The BMW rule is universal. Even over here in Texas there isn’t a single BMW driver that doesn’t drive like what Simon would call an “absolute bell end.”
Preach. Same here in New York... I'm not sure how these drivers manage not to know what they're signaling themselves to be, but that's probably due to the same smoothbrain personality trait that informs their behavior.
Ooo! Something I have a connection to. My grandmothers family is from Point Pleasant. My great grandmother lived on Highway 2 about a mile from where the bridge was. In the 90's we went up there for a week. That Sunday I went to the local church and mentioned the Mothman. Spent the next couple hours hearing all kinds of stories from the locals. There were a lot more sightings than you usually hear about. My great grandmother apparently saw it once, but all she would tell me was she saw a "demon" fly overhead. She was very religious, so she just ran inside and started praying over her Bible. I did talk to one farmer who lost some of his barn cats during the time. He said one day he saw something on top of his barn, so in the day he went on the roof with his brother and their shotguns. He said it looked like something had been hanging out up there, but never saw it again. Some wild stories from there.
@@willy.b.b3427 i think the question with the mothman is not 'was it real' but just admitting that something weird happened in that place. i'm not someone prone to believing anything that i am presented with but the book is worth reading to understand just how odd this whole thing was as it has been toned town significantly for this video. Something happened in this story but, frustratingly, we will prob never be able to say what it was and it may forever be an unknown. that, in the end, is what i see here: something odd happened (and trust me, a bit of research into this will make you realise just how odd) and we will prob never know the cause or causes of it but something did happen.
@@willy.b.b3427 Nah. A lot of the stories told up there were WAY out of it. My personal opinion is someone saw "something", thought it was something else. the story spread, and people started seeing "Mothman" instead of a bird of trick of light. The only one that really stuck with me was the guy who saw something on his barn. It really felt like he saw something weird, but probably has a rational explanation. But, to be honest, at least in the 90's when I was last up there, that place gets creepy at night.
@@elizabethveldonstuff there’s one theory about it being a CIA Psy-Op. create a situation where a monster/alien is spotted by a bunch of people. Study the reactions. Nudge them in certain directions if need be.
Good news, Simon! The reason vampires traditionally don’t show up in mirrors is because mirror backing used to be made of silver. Modern mirror backing is made of aluminum, so you should be able to see vampires in mirrors now :)
Vampirism is the name of a disease people suffer who are allergic to sunlight. Therefore they’re very low on vitamin D. So if you’re attacked by a vampire, consider it a vitamin D donation.
This is not the first time Simon is referring to "Vampires reflecting in mirrors", so I'll put my 2 cents in. The reason people believed that vampires can't reflect in mirrors, is because in the past, the back of the glass was covered in silver to create a mirror. And it's largely known that supernatural is not dealing well with silver. They're not doing it anymore, so not to worries - you'll see the vampires in mirrors just fine!!
I’ve been obsessed with this story since 7th grade and last year I finally got to go see everything in person (I live in Cleveland so it was only a four hour drive down there). The tnt area would be impressive even without the legend. There are around a hundred huge bunkers on the property (now a wildlife preserve) and you can access most of them with a short hike back from a long gravel road. They’re covered in dirt and vegetation from the Cold War era (to stop them being seen from the air) and were super fun to sing in because they’re basically like the acoustics of your shower but a thousand times bigger. The museum was cute but not a must, but the gift shop was awesome (I bought a moth man root beer). The statue and the bridge memorial were my favorite parts though. When you walk the streets of point pleasant you can feel something in the air, like the whole town is waiting for something. It took me a while to figure out what it was but I know now that it’s grief. It may have been a long time ago but this town will never get back the people it lost that day. It’s easy to ignore this part of the story but as I get older I realize it’s importance.
I was driving down a paved road outside of a housing area on the edge of town after dark. I was traveling pretty fast when I caught something standing on the road out of the corner of my eye before it whooshed upwards and away. I was left with the impression it was a man wearing a long cape similar to Count Dracula. I slammed on the brakes and my son said, “Mom, are you blind? You nearly hit that owl.”
That would be a good one. 👍 Alligators in the sewers and the jersey devil would be, too. That is, if he hasn’t already done a video about it on one of his numerous channels. Urban legends are great.
We covered the Men in Black in a folklore class I took. While the professor had been completing her PhD, she knew another student who was investigating aliens and claimed to have been approached by the Men in Black. They told him to stop researching or else. Whether true or the result of being a PhD student, either way it was interesting.
I like how it’s pronounced like Mothman is a surname, like Hoffman instead of it being a moth-man. Poor mr mothman, he probably exists and doesn’t understand the problem but has been hiding in fear ever since
Also many older versions of the story do put it as moth-man... It only became consistent after the movie. Most people also say Hoffman like hoff-men no one says moth-men, Simon has an accent... like the other person said it's like spiderman which also is supposed to be hyphenated actually.
That's just Simon's accent. No one in Point Pleasant pronounces it that way. They pronounce it "Moth Man" as if it were two separate words, similarly to how Spiderman or Batman is pronounced.
The TH-cam channel Trey the Explainer did an episode on the Mothman a while back. His conclusion was that with the first sighting, the teens saw a species of owl that was common to the area, its eyes reflected red from the headlights from the car and the teens couldn't it because it was dark. The human mind when encountering something it can't immediately make sense of tends to fill in the blanks and will create images that aren't there. It's dark, you see some glowing eyes, a shape you can't immediately identify, that's going to leave you a bit surprised and shocked, when you combine that with teenage minds, you can get a wild tale of a monster. It following them for a while at a high rate of speed, they could have been seeing the tail lights of the car reflecting off signs and other things along the road, you combine that with scared young minds, you get a monster chasing you down the road, well you mind makes up a monster chasing you down the road. As for the other sightings? Good old fashioned mass hysteria or even attention seeking. As for the "men in black", that could have been travelling salesmen, businessmen on a road trip, employees of any number of government agencies simply travelling through the town. This was also at the height of the cold war, mass fear and hysteria of "the commies" was fairly common, red scare propaganda was everywhere, and the memories of Senator McCarthy's communist witch hunt was still rolling around in many people's heads, the new threat of hippies and rock & roll music the fresh conspiracy theories of the day(kinda like how super secret Satanic sects sacrificing scores were the hot conspiracy theories of the 80's). The 1960's were the golden age of cryptid sightings, cold war hysteria was still high, hippies and rock & roll music were "menacing" good Christian middle class neighborhoods.
White Sulphur Springs, WV is where the Green Briar Hotel is located, about 3 hours from Point Pleasant, WV. Under the hotel was a cold war bunker for US officials (congress, the president, etc.) in case the bombs started falling. Well into the 80s there was a rather high number of G-men (different agencies) in the area according to anecdotes from people that were in WV in those decades (~1960 to ~1990, while the bunker was still secret). Interesting note: The easiest way these days to get from Point Pleasant to White Sulphur Springs takes you through Beckley, WV which is is the most dangerous municipality in WV according to FBI statistics.
