The Mothman Part 1

Astonishing Legends

Scott Philbrook

History, Society & Culture

4.6 • 9.8K Ratings

🗓️ 20 October 2016

⏱️ 87 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

All legends are local in a way, and when one local person tells a tale of a strange encounter, it can be a cause for skeptical snickers from the townsfolk. When more than a hundred people from the same region all see the same thing, it can lead to books, a major Motion Picture and even an annual festival. Such is the case with Point Pleasant, West Virginia and the Ohio River Valley's own "Mothman" — whose local sightings turned into national legend. There are several elements that contribute to the intense curiosity that still surrounds the stories of the Mothman, himself described as a winged, humanoid creature with glowing red eyes and a sympathetic, if mysterious nature. One of them is the sudden appearance of a friendly, inter-dimensional road tripper named Indrid Cold who just wants to get to know you better and may be searching for a cryptid on the loose . Another is the unsettling thought that these encounters may have portended a disaster that took the lives of 46 people exactly 13 months later.

Tonight's Quote:

“Human beings are under the control of a strange force that bends them in absurd ways, forcing them to play a role in a bizarre game of deception.” -

— Jacques Vallée, Computer Scientist, Venture Capitalist and noted Ufologist

Show Links:

We've found that some sites are not showing these links as clickable unless they are URLs, so until those outlets improve their show notes section, we are providing actual URLs next to the clickable description of each link to make things easier for our listeners!

The Mothman Prophecies - A True Story by John A. Keel https://amzn.com/0765334984 The Mothman Prophecies - The Movie https://amzn.com/B0000648X0 The Woodrow Derenberger interview with Ronald Maines, Gen. Mgr. of WTAP https://youtu.be/5HxY4suVjSo Point Pleasant, West Virginia http://bit.ly/2euHGdZ Gallipolis, Ohio basecamp for John Keel and the Mothman Prophecies movie crew http://bit.ly/2e3aZpU Visit the Mothman Museum! http://bit.ly/2enKY4d Attend the Mothman Festival in beautiful Point Pleasant, WV! http://bit.ly/1pjsSMO Scott always stays at the Lowe Hotel when searching for Mothman! http://www.thelowehotel.com/ Point Pleasant's "TNT Area" where the Mothman dwells http://n.pr/2drLM5A Explosion and munitions risk at the "TNT Area" http://bit.ly/2eIfuJD Inside the Eerie TNT Storage Bunkers of West Virginia on Wired http://bit.ly/2e8qeyV The Mothman and Indrid Cold story on WeekInWeird.com http://bit.ly/2eI4OuC Mothman on Wikipedia http://bit.ly/2dQ3dhn 1st sighting of the Mothman according to the WV Dept. of Commerce http://bit.ly/2drIzTK The Grinning Man on TheNightSky.org http://bit.ly/2ej1G76 The Case of Indrid Cold on Forteania http://bit.ly/2ej0hNV Assessing Wikipedia's Accuracy on NPR http://n.pr/2elZZaH

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For more information on this episode visit our website!

Credits:

Episode 050 - "Mothman" Produced by Scott Philbrook & Forrest Burgess; Edited by Sarah Vorhees, Ryan McCullough Sound Design; Research Assistance by Tess Pfeifle and the astonishing League of Astonishing Researchers, a,k.a. The Astonishing Research Corps, or "A.R.C." for short. Special thanks to Jordan Pickering, Rey Castañeda and Sarah Cozzemero. Copyright 2016 Scott Philbrook & Forrest Burgess. All Rights Reserved.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Estonishing Legends is supported by Zippercrooter, Squarespace, The Great Courses Plus, and Harry's.com.
0:05.6	And...
0:07.2	We're back.
0:08.2	Well, this one's been a long time coming.
0:10.0	I think it's fair to say that the Mothman and the Count of Saint Germain,
0:13.4	where the two guys I was most interested in when we were first concepting the show.
0:17.0	We'll save the count for another day, but tonight we tack one of the most infamous legends in modern North America,
0:23.6	the Mothman.
0:25.2	Happy Halloween!
0:30.0	Welcome back to Estonishing Legends.
0:42.8	I'm Scott Philbrook, and this is Forrest Burgess.
0:46.0	Human beings are under the control of a strange force that bends them in absurd ways,
0:51.0	forcing them to play a role in a bizarre game of deception.
0:55.0	Jacques Velle, computer scientist, major capitalist, and noted uphologist.
1:00.0	Join us tonight as we dive into the Estonishing Legend of the Mothman.
1:04.0	So this story is too big for a single episode.
1:16.0	We're going to break it into a few parts.
1:18.0	And oddly, it has a lot more in common with Skinwalker Ranch than I originally thought of.
1:23.0	I read the book, Mothman Prophecies a long time ago.
1:26.0	I read it years and years ago before we started the show.
1:28.0	I think you're going to find a lot of that happening as we go forward into our journey with us and the audience.
1:34.0	Yeah, there's more common threads than I ever expected.
	...

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