What human-shaped creature has huge red eyes, a 10-foot wingspan, stands 7 feet tall, is gray and scratches car roofs? Give up? It's Mothman, a West Virginia flying monster.
Normally I bypass supernatural lore, but scratching on a car roof sounds like it belongs in an urban legend. Besides, recently a caller to a radio talk show where I was a guest wondered what I knew about Mothman.According to the caller, the monster was supposed to have been created by an accident in a chemical plant, and he thought that the Mothman scares had occurred about 20 years ago. Supposedly, numerous West Virginia teenagers saw Mothman when they were out parking. The creature was usually perched near highways, flying overhead or sitting on car roofs, and was even said to have killed somebody.
I found no death claims in my notes, only reports of Mothman scares occurring in 1966-67 near Point Pleasant, W.Va. Reports of Mothman usually state that at least 100 people saw the monster, and perhaps twice as many others were afraid to report their sightings.
Unfortunately, the only written sources are books for children or sensationalized and undocumented accounts of "mysteries in the mountains" that fail to quote identifiable persons.
Something triggered the Mothman scares, but the stories also incorporated existing folklore.
Scratching on car roofs is a familiar detail from a legend called "The Boyfriend's Death." In this story, a madman hangs the murdered boyfriend's body upside down from a tree limb overhanging his car. The girl inside the car hears the scratching of the corpse's fingernails on the roof.
In "Living Monsters," a children's paperback book, we read about how "Lou and Carla" heard a scratching on their car roof as they drove past an old power plant late one night.
They reported the incident to "Officer Mac" of the Point Pleasant Police, who - despite the actual scratches in their car's paint - pooh-poohed their account.
Later, the book continues, many others in town saw Mothman, and eventually Mac's police car was found near the power plant with its top torn open. The book concludes, "No one ever saw Mac again."
Similar children's books with titles like "Weird and Mysterious" repeat this tale as well as one about "a girl named Connie" who supposedly saw the creature unfold its wings and raise itself "straight up, like a helicopter."
A California schoolteacher sent me a copy of the response her class got when they wrote to the Point Pleasant Chamber of Commerce asking for Mothman details.
The chamber's secretary replied that she knew nothing about "Officer Mac," but enclosed photocopies of other Mothman articles.