Yeah, and add to that passengers in the car screaming, “go faster! go faster! it’s coming! it’s coming!” And let’s be honest with ourselves, there’s a good chance those teenagers were not sober at the time: all that makes for terrible eyewitnesses. And your hypothesis of traveling salesmen is much better than my first thought, which was a Blues Brothers fan convention. but then I guess that movie hadn’t been made yet so that’s a terrible but funny idea.
I remember when the bridge collapsed, but I don't remember hearing about Mothman. Granted, in 1967 I was 9 years old and didn't yet have my interest in the strange and unusual as I have now.
The best theory I heard, and maybe you’ll get to it, that it was a great horned owl. Humans suck at estimating height and such. The owl was not man sized. I think that was either History channel or Discovery that ran that theory and offered very fine evidence. And once again, while not super close, that part of West Virginia is not far from my part of Ohio. Apparently a lot of “stuff” happens around the Ohio River valley corridor. And owls and herons have HUGE wing spans. As do the sand hill cranes. I’ve had a fledgling heron fly over my car and the wings were as wide as my car. The owls too have huge wing spans, hunt at night in cold weather as well as warm, and their eyes glow red when hit with light. No weird chemicals required. People are terrible at guessing sizes and details. My husband was a court bailiff for twenty years and trust me, people get measurements way off all the time. It was always a riot to hear his latest story of outrageous miss measures.
Yeah, a barn owl on a branch with a shrub under it would look like the description when illuminated by a flashlight at night. Same thing for the instance when it pursed the car, and when it was ssen on the bridge, just a big owl.
I remember seeing something possibly on discovery about big cat sightings in the UK and zoomed in video footage of what looked like a panther stalking across some open ground was actually just a normal black cat.
Just found this episode. We went out to the Mothman Museum last summer and it was a lot of fun. Point Pleasant is actually a very pleasant little town, very quaint with big baskets of beautiful flowers on the lamp posts on the main street by the museum. Yes, we took pictures with the statue and went to the museum. It really had a lot more than we expected and we were quite pleased. One of the main theories about the Mothman that you didn't cover in your episode though is that it was a individual flight suit being tested. Wright-Patterson Air Force Base is across the river in Ohio, not far from where the sightings were in West Virginia. The USAF was testing a lot of things at the time, and Wright-Patterson was/is a major test center. I think (not that anyone cares what I think) that a flight suit test is the most likely explanation, but that didn't make the museum any less fun (and we found the best cheeseburgers we've ever had at a little trailer park camp store nearby)! Also, 1966 was the age of the American muscle car. Definitely capable of exceeding 100 mph.
wouldn’t a flight suit make quite a bit of noise? or was it more like a wing suit gliding deal? although i suppose it could be using some hypergolic fuel mixture that would probably be quieter than a turbine engine or somethin
Y'all should do a decoding the unknown on a bunch of small cryptids! Like the squonk from Pennsylvania or the grafton monster also from west Virginia, they don't have as long and as complicated stories as mothman but a compilation on them and an analysis of what causes stuff like cryptid folklore would be really fun to explore.
oh, I was waiting for Simon to cover this, it's my favorite cryptid story, mainly because it used to scare the crap out of me as a kid, but I was thinking tread lightly because Mothman is somewhat of an institution in the US with many people really believing
Mothman has a way more ominous ring to it than it feels like it deserves. Like what is eerie or mysterious about moths. They are stupid and annoying creatures at worst.
I dont think soo its just another srory for a town about some mythical creature usually after or before a tragic event this is common surprisingly i didnt think so but then after hearing about 2 other tragic accidents that had sightings before and just after but sometimes does not show up after but then i went and looked this kind of stuff up i found 5 more cases from around the world and theirs probably alot more just cant find them due to being in another language
You and Katie have really been helping me get through some hard times. The only time I’m able to have peace in my life is when I’m watching you and listening to Katie’s writing. You guys are amazing❤ thank you
LOL, as Simon was reading the theory that Mothman might have been a Sandhill crane, I thought his editor added sound effects, then realized I have a pair of them bugling in my back yard. Perfect timing! Yes, Sandhills are large and Whooping cranes even larger (they are North America's tallest birds) but those are not found in W. Virginia, not to mention they are highly endangered. Only 44 birds existed in 1966 when Mothman was seen (they are up to 800 now after 60 years of conservation work)
Can't get enough of ur videos. I think I'm subscribed to all 47 of ur channels. Please keep creating content. We need more meaningful information in our lives with perfect amount of comic relief and personal relatability.
Simon mentioned dreams being fascinating only to the person who had the dream, but my husband had a dream that my sister's husband came home early from a trip and found her in bed with another guy. In the dream her husband went for a gun hidden in the dresser drawer. The EXACT thing happened the next night. I swear. He told me about his dream and I didn't tell my sister anything about it. When she called to tell me what had happened I was shocked. I never have dreams like that! Mine are disjointed episodes of weird flashing dioramas lol
I’ve had Simon’s videos on all evening but not really watching. It’s just nice to have him yapping away in the background 😂 I’ve seen them all so I can tune in and out anytime
My father saw the mothman perched on the Silver Bridge about 1.5 hour before the collapse. He crossed the bridge returning home from the Lowe Hotel in Point Pleasant, West Virginia to Saint Albans, WV. Dad worked for Appalachian Power Company and they were building the Transmission Towers and String the wire from Apple Grove, WV to Philip Sporns Hyro Electric Power Plant on the Ohio River, in the Fall of '67. I'm kidding...he did cross the bridge 1.5 hours before the collapse occurred, but the mothman is a wives tail!!
I'll wager good money that the ones that saw the Mothman had cracked corn within the hour. That's about how long it takes at least for me. LoL in Tennessee.
@@paulceglinski3087 lol...I live 45-50 minutes from Point Pleasant. Have camped at the old TNT Military Base with Scouting camporees as a kid and worked Mason County area as a Insurance Special Investigator in Fraud and Fire Losses. So I know the area well. And my dad worked in that area, on and off from 60'to the 70's ( retiring in '82). And yet, we've NEVER seen hide nor hair of Red eyed, wing flapping beast...but it's good for tourism.
@@SMichaelDeHart I think I may have passed through that area years ago when I drove truck. But with close to 2 million miles through the years I can't be sure. Pretty country there. I'm originally from the Missouri Ozarks so it was a bit familiar. Course until the thing comes up and bites my behind, it ain't happening. That Show-Me soul I reckon. LoL. Cheers.
@@paulceglinski3087 indeed...Well, I've a scary personal story pertaining to the Silver Bridge and the Lowe Hotel in Point Pleasant.. I was 6yo, had just started 1st grade. My father, after returning from the South Pacific Campaign of WWII in 1945 started working as a Class A Transmission Lineman for Appalachian Power Company (originally in Bluefield, WV, then transferred to Charleston, WV in 1956) and their crew was building Transmission Towers and stringing Transmission Lines from Apple Grove, WV to the APCO Phillip Sporns Coal Fired Hyro Power Plant along Ohio River during the fall/winter of 1967. Their crew stayed at the Lowe Hotel when working in that area. Dad had crossed the Silver Bridge about 1.5 hours before the collapse on December 15, 1967. After picking up his suitcase at the Lowe Hotel, he started back toward home in Saint Albans from Point Pleasant in the Company Dodge Powerwagon. I was watching our old black and white TV, while mom was fixing supper, expecting dad to get home around 6-7pm. WCHS TV channel 8 news came on with a special report about the Silver Bridge collapse and mom and I were VERY concerned...about 10 minutes later we saw dad's truck pulling in the upper driveway of our home. Talking about a prays being answered 🙏😌 The West Side Volunteer Fire Department I joined 11 years later (1/2 mile from our home) was called from Saint Albans to Point Pleasant to assist in searching for survivors and dead bodies, since our department had a old WWII Duk (the boat w/4 wheels and drive train)that could help. That truly was a scary night in our home, but the Mothman legend didn't come about till many many years after all those lives were lost in the Bridge collapse.
