Haunted Cosmos - Mothman (Part II)

Episode Date: April 19, 2023

Join us as we investigate the high strangeness found in the dark corners of God's spoken world.In this episode, Brian and Ben conclude their exploration of the Mothman events that plagued Point Pleasant, WV in 1966 - 97. Fact? Fiction? Mixture of both? And what is going on with these Men in Black?Enjoy! We're glad you're here.Love Haunted Cosmos? Get access to our exclusive show, The Dusty Tome, early ad-free access to main episodes, monthly AMA's, and livestreams with Ben and Brian by becoming a patron of the show: https://www.patreon.com/c/HauntedCosmosBuy the Haunted Cosmos book: https://www.newchristendompress.com/cosmos PS: It's also available as an audiobook!Support the show

In our last episode, we introduced you to the town of Point Pleasant, West Virginia, in the bizarre events that blanketed the area for 13 months in 1966 and 67. Strange sightings of a tall and mysterious winged creature whose glowing red eyes burned the eyes of its victims, appearing to more than 100 witnesses in both the day and nighttime. You also met Indrid Cold in his ghoulish grin, telepathically communicating humanoid creature who interrupted the quality.

life of a traveling salesman named Woody Durenberger and what appeared to be a UFO. To investigator John Keel, these events and others served as a portent of coming doom, which proved out in a horrific fashion on December 15, 1967, when the silver bridge connecting the Ohio River between Ohio and West Virginia suddenly collapsed under a full load of Christmas traffic, plunging more than 40 men, women, and children to their deaths in the icy waters of the Ohio. Kiel, who had been warned of an impending disaster by strange forces, some of whom claimed to be extraterrestrial at origin,

was given just enough information to know that tragedy was coming, but not enough to stop it. As we continue to investigate these events, unfolding to you what we are convinced are their demonic origins. We introduce you to another aspect of the high strangeness of that sleepy town in West Virginia in the 60s. The Men in Black. Fishing in Washington's Puget Sound is very seldom pleasant. Often it's cold, wet, foggy and muggy.

The winds rip through the many islands that pepper the sound, making it an endeavor only fit for the seasoned seaman. The rough conditions ensure the weak and inexperienced, the easily distracted and sluggish, won't make it long. Harold Dahl had spent many days on the sound as a patrol boatman. He was one of those blue-collar guys at the beating heart of the state's commerce back in 1947. In some ways, it really was a simpler time. The only good time of year in this area of the country is between June and September.

The sky is blue almost a majority of the time. The cold has a short refrain, and the city's bordering the sound team with the annual tourist rush. It was during this time, when a seaman used to navigating in rough weather, gets to enjoy a short period of more predictable work that Harold Dahl encountered something he could not explain. In his own words,

Harold describes the event as follows. Quote, on June 21st, 1947, in the afternoon about two o'clock, I was patrolling the East Bay of Mary Island. I, as captain, was steering my patrol boat close to the shore. On boat were two crewmen, my 15-year-old son and his dog. As I looked up from the wheel on my boat, I noticed six very large, donut-shaped aircraft. Close quote. He says that one of the objects began spewing forth what seemed like thousands of newspapers,

from somewhere on the inside of its center. These newspapers, which turned out to be a white type of very lightweight metal, fluttered to the earth. Dahl goes on to say that some heavier, almost lava rock-type objects started falling on the boat as well. They actually killed the dog, and they broke his son's arm. While this is certainly a classic tale of a UFO encounter, what happened after the event is perhaps stranger.

At the very least, it has had a far more lasting effect on the psyche of the populace. The next day, a man in a black suit showed up at Dahl's residence. He recounted in perfect detail everything that Dahl had seen, though the two had never spoken, and at the time, Dahl had only told his supervisor about the ordeal. The man told Dahl that he knew everything about it and emphasized to Dahl that if he were to speak about the ordeal or show evidence to people, his life would become quite difficult and maybe even painful. A short time later, Dahl publicly admitted that the whole thing was a hoax. despite a dead dog and a son whose arm was still inexplicably broken,

Dahl insisted that none of it was real. What would cause a man to do this, to backtrack so severely? Fear. Dahl's visits from these men in black sparked an obsession with the public, as more and more witnesses came forward with similar stories. It seems every time a strange event took place with other worldly beings or completely unexplained objects, these men would show up.

Who or what are they? As the Mothman events continued to plague Point Pleasant West Virginia in 1966 and 67, witnesses began reporting frequent visits to the small town from these men in black. Their appearance was perfect, though not normal. The clothes they wore, the cars they drove. Even their mannerisms were completely out of place, almost uncanny. They seemed not quite human, but almost human. As they asked people about the events that were still continuing to happen,

they would charge the West Virginia citizens not to say a word to anyone else, that it would be best for them to forget whatever they think they saw. Multiple witnesses claimed that they were threatened by these men. One of these witnesses, Linda Scarberry, reports the following, quote, they wore black suits, black hats, and sunglasses. They drove black cars, Cadillacs, I think. They looked like human beings, but their skin was somewhat transparent. You could see veins in their hands very clearly.

their fingers were longer than a normal person's fingers as well. Daddy shook hands with him, and he said they were awkward in shaking hands. They seemed to not know what to do or how to shake hands. Close quote. Across town, in days after the events of the above, quote, a man and woman, curious about the Mothman case, went to visit a witness and saw one of the black cars sitting outside of their home.

