Mothman sightings map
Mothman is the name for reports of a winged, man-sized figure, sometimes with glowing eyes. This category also holds other "winged humanoid" accounts that people report under different names. It records what was reported, not what was there.
Other names in the sources: Winged humanoid, Owlman.
Background reading on Wikipedia: Mothman.
We map claims, not creatures. A case is what some source says someone saw or heard, with the link to that source. It is not proof that anything was there, and a retelling counts once, not as a second sighting.
By the numbers
141 cases on the map, 67 of them first-hand (the witness telling it). A case may stand on several documents; copies and reprints are not confirmations.
Best-documented cases
Ranked by independent sources first, then documents, then first-hand accounts. This says how well a claim is documented, not whether it is true.
Mothman · Point Pleasant, West Virginia · 1966
Witnesses Roger and Linda Scarberry and Stephen and [name] saw a six-and-a-half to seven-foot-tall winged creature with giant red eyes near the TNT area in Point Pleasant, which then took off…
Mothman · Point Pleasant, West Virginia · 1967
A tractor trailer driver reported seeing the mothman fly around his truck before it vanished into the sky.
Mothman · Point Pleasant, West Virginia · 1966
The [name] family and Mrs. [name] report seeing a headless creature with glowing red eyes that rose up from the ground and walked around their friend's porch.
Mothman · Kanawha County, West Virginia · 1966
Witness [name] reports that she and her four siblings went to TNT sightings in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, in November 1966, where they encountered and were chased by a mysterious creature.
Mothman · Newton Abbot, England
Witness reports seeing a Mothman wearing black boots with downward facing triangles and bat-like wings in Newton Abbot.
Mothman
The narrator reports having a lucid dream where they saw the same creature staring at them from outside a window.
Further reading
- The Mothman Prophecies, John A. Keel (2001)
The 1966-67 Point Pleasant flap, by the investigator who covered it.
Borrow on Internet Archive - Mothman: The Facts Behind the Legend, Donnie Sergent Jr. and Jeff Wamsley (2002)
Local researchers' account of the Point Pleasant sightings.
Borrow on Internet Archive - On the Track of Unknown Animals, Bernard Heuvelmans (1959)
The founding work of cryptozoology.
Borrow on Internet Archive - Cryptozoology A to Z, Loren Coleman and Jerome Clark (1999)
Encyclopedia of reported creatures.
Borrow on Internet Archive - Abominable Science!, Daniel Loxton and Donald Prothero (2013)
Skeptical history of the Yeti, Nessie and others.
Borrow on Internet Archive - In Search of Prehistoric Survivors, Karl Shuker (1995)
Borrow on Internet Archive
Books we have not reproduced: borrow them free at archive.org. Listing a book is not an endorsement of its claims.