About Mothmen and Men in Black
(Here is more on the Mothmen and their friends, the Men In Black, otherwise
known as the synthetics, and least that is what would I call them. I have
been around these beings and they are weird dudes. How would you like to
become a functional adult human in in a few hours? Very disorienting! --SW)
What may well have been the most notorious of all "scares"
involving reptilian beings, involved a combined "invasion" of
pterodactylin-hominoid "Mothmen" and "Men In Black". These
creatures have been referred to as Mothmen, Winged Dracos, and
Winged Serpents, depending on the source involved. They
reportedly terrorized a particular area in West Virginia,
according to John A. Keel, in the mid-1960's. Keel is convinced
that these malevolent entities were involved in the tragic
"silver bridge" disaster in which several UFO witnesses perished,
based on certain strange circumstances surrounding the event. In
his book 'THE MOTHMEN PROPHECIES' (Signet Books., N.Y.) Keel
reveals the following:
"The moment I met Mrs. Hyre's niece Connie Carpenter in
1966, I knew she was telling the truth because her eyes were
reddened, watery, and almost swollen shut. I had seen these
symptoms many times in my treks around the country investigating
UFO reports. Witnesses who were unlucky enough to have a close
encounter with an unidentified flying object, usually a
dazzlingly brilliant aerial light, are exposed to actinic
rays...ultraviolet rays...which can cause 'eyeburn,' medically
known as KLIEG CONJUNCTIVITIS. These are the same kind of rays
that tan your hide at the beach. If you lie in the bright sun
without protecting your eyes you can get conjunctivitis.
Whatever they are, UFOs radiate intense actinic rays. There are
now thousands of cases in which witnesses suffered eye-burns and
temporary eye damage...even temporary blindness...after viewing a
strange flying light in the night sky.
"...What puzzled me about Connie's case, however, was that
she had not seen a splendid luminous flying saucer. She had seen
a giant 'winged man' in broad daylight.
"According to her story, Connie, a shy, sensitive eighteen-
year-old, was driving home from church at 10:30 A.M. on Sunday,
November 27, 1966, when, as she passed the deserted greens of
Mason County Golf Course outside New Haven, West Virginia, she
suddenly saw a huge gray figure. It was shaped like a man, she
said, but much larger. It was at least SEVEN FEET TALL and very
broad. The thing that attracted her attention was not its size
but its eyes. IT HAD, SHE SAID, LARGE, ROUND, FIERCELY GLOWING
RED EYES THAT FOCUSED ON HER WITH HYPNOTIC EFFECT.
"'It's a wonder I didn't run off the road and have a wreck,'
she commented later.
"As she slowed, her eyes fixed on the apparition, a pair of
wings unfolded from its back. They seemed to have a span of
about ten feet. It was definitely not an ordinary bird but a
MAN-SHAPED THING which rose slowly off the ground, straight up
like a helicopter, silently. Its wings did not flap in flight.
It headed straight toward Connie's car, its horrible eyes fixed
to her face, then it swooped low over her head as she shoved the
accelerator to the floor-boards in utter hysteria.
"OVER ONE HUNDRED PEOPLE WOULD SEE THIS BIZARRE CREATURE
THAT WINTER.
"Connie's conjunctivitis lasted over two weeks, apparently
caused by those glowing red eyes. At the time of my first visit
to Point Pleasant in 1966 I did not relate the winged weirdo to
flying saucers. Later events not only proved that a relationship
existed, but that relationship also is a vital clue to the whole
mystery.
"Max's Kansas City is a famous watering hole for New York's
hip crowd. In the summer of 1967 an oddball character wandered
into that restaurant noted for its oddball clientele. He was
tall and awkward, dressed in an ill-fitting black suit that
seemed out of style. His chin came to a sharp point and his eyes
bulged slightly like 'thyroid eyes.' He sat down in a booth and
gestured to the waitress with his long, tapering fingers.
"'Something to eat,' he mumbled. The waitress handed him a
menu. He stared at it uncomprehendingly, apparently unable to
read. 'Food,' he said almost pleadingly.