They took a picture of the license plate to have a friend at the police station run it. The search returned, striking result. That license plate number did not exist in the state of West Virginia. Well, welcome back to another incredible episode of the Honan Cosmos. Let's call it already. It's going to be. Bangor. It already is incredible because that is creepy, long-fingered men-and-black encounters. Yeah, I mean, did you really listen to it? See-through skin, long finger. Why are long limbs creepy? They absolutely, I think we can agree, they absolutely are creepy. And to me, long phalanges especially. Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, as someone who doesn't have most of his fingers, it scares me. It does. You have rather short fingers. I do. For those of you who don't know me personally, I don't have many fingers. His fingers are partially missing on one hand. Do normal length fingers bother you?

Like, is this offensive to you right now? I'm not offended by him. I have many normal length fingers. It's just there's something about all 10 being normal that throws me off. I don't like it. It's wrong. Well, these guys certainly do not have 10. In fact, Keel described, you know, John Keel as we introduced you to last episode, he described that these strange men in black descended upon the town of Point Pleasant.

They went all up and down the back roads and they went from home to home. He even describes one snippet where a doctor and his wife, again, pretty reliable observer, was driving along a country road in a snowstorm when they saw. a huge caped figure of a man struggling through the snow. And so I guess they were very brave, or hospitality was just different back there. But they said themselves, let's stop and give this large caped figure a ride. And when they got up to him, he vanished.

Just disappeared. Nothing strange about that at all. Nothing strange about that at all. No, no. Now, this may seem only adjacently related to the actual mothman stuff. I mean, the story with Harold Dahl, like, why do we include that in these Mothman episodes? And we want to connect some dots.

We want to show that the Mothman series of events isn't just some isolated thing. No. But the fact that the men-and-black phenomena is involved connects it to all these other really strange events that have taken place throughout history and still take place today. I mean, there's been recent, even footage of supposed men-and-black that are visiting people who say they've seen a UFO. Yeah, in fact, we'll share one in the description here. We're going to play the audio, though, from a phone call. This was not long ago. Again, this wasn't the 60s.

This was 2012. Yeah. This is recording. The year that the world ended. The year the world ended. We're still here in somehow. Take that. Time travel.

The Mayans were wrong. In 2012, a hotel worker, a man who happened to work at hotel, he had witnessed a UFO, a black triangle UFO, which is kind of a common, more recent shape of a UFO to witness. And later, I think it was the next day. These two strange men came into the hotel lobby and their CCTV footage of this on the YouTube video of these men walking in a lobby. And they inquired about this gentleman who had seen the UFO. Is he here? We want to talk to him.

And they seemed to know that he had seen something. And they were like, well, no. It's like he's not here. Almost comically tropey. Yes. How it just ticks every single box. When they describe the guy. It's like absolutely ridiculously creepy.

Yeah. Let's roll the phone call. This is the clerk who was there calling the man who they were looking for and describing to him this is what they were looking for. Here's the clip. There's a couple really strange looking men that were here. And they kind of freaked everybody out and they were asking questions about you. And of course, now I'm getting a little bit nervous and I'm like, what are you talking about?

And he said, well, they were, he goes, I don't know how to describe them except for extremely odd looking. They were the exact same height. They were wearing the exact same clothes. And they had the exact same faces, like they were twins. And he said they were wearing black suits, black trench coats. They were wearing like the old-fashioned Federo hats. They had extremely, extremely pale skin. and he said they came in and they asked for you.

And I said, I'm sorry, he's actually not working today. And it seemed like they didn't believe me. So they started to walk around the hotel and shortly after they went to the tour desk. But he goes, they freaked me out and I really wanted to tell you that there were these weird guys in here looking for you. So of course, now I'm a little bit skeptical and I'm a little bit freaked out all the same time. So the first thing I do is I run into my security office, and I rewound the cameras. And sure enough, here comes two gentlemen, through the front door, looking exactly how he described. Then the next day, I was talking with my tour desk.

And one of them asked to talk to me. She came in my office, the same as my gentleman, and she said, I heard that you heard that there were some men looking for you. And she said, they asked a few questions about you, and they said strange things that I didn't understand. They were talking about governments and conspiracies, and none of it made any sense to me. But she goes, they were very, very scary.

She said they had no eyebrows, no eyelashes, nothing. Their hair looked like they had a wig on, like it was attached to their hat, like it wasn't even real. And she said, and the scariest thing, their eyes were so big and so blue that they almost hypnotized me a little bit. And she goes, and you're going to think I'm crazy when I tell you this, but I swear they knew what I was thinking. And she started to cry, and she said one more thing before she left.

She said, these men, they didn't blink. Not once did I see them blink. All right. Well. Okay, then. Let's really hone in on that last bit. It's creepy when people don't blink. I haven't blinked this whole episode so far, just to see if I can do it.

And I'm real scared. And he's terrified. I'm terrified. I'm glad that I'm sitting across the table. Oh, my goodness. No, this is, so these sorts of men in black encounters, there actually, they appear all over the place whenever you have strange sightings.

Often following supposed UFO sightings or other mysterious events. Yeah. All right, here's my thing. I'm fine having fun with saying that they are some supernatural entity that is coming to follow up with other strange events.

But why? My question is like, what is the point? Yeah. Is it that they're trying to gain, more information about how we react to things. And then kind of like how we talked about in the first episode where they're refining the game plan. Like with if the, if we say that the Flatwood Woods monster was like a dress rehearsal for the Moth Man. Yeah.

