New Mothman Documentary

If you read the first man’s column today in the Charleston Daily Mail you’d probably discover that the second man might not be smiling because guy number one, Dave Peyton, miswrote the name of the movie based on John A. Keel’s book as The Mothman Chronicles. Of course, Keel’s book is The Mothman Prophecies and so is the Richard Gere and Laura Linney movie. (Nice shirt Ms. Linney has on. I’m lucky enough to have it for my museum, and that does make me smile.)

Peyton has written a good article, otherwise, about Red Line Studios coming to Point Pleasant to interview witnesses for a new documentary on Mothman. (Don’t forget, in the DVD Deluxe Special Edition of The Mothman Prophecies you can find the already-produced excellent documentary, Search for the Mothman.)

Matthew Pellowski, producer and director of the film, bought (I think Dave Peyton means “brought”) his staff to Point Pleasant to produce what he believes will be a 90-minute film. After it’s in the can, about six months from now, Pellowski says he will attempt to sell it to a cable channel such as HBO or the Discovery Channel. But, he said, the real money could come from producing a DVD and selling it through retail outlets such as Wal-Mart.

Pellowski came to last September’s Mothman Festival, an annual Point Pleasant event that grows every year. The festival is planned and executed by Jeff Wamsley, who also started a Mothman Museum in the town and maintains Web sites devoted to the story of the Mothman. Pellowski said his purpose in being in Point Pleasant is to get a film record of those who saw the creature and remember related events. The director interviewed me last Thursday evening while I sat in front of Point Pleasant’s Iron Gate Restaurant.

I was a cub reporter at the Huntington newspaper at the time, and while I never had a close encounter with the creature, I reported on a gaggle of UFO sightings that took place in the area about the same time. There were so many sightings of unidentified flying objects in late 1966 that the editors established a UFO desk to handle all the calls, primarily from Mason and Putnam counties. Most of the people who called were average citizens, who were not known for eccentricities. Many of them began their phone conversations by saying something like “I want you to know I am a God-fearing churchgoer and I don’t lie. But what I just saw nearly scared me to death.”

Are the sightings of the UFOs and the Mothman related? And are they related to the reported curse that Cornstalk, a legendary Indian chief, cast on the region before he was killed by whites more than 200 years ago? And are all of these events connected to the collapse of the Silver Bridge in 1967, about 13 months after Mothman appeared?

Pellowski’s documentary may not answer those questions to everyone’s satisfaction. But there’s no doubt it will add to the legendary status of the Mothman and the place he reportedly terrorized 40 years ago.

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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