As a resident of Kanawha County, I'd like to congratulate Simon on being the only non-local I've ever heard pronounce Kanawha almost exactly correct on the first try. And you are correct, Simon, there is nothing particularly pleasant about Point Pleasant.
Thank you for telling me that you thought necking was rubbing necks. I thought the same as a kid and thought I was the dumbest person ever. Now I know at worst I'm tied for that position lol
This video should be called “confusing things from Simon’s childhood”. We need that video. Maybe pair it with Simon looking at a map of the U.S. and trying to place labels on states.
I was terrified of Bloody Mary as a kid too (the terrifying thing in the mirror if you say her name 3 times supposedly). I consider myself a very rational adult person now, but still sometimes late at night I get scared of mirrors for no reason other than my childhood self was lol. I would always tell myself in the bathroom, "don't even think her name, what if that summoned her?" It's funny the crazy things you'll believe as a kid and how they stick with you despite knowing better now.
I think the Mothman stories ended with the bridge collapse because suddenly there was actual, serious news in the area and the "silly season" stories suddenly seemed a bit disrespectful in light of the disaster.
"it kind of seemed like they were trying really hard not to call this guy a 'Bat Man" - Louis C.K. (he was talking about an exterminator that specialized in bats, but it works here too).
I learned to drive in a car from 1966 (Ford Fairlane) and can attest to the fact that yes, it CAN go 100mph. Cars from that era were heavy metal things so they actually were safer in light accidents but yes, they ended up a mass of twisted metal in a bad accident.
I'm thinking there's a disconnect because he's British. No American would be surprised that cars went 100 mph in the 60's because most American cars had big engines at the time. But I think most Europeans were driving little cartoon cars at the time.
@@ressljs Not to mention that the US had highways with long straight stretches even before the interstate system was built but the UK had smaller, windy roadways. Yes, the first highways like the M1 and M6 were built around 1960 but most did not use them yet.
@@hectorsmommy1717 I've been to the UK. English roads are more frightening than the mothman. But yeah, the small British sports cars that aren't that powerful but are much more nimble make a lot more sense when you look at English roads.
Not the point, but old cars were *not* safer in accidents than modern cars. They're less likely to be totaled in a minor accident but that's not the same thing. Modern cars are designed to crumple on impact. Crumpling dissipates the force of an impact and slows down the rate of deceleration. The less a car crumples, the more force is being transferred to your fleshy human body. There's a reason that just about everyone thirty years ago knew someone who died in a car crash, if not multiple people, while it's much less common now.
The couples had also heard the sound of the mothman too, they said it was like a high pitched squeak from the record machine or a mouse. Honestly if I just saw the creature I'd be scared, but if I also heard the squeaking too I would instantly go "Awwwww, so cute!"
WV resident here. Fun fact, a guy in Beech Fork (state park down from my house) made the news when he saw Mothman. Only weird part was it was 3 months before covid hit China
I'm from WV and the Mothman museum is actually pretty cool. It's filled with art work, old news papers, back drops & props to take your pictures with plus all kinds of fun stuff. We also have a Mothman festival every year in September.
I grew up in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia. Our geography is flanked by Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania. A 20 minute drive could have you in any of those 3 states. We were in the Blue Ridge mountains, and Maryland and Virginia are in fact both coastal to the Atlantic Ocean. West Virginia also has no natural lakes.
John Keel was a journalist for years before the events in the Mothman prophecies. The 'military installation' was an abandoned factory and it had been the location of several UFO sightings before the Mothman showed up. The massive crash of the silver bridge took place shortly after, dumping dozens of bodies - in their cars - into the river below. If you wanted to recover members of a doomed species and if you could move through time then one of the best ways would be to raid the still living victims of a large disaster, with a known time and location, where they ended up under water... missing bodies wouldn't be surprising, apparent age discrepancies of any found bodies (like they could be 30 when they go in and 80 when they're pulled out) could be chalked up to drowning bloat. No one could actually see the 'kidnapping' as it would have taken place under opaque water. Whatever actually happened around there fits no description.
Simon was talking about cars from the 60s. -- They were made bigger and with better materials. My dad was driving to work and was literally (yes, literally) hit by a fast moving train in his 1967 Chevrolet truck. After the crash stopped, he got out and cussed the train engineer and went to work. The entire front side panel was ripped off and the engine block was moved a little, but the truck still drove, so he drove it that way for many years. BTW he never sued the railroad or the state and didn't even go to the doctor.
Good to hear someone call out drivers that pull that. I remember one time my entire lane stopped moving, and after a minute I was able to slip into the right lane, and as I got to the front of the jam I saw it was being held up by someone trying to cut the line and squeeze into the left turn lane.
I, too, thought of that *John Denver* song. 😄 Courtesy of *Mark Strong* in the *Kingsmen* movies. 😅 Simon singing the *MiB* theme... 🙃 Maybe the silver suited people were... The dream police? 🤪 The *OutKast* bit... 😂
I started drinking at the beginning of this. I have adhd. I don't even know what this is supposed to be about at this point (13 mins in sorry Simon normally right there with ya, mate), but I'm here for it. Cheers Whistler team.
Hello Simon, yes ! I had a 1965 Ford Galaxy 500 with a 390 cu. inch motor that I took up to 110 mph. I took that motor out and put in a 351 cu. inch with Cleveland heads and a shift kit . I buried the speedometer at 120 mph . I probably went a bit faster but that's as high as the speedometer would read. THAT RIDE SCARED THE BEEJEEBIES OUT OF ME. That was 50 years ago and I've been driving the speed limit ever since.
Movies are not the only media the mothman has invaded, it is an enemy in the Castlevania games too, notably Aria of Sorrow, in which it is one of only two enemies (that I remember) which requires a specific action to be done for it to have any chance at all of appearing, the other being Bigfoot. The Mothman's attacks if they can be called that are 'jump lazily into the air and flutter a bit' and 'drop dust while jumping'. The dust has a 100% critical-hit rate, beware the creature's innocuous appearance.
Simon, the vision the woman had of Christmas presents floating down the river? This actually happened. It was near Christmas. Some of the folks caught in the collapse had been shopping for Xmas presents and those floated free from their cars when they fell in the river.
8:00 People did survive car crashes in the 60’s. There weren’t airbags or the myriad of safety features now, but they were really solidly built and most had seatbelts.
Re: 18:04 I've had exactly 2 dreams that my family and I found extremely interesting, because they both came true *after* I described them. Both had to do with car accidents, one involving a death, and there were details that were so far out of coincidence that I couldn't have just pulled them out of a hat. And *all* the details matched, it wasn't a case of cherry-picking. Creepy. But that was more than a decade ago. I think that part of my brain has atrophied since then.
