Yea, it's no Bambi. But, eh nice to know where the legend might have start from.
News on the Mothman:
Mothman sightings in London
Posted on Friday, March 25 @ 19:00:00 GMT by Isis
MothmanRead about two extraordinary cases and decide for yourselves.
One of the most well known cases of a supernatural creature is that of the Mothman. In the small town of Point Pleasant, West Virginia, there were over a hundred sightings of this creature in a little over a year, yet it had seemingly never been heard of before or since.
New research has revealed that there is a strong possibility that this assumption was incorrect and that the Mothman did not simply disappear. There is evidence that the Mothman case bears striking similarities to a lengthy investigation carried out in London which dealt with a supernatural phenomena dubbed by the British media ‘The Highgate Vampire’.
Point Pleasant, West Virginia
For a 14 month period, between November 1966 and December 1967, the town of Point Pleasant in West Virginia was besieged of reports of what was and still is considered to be a supernatural being. Such was the scale and frequency of these sightings that they have become one of the best known paranormal mysteries of all time. Description of the creature as a powerful winged humanoid led to the press naming the creature ‘Mothman’ after the popular TV series ‘Batman’
The creature apparently set up its home in an abandoned TNT plant containing a labyrinth of manmade tunnelsacid bath point pleasant TNT works and concrete structures used for storing explosives during the war. Remote and derelict, the area was surrounded by woodland, making the area a very isolated location; a perfect lair where few would be willing to venture and those that did would have little chance of finding anything. ‘Red lights’ could often be seen flying over the TNT works on a night making it obvious that the creature had made the works its home. (Right, one of the many structures found within the TNT plant.)
Ordinary people - extraordinary events.
In all, over a hundred people witnessed the Mothman sightings, providing a wealth of testimony as to its appearance and behaviour. What follows is the most common description of the creature and an artists impression of what the creature may have looked like:
mothmanLike all eyewitness statements there are a wide variety of accounts and descriptions of the Mothman. Despite this, a very clear and consistent picture has emerged of a dark coloured creature, a mixture of grey, olive green and brown, standing around seven feet tall and having the torso of a muscular human. Witnesses suggest that it had no discernable facial features except for its piercing red eyes which were said to have an almost hypnotic effect on those who witnessed it. The eyes in 99% of the sightings are described as being bright-red and hypnotizing. The eyes are also described as being reflective of light, but glowing and “much” more intensive than a normal animal. When in the presence of the creature, eyewitness describe a “helpless” or “hypnotizing” feeling, such as not being able to run, walk, or in some cases even move. The gaze of the eyes is also described to be the deciding factor of not being able to describe the facial features. When eyewitnesses describe the hypnotization, they describe it as being drawn in by the eyes, and everything else becoming a blur of vision. The creature is generally described as having leathery wings like that of a bat, with a wingspan of around 10-12 feet (3.04-3.66 metres). Witnesses who encountered it reported being quite terrified by its presence. Seemingly, it was able to appear as if from nowhere and take flight with equal ease.
Marcella Bennett, one of the many witnesses who encountered the creature described it thus “It rose up slowly from the ground; a big grey thing. Bigger than a man, with terrible glowing eyes”. She also noted that the creature made a screeching sound like a ‘woman screaming’ as it flew off.
It is well documented that the sightings of the Mothman dramatically and tragically concluded in December 1968 when the Silver Bridge collapsed into the Ohio River below, during rush hour, killing 46 people.
To my knowledge, no direct evidence has ever been produced that would suggest that the Mothman either prophesised this event or directly caused it but the general impression of evil that witnesses had all experienced when they encountered this creature left them in no doubt as to a connection.
Return of the Vampire.
Less than two years after the last Mothman sighting in America, a disturbing phenomenon began to be reported in the Highgate area of North London. Ordinary people suddenly began to report strange and frightening encounters with a tall dark ‘vampire like’ creature. The activity centred on Highgate cemetery (Right), a rambling Victorian cemetery that sits atop Highgate Hill. The British media immediately seized on the vampire idea in the same way as their American counterparts had seized on the ‘Batman’ idea; and the Highgate Vampire was so named.
