Galveston Mothman?
Posted by: Loren Coleman on February 9th, 2008
In her blog this week, Ha’ri writes in “Mothman – Sighting in Galveston?” of her wonderings and ponderings. She is interested to discover if any large bird-like somethings were seen before any hurricanes hit the coastal Texas city of Galveston.
Ha’ri does some research, and rightfully comes to the conclusion there’s nothing to be easily found about a 1969 hurricane – or Mothman sightings there.
In the movie The Mothman Prophecies, news articles about the “Houston Batman” were flashed on the screen as the character “Alexander Leek” (“Keel” backwards) talked of how Mothmen were seen before disasters like “the hurricane” of 1969 in Galveston.
But this is poor mythmaking that is pure cryptofiction time-traveling. The famed big hurricanes in Galveston occurred in 1900 and 1915, long before the Houston Batman was seen in 1953.
The movie also tries to link Chernobyl’s nuclear meltdown with precursor sightings of Mothman.
Not true. There were no sightings. It was all made up for the movie.
Time to move on from these fictionalized additions to the Mothman story that keep distracting researchers from any real investigations of the Point Pleasant phenomena, whatever that might be.
As I continue building my revised look at these events in Mothman: Evil Incarnate, the murky muddle of humans seems to have overtaken any real zoological underpinnings long ago.
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.
That is why and where you cannot trust Hollywood. Good point to the article because anytime you are dealing with movies, you have to take any information with the proverbial grain of salt…even supposed Historical fiction…most of our historical movies like say, Braveheart, 300, Gladiator…there were kernels of truth to what was going on, but they all diverted from true history for the sake of movie making.
The source must be considered when gathering information.
I think it would be interesting if indeed there were other reports of Mothman prior to a disaster. I’m guessing if there were other reports we would have heard about them before now though 🙂
I have never bought into the Mothman story, it’s more Zooforma than Cryptid.
“Loren Coleman is a cryptozoologist and author who says the Mothman — a mythical monster who CA– USES disastrous events like terrible traffic accidents — is BEHIND some current carnage…”~ Cosimo Blog
While the apparent links between Mothman’s appearances and the Point Pleasant bridge collapse (plus the 1967 Timing and Hiway 35 Number coincidences) do carry a lot of weight, I question Cosimo’s MaryAnn Johanson’s choice of CA– USES and BEHIND as accurate and justifiable indicators.
My impression is that the flying freak’s activities were more likely precursors of the impending events, perhaps triggered by some precognitive sensitivity to emotional angst from the victims, their survivors and the shocked townsfolk, exacerbated by the Christmas Season and – what? The steel in the bridge, weakened by age and temperature flexing, creaking imperceptibly? The flowing river-water, generating some unrecognized electrical (or other) current, known to and utilized only by dowsers?
Or by some oncoming multidimensional surge in the Force, its power forcing open doorways between levels of Time and Place?
But I see no cause & effect there… nor is there any evidence for the winged wonder’s complicity in the mysterious phone calls and other cryptic events that accompanied the West Virginia tragedy.
What other words could more succinctly describe Mothman’s relationship to the “carnage”? Harbinger? Observer? Messenger? Voyeur? What do you think?
Obviously, to blame someone for posting a news story that was created by someone else (i.e. Wireless Flash news, an organization known for its sensational “morning radio news” wording) is killing the messenger again.
“MaryAnn Johanson’s choice” is an incorrect statement.
Absolutely correct, Loren, and I missed the reference entirely. Some other reviewer wrote the comment – my apologies to Ms. Johanson for my oversight.
I’ll wait for your revised book to determine your actual view.
Ha’ri seems to be wrong if he doesn’t find or remember the Hurricane that hit Galveston in 1969. It caused much destruction along the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast. I know, I was there then. Didn’t see any mothmen though.
The impetus for this hurricane harbinger element to the mythos, which I assume to be a product of the film’s fictional elements (?), could be the “Grey Man” of South Carolina legend. He is an apparition whose presence is said to foretell a pending hurricane. He has been “witnessed” prior to many hurricanes over the past century.
I totally agree with Bob Michaels, I have never bought into the Mothman thing either. I think it was a bunch of young adults pulling the wool over a poor unsuspecting public’s eye. Bigfoot research gets plenty of ridicule and there are at least some bits of good evidence that the big guy (or gal) exists. But Mothman? Nothing. A couple of night time sightings and that’s about it. The descriptions of the so called creature are not even consistent. Sorry, I just ain’t buying it.
I have read the Mothman book many, many times, trying to look for patterns and I believe that perhaps a new approach would be to almost take a neural network approach! If I was to load all the events and their chronology, and primed the software with a range of possibilities, we might some surprises. One avenue I have toyed with is (I know this sounds crazy but…) that quite a few of the less impressive observations might be of more importance. For example, a night when the moon did not rise. If parallel worlds exist, and they could intersect then there might well be an almost identical landscape, but no moon. Unfamiliar constellations, same answer. A spaceship that turns into a plane, same again, and strange beings that run towards buildings and disappear: I could understand that too. So strange beings (to us) might appear in such situations and maybe in their world we are equally strange. This is only a hypothesis (isn’t all of this hypothesis?) but if I can indulge myself further, perhaps intersections are most likely in the presence of catastrophic events. Far more advanced species might be able to exploit such situations and use them to move between worlds. A pile of conjecture based on theory but at least it is rational! Now, back to my reading, I think I was on chapter 3 (again).
I think people sometimes tend to forget all the other very strange events that surrounded the Mothman sightings. There were strange people showing up at peoples houses asking bizarre questions in a monotone kind of voice, repeating the same questions and sometimes making no sense at all. They also did not ever blink their eyes at all the whole time they were in these peoples houses. Not only that but their general appearance was strange. They seem to have larger darker eyes then normal and their skin color was off. Many times they would ask people where John Keel was and also ask people when they saw the mothman and what did it look like. This to me is extremely important. Something profound is going on around us and most people are totally unaware of it and the few of us that are aware don’t have any answers as to what is going on. It is awe inspiring to say the least. The mothman was not alone during this strange event.
I like cryptozoology, but i hate to say this, that just looks like a rare owl.