I burst out laughing at ‘Cock Block Mothman’ - at which point the family called from the other room to ask if I was okay. “Well, I’m watching a Simon Whistler video about the West Virginia Mothman,” at which point, my husband quipped, “So that’s a solid no, then.” 😂
You know what I would love to see as a deeper dive into an episode of Decoding The Unknown? A deeper dive into UFO's. Where did it start? Why do people connect them with aliens etc? Maybe even a kinda scientific twist in how likely (very likely for that matter) it is that aliens exist. And of course as a narrative thread take some of the more famous solved/unsolved UFO-sightings
Love the dead on call about the BMW. However the people who initially reported the mothman to the police were not 15 year old kids they were married couples in their late teens early 20s
The main thing I remember about "The Mothman Prophecies" is that our local newspaper had it listed as "The Mathman Prophecies" in the movie listings, and this typo went uncorrected for at least a straight week. I actually did see the movie, but I barely remember much about it.
Have you ever been a few feet under a golden eagle in flight ? They are IMMENSELY LARGE ! I think it's awesome that the whole crane thing I had previously commented ended up in the video.
I always thought "owlman" would make more sense as a name, but that is also taken by a comicbook character. (Batman's evil counterpart from a universe where all the heroes are bad guys and all the villains are good guys.)
The Mothman is also an NPC in Fallout 76, (Set in West Virginia) they have a cult of the Mothman, and Mothman in game events, and offasionaly he gets into random fights
When the people talked of red eyes, I right away thought large Owl, what is called the Great Grey Owl, which wingspan is more then 5ft and they are about 4. 8 ft tall, and though that isn't really big, compared to the Crane, it might make more since when talking about the eyes! Since Owls eyes face the same as a human, straight out front, not to the sides so much, and what if the Owl was standing on something that couldn't be seen in the dark, which made it look bigger/taller? Plus Owls hunt at night, and the sightings were all at night! Now I don't know if their eyes glow red, but cats and dogs both do and so do humans, it depends on how the light is hitting them! My older brothers and I were taking a late night walk around our neighborhood, which is in a suburb outside Detroit Michigan, and suddenly we saw some big winged thing fly over, well more like glided over us, it was a huge Turkey! Yes I said Turkey, it somehow had got up onto houses, and just kind of jumped and glided from one to the other! We lived in an area of the city we lived in that had older houses, so these were two story houses, and behind our little street was a real sub, with all the one story ranch style houses, the ones that look exactly alike! But these were good size houses, but this big ass Turkey had somehow glided its way onto the roofs, lol! We did see it finely land heading away from us, but if some people saw it they might have thought it was something else or at least something other then a Turkey, lol! Heck they may have even seen more then one thing, it was night time, they could have seen the red eyes of an Owl and something larger like the Crane in the same area, and thought that it all was one animal/creature! I mean I have seen people describe something that I was present when they saw it and they said it was much bigger then it was or something was faster then it was, so I am sure that these people had embellished their stories a bit, without even meaning to! Also about the woman who claimed the Men in Black came to see her, she at first said they didn't blink, but then says they were wearing sunglasses, then how did she know they didn't blink? I remember hearing about this part of this before, first on the show The X Files, but then in other things talking about the real story! But I never paid attention to the whole thing about them not blinking, if they mentioned it that is!
What your research failed to report was that all four teens were separated and interviewed separately by the sheriff. All their stories matched up in specific details which is hard to do even if it's a planned hoax or lie. Also one woman reported the mothman entered her home and attempted to take her baby from her arms. It's also been seen before many devastating tragic events ... reports made of seeing him before these events have occurred. Including chernobyl.
You're joking about the wing span, but condors have a massive wing span. It's hugely improbable that a condor would be in that area, but who knows what unknown bird might be around.
I saw a crane a few times in rural upstate NY. It was so large, it's very difficult to believe that it's normal and not a prehistoric creature. Truly breathtaking, but not pretty.
The BMW rule is universal. Even over here in Texas there isn’t a single BMW driver that doesn’t drive like what Simon would call an “absolute bell end.”
Preach. Same here in New York... I'm not sure how these drivers manage not to know what they're signaling themselves to be, but that's probably due to the same smoothbrain personality trait that informs their behavior.
I swear, at least where I live, I've never seen a BMW use their turn signal. And they consistently cut people off.
I guess that what they show in their commercials is true,...in a BMW you are the only car on the road !
And here I was thinking it was only an Atlanta thing!
Same in Edinburgh Scotland BMW drivers are generally wankers
Ooo! Something I have a connection to. My grandmothers family is from Point Pleasant. My great grandmother lived on Highway 2 about a mile from where the bridge was. In the 90's we went up there for a week. That Sunday I went to the local church and mentioned the Mothman. Spent the next couple hours hearing all kinds of stories from the locals. There were a lot more sightings than you usually hear about. My great grandmother apparently saw it once, but all she would tell me was she saw a "demon" fly overhead. She was very religious, so she just ran inside and started praying over her Bible.
I did talk to one farmer who lost some of his barn cats during the time. He said one day he saw something on top of his barn, so in the day he went on the roof with his brother and their shotguns. He said it looked like something had been hanging out up there, but never saw it again.
Some wild stories from there.
So do you believe in the mothman?
@@willy.b.b3427 i think the question with the mothman is not 'was it real' but just admitting that something weird happened in that place.
i'm not someone prone to believing anything that i am presented with but the book is worth reading to understand just how odd this whole thing was as it has been toned town significantly for this video.
Something happened in this story but, frustratingly, we will prob never be able to say what it was and it may forever be an unknown. that, in the end, is what i see here: something odd happened (and trust me, a bit of research into this will make you realise just how odd) and we will prob never know the cause or causes of it but something did happen.
@@willy.b.b3427 Nah. A lot of the stories told up there were WAY out of it. My personal opinion is someone saw "something", thought it was something else. the story spread, and people started seeing "Mothman" instead of a bird of trick of light.
The only one that really stuck with me was the guy who saw something on his barn. It really felt like he saw something weird, but probably has a rational explanation.
But, to be honest, at least in the 90's when I was last up there, that place gets creepy at night.
@@elizabethveldonstuff there’s one theory about it being a CIA Psy-Op. create a situation where a monster/alien is spotted by a bunch of people. Study the reactions. Nudge them in certain directions if need be.
@@TeganRhodes interesting idea.
Good news, Simon! The reason vampires traditionally don’t show up in mirrors is because mirror backing used to be made of silver. Modern mirror backing is made of aluminum, so you should be able to see vampires in mirrors now :)
but then how are we supposed to recognize them
@@NillyTheKid Pallor, fangs, avoiding garlic and the cross... or you could recognize that they are fictional!
@@ku8721 that's what they want me to think
Vampirism is the name of a disease people suffer who are allergic to sunlight. Therefore they’re very low on vitamin D. So if you’re attacked by a vampire, consider it a vitamin D donation.