Are the men in black like a review board that come and see how they did? How do we do? Exactly. So I have some ideas on this. One thing that's worth noting, just so everybody knows that we're not completely unhinged. some of these are hoaxed. Oh, yeah. 100%.

There's another investigator in this period named Gray Barker, who was sort of a, you know, in a similar line of research in journalism into this strange stuff as John Keel. But John Keel found out later that Gray Barker was actually somewhat of a trickster. And his conclusion was that Gray Barker had hoaxed some things and had played press. on John Keel at some points and was kind of a jokester, hoaxer, not completely fake, like still wrote some real investigative journalist things. So we know that some of these men in black sightings are, they're just, you know, hoaxes, people capitalizing on the increased UFO sightings or weird stuff happening, which is in the news. We're going to talk about that in West Virginia at this time.

However, John Keel, one of the things that he started to do when he would get really good stories is he would hold them back. He wouldn't publish them for several years. Right. Until after the events had all died out and then he would publish the details because he'd noticed that if he published something,

copycats might start to pop up. Right. So John at least attempted to, I feel like I can call him John. I feel first name, maybe Jay. Maybe Jay. Jay, Jay Keels. Yeah, I feel like we're close there. He at least attempted to sort of keep some journalistic integrity from his, you know, from what people say about him and his own description of his processes there. So some of them are certainly hoaxes. However, it's very, some of them are just strange and hard to fake. Yeah, I would say that they're at least not hoaxes. You know, I don't know what they are. Yeah.

It's kind of like where we say that these high strangeness things, they may not be supernatural, but they're not natural. Yeah. Like how we normally think. Yeah. Where they're not just so easily brushed off. So I don't know. I don't know. But the thing that gets me that I always come back to with Mothman, not only do you have the Mothman, you know, the title character who's playing a massive role, but you have injured cold.

You have all of these strange, like orb, like light orb type of events. that are taking place. You have dogs disappearing. There's another character named Vadik. Yeah, showed up. Yes. Who is like injured cold. Like an injured cold type character.

And then you also have men in black. And it seems like a can of worms is just being opened. And this is going to be really lame, but it's a good illustration. You've seen the Batman begins. Oh, yeah. With Christian Bale. Yeah. You remember when they like locked down the island and then the bad guys released that toxin that make

everyone afraid of anything? Yeah. And then the prison opens and all the crazies get out. Yeah. Okay, it reminds me of that, where this harbinger of doom, this mothman thing that started at all, is now opened at the floodgates for just all sorts of crazy stuff. Just weird stuff. Yeah.

In a really short period of time. And to me, it's all consistent with this hypothesis of demonic deception that Paul warns against. And one of the interesting threads that you can follow down is actually a thread that relates to, much older phenomena, much older supernatural phenomenon, like fairies, and, you know, in gin and other sort of elemental spirit,

sort of folklore that there are tales about. A lot of the through lines are similar. You see, you know, for example, one of the things that these black, these men in black would do in Point Pleasant, is they would go to the houses, and apparently it was very common, all the way out in back roads,

and like way down, in the rural areas surrounding even, they would appear at people's doorsteps and they would just knock on the door and ask probing questions. Yep. Number of children in particular. They were very interested in the children.

Ask things like, can I have a glass of water? Yes. Trying to get access to the house. Trying to get invited in. We see this coming to the doorstep, the threshold, this liminal sort of, where they need an invitation of some sort. Yeah.

We'll see this later with things like black-eyed kids and vampirism. A lot of it, this is why I think the through line that you see the connection between all these different types of phenomena in being supernatural, evil, demonic is that many of them are attempting to get permission. Yes. From you to come in and do things to you or engage with you. So you'd see, you know, them appearing in even the whole interest in children, very, very, very, very. familiar to old folklore, fairy encounters are often in a lot of old folk folklore is related to children, like children going off in the woods or children, them imitating children. Like fairies will imitate supposedly like a crying baby in the woods.

Or like a changeling where they literally almost embody a child. You just see this whole, to me, obvious demonic play where the percentage of it that's not a hoax. Yeah. Or just people making stuff. up, or getting on the bandwagon and wanting attention or whatever. If anything, the hoaxers make it, make the demonic play better, because it makes people just completely brush off. You dismiss it.

Something real. So I'm going to get a little covenantal here. Okay. Disclaimer. I am not saying that West Virginia is the new Israel. Okay. But you had a land that was pagan. They were housed by exclusively a pagan.

people in the Native Americans. You had the white people come in from Europe and they were Christians. The land was, I'm not saying it was done perfectly, okay? It was Christianized. It was Christianized. And then like I mentioned last time, it became this nominal sort of lukewarm kind of thing by the turn of the century. And it reminds me of the parable of the one demon getting expelled. Yeah. And the house getting swept up. And then him floating through the void and then coming back. With seven friends. With seven friends. So it's like, yeah, you Christianize the place, but you weren't being sanctified the whole time. So you were almost out of covenant after a while.

