Mothman’s Linda Scarberry Has Died
Posted by: Loren Coleman on March 8th, 2011
In February, Linda Scarberry, one of the earliest eyewitnesses (November 15, 1966) to Mothman, was admitted to a Point Pleasant-area hospital, in critical condition. Unfortunately, it was been learned, from John Frick, that after a brief battle with cancer, Linda Scarberry died on Sunday morning, March 6th, 2011.
Our condolences to the McDaniel and Scarberry families. Linda’s maiden name, let us not forget, is the significant cryptoname McDaniel.
First eyewitnesses: Roger and Linda Scarberry (right) and Steve and Mary Mallette (left).
The Mothman phenomena began in mid-November 1966, when the two couples pictured above, including Linda Scarberry, drove through and parked at an old World War II munitions dump site that the locals called TNT. They saw and said they were chased by a large winged creature. They reported the incident to the police, and the sightings continued from there. The rest is cryptozoological history.
On November 15, 1966, the world was introduced to the Scarberry-Mallette sightings of a creature that would become known as Mothman. After this first encounter incident, as reported by the press in the papers of the day, soon a copyeditor in Ohio, a fan of the “Batman” series then on television, would coin the word “Mothman” since the word fit the headline space better. The sightings of a “Big Bird” had become a “big insect” with one copyeditor’s action.
Linda Scarberry said the William Rebsamen-drawn depiction of the Mothman on the cover of my book was the one that looked the most like the Mothman she saw. Her earliest drawings (one of which is below) showed the red eyes, wings, legs, but no arms (which did appear in sketches done years later after the imagery had changed in the retelling, demonizing and theorizing).
A sketch of Mothman (above), made by an eyewitness [Linda Scarberry] in rural West Virginia. In all, more than 100 people reported seeing the creature.–Courtesy Linda Scarberry, in Mothman: The Facts Behind the Legend, from the Los Angeles Times, January 23, 2002.
William Rebsamen’s painting, she said, was in contrast to the image used as a cover on a later edition of John Keel’s book. It was that cover art that would serve as the insect-like model of the statue in present-day Point Pleasant.
Linda Scarberry and Loren Coleman, in Linda’s home, 2001, during happier times, just weeks before the release of the movie, The Mothman Prophecies. I presented Linda with one of the first copies of my book, Mothman and Other Curious Encounters, which was produced in complete cooperation with Sony/Screen Gems, to appear right before the movie’s opening day. The studio was interested in reinforcing the “based on true story” tagline of their feature film. Linda and I would appear together in the movie’s concurrent David Grabias documentary Search For The Mothman, which is in the Deluxe DVD of The Mothman Prophecies.
In the 2002 movie, the first sighting involving Linda Scarberry and her three companions was fictionally re-created in dramatic fashion. Above is a screen capture of the incident from The Mothman Prophecies.
See also John A. Keel’s obituary.
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
Hi Loren,
My sincere sympathy goes out to her family!
Best regards,
Theo
Very sorry to hear this. I’m a big enthusiast of the 1967 Point Pleasant/Mothman stuff, and she is such an integral part of the story. I was hoping to someday go and talk to some of the witnesses, including her.
I’ve never made any secret of the fact I doubt she and the others really saw an unknown man-sized flying creature. However, I also never saw any reason to doubt she was an honest person telling the truth as she remembered it. The world needs more of those. My prayers go out to her family.
My sympathies to Linda and her friends & family. I had the pleasure to meet with her for a television interview four years ago. She was very gracious, humble, and sincere in every respect. A very sweet and honest individual.
Richard Dolan
My condolences and sympathies to the family. We all dream of how we are remembered, more importantly by the ones we loved and who loved us. She gave illumination when it was needed to a whole generation of enthusiasts of the era of High Strangeness and could have gone on tours, written books, added blogs and a number of things but set forth to simply tell her story and did so many times as Loren can confirm. A part of history died and we are all poorer for it. God bless.
I am sorry to read this. Especially after reading she had been suffering from a long illness.
I keep saying I am going to go to Point Pleasant one day. Now I really will have to start planning.