Mothman’s “Cyrus Bills” Dies

“Cyrus Bills” was a character, a Washington Post reporter, in the movie The Mothman Prophecies, played by Bob Tracey of Carnegie, Pennsylvania.

Tracey died on January 26, 2007, exactly five years to the same weekend that The Mothman Prophecies opened in theaters across the United States.

Bob Tracey, a former disc jockey, passed away from complications of pneumonia, said his wife, Marjorie Michel. Tracey was born Robert Charles Michel in Rutherford, New Jersey, in 1923.

Still involved in local broadcasting and theater, Tracey had appeared in several films, including The Mothman Prophecies (2002), Black Dahlia (1998), Houseguest (1995), Only You (1994), and The Prince of Pennsylvania (1988) according to the Internet Movie Database. Tracey’s appearance in The Mothman Prophecies was his last in any film.

A formalized obituary was published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on January 28, 2007. A tribute on his old radio station’s website mirrors the Post-Gazette’s obituary, here.

For more information on other deaths associated with Mothman research and movies, please see here and here.

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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