Old Mothman Material Continues To Surface

Intriguingly, the SyFy channel’s broadcast of a new grade B-horror film called “Mothman” last weekend continues to see ripe effects online. Fortean Terry Colvin is passing around an old item by John C. Sherwood about the alleged “hoaxes involved in ‘Mothman’ Investigations,” from “Gray Barker’s Book of Bunk Mothman, Saucers, and MIB.” It first appeared in the Skeptical Inquirer, Volume 26.3, May / June 2002.

It perhaps is unfortunate to see old recycled material like this appearing again now, eight years after the Richard Gere movie screened. The article wasn’t very good back then, and to be re-visited because of a horrible SyFy flick seems like a double-insult.

Of course, in 2002, when this Sherwood’s article first appeared, it was timed to be some kind of “film review” of the then-current adaption of John A. Keel’s 1975 book The Mothman Prophecies, which had appeared as the new Mark Pellington film. However, in 2002, this essay failed miserably to achieve that goal, just as it does now.

Sherwood’s total lack of insights and/or sense of humor has forced him into making some rather unenlightened statements, such as the following, in which he says that within the pages of Keel’s book:

“There’s no sign of Gere’s character, the fictional tormented widower ‘John Klein’ invented by screenwriter Richard Hatem.”

Of course, the fictionalized narrative, brought up to contemporary times, uses “John Keel” (who was a newspaper stringer/columnist) for the model of the “John Klein” character (who is a news reporter). Keel=Klein drove to WV, got lost, knocked at people’s doors, investigated the Mothman, bonded with a local investigator (Keel with a newswoman, Klein with a woman cop), and other overlaps. Sherwood seems to have missed these details that merged the factual with the fictional, entirely.

But then Sherwood goes on, since he wishes to tie this to Gary Barker, and unbelievably wrote:

“The researcher played by Alan Bates morphs into Gray Barker, whose influence on Keel’s book was palpably self-serving-and documentable.”

Of course, it is widely known that the Alan Bates’ character, whose name is “Leek,” is partially based on John Keel. Here’s a hint for Sherwood. If you spell “Leek” backwards, it is “Keel.” The Bates=Leek=Keel character is the speculative, historically intriguing part of John Keel’s personality. I am floored that Sherwood missed this.

Furthermore, Keel’s early cryptozoological influence in his investigations regarding the Mothman were through consultations with Ivan T. Sanderson. Sherwood has overblown any minor ufologically hoaxing influence from Gary Barker.

Sherwood’s contribution to the literature is an unfortunate example of a very personalized prose that seems to brand his material. It is difficult to read and even more incomprehensible to fathom its logic. This essay has much to do with Mr. Sherwood wanting us all to know how he was involved with his described hoaxing events, which seem to have little or nothing to do with most of the Mothman specifics of 1966-1967.

Sherwood’s “review” would be like someone using the Bigfoot movie, Harry and the Hendersons, to inform us that Ray Wallace and Ray Pickens were known pranksters on the fringes of the Sasquatch field. To try to critique a movie about Mothman by enlightening us that Gray Barker was a trickster is not too informative. Everyone already knew that.

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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