“First” Mothman Sighting

Technically, should November 12th (or even November 1st) be the 40th anniversary of the first sighting of Mothman?

Since Kenneth Duncan only came forth with his and others’ encounter after the Scarberry-Mallette-Partridge events of three days later, the sighting on the 12th is hardly ever awarded the recognition of the honors of being mentioned as “first.”

No attempt was made to capture this multiple eyewitnesses event, even in a fictionalized fashion, in The Mothman Prophecies movie. It can be factually summarized, thusly:

November 12, 1966 – On this date, five men (including Kenneth Duncan) digging a grave in a cemetery near Clendenin, West Virginia saw something that looked like “a brown human being” that flew from some nearby trees and glided low over their heads. It was in sight for about a minute.

Later another eyewitness would tell of how he was “first,” when on November 1, 1966, at the National Armory, next to Camp Conley Road, near Point Pleasant, West Virginia, a large, brown man-shaped birdlike figure was seen on a tree limb by a National Guardsman.

Sources: John A. Keel, FSR, July-August 1968, p. 13; Strange Creatures of Time and Space. 1970, and Loren Coleman, Mothman and Other Curious Encounters, 2002.

Loren Coleman 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.

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