@@ku8721 0ll0l0l0lĺl
This is not the first time Simon is referring to "Vampires reflecting in mirrors", so I'll put my 2 cents in. The reason people believed that vampires can't reflect in mirrors, is because in the past, the back of the glass was covered in silver to create a mirror. And it's largely known that supernatural is not dealing well with silver.
They're not doing it anymore, so not to worries - you'll see the vampires in mirrors just fine!!
I’ve been obsessed with this story since 7th grade and last year I finally got to go see everything in person (I live in Cleveland so it was only a four hour drive down there). The tnt area would be impressive even without the legend. There are around a hundred huge bunkers on the property (now a wildlife preserve) and you can access most of them with a short hike back from a long gravel road. They’re covered in dirt and vegetation from the Cold War era (to stop them being seen from the air) and were super fun to sing in because they’re basically like the acoustics of your shower but a thousand times bigger. The museum was cute but not a must, but the gift shop was awesome (I bought a moth man root beer). The statue and the bridge memorial were my favorite parts though. When you walk the streets of point pleasant you can feel something in the air, like the whole town is waiting for something. It took me a while to figure out what it was but I know now that it’s grief. It may have been a long time ago but this town will never get back the people it lost that day. It’s easy to ignore this part of the story but as I get older I realize it’s importance.
I was driving down a paved road outside of a housing area on the edge of town after dark. I was traveling pretty fast when I caught something standing on the road out of the corner of my eye before it whooshed upwards and away. I was left with the impression it was a man wearing a long cape similar to Count Dracula. I slammed on the brakes and my son said, “Mom, are you blind? You nearly hit that owl.”
You should do a Decoding the unknown on the Men in Black. It would be fun. 💗
That would be a good one. 👍 Alligators in the sewers and the jersey devil would be, too. That is, if he hasn’t already done a video about it on one of his numerous channels. Urban legends are great.
We covered the Men in Black in a folklore class I took. While the professor had been completing her PhD, she knew another student who was investigating aliens and claimed to have been approached by the Men in Black. They told him to stop researching or else. Whether true or the result of being a PhD student, either way it was interesting.
I like how it’s pronounced like Mothman is a surname, like Hoffman instead of it being a moth-man.
Poor mr mothman, he probably exists and doesn’t understand the problem but has been hiding in fear ever since
It is pronounced like Spiderman, not like a surname.
Also many older versions of the story do put it as moth-man... It only became consistent after the movie.
Most people also say Hoffman like hoff-men no one says moth-men, Simon has an accent... like the other person said it's like spiderman which also is supposed to be hyphenated actually.
@@mycatisaudrey what about Phil Spiderman?
That's just Simon's accent. No one in Point Pleasant pronounces it that way. They pronounce it "Moth Man" as if it were two separate words, similarly to how Spiderman or Batman is pronounced.
Harvey Mothman, Attorney at Law.
The TH-cam channel Trey the Explainer did an episode on the Mothman a while back. His conclusion was that with the first sighting, the teens saw a species of owl that was common to the area, its eyes reflected red from the headlights from the car and the teens couldn't it because it was dark. The human mind when encountering something it can't immediately make sense of tends to fill in the blanks and will create images that aren't there. It's dark, you see some glowing eyes, a shape you can't immediately identify, that's going to leave you a bit surprised and shocked, when you combine that with teenage minds, you can get a wild tale of a monster. It following them for a while at a high rate of speed, they could have been seeing the tail lights of the car reflecting off signs and other things along the road, you combine that with scared young minds, you get a monster chasing you down the road, well you mind makes up a monster chasing you down the road. As for the other sightings? Good old fashioned mass hysteria or even attention seeking.
As for the "men in black", that could have been travelling salesmen, businessmen on a road trip, employees of any number of government agencies simply travelling through the town. This was also at the height of the cold war, mass fear and hysteria of "the commies" was fairly common, red scare propaganda was everywhere, and the memories of Senator McCarthy's communist witch hunt was still rolling around in many people's heads, the new threat of hippies and rock & roll music the fresh conspiracy theories of the day(kinda like how super secret Satanic sects sacrificing scores were the hot conspiracy theories of the 80's). The 1960's were the golden age of cryptid sightings, cold war hysteria was still high, hippies and rock & roll music were "menacing" good Christian middle class neighborhoods.
Trey the Explainer is rad 👍👍
I saw that video too! Shout outs to Trey The Explainer
White Sulphur Springs, WV is where the Green Briar Hotel is located, about 3 hours from Point Pleasant, WV. Under the hotel was a cold war bunker for US officials (congress, the president, etc.) in case the bombs started falling. Well into the 80s there was a rather high number of G-men (different agencies) in the area according to anecdotes from people that were in WV in those decades (~1960 to ~1990, while the bunker was still secret). Interesting note: The easiest way these days to get from Point Pleasant to White Sulphur Springs takes you through Beckley, WV which is is the most dangerous municipality in WV according to FBI statistics.
Yeah, and add to that passengers in the car screaming, “go faster! go faster! it’s coming! it’s coming!” And let’s be honest with ourselves, there’s a good chance those teenagers were not sober at the time: all that makes for terrible eyewitnesses. And your hypothesis of traveling salesmen is much better than my first thought, which was a Blues Brothers fan convention. but then I guess that movie hadn’t been made yet so that’s a terrible but funny idea.
Joe Nickell did it before Trey
I remember when the bridge collapsed, but I don't remember hearing about Mothman. Granted, in 1967 I was 9 years old and didn't yet have my interest in the strange and unusual as I have now.
The best theory I heard, and maybe you’ll get to it, that it was a great horned owl. Humans suck at estimating height and such. The owl was not man sized. I think that was either History channel or Discovery that ran that theory and offered very fine evidence. And once again, while not super close, that part of West Virginia is not far from my part of Ohio. Apparently a lot of “stuff” happens around the Ohio River valley corridor.
And owls and herons have HUGE wing spans. As do the sand hill cranes. I’ve had a fledgling heron fly over my car and the wings were as wide as my car. The owls too have huge wing spans, hunt at night in cold weather as well as warm, and their eyes glow red when hit with light. No weird chemicals required. People are terrible at guessing sizes and details. My husband was a court bailiff for twenty years and trust me, people get measurements way off all the time. It was always a riot to hear his latest story of outrageous miss measures.
Yeah, a barn owl on a branch with a shrub under it would look like the description when illuminated by a flashlight at night. Same thing for the instance when it pursed the car, and when it was ssen on the bridge, just a big owl.
I remember seeing something possibly on discovery about big cat sightings in the UK and zoomed in video footage of what looked like a panther stalking across some open ground was actually just a normal black cat.
@@findtherapists I can believe it. LOL.
My money's on a cloak.
@@darkskyinwinter on an owl? That is one well dressed owl! Wonder if it has a top hat for when it’s not flying.
Just found this episode. We went out to the Mothman Museum last summer and it was a lot of fun. Point Pleasant is actually a very pleasant little town, very quaint with big baskets of beautiful flowers on the lamp posts on the main street by the museum. Yes, we took pictures with the statue and went to the museum. It really had a lot more than we expected and we were quite pleased.
