Skip to main content

Mothman: Monster, Disaster, and Community

By
Annotated by; Garret Greenlee 
    This article talks is a general summary of Mothman and a few encounters with it. The article discusses an encounter with Mothman where individuals saw a “pair of enormous glowing red eyes”. The witness went on to describe the eyes as “hypnotic” and said that this creature was around 7 and a half feet tall and had wings. The witnesses within the car said that this creature followed them as they were in a very wooded area of West Virginia to the closest town and approached speeds of 100 miles per hour. The people that saw this creature went immediately to the county courthouse and told a deputy, who then went back with them to where they saw this creature. 

Of course when the deputy went back with them to where the witnesses saw this creature, there was no sign of him. However, the next morning the local county sheriff called for a press conference where the witnesses were interviewed and the creature soon after became the “Mothman”. After this happened it is reported that around 100 people came forward themselves and said that they too had an altercation with this supposed creature.  I think this is a key piece of information to give this source credibility because 100 people come forward saying this. This happened in Point Pleasant West Virginia where according to the Census Bureau the population in the 1960’s was around 6,000 people. This means that around 1.7% of the entire town’s population came forward and said that they too had some sort of altercation with this creature. I think this is a key piece of information because there are other individuals than just a few crazy teenagers to put some credibility to this source. I think that makes this source even more credible because this happened in a time when social media was not around, thus people had no way to know things as quickly as they do now. This ties into the credibility of the article because a couple of people couldn’t just text their neighbors back in the day and ask them to go to the county courthouse with them to claim they also had these weird encounters. This means that 100 people willingly came forward to the county courthouse to explain a similar story that happened to them personally as the teenagers in the car did, thus giving the article more credibility. 

This source can be described as a non credible source based on studies of humans. Humans are known to tell false tails or exaggerate the truth based on things that have happened, and this could most definitely be the case. There is nothing to suggest this happened with these encounters but it is certainly possible. Another point that could lead to lack of credibility is where would a creature like this come from? My question to the people is how would a creature that is 7 and a half feet tall with wings come from and did he all of a sudden just appear? The lack of details on this matter would be the questions I would have for them which would make the source seem less credible due to lack of proof. While the details do seem vivid and with all 100 people supposedly having an encounter with this creature, why not try and capture it to prove that this creature is indeed real. I think there is a lot of smoke surrounding the actual picture and one has to search through and figure out what is real and what is not real when it comes to this. Establishing this, I think that that makes the source significantly less credible due to these reasons. There is not a lot of clarity in terms of when they saw this creature, what time of night they saw this creature, what time of year all of these people saw this creature or any details like this. Is this creature something that appears only in the winter or is it year round? There are so many questions I could ask the author of this article and questions that these people do not answer which limits its credibility.

Laycock, J. (2008). Mothman: Monster, Disaster, and Community. Fieldwork in Religion, 3(1), 70. 

Picture found at; https://mothmanradio.com

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Mothman Prophecies

By
Annotated by; Madison Brock While doing research on the  Mothman , an article titled “The Real Story of the  Mothman  Prophecies,” posted on  ign.com , provided insight of the backstory context of this myth. The article is written by Scott  B ,  who introduces the topic by explaining the movie, “The  Mothman  Prophecies.”   It states how there is always the warning of “based on true events.” The article explains what exactly those true events are. Although the website may seem untrusting as the construction of it is based around video games and movies, it can be considered credible due to the reliable sources and statistics provided in the article. Mothman is a creature that has the body shape of a human yet also has huge wings and heating eyes, something that has never been seen before. This article is told through an interview with Loren Coleman, a cryptozoologist: one who studies unknown animals. Coleman explains the happenings of the first main sighting of the  Mothman
Post a Comment
Read more

“Mothman spotted: Three separate eye witness accounts of strange creature in Chicago”

By
Annotated by; Kameron Bonner   Article Written by; Danny Beauregard   This article describes three different eye witness reports that have recently surfaced in the city of Chicago. Eye witness reports typically don’t have much concrete evidence as to what they are trying to prove unless from a very reliable source. The author of this article, Danny Beauregard, states that most  Mothman  sightings don’t amount to much, however he says, “This is different.” I fail to see where these reports are any different than every other report I have already read. Nothing truly sets them apart, and the witnesses don’t provide any concrete evidence as to the  Mothman ’ s  existence.    Within the article, there are numerous grammatical errors, which could be chopped up to poor editorial skills. This makes you question the credibility of the author and the article itself. The first eye witness report described a “bat like creature,” followed by an “overwhelming sensation of dread.” T
Post a Comment
Read more