And all of this massive storm of stuff comes back. And it's just like free game. And no one knows what to think about it or what to do with it. I think that's a great connection. Because where you see this type of phenomena really does come in a couple distinct flavors. One of them is overt paganists. And like you mentioned, the ancient Native American lore, gods where again guys don't just go the materialist route where it was all fake and made up no there were

real demons it was not all fake and made real lower g gods demons pretending to be god saying worship me give me sacrifice let me tell you how to reach enlightenment and salvation and you see that in all over the world in ancient pagan cultures but then there's another type of supernatural phenomenon one of them would be the type of supernatural phenomenon you see in the midst of a high Christian culture yes where you still see where the Christians understand what's going on. So they're able to properly name it and say, this is demonic, this is evil, we don't want it. It's still there. Even in Christian societies in the Middle Ages and throughout the history of the Christian West,

you see stories of supernatural events attempting to deceive or assault. But Christians knew what to name them. What you see now in a modern America is, as we've apostatized, you see the, the old gods returning, and you see them returning in force. Yeah. And we no longer know what to name them. This is one of the reasons, a podcast like this is actually important, is because we know everybody kind of is starting to get this on their radar,

where I know both of us have had conversations with people who are, you bring up some supernatural thing, Bigfoot or something. And people are tuned into it. They're like, people are interested. They've read, they've listened to podcasts, they've investigated, They've investigated it. They have their opinions about it. Maybe they've had their own experiences.

And at the same time, there's not a lot of content where Christians with good theology are just taking it up and saying, let's name it again. Let's go back and let's say, no, this is what it is. This is how to fight it. The name of Christ is going to banish the demons. Yeah. But you can't just banish the demons with your sage burning and your witchcraft. Yeah, you know, he'll come back.

Or your nominal Christianity. Yeah, you need Christ. Yeah. And you can get into a whole typological thing about naming and how naming something represents dominion and some sort of authority over that thing. Now, I'm going to go a completely different direction that's much less serious. Okay. But I'm compelled by it.

I'm ready. All right. M. Okay. M. Yeah. Two M's. Yeah.

Winged humanoid creature. Yep. what was the demon god that the shani people believed in? Machi Monito M. M. And he was a winged demon creature. I'm really shoehorning that in here. I expected to be like, no. But then I was like,

I had forgotten about it until just now. So I have to put it in there. It could be. Yeah, it didn't fit at all. But I was, let me reiterate, though, how ready, how thankful I am. that you went there. But it was that and not something else. I do want to circle back on these men in black. Let me also throw another curveball and then I want to ask you a question. Because there is another type, I don't know if this is a man in black scenario,

but there was a woman, actually. She was a blonde woman in her 30s. Yes. Who appeared in Point Pleasant. Southern accent. Yeah, soft southern accent, according to Keel in his book. And she started going through Ohio and West Virginia, both sides of the river. during this flap

and she would introduce herself as John Keel's secretary and John Keel was a very serious investigator people had received him he had a lot of respect in the area because he was not like a tabloid journalist he wasn't taking advantage of people he was very serious about the subject

and so he treated people well and protected their identities and all sorts of things so that got her in the door and she would go around and ask she had a clipboard with a form on it She would ask very personal questions about people. She seemed to know who had had witnessed supernatural events. And these are questions like, what's your personal help?

What's your income? What types of cars do you drive? Like not normal questions that you'd ask these people. Like a UFO sighting, you wouldn't expect them to say, how many children do you have? What do you? Yeah, you'd be like, what color was the UFO? And she's like, no, what color is your shoes? Yeah, like, do you have any birth marks?

Yeah. And the only problem with this whole situation is that John Keel didn't have a secretary. Yeah. Right? He has to this, he never found out who this woman was. He didn't find out that she was doing this until months later when a friend of his who was in Ohio wrote, was just writing him. And along the way, happened to say, oh, I told your secretary while she was here. But let me tell you as well, just in case you haven't heard from her.

And he's like, what? secretary and then he starts asking her out and tons of people had been interviewed by this woman so so maybe she's not a man in black maybe she's just a person but it was also see okay you say that but then i'm also thinking she as far as i know no one knew her name yeah no one knew who she was again naming something is important what what will like a catholic priest try to do immediately during an exorcism try to figure out the demon's name like do with that what you will yeah i'm not i'm not saying that they're all legit, but the first thing that they'll try and do is figure out the name. I didn't know that.

Because that gives them some amount of power over the thing. And they'll also say, don't tell it your name if it doesn't already know. Weird. So I'm just saying there's something about names that's important. And then also, she had visited people that he had never even mentioned yet in print or any reports. She had a deep knowledge. It was almost like she had an inside track to people that he hadn't published yet and were, and she was going to them after him or even before.

That's the part of it, the knowledge. So the two weird things about it, they make me think it's not just somebody grifting off of him journalistically. Her insider knowledge. And then the types of questions she was asking are not a type of questions that would really help you write tabloid journalist pieces.

Like getting in the door to write some, whatever the inquirer, Batboy, escapes New York City again type articles. You know, whatever. If you don't get that reference, you did not grow up going to supermarkets between 1995 in 2010. So, yeah, anyway, I say that because they fall in different categories. I don't know if that's technically a man in black or not. But my question to you, Ben, then, is these things, are they people?

Are they demons? Are they, what are they, are they people being influenced? by demons, are they crazy people, like, that's attracted? What's your take? I really don't know. I'm tempted to always say that they're not people. Yeah. Because now that, or at least, I don't know, they could be.