One of the main theories about the Mothman that you didn't cover in your episode though is that it was a individual flight suit being tested. Wright-Patterson Air Force Base is across the river in Ohio, not far from where the sightings were in West Virginia. The USAF was testing a lot of things at the time, and Wright-Patterson was/is a major test center. I think (not that anyone cares what I think) that a flight suit test is the most likely explanation, but that didn't make the museum any less fun (and we found the best cheeseburgers we've ever had at a little trailer park camp store nearby)!
Also, 1966 was the age of the American muscle car. Definitely capable of exceeding 100 mph.
wouldn’t a flight suit make quite a bit of noise? or was it more like a wing suit gliding deal? although i suppose it could be using some hypergolic fuel mixture that would probably be quieter than a turbine engine or somethin
@@jordanr.4150 I was thinking like a wing suit, controlled glide.
Jen's editing is so spot on. Keep up that awesome work!
Y'all should do a decoding the unknown on a bunch of small cryptids! Like the squonk from Pennsylvania or the grafton monster also from west Virginia, they don't have as long and as complicated stories as mothman but a compilation on them and an analysis of what causes stuff like cryptid folklore would be really fun to explore.
I second that suggestion, and nominate Iowa's Van Meter Visitor, too!
oh, I was waiting for Simon to cover this, it's my favorite cryptid story, mainly because it used to scare the crap out of me as a kid, but I was thinking tread lightly because Mothman is somewhat of an institution in the US with many people really believing
A little bummed Simon didn't mention Indrid Cold during the MIB part, he's one of my favorite parts of the legend
Indrid Cold was just a made up story to cover up the fact some guy was having a gay relationship behind his wife's back.
@@Tob1Kadach1 Oh , I know. It's still a rad story though
Mothman has a way more ominous ring to it than it feels like it deserves. Like what is eerie or mysterious about moths. They are stupid and annoying creatures at worst.
Well there are a few species that drink blood. Still look adorable though.
If moths were 6 feet tall they’d be fairly scary 🙃
I dont think soo its just another srory for a town about some mythical creature usually after or before a tragic event this is common surprisingly i didnt think so but then after hearing about 2 other tragic accidents that had sightings before and just after but sometimes does not show up after but then i went and looked this kind of stuff up i found 5 more cases from around the world and theirs probably alot more just cant find them due to being in another language
Your opinion is WRONG!
The Japanese apocalyptic/fantasy game series Shin Megami Tensei depict the Mothman as a giant moth with eyes... And it's adorable!
You and Katie have really been helping me get through some hard times.
The only time I’m able to have peace in my life is when I’m watching you and listening to Katie’s writing. You guys are amazing❤ thank you
LOL, as Simon was reading the theory that Mothman might have been a Sandhill crane, I thought his editor added sound effects, then realized I have a pair of them bugling in my back yard. Perfect timing! Yes, Sandhills are large and Whooping cranes even larger (they are North America's tallest birds) but those are not found in W. Virginia, not to mention they are highly endangered. Only 44 birds existed in 1966 when Mothman was seen (they are up to 800 now after 60 years of conservation work)
Can't get enough of ur videos. I think I'm subscribed to all 47 of ur channels. Please keep creating content. We need more meaningful information in our lives with perfect amount of comic relief and personal relatability.
Simon mentioned dreams being fascinating only to the person who had the dream, but my husband had a dream that my sister's husband came home early from a trip and found her in bed with another guy. In the dream her husband went for a gun hidden in the dresser drawer. The EXACT thing happened the next night. I swear. He told me about his dream and I didn't tell my sister anything about it. When she called to tell me what had happened I was shocked. I never have dreams like that! Mine are disjointed episodes of weird flashing dioramas lol
I listen/ watch while I work and it’s great conversation among my colleagues but also the editing just cracks me up!😂 thank you dear editor
Most cars in 1966 had thick steel frames and were much more sturdy than those built today.
With no crumple zone. You'd be screwed.
I’ve had Simon’s videos on all evening but not really watching. It’s just nice to have him yapping away in the background 😂 I’ve seen them all so I can tune in and out anytime
My father saw the mothman perched on the Silver Bridge about 1.5 hour before the collapse. He crossed the bridge returning home from the Lowe Hotel in Point Pleasant, West Virginia to Saint Albans, WV. Dad worked for Appalachian Power Company and they were building the Transmission Towers and String the wire from Apple Grove, WV to Philip Sporns Hyro Electric Power Plant on the Ohio River, in the Fall of '67.
I'm kidding...he did cross the bridge 1.5 hours before the collapse occurred, but the mothman is a wives tail!!
I'll wager good money that the ones that saw the Mothman had cracked corn within the hour. That's about how long it takes at least for me. LoL in Tennessee.
@@paulceglinski3087 lol...I live 45-50 minutes from Point Pleasant. Have camped at the old TNT Military Base with Scouting camporees as a kid and worked Mason County area as a Insurance Special Investigator in Fraud and Fire Losses. So I know the area well. And my dad worked in that area, on and off from 60'to the 70's ( retiring in '82). And yet, we've NEVER seen hide nor hair of Red eyed, wing flapping beast...but it's good for tourism.
@@SMichaelDeHart I think I may have passed through that area years ago when I drove truck. But with close to 2 million miles through the years I can't be sure. Pretty country there. I'm originally from the Missouri Ozarks so it was a bit familiar. Course until the thing comes up and bites my behind, it ain't happening. That Show-Me soul I reckon. LoL. Cheers.
@@paulceglinski3087 indeed...Well, I've a scary personal story pertaining to the Silver Bridge and the Lowe Hotel in Point Pleasant..
I was 6yo, had just started 1st grade. My father, after returning from the South Pacific Campaign of WWII in 1945 started working as a Class A Transmission Lineman for Appalachian Power Company (originally in Bluefield, WV, then transferred to Charleston, WV in 1956) and their crew was building Transmission Towers and stringing Transmission Lines from Apple Grove, WV to the APCO Phillip Sporns Coal Fired Hyro Power Plant along Ohio River during the fall/winter of 1967. Their crew stayed at the Lowe Hotel when working in that area. Dad had crossed the Silver Bridge about 1.5 hours before the collapse on December 15, 1967. After picking up his suitcase at the Lowe Hotel, he started back toward home in Saint Albans from Point Pleasant in the Company Dodge Powerwagon. I was watching our old black and white TV, while mom was fixing supper, expecting dad to get home around 6-7pm. WCHS TV channel 8 news came on with a special report about the Silver Bridge collapse and mom and I were VERY concerned...about 10 minutes later we saw dad's truck pulling in the upper driveway of our home. Talking about a prays being answered 🙏😌
The West Side Volunteer Fire Department I joined 11 years later (1/2 mile from our home) was called from Saint Albans to Point Pleasant to assist in searching for survivors and dead bodies, since our department had a old WWII Duk (the boat w/4 wheels and drive train)that could help.
That truly was a scary night in our home, but the Mothman legend didn't come about till many many years after all those lives were lost in the Bridge collapse.
@@SMichaelDeHart Tragic. Glad he was ok.
JEN HERE'S A MESSAGE FOR YOU 😉: The white owl with the OMG was great. It literally made my day! I rewatched it several times! Thank you, Jen!
There’s a Japanese ska version of that John Denver song in which they sing “Take me Roads, Country Home…”
I spent the first 40 years of my life wondering where exactly Mountain Momma was.