"'How about a steak?' she offered.
"'Good.'
"She brought him a steak with all the trimmings. He stared
at it for a long moment and then picked up his knife and fork,
glancing around at the other diners. It was obvious he did not
know how to handle the implements! The waitress watched him as
he fumbled helplessly. Finally she showed him how to cut the
steak and spear it with the fork. He sawed away at the meat.
Clearly he really was hungry.
"'Where are you from?' she asked gently.
"'Not from here.'
"'Where?'
"'Another world.'
"Boy, another put-on artist, she thought to herself. The
other waitresses gathered in a corner and watched him as he
fumbled with his food, a stranger in a strange land.
"A large white car with a faulty muffler wheezed and rattled
up the back street in New Haven, West Virginia, where Connie
Carpenter lived, and Jack Brown knocked at her door.
"'I'm a--a friend of Mary Hyre's.'
"His strange demeanor and disjointed questions distressed
her and disturbed her husband, Keith, and her brother Larry. It
quickly became obvious that he was not particularly interested in
Connie's sighting of the man-bird the year before. He seemed
more concerned with Mrs. Hyre and my own relationship with her
(we were professional friends, nothing more).
"'What do you think--if--what would Mary Hyre do--if someone
told her to stop writing about UFOs?' he asked.
"'She'd probably tell them to drop dead.' Connie replied.
"Most of the questions were stupid, even unintelligible.
After a rambling conversation he drove off into the night in his
noisy car. Connie called her aunt immediately, puzzled and upset
by the visit. He was such a very odd man, she noted, and he
wouldn't speak at all if you weren't looking directly into his
dark, hypnotic eyes. Connie, Keith and Larry not only noticed
his long-fingered hands, but there was also something very
peculiar about his ears. They couldn't say exactly what. But
there was something...
"Another kind of Man in Black haunted Brooklyn, New York, in
1877-80. He had wings and performed aerial acrobatics over the
heads of the crowds of sunbathers at Coney Island. A Mr. W. H.
Smith first reported these strange flights in a letter to the NEW
YORK SUN, September 18, 1877. The creature was not a bird, but a
'winged human(oid) form.'
"This flying 'man' became a local sensation and, according
to the NEW YORK TIMES, September 12, 1880, 'many reputable
persons' saw him as he was 'engaged in flying toward New Jersey.'
He maneuvered at an altitude of about one thousand feet, sporting
'BATS WINGS' and making swimminglike movements. Witnesses
claimed to have seen his face clearly. He 'WORE A CRUEL AND
DETERMINED EXPRESSION.' The entire figure was black, standing
out sharply against the clear blue sky...
"North American Indians have extensive legends about the
Thunderbird, a huge bird said to carry off children and old
people. It was accompanied by loud noises, hums, buzzes and,
apparently rumbles from the infrasonic and ultrasonic levels.
Known as PIASA to the Indians of the Dakotas, it was supposed to
have terrifying red eyes and a long tail... a monstrous demon
with... bat's wings, and a body closely in human form.
"...In May 1961, a New York pilot was buzzed by a 'damned
big bird, bigger than an eagle. For a moment I doubted my sanity
because it looked more like a pterodactyl out of the prehistoric
past.' The thing had swooped at his plane as he cruised up the
Hudson River valley.
"Far away, in the Ohio River valley, another startled pair
had an even more breathtaking experience. A woman prominent in
civic affairs in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, was driving on
Route 2 along the Ohio River with her elderly father. As they
passed through a sector on the edge of the park known as the
Chief Cornstalk Hunting Grounds, a tall manlike figure suddenly
appeared on the road in front of them.
"'I slowed down,' she told me years later, 'and as we got
closer we could see that it was much larger than a man. A big
gray figure. It stood in the middle of the road. Then a pair of
wings unfolded from its back and they practically filled the
whole road. It almost looked like a small airplane. Then it
took off straight up...disappeared out of sight in seconds. We
were both terrified. I stepped on the gas and raced out of
there.