Now that Christ has ascended to the right hand of the majesty on high and has given a name greater than that of the angels, more excellent than theirs. you can't have Christians that are fully like controlled by a demon. I don't think that, I don't think that that tracks where you can have someone who's a born again believer that has literally no control over their mental and physical faculties because they are possessed by a demon. Maybe I'm wrong. Yeah.

I'm fine being wrong with that. I think that's interesting. That's just my conviction. Well, some of the strange things surrounding these. I'll say, just real quick. The reason that I think that is not just because I think it's a good idea, but because he put the gods to open shame, and they're not allowed to deceive the nations,

and the chief nation in the kingdom is the people of God. So it seems strange that even a single person in God's kingdom who's truly elect would be able to be deceived that much. But whatever. I'm fine being wrong about that. Where I'm going is to say it certainly could be demonic, and that's where I would lean. Now it could also be a form of,

of possession. Yeah. With people that aren't Christians or that don't know Christ or, or maybe they know him. Yeah. Maybe I'm wrong and they just don't know what to do in these type of things because the culture of Christianity in America's weak, or really all the first world countries. So that's a long way of saying, I don't know. Are they reptilians?

They're most definitely, no matter what they're reptilians. Do we need to do an episode on reptilians? I mean, probably. At least like a patron show. Let's definitely put it on the list. Let's put it on the list. One of the things it's peculiar about these people that would lend to the idea that they're not people, or at least they're not normal, just normal people,

is that they often just, they don't get dressed right. They don't get customs right, like Mary Hire. Have we talked about Mary Hire yet? Hold on. This actually gets me stoked about it's a Mary Hire story. Mary Hire was a writer for the local newspaper in Point Playa. It was called the Athens Herald. I don't know why I was called the Athens, Ohio.

Ah. Or West Virginia. One of the two. Is a town. Anyway. I'm pretty sure. But she was based in Point Pleasant. She wrote prolifically for them.

One of her columns was, it was called Where the Waters Mingle. And it was just about the goings-on of what's happening. So naturally, she was writing a lot of stuff about Mothman during this 13-month period. One of the things that happened to her was she had a visitor at her office one night, who was this very short little man, and it was in the middle of winter. He walks in shorter than her. He's like four foot six.

So he's like dwarf. Short king. Yeah. I mean, maybe. Short change. Short something. Yeah. And he walks in.

It's 20 degrees outside Fahrenheit. He's rocking short sleeves in a tee shirt. Either a demon or the guy's in high school. Or just an idiot. That refused to. Yeah, yeah. He's always more short. He wants to be cool.

And he did the same. thing where he was asking you are these strange questions and her and her friend were answering the questions and he was like relatively pleasant and then right before he left he looked down at her desk and saw a ballpoint pen this is so weird and he freaked out and he picked it up and was like what is this wonder as if he had never seen a pen before never seen a ballpoint pen and he asked if he could have it and she said yes and so then he just left like he cackled yeah he cackled like a madman just ran and then out and then just leaves and also to your point uh just so everyone knows that we were joking he was really short but he looked old like he had an old appearance and the face

and everything and he's also wearing the shoes that they all yes yeah with a thick thothold like like like mike tyson over here mike titan shoot that is my second mike tyson reference of this day was the other one on an episode of haunted cop no no no it was this morning at St. Brendan's Chapel. I remember. Yeah, while you were actually delivering the chapel. As I was delivering in chapel. Good job.

Yeah, very strangely dressed. That, that type of encounter coupled with the John Keel's non-fake secretary. Yeah. And then also how there's some, you know, common denominators and how the men in black, quote, present themselves. But there's also some differences here and there. Makes me think that it's one of those things where it's the same thing. It's the same entity. Yeah.

It's just trying different ways of. presenting itself and figuring out what works. And I think part of the hoax is that it wants you to think that it might be associated with the government somehow. I actually don't think it is because, in my opinion, the government, if they were really doing this going around like investigating these people, threatening them, a lot of the men in black will threaten people like the opening story, not to tell anybody. Your life could get very hard.

Yeah, we'll make your life very hard. The reason I don't actually think it's the government is because the government wouldn't send weird people with like their eyes, you know, like weird toupee hats and squishy, like weird shoes and the wrong attire, speaking like in an unusual ways, cackling, like never seen a ballpoint pen. I just don't think the government would send that strange of a person. Playing 5D chess. Yes, they're like absolutely playing with us. So weird. So I don't think that's the answer. Why don't we, if it's okay with you, talk about the Christiansons.

Yeah, the Christiansons had an interesting time during these Mothman events. Again, in the middle of winter. Yeah, a lot of things were happening to them. They had UFO sightings, but then one of the most impressive stories, I think, or at least compelling stories, is their encounter with these men in black.

So I'm actually going to read some from John Kiel's book, The Mothman Propheces. This is from Chapter 8, and I'm just going to quote straight from the book, On the afternoon of January 9th, 1967. So this is after the Silver Bridge collapse, actually. And two months after they had seen a UFO sighting themselves and talk to John Keel.

And then he had been keeping them secret. Like he had published, he hadn't told everybody, hey, the Christensen family saw all these weird things. They were part of his holding back sources, keeping the integrity. And then this story happens. Which I'll credit to John Keel, because like I just said, this visitation is after the Silver Bridge collapse. So it's...

Wait, was it? Yeah, they got visited January 9th. The Silver Bridge collapsed December 15th of 67. Wait a minute. Wasn't that later? Right, the new year starts January 1st. Oh, and then it gets to December later. Look, I actually went to private school.