As a resident of Kanawha County, I'd like to congratulate Simon on being the only non-local I've ever heard pronounce Kanawha almost exactly correct on the first try. And you are correct, Simon, there is nothing particularly pleasant about Point Pleasant.
"soon to be box office kryptonite"
Oh my God that was brilliant 😂
"Mothmans Got Jets" name of my next album, that is gold, thank you Simon.
Thank you for telling me that you thought necking was rubbing necks. I thought the same as a kid and thought I was the dumbest person ever. Now I know at worst I'm tied for that position lol
This video should be called “confusing things from Simon’s childhood”. We need that video. Maybe pair it with Simon looking at a map of the U.S. and trying to place labels on states.
Honestly, that Richard Gere movie was really well done. I think I'ma give it a watch tonight.
Which one is that?
@@xprettylightsx The Mothman Prophecies.
@@blackhat4206 ty
I was terrified of Bloody Mary as a kid too (the terrifying thing in the mirror if you say her name 3 times supposedly). I consider myself a very rational adult person now, but still sometimes late at night I get scared of mirrors for no reason other than my childhood self was lol.
I would always tell myself in the bathroom, "don't even think her name, what if that summoned her?" It's funny the crazy things you'll believe as a kid and how they stick with you despite knowing better now.
Every once in a while I still quickly jump into my bed real fast and tuck my feet in… just in case 😂
Childhood fears suck
I watch/listen to these while at work at a library and Co workers will just see me nodding along during Simon’s rants.
"Fucking cock block Mothman" is my favourite Simon quote ever
I think the Mothman stories ended with the bridge collapse because suddenly there was actual, serious news in the area and the "silly season" stories suddenly seemed a bit disrespectful in light of the disaster.
"it kind of seemed like they were trying really hard not to call this guy a 'Bat Man" - Louis C.K. (he was talking about an exterminator that specialized in bats, but it works here too).
I learned to drive in a car from 1966 (Ford Fairlane) and can attest to the fact that yes, it CAN go 100mph. Cars from that era were heavy metal things so they actually were safer in light accidents but yes, they ended up a mass of twisted metal in a bad accident.
I'm thinking there's a disconnect because he's British. No American would be surprised that cars went 100 mph in the 60's because most American cars had big engines at the time. But I think most Europeans were driving little cartoon cars at the time.
@@ressljs Not to mention that the US had highways with long straight stretches even before the interstate system was built but the UK had smaller, windy roadways. Yes, the first highways like the M1 and M6 were built around 1960 but most did not use them yet.
@@hectorsmommy1717 I've been to the UK. English roads are more frightening than the mothman. But yeah, the small British sports cars that aren't that powerful but are much more nimble make a lot more sense when you look at English roads.
@@ressljs I have been there and Ireland and agree, Never drove, I always used public transportation.
Not the point, but old cars were *not* safer in accidents than modern cars. They're less likely to be totaled in a minor accident but that's not the same thing. Modern cars are designed to crumple on impact. Crumpling dissipates the force of an impact and slows down the rate of deceleration. The less a car crumples, the more force is being transferred to your fleshy human body. There's a reason that just about everyone thirty years ago knew someone who died in a car crash, if not multiple people, while it's much less common now.
I grew up 20 miles from Pt Pleasant. It may be the only thing that where I grew up is known for except bad dental health and meth.
WTF, Charleston WV... not South Carolina
well judging by the bad teeth at least you have good meth!
That is the first time Simon has sung a song that I could identify. Bravo!! 👏🏻
The couples had also heard the sound of the mothman too, they said it was like a high pitched squeak from the record machine or a mouse. Honestly if I just saw the creature I'd be scared, but if I also heard the squeaking too I would instantly go "Awwwww, so cute!"
Can't wait for this. I went to the Mothman museum in WV. It's a small cute town and I guess they just like the quirky story of it all
WV resident here. Fun fact, a guy in Beech Fork (state park down from my house) made the news when he saw Mothman. Only weird part was it was 3 months before covid hit China
Simon needs to play Fallout 76... Nevermind, that would be cruel.
I'm from WV and the Mothman museum is actually pretty cool. It's filled with art work, old news papers, back drops & props to take your pictures with plus all kinds of fun stuff. We also have a Mothman festival every year in September.
Love it that Jen is getting more confident and rags on you now in her editing like Sam does.
We see you, Jen. We see you.
I like the fallout 76 mothman it looks so fluffy and huggable.
Especially the "Wise Mothman" variant
Jen's "Tangent Alert" is freaking great!
Mothman the thiccest cryptid
Simon, I come to this channel because of your wanderings and asides. You strict skepticism on anything paranormal makes me laugh!
I grew up in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia. Our geography is flanked by Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania. A 20 minute drive could have you in any of those 3 states. We were in the Blue Ridge mountains, and Maryland and Virginia are in fact both coastal to the Atlantic Ocean. West Virginia also has no natural lakes.
John Keel was a journalist for years before the events in the Mothman prophecies. The 'military installation' was an abandoned factory and it had been the location of several UFO sightings before the Mothman showed up. The massive crash of the silver bridge took place shortly after, dumping dozens of bodies - in their cars - into the river below. If you wanted to recover members of a doomed species and if you could move through time then one of the best ways would be to raid the still living victims of a large disaster, with a known time and location, where they ended up under water... missing bodies wouldn't be surprising, apparent age discrepancies of any found bodies (like they could be 30 when they go in and 80 when they're pulled out) could be chalked up to drowning bloat. No one could actually see the 'kidnapping' as it would have taken place under opaque water. Whatever actually happened around there fits no description.
Simon was talking about cars from the 60s. -- They were made bigger and with better materials. My dad was driving to work and was literally (yes, literally) hit by a fast moving train in his 1967 Chevrolet truck. After the crash stopped, he got out and cussed the train engineer and went to work. The entire front side panel was ripped off and the engine block was moved a little, but the truck still drove, so he drove it that way for many years. BTW he never sued the railroad or the state and didn't even go to the doctor.
Your dad sounds like an asshole for blaming the train engineer after he drove into the train.
Good to hear someone call out drivers that pull that. I remember one time my entire lane stopped moving, and after a minute I was able to slip into the right lane, and as I got to the front of the jam I saw it was being held up by someone trying to cut the line and squeeze into the left turn lane.
I’m obsessed with the way Simon says “mothman”
I, too, thought of that *John Denver* song. 😄
Courtesy of *Mark Strong* in the *Kingsmen* movies. 😅
Simon singing the *MiB* theme... 🙃
Maybe the silver suited people were...
The dream police? 🤪
The *OutKast* bit... 😂
Aww no Mothman video? I was excited to hear Simon commentary on it haha
Loved the quick Little Face addition Jen!
I started drinking at the beginning of this. I have adhd. I don't even know what this is supposed to be about at this point (13 mins in sorry Simon normally right there with ya, mate), but I'm here for it. Cheers Whistler team.