"...A businessman in Arlington, Virginia, wrote to me
recently, describing an experience he and three friends had in
the winter of 1969-69. They were at a farm near Haymarket when
they heard a strange rushing sound near a small lake. Intrigued,
they set out with flashlights and a couple of dogs to
investigate. Suddenly the dogs howled, turned tail, and ran.
There, standing by a tree was a huge dark shadow between eight
and twelve feet tall. The quartet scurried back to their car,
turned on their lights, and swung toward the shadow. 'All we
saw,' he reported, 'was this huge thing with large red-orange
eyeballs and winglike arms. We couldn't get out of there fast
enough.'"
Keel goes on to relate the experience of Woodrow
Derenberger, who experienced a weird encounter on November 4th
(1966?) while driving on Route 7 outside of Parkersburg "when he
suddenly felt a tingling sensation in his forehead." Then
thoughts from a being that identified itself as Indrid Cold from
the planet 'Lanulos' "began to spring full-blown in his mind."
According to Keel:
"Two weeks later, though Woody wasn't aware of it at the
time, two salesmen visited Mineral Wells and went from house to
house with their wares. They weren't very interested in making
sales. At one house they offered bibles. At another, hardware.
At a third they were 'Mormon missionaries from Salem, Oregon' (a
UFO wave was taking place in Salem at that time). One man was
tall, blond, and looked like a Scandinavian. His partner was
short and slight, with pointed features and a dark olive
complexion. They asked questions about Woody and were
particularly interested in opinions on the validity of his
alleged contact..."
"High explosives were manufactured in Point Pleasant during
World War II. Seven miles outside of town part of the 2,500-acre
McClintic Wildlife Station, an animal preserve and bird
sanctuary, was ripped up. MILES OF UNDERGROUND TUNNELS WERE DUG,
linking camouflaged buildings and factories. One hundred
'igloos' were scattered across the fields and woods--huge
concrete domes with heavy steel doors where the finished
explosives could be safely stored. Dirt and grass covered the
domes so from the air the whole area had a harmless, pastoral
appearance. A few scattered buildings linked by improvised dirt
roads with no suggestion of all the activity going on below
ground. It looked like nothing more than what it was supposed to
be, a haven for birds and animals in the Ohio River valley.
"After the war most of the explosives were carted away. The
factories were dismantled. THE ENTRANCES AND EXITS OF THE
TUNNELS WERE PLUGGED WITH THICK CONCRETE SLABS. Some of the
igloos were given to the Mason County government as possible
storage vaults. They still stand empty. Others were sold to the
Trojan-U.S. Powder Co. and the LFC Chemical Co. Some were leased
to American Cyanamid.
"...At 11:30 P.M. on the night of November 15, 1966, two
young couples from Point Pleasant, Mr. and Mrs. Roger Scarberry
and Mr. and Mrs. Steve Mallette, were driving through the TNT
area in the Scarberry's 1957 Chevy. They were looking for
friends but no one seemed to be out that night. All of the
twisting back roads were deserted. The few homes scattered among
the igloos were dark.
"Roger, then a strapping blond eighteen-year-old, was
driving. They aimlessly made the circuit of the roads around the
igloos, returning to the old generator plant near the unlocked
gate. As they pulled alongside the plant, Linda Scarberry
gasped. They all looked into the blackness and saw two bright
red circles. They were about two inches in diameter and six
inches apart. Roger slammed on his brakes.
"'What is it?' Mary Mallette, a strikingly attractive
brunette, cried from the back seat.
"The lights bobbed away from the building and the startled
foursome saw they were attached to some huge animal.
"'IT WAS SHAPED LIKE A MAN BUT BIGGER,' Roger said later.
'MAYBE SIX AND A HALF OR SEVEN FEET TALL. AND IT HAD BIG WINGS
FOLDED AGAINST ITS BACK.'
"'But it was those eyes that got us,' Linda declared. 'It
had two big eyes like automobile reflectors.'
