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Mothman

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Time and again, terrifying winged humanoids have been seen, on the ground or in flight, by reliable witnesses.

Tales of huge birds carrying off children are terrifyingly credible. The sightings of creatures resembling latter-day pterodactyls strain the powers of belief much more. But the cases described below would be dismissed by some if not all people as utterly unbelievable. Yet they are told by ordinary people.

In the US, on 18 September 1877, a winged human being was seen over Brooklyn, New York. Few details are available, but a similar figure was seen in September 1880, not far away at Coney Island. It was described in the New York Times, none too seriously, as ‘a man with bat’s wings and improved frog’s legs’.

Sightings of winged humanoids seem to be more widely distributed around the globe than those of giant birds and supposed pterodactyls. The next report comes from Vladivostok, in far eastern Russia. On 11^th July 1908a man walking in the Sikhote Alin mountains saw what looked like a man’s footprint on the path ahead. His dog began to act strangely, and something could be heard trampling among the bushes. After several minutes of standing and listening, the walker, V. k. Arsenyev, threw a stone towards the unseen creature, whereupon he heard the sound of wings beating and saw something ‘large and dark’ fly away over the river. Unfortunately he could make out no details because of fog. Later, when he told local police what had happened, they identified the creature as ‘a man who could fly in the air’, well-known to hunters in the area.

A Brazilian couple, the Reals, had a closer view of ‘their’ winged people. Early in the 1950's they were walking one night in a wood near the sea at Petolas in the state of Rio Grande do Sul when they noticed two gigantic ‘birds’ in the trees. As they got nearer, the ‘birds’ came down to the ground, and the amazed pair saw that the creatures were about 6 feet tall and looked human. They were crouching on the ground as if observing the Reals. Luiz do Rosario Real wished to approach them more closely, but his wife insisted that they return home.

A strange report describing an even closer sighting comes from Houston, Texas. On the night of 18 June 1953, three neighbours were sitting out on the front porch of an apartment house in the small hours. One of them later said:

‘We were just talking idly, when I looked up and about

twenty-five feet away I saw a huge shadow across the

lawn. I first thought it was a magnified reflection of a

big moth caught in a nearby street light. Then the

shadow seemed to bounce upward into a pecan tree....

I could see he had big wings folded at his shoulders.

There was a dim grey light all around him.’

The shadow was also seen by two other people, they described it as:

‘The figure of a man with wings like a bat. He was

dressed in grey or black tight fitting clothes. He stood

there for about 30 seconds, swaying on the branch of

the old pecan tree. Suddenly the light began to fade out

slowly.’

They agreed also that he was about 6 and a ½ feet tall, and that he wore a black cape, tight trousers and quarter-length boots. As the light faded, the figure seemed to disappear also, they three witnesses also heard a load swooping noise, and they then saw a flash, they were all adamant that they had seen this thing and did not hallucinate.

Mothman?

The year was 1961, and this sighting was not so clearly visible as the others recounted above, but it was still definitely man-shaped. A figure was standing in the middle of a road when a woman was driving her father along route number 2 in the Chief Cornstalk Hunting Grounds, in West Virginia. As they got closer the driver slowed the car, and the two people in the car saw that the creature was much larger than a man. The lady then told what happened next:

‘A pair of wings unfolded from its back and they

practically filled the whole road. It almost looked like a

small airplane. Then it took off straight up....disappearing

out of sight in seconds. We were both terrified. I stepped

on the gas and we were out of there.’

Although she did not know it, she was most likely the first witness to a creature that was to become known as ‘Mothman’, which in the year 1966 caused a number of sightings to be reported in the area of West Virginia called Point Pleasant.

The first people to see it in 1966 was two couples called Mr and Mrs Roger Scarberry and Mr and Mrs Steve Mallette. On the night of 15 November they were driving through an area where there was an old abandoned explosives factory. As they passed an old generator plant, they saw in the darkness two bright red circles, which they thought looked like eyes. They were, as the circles moved, they saw a man shaped figure, that was between 6 and 7 feet tall grey in colour, it had big folded wings, and was shuffling along on two legs. Roger was driving, and he turned the car round, and he drove off at speed back to safety. But they saw the creature, or another one as they drove past the road, and it spread its wings as they came near it, and began to follow them. They were at this time going well over 100mph, and the ‘thing’ kept up with them, the thing they noted was that it did not flap its wings once. Mrs. Mallette, could hear it squeaking, a bit like a large mouse. They immediately went to the sheriffs office and reported what they had seen, the deputy could see that they were frightened, so he drove down to the area, but could find nothing. The story was published and the area became famous, and was duly swamped with hunters trying to capture it, but to no avail, they to found nothing.

The next night, November 16, however the creature was seen again, this tie by a Mrs Marcella Bennett, who was visiting friends in the area. She was sitting in a parked car, when she noticed a figure lying down.

‘It rose up slowly. A big grey thing. Bigger than

a man, with terrible glowing eyes.’

Like the two couples the previous night, she appeared hypnotised slightly, by the red eyes. As she stood there staring at it, she and her baby daughter who was with her, were grabbed by a friend and taken inside her friends house.

During the next few days as the story circulated, numerous people came forward, saying they had seen the Mothman, not all of the people who came forward actually saw the being, but the exact number that did will never be known.

Owlman?

The Owlman was seen in Cornwall, England, in the years 1976 and again in 1978. It inhabited the area around the Mawnan Church.

It was first seen on 17 April 1976 around the church tower, by June Melling, who was 12 and her sister Vicky who was 9 years old. A second sighting of Owlman, took place nearly three months later. Again the two witnesses were girls, 14 year old Sally Chapman and Barbara Perry. They were camping in the woods when they saw a figure standing by some pine trees. Sally described what they saw:

‘It was like a big owl with pointed ears, as big as a

man. The eyes were red and glowing. At first, I

thought it was a joke, someone dressing up, and trying

to scare us, and we both laughed at it, it then went up

in the air, and we both screamed. When it went up,

you could see its feet were like pincers.’

The only problem with this type of mystery, is that it seems that we will never have any concrete proof of there existence, as they are just too elusive.

Source: The Unexplained