You are a math. I went to private school K through 12 and I graduated engineering school with a mechanical, a real engineering. Ben can do like advanced calculators. All right. Forget everything. I, this whole time, I was like, wow, what an interesting wrinkle. Because I thought the same thing. And then I was like, wait, no. To be clear, December is when the bridge clap. So this was 11 months before. 11 months before the bridge closed. So this is actually soon after the beginning of things. Yes. All right. Yeah. Continue. I'm not going to edit of that. That's fine.

Yeah, no, keep the, keep the idiot. Keep the idiot. Keep the idiocy. So they, this family of the Christians, since they had just moved. into the new house, and I'm quoting from John Keel's book again, some distance from the place where they had lived at the time of their November UFO sighting, like what you're saying. Neither their address nor phone number was listed in the then current phone book. They entered their house by the back door. The front door was still heavily bolted and locked the way they had left it when they had gone to Florida. So they'd gone to a trip to Florida. They're coming back. At 5.30 p.m. there was a knock on the front door. Mrs. Arlene Christensen, who again has a great name, based, was in the kitchen preparing dinner. Based. And I beat you to that one.

She said to her 17-year-old daughter, Connie, check and see who that is. If it's a salesman, don't answer. Connie took a peek and reported back, it's the strangest looking man I've ever seen. Mrs. Christensen went to the door, unbolted and unlatched it. It was growing dark

and was bitter cold outside. There was no car in view and this seemed peculiar because the Christensen home was removed from other houses in a rather isolated spot. A tall man stood on the doorstep. Does Edward Christensen live here? He asked.

Arlene admitted he did. I'm from the missing heirs bureau, the man continued. Mr. Christensen may have inherited a great deal of money. May I come in? It was an approach that was hard to resist. She stepped back and invited him in, calling out to her husband. Edward Christensen is six feet two inches tall and heavy set. The stranger towered over him and must have been at least six feet six inches tall.

He was also enormously broad and might have weighed at least 300 pounds. He wore a fur Russian-style hat with a black visor on it and a very long black coat that seemed to be made of thin material, too thin for the cold weather. Brian, can you continue telling us the story? Absolutely, Ben. So the man looked at the Christians and said, this will only take 40 minutes. He said as he removed his hat and revealed an unusual head, large and round while his face seemed angular pointed. He had black hair which was closely cropped to his head as if his head had been shaved and the hair was just growing in again.

There was a perfectly round spot on the back of his head as if that area had recently been shaved. His nose and mouth seemed relatively normal, but his eyes were large, protruding like thyroid eyes, and set wide apart. One eye appeared to have a cast like a glass eye and did not move in unison with its companion. Okay.

Okay. Creepy. Edward Christensen told him at the outset that a mistake had been made that he could not believe that anyone had left him any money. The man assured him that he might indeed be the Edward Christensen he was seeking, and in order to verify it, he would like to come and ask some questions. He removed his coat. There was a badge on his shirt pocket,

which he quickly covered with his hand and removed, placing it in his coat pocket. Quote, it looked like a gold or brass badge, Connie told me later, but it wasn't an ordinary police badge or anything like that. We just got a glimpse of it, but it seemed to have a big K on it with a small X alongside, and there were some letters or numbers around the edge. It was obvious he didn't want us to see it, end quote. He was not wearing a suit jacket.

Underneath his thin outer coat, he was wearing a short-sleeved shirt made of a Dachron-like material. His trousers were of a dark material, gray or black, and were a little too short. When he sat down, they rode high up his calves. He wore dark socks and dark shoes with unusually thick rubber soles. There it is. There it is again.

Arlene and Connie were most fascinated by a strange feature on his leg. When he sat down, they could see a long, thick green wire attached to the inside of his leg. It came up out of his socks and disappeared under his trousers. At one point, it seemed to be indented into his leg and was covered by a large brown spot. Connie seemed to have studied him the most carefully and gave the best description. In many ways, this odd man shared the characteristics of Mary Hire's tiny visitor of only a few days earlier. Mrs. Hire said the little man had unusually pale skin, almost sickly white. This was the visitor we just referenced.

Yes. Yeah, the man who is very impressed with the ballpoint pen. Yeah. So here we're getting these common denominator type things. Yep. The shoes, even saying that the general appearance of the skin, the skin always comes up as an unnatural pale white or almost transparent white. Yep.

This is just really strange to me. Yep. And the fact that I just keep going back to having to be invited in. That is so medieval. Finding a pretense. Yes. Where it actually doesn't have the power to just come straight in, which is sort of what I was talking about alluding to earlier

when I'm saying that since Christ has put the gods to open shame, they can't just run amok and have complete control over people anymore. They have to be invited in. Yeah, they have to be invited in. You have to actually, you know, agree to this in a sense. just very strange, but it goes on and it continues to get even stranger. The Christensen said their visitor had an unnatural pallor. They assumed he was sick.

His speech was also strange with a high, tinny voice that seemed especially peculiar, coming from such a large man. He spoke in a dull, emotionless monotone and clipped words and phrases, like a computer. Connie said that he sounded as if he were reciting everything from memory. Miss Heyer told me her tiny visitor had spoken in a hard-to-under-to-under-sing-song manner quote, like a recording. Both men wore unusually thick, rubber-sold shoes, like we were just saying.

