POINT PLEASANT, W.Va. — Sixty years after two young couples reported encountering a mysterious winged creature near Point Pleasant, West Virginia, Ohio State University is commemorating the sightings that gave rise to the Mothman legend.
The university’s Center for Folklore Studies has organized three November events examining the creature and its place in American folklore. The observance, called “Moth-Vember,” includes a film screening, a lecture by a prominent folklorist, and an art event devoted to legendary creatures.
The university is in Columbus, Ohio, about 110 miles from Point Pleasant, where original reports in November 1966 drew national attention and eventually inspired books, a Hollywood film, and an annual festival.
The encounter that started the legend
On the night of November 15, 1966, Roger and Linda Scarberry and Steve and Mary Mallette were driving near an abandoned power plant in a former World War II munitions complex north of Point Pleasant.
They later told police they had encountered a large, humanlike figure with wings and prominent red eyes. Frightened, they fled toward Point Pleasant and reported that the creature followed their automobile.
The next day’s Point Pleasant Register carried the headline “Couples See Man-Sized Bird…Creature…Something.”
According to the newspaper, the two men described the figure as standing six or seven feet tall, with a wingspan of about 10 feet. Steve Mallette compared its appearance to a winged man.
Police searched the area but found nothing to establish what the couple had encountered. Other residents subsequently reported sightings, and curiosity drew motorists to the abandoned munitions grounds, commonly called the TNT area.
Mary Hyre, the Point Pleasant correspondent for Ohio’s Athens Messenger, became one of the principal journalists covering the reports.
In an examination of Hyre’s reporting published in 2025, West Virginia Public Broadcasting found that she wrote 10 columns mentioning the mystery between the initial reports and the end of 1966.
Her coverage documented the public’s fascination and competing explanations. One headline asked whether the mysterious creature might have been a balloon or a crane.
The Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage has also examined the original accounts and their subsequent influence on Point Pleasant.
The Silver Bridge disaster
On December 15, 1967, the Silver Bridge connecting Point Pleasant and Gallipolis, Ohio, collapsed into the Ohio River during afternoon traffic, killing 46 people.
The disaster occurred 13 months after the first widely publicized Mothman sightings. In later retellings, the creature became associated with the collapse, sometimes portrayed as a warning of the approaching tragedy.
Federal investigators attributed the bridge failure to a structural defect involving an eyebar in the suspension system. No evidence has established a connection between the disaster and the reported sightings.
Journalist and paranormal investigator John Keel, who had traveled to Point Pleasant to investigate the accounts, developed the association in his 1975 book, The Mothman Prophecies.
Keel collected reports involving the winged figure, unidentified flying objects, and other unusual events around Point Pleasant. His book was adapted into a 2002 motion picture starring Richard Gere.
West Virginia Explorer recently examined the book and its unsettling portrayal of the region in What is the scariest story ever written about West Virginia?
The man who gave Mothman a face
The film’s release brought renewed attention to Point Pleasant. The town began hosting its annual Mothman Festival in 2002 and, the following year, unveiled a stainless-steel sculpture of the creature downtown.
Local welder and sculptor Bob Roach created the statue after interviewing people who said they had encountered Mothman during the original sightings.
His daughter, Kelly Roach Miller, accompanied him to some of those interviews.
In a September 2026 interview with West Virginia Explorer, Miller said they located members of approximately five families who reported encounters with the creature. They interviewed the families separately.
“They didn’t know that we were even at the other one’s house,” Miller said.
She recalled similarities in some of their descriptions and said the witnesses appeared genuinely frightened by what they believed they had seen.
Roach used elements of those accounts to develop the figure that now stands on Main Street, with enormous wings, a muscular body and prominent red eyes.
He built the sculpture in a dirt-floor garage near Letart, West Virginia, using equipment that included a welder, grinding wheels, an anvil and a sledgehammer.
Roach initially doubted that the statue would remain popular. His daughter remembered him predicting that visitors would lose interest within a few years.
“Someday it’ll go worldwide,” she told him.
Roach died in 2015. Miller has since opened The Mothman Statue Legacy at 326 Main Street in Point Pleasant to preserve and promote her father’s artistic work.
Ohio State examines the legend at 60
Ohio State’s anniversary programming will examine how stories about mysterious creatures become part of community traditions and popular culture.
The university has scheduled three free public events:
- November 6: A cryptid-themed art event at Hagerty Hall featuring Mothman and other legendary creatures.
- November 16: A screening of The Mothman Prophecies at Gateway Film Center, followed by a discussion with curators of the Mothman Museum in Point Pleasant. Activities begin at 6 p.m., with the film at 7 p.m.
- November 19: Folklorist David J. Puglia will present “How America Makes Its Monsters: Folklore, Place and the Creatures We Call Our Own” at the Ohio State Faculty Club at 7 p.m.
Puglia, author of North American Monsters: A Contemporary Legend Casebook, studies the traditions surrounding legendary creatures and how communities develop and preserve accounts of them.
His approach considers local beliefs and storytelling without requiring researchers to accept or reject claims that the creatures exist.
Details about the events are available through the Ohio State Center for Folklore Studies.
The anniversary also highlights the tourism associated with Mothman in Point Pleasant. The downtown Mothman Museum, Roach’s sculpture and the annual September festival attract visitors interested in the sightings and the town’s history.
In a Smithsonian examination of the legend, Point Pleasant resident and Mothman Museum founder Jeff Wamsley described how the attraction introduces visitors to other aspects of the community.
“It’s also a great way to introduce visitors to Point Pleasant’s rich river and cultural history,” Wamsley said.
The museum, which Wamsley opened in 2006, maintains a collection that includes police reports, witness accounts, and other material documenting the sightings.
The original November 1966 reports remain preserved in newspaper archives. The 60th-anniversary events at Ohio State begin November 6, with the film screening scheduled for November 16, exactly 60 years after the Point Pleasant Register published the account that brought the mystery to public attention.