I'm not a big conspiracy nut and find it hard to believe UFOs would travel hundreds of millions of lightyears just to surface above redneck towns in the midwest for five minutes before dashing back to their home world. Don't these aliens have to pay for gas? Traveling hundreds of millions of lightyears has gotta be pretty expensive after a while. And why not visit somewhere with, well, you know...people who AREN'T going to try to shoot advanced alien space craft with shotguns that belonged to their granddaddys? Despite this the events in Point Pleasant, WV in 1966 and 1967 are hard to ignore. I may not believe that most of our UFO sightings are real but I do think there are some odd species of animals out there that are as of yet undiscovered. Famous cryptzoologist Bernard Huvelman once said he believed dinosaurs still existed in remote regions of the world and another scientist suggested based on this theory that pterodactyls could have become trapped in caves during the prehistoric age, re-surfacing in more recent years. (This would explain the "Thunderbird" sightings in the 1970s, one of which resulted in a small child being carried away hundreds of yards across a corn field. Numerous eye witnesses saw this event and it was reported in the papers - the child was traumatized and the family still stands by their claims. A bird watcher then caught footage of two of these alleged "Thunderbirds" taking flight from trees along a lake.) In this documentary Loren Coleman suggests the Thunderbirds are the same as the Mothman, Jersey Devil and other such mysterious beasts. Others such as John A. Keel (who wrote the book the film was based upon) believe the Mothman is a demonic being - perhaps even an angel.
It's hard to deny the existence of SOME type of weird creature after reading about the sightings and watching this documentary. It was made to coincide with the film's release and as such feels a bit like a cheap maketing plot, but it's also surprisingly effective in summarizing the key events in the Mothman saga. The people being interviewed are clearly not weirdos or crazy kooks - they're average, ordinary people and when they all give their stories on their Mothman encounters it's hard not to believe them. The fact that thousands of people reported sightings during that time - including police officers - also adds credence.
What I did NOT know that this documentary pointed out was that there were so many other occurrences around the era of the Mothman sightings. Men in black tried to grab one of the Mothman witnesses and drag her away into a government-licensed vehicle - she escaped and locked herself in her apartment. Her husband - now in his '70s - recalls how her dress was torn from the struggle. Then Keel explains how a secretary at the county newspapers had received threatening phone calls after having reported on the Mothman. Men in black had also been spotted in farmer's fields - and there were numerous reports filed by farmers that their livestock had been killed, their anuses torn out. Keel explains that radioactivity gets trapped inside anuses and this would most likely be why the strange men in black had killed the cattle and removed their body parts.
It was later revealed there was heavy pollution in the area due to the TNT mines not being properly shut down in the '30s (or around that time) and some believe the Mothman was a genetic mutation.
This documentary really does creep you out once it's over because it's hard to NOT let it convince you that something went on back in the '60s - Keel even closes the documentary by pointing out that Mothmen have been sighted before September 11th, Chernobel and other major disasters. Whether they are omens or figment of imagination, it's a good documentary to view in addition to the film because it really highlights the truths from the movie and what was just made up for entertainment value.
