. Officer McCann was the only person who took the warning as seriously as I did. She agreed to watch over things in Mountaineer while I went to visit John Keel. I thought he might be able to be of some help as he had dealt with the Mothman before.
Unfortunately, Mr. Keel had no special knowledge to offer besides his own theories. He did, however, offer an interesting reply to my question of why the Mothman operated in the cryptic manner in which he did - John Keel said, "How would you explain your existence to a cockroach?" The Mothman had spoken these words during our phone conversation. John Keel believes that this creature is some sort of superior being from another dimension with certain gifts of prophecy, and this was the way he had chosen to communicate those gifts to mankind. The fact that his methods do not work as well for us is just an unfortunate side effect.
I arrived back in Mountaineer on the 29th. Officer McCann and I decided the best thing to do would be to watch over events at the Cold Hollow Lodge on January 31st. This would be placing us in possible harm's way, but what else could someone do when they possessed advance knowledge of such a tragedy?
The avalanche began at 2:27 P.M. Two miles up the mountain from the lodge, a gigantic cliff of snow broke from its side and barrelled down the mountain toward the lodge. The noise caused by the avalanche alerted many of Cold Hollow's guests to the danger, so they were able to escape from the lodge; I was in the lobby at the time and assisted in the evacuation. Officer McCann was stationed in the lodge's cafe, where the sound of the approaching snow caused a panic. In the rush to get out, the crowd trampled Officer McCann as she attempted to keep the evacuation orderly. She suffered a dislocated shoulder, various cuts and bruises, and was knocked unconscious. Luckily, I rushed to the cafe portion of the lodge to check if it had been evacuated successfully and found her injured on the floor. I carried her to safety scant minutes before the avalanche engulfed the lodge in a crushing blanket of snow.
Everyone on the mountain that day owes their life to the Brushing Gondola Company, for their quick thinking and cool heads got most of the guests out of the path of the avalanche. Gondolas that normally took people up the mountain for skiing and sightseeing were used to take the survivors above the course of the snow; we watched the lodge be buried from hundreds of feet above. It was one of the most amazing and terrifying things I have ever witnessed.
In the aftermath, we eventually learned the tragic results of the Mothman's accurate prophecy: 36 dead. Officer McCann recovered, but many others were not so lucky. Several skiers were buried by the avalanche, as were some of the lodge guests on upper floors who had not heeded or heard the call to evacuate. The death toll was especially significant to Officer McCann because of the message given to her by the Mothman - "Look out, number 37." If she had not been rescued from the cafe, she would have been the 37th victim claimed by the avalanche. Indeed, it was the Mothman's warning that had sent me rushing to the cafe to check on her evacuation efforts in the first place.
The only thing I can say with any certainty about the Mothman is that he acts as some sort of cryptic voice of prophecy. Anything further would require extensive study of this creature, but I doubt he will ever submit himself to questioning.
After the avalanche that destroyed the Cold Hollow Lodge, the Mothman was never seen in Mountaineer again.
This case remains open.
See also: G., Chad ; Callan, Paul.
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