Arguably, this year has been significant so far as developments in the ever-growing Mothman mythos. Of course, it was earlier this year that marked the passage of John Keel, author of The Mothman Prophecies, from this dimensional plane. Also (on a slightly more personal note), just prior to completing the manuscript for my upcoming book, I received a unique report from a friend in Atlanta detailing a strange sighting of what she called “Mothman.” Although I tend to view all this so-called Mothman-related activity as being more anecdotal than anything, today I was nonetheless interested to note some parallels in an article posted at Jon Downes’ website Still on the Track to popular descriptions of the winged-one. The following story, as related by one of his readers, details a variety of interesting Mothman-like points of interest:

‘We were in Pacifica MO, tonight around 11:30 and we noticed a massive flying creature, not once but three times. My son even noticed it on his own the third time. We were near a large cliff/mountain with some type of cave openings. We don’t live in the area, I can say for sure we turned onto a road called viaduct road, went past a fire station and continued on for about 1 mile before we first noticed it. It was brownish/grey and the body portion was at least the size of a large adult human. This creature was tracking us – in a circle pattern. We were driving an escalade with the blue color headlights, this may have cause interest in us. The third time around us we viewed it in front of the vehicle, around driver side and around towards the rear of the vehicle, the factory tinted windows did help it vanish into the sky from out point of view.

Please understand when we could see it the range must have been about 150 feet in the air, not more than 250 feet. The distance was never less than 100 yards, often much greater. We were going about 35- 45 MPH. I have never thought of anything like this in my life! It is 3:33 and my son and myself are wide awake in a hotel 17 miles away from the place we first noticed the creature.

Note the creature’s color and size that the witness describes:

“It was brownish/grey and the body portion was at least the size of a large adult human.”

With this in mind, compare that to initial descriptions of the Mothman, taken from Wikipedia:

“Most observers described the Mothman as a winged man-sized creature… large and gray, with glowing red eyes.”

The fact that Mothman was also described having large glowing red eyes lends some strangeness to this next bit of information… is it any wonder that Jon’s post produced the following response from one reader, identified as “Lanette”? See below:

My oldest son, who is 18, was talking last night about seeing something VERY LARGE taking off from a huge old tree. He said it seems like it was 8′ tall and when he put the flashlight on it the eyes glowed back red (which a night hunting animals will at times) then it took off. Then he started in again about the very large part. We live about 20 miles from the Mississippi river.

I cannot say for sure that this animal has been the issue, but we do not have hardly any hawks in the area right now, and I have a coyote who has been using my carport as a hiding place at night, have run him/her off a few times coming home late. That is not normal at all since I have a dog rescue in the back yard which include some decent size hunting dogs. I know when the coyote is in the area at night due to the bays instead of barks out of the dogs.

Indeed, this might have been any number of animals, although the fact that it occurred at night does lend some credence to the notion that it may truly be an anomalous encounter, in some capacities at least. Generally, hawks and other birds of prey (with the exception of owls, which the Mothman traditionally resembles the most) don’t typically operate by night. What did Lynette’s son actually see?

As strange as the thing seems to have been, the “Mothman” has become a poster-child of sorts for the cryptozoological movement. Personally, in spite of my own fascination with reports of this creature, many of the fascinating elements associated with the legends that surround it make it a bit tough to chew; after all, consider that science has already proven that Bigfoot doesn’t defy known laws of physics. Mothman, on the other hand, is a little more hard to swallow, if eyewitness reports are to be taken literally (for instance, the wingspan described by witnesses would not be ideal for lifting a man-sized creature into the air). Still, I’m fascinated by the notion that such a creature–whether an archetypical “tulpa” or a creature as yet unknown to science–might have had such a lasting cultural affect on people.

Perhaps, as evidenced by the new information streaming from Downes’ website, its influence is still very much among us…