Mothman, a Cosmic-level Practical Joke on Humanity?

If you’ve even vaguely dipped your toe into the world of the paranormal or cryptozoology (or, really, a lot of corners of general pop culture), you’ve heard of the Mothman of Point Pleasant, West Virgina.

Last time around, I talked about how a lot of people have taken the Mothman to be some sort of harbinger of disaster (or some benevolent force trying to warn us?)… and how that glossed over a lot of facts that make that take kind of unlikely.

There’s another major point of view about the Mothman, one put forward by John Keel in his book The Mothman Prophecies (which is kind of what really cemented the Mothman craze–and a few others–in the public mind). It’s a take that’s alternately amusing and terrifying. It’s also likely closer to the truth.

Big Birds and Rural Skies

Keel was a journalist with a particular interest in weird things. His articles appeared in numerous UFO and Fortean-flavored magazines. He came to Point Pleasant and got involved with the Mothman phenomenon while he was chasing reports of odd lights in the sky.

In the book, he lays out a brief history of sightings of odd things in the sky. Mysterious lights, impossible airships, flying saucers, giant birds. Sightings and stories going back thousands of years. Many of them, he says, happen in rural areas. Not just because they skies tend to be clearer, but because there’s something unique about areas on the “edge”–the transition point from civilization to nature, from forest to plains, from mountain to forest–not too terribly far removed from the paranormal idea of crossroads as places where the veil between worlds can be a bit thin.

(For a fantastic exploration of this idea, definitely check out the Hellier series.)

So, Keel wasn’t really surprised that people had seen some sort of large winged thing around the same time they were seeing strange lights in the skies. Or that it all happened during a swath of sightings all across the country.

What did surprise him a little, was just how much weird stuff started going on directly connected to him and people he knew.

Men in Black and Beeping Phones

As many involved in looking into paranormal occurrences will tell you, once you start looking, things just keep turning up. Even when you’re not actively looking, you kind of stumble into events, stories come up with random people in random conversations, or any other bunch of synchronicity takes place.

Keel’s life was no different, but once Point Pleasant was on his map, things got a bit extra strange for him.

You’ve probably heard of the Men in Black (MIB). Not the Will Smith movie version, though. Somehow, pop culture warped the original reports of these strange individuals into actual government agents and action heroes. No, the real MIB were oddly dressed, oddly accented, and oddly behaving “men” that would sometimes show up during spates of UFO sightings.

One of the most famous just happened to come into the picture at the same time as the Mothman sightings and strange lights in the sky around Point Pleasant. His name was Indrid Cold. But Cold wasn’t the only strange person coming through town. There was a veritable parade of MIB asking pointed questions around town about experiences people had. Some claimed to be from the Air Force (but could/would never answer any questions that verify that), and most were reported to behave in very awkward ways–as if they weren’t entirely sure how humans should behave.

Aside from the weird visits from the MIB, people also started to get weird phone calls. The phone would ring at odd hours–early morning, the middle of the night–and there would either be some unintelligible mechanical sounding voice or just electronic beeps and squeals.

This happened to Keel so much he had his home number changed to an unlisted one. That didn’t even slow down the strange calls. It got so bad, he actually talked his way into getting a full look at the main switching office his Manhattan number was connected to, convinced that there must be some sort of wiretap on it. (There wasn’t.)

What Does That Have to Do with Mothman?

There’s a lot of ground covered in Keel’s Mothman book (including actual prophecies he was given through a few different sources, some of which came true, many of which did not). It can feel really random and unconnected in any way other than temporally.

(For a good rundown of the Mothman lore that leans a bit more toward Keel’s investigations, I’d recommend The Mothman of Point Pleasant and The Mothman Legacy. Between the two of them you can get a real feel for how these events impacted the town and its people, beyond just the sensational stories and bizarre theories.)

The “truth” that Keel puts forward, though, is that all of it comes from the same source: some group of effectively unknowable beings that exist outside of space and time. At least space and time as we understand it. Not aliens, not as many in the UFO community claimed.

In his own words:

I abandoned the extraterrestrial hypothesis in 1967 when my own field investigations disclosed an astonishing overlap between psychic phenomena and UFOs… The objects and apparitions do not necessarily originate on another planet and may not even exist as permanent constructions of matter. It is more likely that we see what we want to see and interpret such visions according to our contemporary beliefs.

John Keel, UFOs: Operation Trojan Horse

Coincidentally, that idea came about while he was investigating things in Point Pleasant.

In the concluding chapter of The Mothman Prophecies it kind of feels like he throws up his arms and says “There’s no real reason to try to make sense of it, because any sense it makes is beyond what we can comprehend.” He even half-jokingly calls the whole swath of paranormal experiences–ghosts, UFOs, cryptids, everything–part of some ongoing practical joke on humanity by beings far beyond us in perception and technology.

Needless to say, I don’t care much for the thought that these things just can’t be explained. So, Keel and I part ways there. But up to that point–the claim that there’s some sort of connection among all of these things and that it’s not exactly a connection you can package up nicely–I really do think he’s on to something.

In this view, Mothman isn’t some creature snooping around for tragedy (or causing it), it’s a manifestation of something else. Something that our own minds adjust and craft an image of that kind of makes sense to our brains. Just like many UFO sightings (especially the bulk of those that have no physical evidence of a craft, but do present physiological reactions in the witnesses).

So on the one hand, it’s oddly amusing that there may well be some superior beings out there poking fun at our habit of finding patterns in unconnected things by just randomly creating a bunch of unconnected phenomenon. But on the other hand, what happens when those being tire of that game? Or of us? Do they want us to figure them out? Or would any real successful attempt we make to do so be viewed as we would view a swarm of insects suddenly taking notice of us?

There remain an infinite number of questions in this world. All the information we have is imperfect because it has to filter through our own perceptions. We’ve managed to get good enough at removing those biases in most of our hard science. But on the fringes–especially in the real of the paranormal–all we may have are those biases. Until, at least, we figure a few more things out.