Both were ill-dressed for the weather, again, like we were just saying, and both had eccentric haircuts, small points, perhaps, but significant in these cases. After the man introduced himself, none of the family could remember his name. They all said it was something common like Brown or Smith, but they didn't remember exactly what he said,

just that his friends called him tiny. The family dog, Gigi snarled and barked at him. He spoke to the, dog and was able to calm it. When Tiny had seated himself, which is really funny to call this guy Tiny. He's like 300 pounds. Yeah, with a straight face. When Tiny had seated himself, Mrs. Christensen told him they were about to eat and asked

him if he wanted to join them. He replied that he was on a diet, but that he would like a glass of water in about 10 minutes. He seemed to wheeze, they all noted, like a man with asthma, and he appeared to have difficulty breathing. Tiny produced a small notebook and pen and assured the family that this was not any kind of confidence game. He was looking for an Edward Christensen who was due to inherit a large sum of money, and he'd need information about Ed's past to determine if he was the same man. He then proceeded to ask a long series of questions. Did Ed have any scars or birth marks?

Ed said he had a scar on his back from an operation and an appendix scar. Tiny asked for every detail, length, width, exact position of the scars. He also asked for a complete list of all the schools Ed had ever attended, and the number on type of auto vehicles the family owned. At one point, he asked the couple if they'd be willing to fly to any place in the United States to collect the inheritance, explaining they'd have to be present when the will was read. Ed and Arlene agreed they could make themselves available for such a trip if it came up. According to Connie, who again is the daughter, Tiny's face gradually grew redder and redder as he talked, and after a few minutes he turned to her and asked, may I have that glass of water

now. She fetched the water for him and he took out a large yellow capsule which he gulped down. He returned to normal after taking it. Tiny mentioned three specific names and asked Ed if you recognize any of them. He didn't and later was able to remember only one of them, Roy Stevens. Connie said she thought another of the names was Taylor, but she wasn't sure. So on the point of the names, not only can they not remember the names that Tiny asked them. They also can't remember Tiny's name. It reminds me of some of the side effects that you get from missing time cases where they just, they know that they were somewhere.

They know some of the details, but they can't remember a lot of things that otherwise you'd think would be so easy to remember. And we know, they said they remember hearing his name. They remember hearing these two other names to see if Ed recognized them. But for whatever reason, they just can't remember what they are. It's almost like they go into a fog. like a mental fog when these people are around. And then, Brian, how about the pill and the water?

The pill is so bizarre. I mean, I'm going to need, it's going to take 40 minutes exactly for this conversation to happen. In 10 minutes, I'm going to need a glass of water because I'm on a diet. And I need to take my horse pill that's going to stop me from, like, exploding out of this flesh suit that I'm wearing. It's a large reptilian demon man or whatever. Also, I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I can't agree.

But I'm fine. Later, as it continues, he talks about their UFO sighting and that they had had in November. And even the way that Keel found out about this story is interesting. Oh, yeah, very strange. Because it wasn't as if they had told them, like, by the way, we saw UFOs. They wouldn't think to then connect it to this weird inheritance guy. But Keel had been asking them essentially what happened in the UFO encounter. And he started getting further out until he got to some of these questions that Keel had learned,

to ask people when they saw UFO, like, have you had any strange visitors lately? And they were like, you know what? We did have a strange visitor. Yeah. His name was tiny. And they told the story. They say that he did leave at the end of the 40 minutes. Got his coat, told him that he would be notified if he was the air within 10 days.

And then one of them watched out the kitchen window while he left. And even how he left is strange, his shoes made a squishing sense. like they were full of water. So again, he's like an amphibious reptilian. Yes, probably. Of course. Almost for sure. His shoes are part of his person.

They're his biome. And he leaves out the door into the night. Remember, it's like dark and freezing cold. Freezing cold and pitch black. Pitch black. He goes out, he just lifts his hand up at the curb. A 1963 Cadillac. Black Cadillac drives up to the curb with its lights off.

Yep. So you can't see the driver. He gets in, it leaves. next morning, the phone rings and a lady comes on the phone and says they found the missing air. He was in California, the Edward Christensen were looking for. We don't need you anymore. Yes. And then John Keel includes this detail in the last line here. He says, as for his badge, I suspect that the K was really the Greek letter Sigma, which has turned up repeatedly in other UFO cases and is often used by scientists to express the strange or unknown.

That's almost like playing a joke on us or something. We've got this remote controlled wire leg guy with one moving eye. It's like barely making it in the 40 minutes, has to take a special pill to keep himself going. Weird shaved spot on the back of his head. Has a driver in the woods. Apparently. Like, why is the truck with no headlights?

Why is the car hiding? Come on. So bizarre. Asking detailed questions like the fake secretary was asking about people's, their family history, all this stuff about their. schooling, do you have any scars? And it's like, what in the world is going on with these creepy men in black? That's why I really do think that the Southern lady with the fake secretary or whatever,

I really do think that it's the same thing. I think that they're all the same. And they're just trying different methods of appealing to the person to get them to let them in, essentially. Because the information that they're asking seems subtle and innocent enough. They're like, oh, do you have any scars? Do you have any cars? Things like, who cares if you tell people how many cars you have? But it's got to mean something to them. It's just very strange.

So weird. Well, Brian, as we move forward, we're getting to the point where things really take a turn. So all of these things have been happening over the course of 13 months. And it's leading up, and we've alluded to it, to the, the Silver Bridge collapsed. We alluded to it in the intro of episode one. And I think that we need to tell that story. Give it the credit it's due.

