A Day in Mothman Country

We woke up just on the other side of the river, the same river that’s swallowed whole towns and whole lives, depending on which story you listen to. Kelly sat in the driver’s seat, eyes forward, hands at ten and two, bracing herself to cross the Silver Memorial Bridge.

She hates bridges. Always has. Not because they’re high or shaky, but because she’s convinced she’ll end up in the water. Drowning. Trapped in a sinking car. It’s not some dramatic phobia—it’s this low, simmering dread that clings to her like wet denim. And yet, here she was, gripping the wheel and taking us across the Ohio River into Point Pleasant, West Virginia.

I watched her out of the corner of my eye as we crossed. Jaw tight. Breath steady but shallow. She didn’t blink much. I didn’t say much. You don’t interrupt courage while it’s doing its work.

That bridge—that bridge—collapsed in 1967. 46 people died. The locals don’t just remember it—they wear it. You can feel it under the surface of everything in this town. The tragedy doesn’t define Point Pleasant, but it hangs there like the last note of a song no one wants to hear again.

And then there’s the Mothman.

The Monster That Memory Built

In 1966, before the bridge went down, people around here started seeing something. Something big. Something impossible. A seven-foot-tall winged creature with glowing red eyes—lurking in the trees, chasing cars down country roads, perching on abandoned buildings like some cursed weathervane.

They called it the Mothman, because comic books were big and Batman was taken.

Two gravediggers were the first to report it. Then a couple in a car. Then more people. Cops. Teenagers. Even respectable old folks. The sightings clustered around an abandoned World War II munitions site—the TNT area—just north of town. And then, just as suddenly, it all stopped.

Then the bridge fell. And people started connecting dots.

Some say the Mothman was a warning. An omen. Others say he caused it. Others still say it was mass hysteria, a town bending under the pressure of Cold War anxiety and buried grief. I don’t know. Maybe it’s all true. Maybe none of it is. But the town never stopped believing something happened here.

The Weird, the Reverent, and the Glow-in-the-Dark

Our first stop was the Mothman Museum—a tight little place packed wall to wall with press clippings, eyewitness reports, props from the 2002 Richard Gere movie, and enough t-shirts to clothe a small militia of true believers. It’s campy, sure—but there’s sincerity in it. You can feel it in the handwritten letters, the laminated police reports, the photos taped to the wall like they still need solving.

Kelly drifted toward the Mary Hyre display—the journalist who chronicled the sightings when no one else would. I stayed near the police reports. I’ve always been drawn to the bureaucratic language of panic: “Eyes… glowing… could not confirm species.”

We got our obligatory photo with the Mothman statue outside—chrome wings spread, abs chiseled like a Calvin Klein cryptid. I kept thinking about how bizarre it is to turn folklore into selfie-bait, but also how necessary it is. This statue isn’t just a mascot—it’s a monument to mystery, to tragedy, to the weirdness we all secretly want to believe in.

It’s absurd. It’s beautiful. It’s America.

Then came blacklight mini golf, because of course there’s blacklight mini golf. Fluorescent obstacles. Day-Glo cryptids. Plastic putters. Kelly beat me. I didn’t keep score. I never do when I’m losing.

Out in the Woods Where the Stories Still Breathe

Eventually, we drove out to the TNT area. The old igloos are still out there—concrete bunkers half-swallowed by the earth, like time tried to forget them but failed. The grass was high, the air weirdly still. No cars. No birds. Just the hum of power lines in the distance and the crackle of gravel underfoot.

We didn’t say much at first. Just wandered. Listened. Let the silence work on us.

And then Kelly, ever the rational one, asked:

“What if the Mothman sightings were just a bunch of people frying their brains on EMF? There’s a damn power plant half a mile away.”

Not a bad theory. High EMF exposure’s been tied to everything from hallucinations to feelings of being watched. We pulled out the meter. Nothing. Silence. Whatever this place is—haunted, irradiated, or just rusting under the weight of myth—it still feels like something.

Why We Come to Places Like This

The thing about the Mothman story—what makes it last—isn’t just the creature. It’s the way the town chose to remember it. How they wove it into their grief, their identity, their economy even. When something traumatic happens, people look for meaning. And sometimes meaning comes wearing wings and glowing red eyes.

You don’t have to believe in Mothman to understand Point Pleasant. You just have to believe in what people do with fear—and with loss.

Kelly and I spent some time around the old TNT area and the road the creature chased those teenagers all those years ago. We didn’t see anything. No flapping wings. No scarlet glows in the trees. Just the quiet ache of a place that remembers. And maybe that’s enough.

We crossed the bridge back as the sun made hung high over head, river shining beneath us. Kelly drove again. Brave as hell.