"'They were hypnotic,' Roger continued. 'For a minute we
could only stare at it. I couldn't take my eyes off it.'
"It was grayish in color and walked on sturdy manlike legs.
IT TURNED SLOWLY AND SHUFFLED TOWARD THE DOOR OF THE GENERATOR
PLANT WHICH WAS AJAR AND HANGING ON ITS HINGES.
"'Let's get out of here!' Steve yelled.
"Roger stepped on the gas and they shot through the gates,
spun onto the exit road, and headed for Route 62..."
"At 7:15 A.M. on November 25, a young shoe salesman named
Thomas Ury was driving along Route 62 just north of the TNT area
when he noticed a tall, gray manlike figure standing in a field
by the road. 'Suddenly it spread a pair of wings,' Ury said,
'and took off straight up, like a helicopter.
"'It veered over my convertible and began going in circles
three telephone poles high.'
"He stepped on the gas as the creature zoomed down over his
vehicle. 'It kept flying right over my car even though I was
doing seventy-five.'
"Mr. Ury sped into Point Pleasant and went straight to the
sheriff's office thoroughly panicked. 'I never saw anything like
it,' he confided to Mrs. Hyre later. 'I was so scared I just
couldn't go to work that day. The thing had a wingspan every bit
of ten feet. It could be a bird, but I certainly never saw one
like it. I was afraid it was going to come right down right on
top of me.'
"The old familiar symptom, unreasonable terror, took hold of
him. 'I've never had that feeling before. A weird kind of
fear,' he said. 'That fear gripped you and held you. Somehow,
be best way to explain it would be to say that the whole thing
just wasn't right. I know that may not make sense, but that's
the only way I can put into words what I felt.'
John Keel related still other incidents of encounters with
these fearful pterodactylin hominoids...
"'Look at that crazy character coming downwind in that
plane,' Eddie Adkins commented. He and four other men were
standing on the field of the Gallipolis, Ohio, airport, just
across the river from Point Pleasant on Sunday, December 4, 1966.
"At 3 P.M. that afternoon a large winged form came cruising
majestically along the Ohio River, just behind the airport. The
pilots later estimated that it was about three hundred feet in
the air and was traveling about seventy miles an hour. As it
drew closer they realized it was not a plane but was some kind of
enormous bird with an unusually long neck. It seemed to be
turning its head from side to side as if it were taking in the
scenery (Note: Scientists believe that saurian-reptilian
pterodactyls used their heads and neck as a 'rudder' while in
flight, moving them from side to side, constantly readjusting in
order to remain aloft - Branton). The wings were not flapping.
"'MY GOD! IT'S SOMETHING PREHISTORIC!' one of the men
cried.
"Everett Wedge grabbed his camera and sprinted to his small
plane. By the time he was airborne the giant creature had
vanished somewhere down river."
John Keel personally investigated the TNT area and claimed
that in one area an irrational "fear" gripped him. He would step
out of the large circle and the sensation would cease. He again
entered it and soon the induced atmosphere of fear and terror
would almost overcome him until he was forced to leave it. Could
this have been the site of an underground lair? Remember, the
entire area is honeycombed with tunnels which have for years been
sealed off to the public. Keel related other accounts of
encounters where witnesses saw these pterodactylin 'mothmen', one
of which entered one of the old buildings that led to the
tunnels. Investigators followed the creature into the dome but
the winged reptile seemed to have vanished. Keel related other
incidents involving the 'Men In Black' (who seemed to have a
definite connection with the so-called 'mothmen') Referring to
the investigations of a fellow researcher by the name of Dan
Drisin, he reveals:
"...During his second visit to Point Pleasant Dan uncovered
some Mothmen witnesses I had missed. And he also came across
some more baffling Men-In-Black-type reports. People up in the
back hills has been seeing mysterious unmarked panel trucks which
sometimes parked for hours in remote spots. There seemed to be
several of these trucks in the area and the rumor was that they
belonged to the air force. Men in neat coveralls were seen
monkeying with telephone and power lines but no one questioned
them.