Why don't we close out with this? Yeah, let's close out with it. And even, again, adding some details that we left out last time from Mary Hire. Yes, exactly. As Thanksgiving and Christmas approached in 1967, the town of Point Pleasant assumed an irregular holiday bustle, with now some paranoia thrown into the town's feeling

sightings of the mothman had not stopped or slowed in almost 13 months. In fact, the encounters with this strange entity had only continued to progress in terror, and the dread it inspired in any who experienced it. Nearing the middle of November, dozens of people from all over town reported one shared experience, shared dreams. Dreams of people drowning in cold water. Dreams in which is an insane detail. That's crazy. Dreams of tragedy, pain, loss, anguish.

the state of mind of the townspeople was being broken, one insomniac at a time. The experience is described well in this excerpt from Mary Hire, who was the local reporter, to her friend John Keel, who continued to take an interest from New York in the Mothman phenomenon. The letter from Mary Hire to John Keel says this, and it's from November 19, 1967. Quote, I had a terrible nightmare. There were a lot of people drowning in the river, and Christmas packages were floating everywhere in the water. It's like something awful is going to happen. Close quote.

So we alluded in the first episode to almost a premonition that John Keel had. Yeah. That something was going to happen and he knew it, but he also knew that he couldn't stop it. Yep. And as we get closer to the event, that feeling, that confidence is spreading to the other people that are close to the case. And what's interesting even about the way that John Keel got these stories is that some of them would come in from UFO contactees who had claimed to be abducted by aliens. and things like that. Yeah.

Some of them, even, he would go, he would call them on the phone, and all of a sudden they would speak with a different voice and tell him things. Yes. Details about the future. One of them predicted that the Pope was going to be assassinated at one point. And then it didn't come about exactly as he said, but like two years later, almost exactly what he said took place.

So they were giving these slightly garbled prophecies of horror and doom that would take place. And I just look at it and go, John, why aren't you a Christian? Christian. Yeah. First of all, first of all. Clearly demons going on. Why aren't you my brother in Christ? Yeah. So, so all these people around him, Mary's having this dream as well. And Mary and John had kept up quite a robust and frequent correspondence over the course of the year. Yeah. Where Mary was constantly updating John on everything that was happening, because he couldn't stay there the whole time. Yeah, he lived in New York. Yeah, he lived in New York. He's having to travel around a lot. And usually

Mary was marked by her friendliness. I mean, it's the Southern hospitality. culture that they lived in where you're just overly friendly almost to the point where John Keel noticed how in this last letter the fluff and the chatiness that was normally present in Mary's letters to him were completely absent. It wasn't just a sense of dread that had fallen on the people. It was actually an expectation. It was an inescapable sense that something was going to happen and it was going to happen soon. And the people wouldn't have to wait much longer, unfortunately. On December 15th, exactly 13 months after the first sightings of the strange monster that started it all. Christmas shoppers hurried home after an afternoon of last-minute gift grabbing.

Locally, there was only one place to go if you were one of the people who had to cross the Ohio River. That was the silver bridge. It ran over the cold torrent and connected Point Pleasant West Virginia with its neighboring state of Ohio. An epicenter for Mothman's sightings for the past 13 months, and especially in more recent days, The bridge began to illustrate the general feeling of the town and the surrounding area at large. It was gray, weathered, and tired. It itself seemed to embody winter, just like the townsfolk.

The cars driving over its path day after day began to make the bridge creak and labor more and more under the ever-constant weight of engine and body. The bridge was old, ready to be retired. The bridge had seen the days of its youth and strength and had made the best of them. Now its silver paint was like gray hair on an old man who just won't throw in the towel, much like the town of Point Pleasant.

But on that day, at 5.05 p.m., the choice was made for it. As Charlene Wood eased onto the bridge after her light turned green, she immediately noticed something was wrong. A shaking, almost rumbling like churning earth had begun underneath her. She thought perhaps a boat had hit the bridge, but no, much worse. She reversed her car back to the intersection, just in time to watch the bridge fold and crumble like pastry into the Ohio River. The sound was deafening. Metal being snapped like the twigs

under the immense weight of the thing. The sudden fluidity of the steel gave the illusion that the bridge was almost being pulled down. 46 people died that day. Nine were seriously injured, and two victims were never found. Women, children, men. The river didn't care.

It ate them with apathy, an unfeeling momentum. It was the coldest day of the year. Following the tragedy, mothman's sightings didn't stop, but they slowed down, and life eventually began to return to normal for the town that was stricken by such high strangeness. But one thing lingered in the minds of everyone, one memory burned into the town's conscience. On the day of the bridge collapse, a few people saw a creature, gray, tall, winged, perched at the top of the bridge, moments before it began to shake and fail.

The mothman thought to be the harbinger of cornstalk's curse by sun, had finally finished what it seemingly set out to do and was there that day to ensure its devices were completed its job done did you know that patrons get access to bonus stories that didn't make it into the main episode as well as early access to half of the season of haunted cosmos at a time support the show and get access to all kinds of great perks at patreon.com slash haunted cosmos want more hunted cosmos then make your way over to patreon where you can get early access to our content as well as exclusive content and regular dusty tomes and monthly live streams with Brian and myself. So go to patreon.com slash haunted cosmos and sign up now.