Hello Simon, yes ! I had a 1965 Ford Galaxy 500 with a 390 cu. inch motor that I took up to 110 mph. I took that motor out and put in a 351 cu. inch with Cleveland heads and a shift kit . I buried the speedometer at 120 mph . I probably went a bit faster but that's as high as the speedometer would read. THAT RIDE SCARED THE BEEJEEBIES OUT OF ME. That was 50 years ago and I've been driving the speed limit ever since.
Movies are not the only media the mothman has invaded, it is an enemy in the Castlevania games too, notably Aria of Sorrow, in which it is one of only two enemies (that I remember) which requires a specific action to be done for it to have any chance at all of appearing, the other being Bigfoot. The Mothman's attacks if they can be called that are 'jump lazily into the air and flutter a bit' and 'drop dust while jumping'. The dust has a 100% critical-hit rate, beware the creature's innocuous appearance.
Yep. Went straight to the Mothman Cam stream, and--sure enough--there was a couple taking a picture.
I've always wondered what this was about! I love watching all of your stuff! Thanks for the always interesting content!
Simon, the vision the woman had of Christmas presents floating down the river? This actually happened. It was near Christmas. Some of the folks caught in the collapse had been shopping for Xmas presents and those floated free from their cars when they fell in the river.
8:00 People did survive car crashes in the 60’s. There weren’t airbags or the myriad of safety features now, but they were really solidly built and most had seatbelts.
Whoa, another awesome topic!
Re: 18:04 I've had exactly 2 dreams that my family and I found extremely interesting, because they both came true *after* I described them. Both had to do with car accidents, one involving a death, and there were details that were so far out of coincidence that I couldn't have just pulled them out of a hat. And *all* the details matched, it wasn't a case of cherry-picking. Creepy.
But that was more than a decade ago. I think that part of my brain has atrophied since then.
I burst out laughing at ‘Cock Block Mothman’ - at which point the family called from the other room to ask if I was okay. “Well, I’m watching a Simon Whistler video about the West Virginia Mothman,” at which point, my husband quipped, “So that’s a solid no, then.” 😂
"Even small jets are tiny" cracked me up good
You know what I would love to see as a deeper dive into an episode of Decoding The Unknown? A deeper dive into UFO's. Where did it start? Why do people connect them with aliens etc? Maybe even a kinda scientific twist in how likely (very likely for that matter) it is that aliens exist. And of course as a narrative thread take some of the more famous solved/unsolved UFO-sightings
Love the dead on call about the BMW. However the people who initially reported the mothman to the police were not 15 year old kids they were married couples in their late teens early 20s
I like that Simon pronounces “Mothman” like it’s someone’s last name
The main thing I remember about "The Mothman Prophecies" is that our local newspaper had it listed as "The Mathman Prophecies" in the movie listings, and this typo went uncorrected for at least a straight week. I actually did see the movie, but I barely remember much about it.
The 4 who first saw Mothman were young, but they were technically adults. Two married couples, Linda Scarberry was 19.
When visiting Point Pleasant, please check out the Mothman Statue and museum!
17:50 - well. I like listening to "crazy dreams stories". I often find them quite interesting :)
Good episode. Here's an episode suggestion, the death? Of Jim Morrison of the Doors.
I love it when Simon makes himself laugh with his own silliness
Have you ever been a few feet under a golden eagle in flight ? They are IMMENSELY LARGE !
I think it's awesome that the whole crane thing I had previously commented ended up in the video.
You can alway's count on Factboy Add's & Bolocks, love it...
I have friends who live in West Virginia - even they admit there's something weird about the state.
I always thought "owlman" would make more sense as a name, but that is also taken by a comicbook character. (Batman's evil counterpart from a universe where all the heroes are bad guys and all the villains are good guys.)
28:45
Most dudes: I'm a CIA agent, and part-time fighter pilot.
Factboi: I play tennis.
I had exactly the same notion as you about what necking was when I was a kid. lol
"Cock Block Mothman" needs to be a shirt. Too perfect. 🎺👏💜 If you do a picture, it has to be the giraffes. 🤣
Thank you for doing this episode!
I like how Simon says it like a surname. Goldman, Fleishman, Mothman.
The Mothman is also an NPC in Fallout 76, (Set in West Virginia) they have a cult of the Mothman, and Mothman in game events, and offasionaly he gets into random fights
4:40, Charleston, SC, or...Maybe...Charlestown, WV?
When the people talked of red eyes, I right away thought large Owl, what is called the Great Grey Owl, which wingspan is more then 5ft and they are about 4. 8 ft tall, and though that isn't really big, compared to the Crane, it might make more since when talking about the eyes! Since Owls eyes face the same as a human, straight out front, not to the sides so much, and what if the Owl was standing on something that couldn't be seen in the dark, which made it look bigger/taller? Plus Owls hunt at night, and the sightings were all at night! Now I don't know if their eyes glow red, but cats and dogs both do and so do humans, it depends on how the light is hitting them!
My older brothers and I were taking a late night walk around our neighborhood, which is in a suburb outside Detroit Michigan, and suddenly we saw some big winged thing fly over, well more like glided over us, it was a huge Turkey! Yes I said Turkey, it somehow had got up onto houses, and just kind of jumped and glided from one to the other! We lived in an area of the city we lived in that had older houses, so these were two story houses, and behind our little street was a real sub, with all the one story ranch style houses, the ones that look exactly alike! But these were good size houses, but this big ass Turkey had somehow glided its way onto the roofs, lol! We did see it finely land heading away from us, but if some people saw it they might have thought it was something else or at least something other then a Turkey, lol!
Heck they may have even seen more then one thing, it was night time, they could have seen the red eyes of an Owl and something larger like the Crane in the same area, and thought that it all was one animal/creature!
I mean I have seen people describe something that I was present when they saw it and they said it was much bigger then it was or something was faster then it was, so I am sure that these people had embellished their stories a bit, without even meaning to!
Also about the woman who claimed the Men in Black came to see her, she at first said they didn't blink, but then says they were wearing sunglasses, then how did she know they didn't blink? I remember hearing about this part of this before, first on the show The X Files, but then in other things talking about the real story! But I never paid attention to the whole thing about them not blinking, if they mentioned it that is!
"What happens if something goes wrong with the plane? It just crashes doesn't it." 😂😂
"Or maybe not, and maybe not" literally two days later un edited footage release from into the shadows. True Nostradamus
Can with give Jen a big round of applause for this episode 😂😂
What your research failed to report was that all four teens were separated and interviewed separately by the sheriff. All their stories matched up in specific details which is hard to do even if it's a planned hoax or lie. Also one woman reported the mothman entered her home and attempted to take her baby from her arms. It's also been seen before many devastating tragic events ... reports made of seeing him before these events have occurred. Including chernobyl.
Mothman Prophecies (the movie) is good as hell. The book is a fun read too.
You're joking about the wing span, but condors have a massive wing span. It's hugely improbable that a condor would be in that area, but who knows what unknown bird might be around.
I've been to the Mothman statue! Not much else going on in Pt Pleasant so as Simon mentioned it's great that the town takes the myth and runs with it.
I saw a crane a few times in rural upstate NY. It was so large, it's very difficult to believe that it's normal and not a prehistoric creature. Truly breathtaking, but not pretty.
All I remember about the Mothman Prophecies is someone whispering "Chapstick" to Richard Gere over the phone