Like the Mothman sightings, there was no documented history of any such supernatural creature fitting its description being directly associated with the cemetery. What is interesting to note is that nearly 50 years earlier in London, in the spring of 1922, an enormous black bat-like creature with a wingspan of six feet (1.8 metres) was reported flying around a West Drayton Church during the night of a full moon. Several terrified witnesses watched the creature dive into the churchyard, where it roamed the tombs. When two policemen gave chase through the church cemetery, the creature let out a loud blood-curdling screech, and flew into the air to evade them. It’s interesting to ponder if there is a connection between this little known report and either the Mothman or the Highgate Vampire, which we will look at in more detail now.
In 1969, sightings of the so-called Highgate Vampire began without any warning of unusual paranormal activity and were witnessed by some very ordinary and very credible members of the public. So prolific were the sightings, that paranormal investigator David Farrant, of the British Psychic and Occult Society, was called in to investigate the case.
Thirty years later, David Farrant is still the leading expert on the Highgate Vampire, and tends to discount the ‘Vampire’ label as an unfortunate consequence of the popularity of ‘the Hammer House of Horror’ amongst the public at that time. He maintains with absolute certainty that the Highgate Vampire was neither a hoax nor a vampire, but nevertheless it was something very real.
During the course of his investigations, which took place over several years, David interviewed and collected statements from a great many eyewitnesses. Incredibly, during the course of his research, David actually encountered the creature himself. In his own words David describes his encounter with the creature in the cemetery:
“The figure at first, really looked ’real’ at the onset, I put this down to maybe one or two local people having heard stories about ’vampires’, and somebody getting dressed up as one and maybe trying to frighten passers by at they went past the top gate.
But this was definitely not the case. To start with, it was a bitterly cold night, but the immediate area had gone even colder, the figure (or whatever it was) was over 7ft tall - although it was hard to tell as you could not really see the bottom of it and it could have been floating above the ground. But what really convinced me was the fact that it seemed to have red eyes that were positioned in a vague ’black shape’ that I took to be its head.
It is difficult to describe, except that it seemed to be trying to drain me of energy, and I felt almost as if I was being ’hypnotised’. It is for this reason that I mentally repeated a kabbalistic incantation, which I had been taught earlier when I first became involved in these matters.
As a psychic investigator, I have witnessed many strange things over the years (changes in temperature, objects moving, fleeting figures and the like), but that is the first time I have ever seen anything like that!”
In addition to his own personal experience, David has a wealth of independent witness testimony that all point to the same thing; An elusive creature about seven feet tall with glowing red eyes that seemed to exert a psychic influence over those it encounters and which had a menacing aura that left its witnesses very frightened.
Coincidence or Connection?
Eyewitness testimony from both sides of the Atlantic is surprisingly consistent, which is why there is a distinct possibility that these two cases could be linked. Almost all the witnesses reported the creature as being a similar height, dark and menacing to the point of causing terror in its victims. They all reported that the creature had piercing red eyes that seemed to exert a psychic influence on those who encountered it.
Neither location had a history of paranormal activity of that nature but once it started it was on an unprecedented scale. The sightings at both locations seemed to start for no reason and stopped just as suddenly. The proximity of the time frame between the two events is also interesting to consider, as there was less than two years between the two. Did the Mothman mysteriously disappear only to return to our world as the creature known as the Highgate Vampire? In many respects we have raised more questions than we have so far answered, but the art of paranormal investigations entails asking such questions, conducting the research and keeping an open mind; only then can we hope to find the answers.
The Book of Thoth is currently undertaking a research project to amass as much research material and witness testimony as possible regarding the two cases. If you have information you would like to contribute or would like to get involved in the investigation then please email mothman@the-book-of-thoth.com. Alernatively click here to discuss in The Book of Thoths forums.
Acknowledgments
David Farrant is quoted here with his full permission. My sincere thanks to him for his openness and complete willingness to share his research and knowledge on the Highgate Vampire phenomena with us.
This article may be reproduced and distributed freely, provided www.the-book-of-thoth.com is credited as the source.
For more background on David Farrant’s investigation into this phenomena read his article The Highgate Vampire which is in our content section
There is also an interesting article on David himself there entitled The Vampire Hunter Bites Back
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