Mothman | Prophesize This - Page 6

The forms Mothman takes in this film are myriad, depending on who is doing the looking – he may literally be man with wings and giant red eyes or more representational, like Messing’s moth that flew at the BMW causing the accident who looking more like two giant red eyes cloaked in black. It may sound corny, the red eyes and all, but see the film and there’s something really eerie about the way it is done. Something almost too convincing. Most eerie of all, however, is the means Mothman uses to communicate with John Klein and myriad others, traveling through existing telecom systems, traveling the long and short wires, traversing the earth.

Mothman is smart – not only can he appear in many forms and shape-shift to suit the viewer’s idea of what is scary to get his message across, but he also makes use of modern technology to communicate. He seems to be some collective energy, and what is energy after all but electricity. That he travels using our telecommunications system is then not really surprising. It makes sense.

If you were an electrical current, wouldn’t it be most efficient to travel through a pre-existing network of landlines that grace the country, swinging from pole to pole and through huge metal power girders that stand like monsters with huge batwings – the kind you’ve seen on the sides of highways on long road trips. The same things that used to scare the hell out me when I was a kid because they looked like giant steel monsters walking across the British country side and coming right for the back of our car.

To be clear Mothman isn’t entirely made up. In fact, the film is based on the very real happenings of several small towns in West Virginia in the mid 1960s where extensive sightings of Mothman were reported. On November 12th, 1966, five local men in West Virginia in a small town called Clendenin were preparing a grave for burial when they spotted a “brown mothlike figure” lifting from the cemetery. Later that month in nearby Point Pleasant, a young couple saw a similar red-eyed mothlike figure as they were making out in their car. Many other sightings followed for the entire month – one local man was watching television, when the screen suddenly went blank and he heard what he described as high pitched screeching sounds that he believed were sending some kind of message of warning.

Many people saw strange lights in the skies around Point Pleasant – and almost all reported the strange sightings to local police. Eventually, this made the newswire and local reporter named Mary Hyre, who was the Point Pleasant correspondent for the Athens, Ohio newspaper the Messenger, was gathering all of the information for a story. Hyre reported that one night around this time while she was working late, and saw a strange little man who terrified her. She described him: “He was very short and had strange eyes that were covered with thick glasses. He also had long, black hair that was cut squarely “like a bowl haircut”. Hyre said that he spoke in a low, halting voice and he asked for directions to Welsh, West Virginia. She thought that he had some sort of speech impediment and for some reason, he terrified her. “He kept getting closer and closer to me, “she said, “and his funny eyes were staring at me almost hypnotically.”

Article Author: Sadi Ranson-Polizzotti

Sadi Ranson-Polizzotti is a published writer in both the United States and Europe. She is widely known for her music commentary, particularly her writings about Bob Dylan about whom she runs a highly-trafficked site. …

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