"A woman living alone on an isolated island north of
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, had two curious encounters
with the same kind of beings. She had moved to a tiny one-room
cabin on Keats Island in October 1967 and was soon seeing UFO
lights nightly. On January 29, 1968, following a close sighting
of 'a long dark body with dim red and yellow lights at both
ends,' she was surprised by two visitors. Both wore 'neat, dark
coveralls' and claimed to be employees of the hydroelectric
company. They offered to help her put up a stovepipe. The
younger of the two climbed on the roof of her cabin while the
other handed him the pipes. 'I could hear the man on the ground
directing him and the one on the roof would answer, "Yes,
Master".'
"After the pipe was installed, the pair joined her for tea.
They seemed 'a little stiff.' When they left she wondered how
they had known she was there because 'the cabin couldn't be seen
from the road (and) the stove was out when they arrived, so there
was no smoke from the chimney.'
"On May 2, she again encountered two men. 'One was the
'boss' Hydro man in his neat coveralls,' she reported (CANADIAN
UFO REPORT, #13, 1972-73). 'The other was different, younger and
about 19-20. As I entered the path, the boss man indicated with
his hand for the young man to get behind him. They got well off
the path and waited for me, the young man a little behind his
boss. The fellow stared at me as if I were some kind of
freak...'
"This time she didn't invite them for tea. One odd thing
she noticed during both meetings was their slow, careful way of
walking. They looked at their feet and stepped uncertainly.
"The next day a jeep came along the road, containing four
men inspecting lines... 'carelessly dressed, workaday men, none
in coveralls. The boss wasn't obviously so. They expressed no
surprise at seeing me there, no concern or any particular
interest. I told them two of their men had already been around
the day before, inspecting the lines. They assured me
yesterday's men weren't Hydro men, that somebody had been
"pulling my leg."'
"Somebody was also pulling a lot of legs in cosmopolitan
Long Island. In West Virginia I had heard some stories about
three men who looked 'like Indians' and were accompanied by a
fourth man, more normal-looking and very shabbily dressed in
contrast to the other three. So I was nonplused when I heard
identical descriptions from people on Long Island.
"An elderly woman who lived alone in a house near the summit
of Mount Misery, the highest point on Long Island, had received a
visit from this quartet in early April 1967, immediately after a
severe rainstorm.
"'They had high cheekbones and very red faces, like a bad
sunburn,' she told me. 'They were very polite but they said my
land belonged to their tribe and they were going to get it back.
What frightened me was their feet. They didn't have a car...they
must have walked up that muddy hill...but their shoes were
spotlessly clean. There was no trace of mud or water where they
walked in my house.'
"That same week another visitor came to Mount Misery. This
was a woman with striking white hair who claimed to represent a
local newspaper. She carried a book 'like a big ledger' and
asked the witness a number of personal questions about her family
background. When I later checked with the newspaper I found they
employed no one of that description.
"The local Mount Misery expert was Miss Jane P. Paro, a
radio personality then with station WBAB in Babylon, New York.
Miss Paro is a dark-haired, dark-eyed young lady with a soft,
haunting voice. At that time she conducted an interview show,
largely devoted to the historical psychic lore of the region.
Soon after she reported some UFO sightings around Mount Misery
she began to receive all manner of crank calls, both at the
station and on her UNLISTED home phone. METALLIC VOICES ordered
her to meet them on 'the Mount' (she didn't go).
"...Mount Misery is a heavily wooded hill with a few narrow
dirt roads slicing through it and a number of large mansions set
back among the trees. The late Henry Stimson, secretary of war
during World War II, maintained a lavish estate on the summit.
For decades the Mount was known as a haunted place, THE SITE OF A
NUMBER OF MYSTERIOUS DEATHS AND DISAPPEARANCES. In the spring of
1967, young couples necking on the back roads began to see low-
flying UFOs, particularly around a field that was used as a
junkyard for old cars. Others claimed to see a giant hairy
monster with gleaming red eyes..."
|