The Mothman Prophecies (10 page)

Two months later Peter Stevens, a young man in his thirties, died very suddenly. Anguished, Jen abandoned UFO research. I never learned the full circumstances of his death. She would tell me only that it was “related” to the UFO business in some way.

I have shown Peter Stevens's drawing to numerous Men-in-Black witnesses over the years and the usual response is, “It looks close enough to be a brother.”

Today “heavy breathers” plague telephone subscribers from coast to coast and are usually assumed to be sex nuts. When I received many such calls in 1967–68 I recorded some of them and studied the tapes. The sound is more mechanical or electronic than human and is probably caused by the introduction of a modulated current into the telephone line. This phenomenon is not isolated to the cities. People in remote towns with a population of only twenty-five or so also get these calls. The heavy breathing of the sex nut who (supposedly) masturbates while he listens to a female voice on the line contains certain recordable vocal characteristics which are totally absent in the heavy breathing calls I taped. Played at a slower speed, the recorded “breathing” was an evenly spaced series of pulses resembling the swishing sound of a phonograph when the needle reaches the end of the record and does not reject. Heavy breathing would not be so uniform.

II.

Mr. Kevin Dee and his NICAP subcommittee urged Woodrow Derenberger to submit to a psychiatric and medical examination. In early December Woody voluntarily entered St. Joseph's Hospital in Parkersburg and underwent hours of tests administered by Dr. Morgan (I have changed his name here for reasons that will become obvious later on), a leading local psychiatrist, and Peter Volardi, an EEG technician. In his final report, Dr. Morgan stated:

There was no evidences of abnormalities at all. Subsequently, a report and interpretation was obtained from Baltimore, and the report indicated no abnormalities at all and was a perfectly normal electroencephalogram. There was no evidence of organic brain damage or of seizure disorders. We were particularly concerned about epilepsy and there was no evidence of this. The record was a normal record with no indication of any central nervous system pathology at all. There was no evidence of any psychiatric disorders. I submitted a report to the Pittsburgh Subcommittee of NICAP, of the psychiatric examination of Mr. Derenberger in which I stated that I could find no evidence of mental disorder. There was no indication of any lower pathology. I found Mr. Derenberger to be normal.

The NICAP investigators sent the medical records on to the Washington office of the organization, along with detailed reports on Woody's encounter and his personal background. Typically, the NICAP newsletter later devoted a couple of paragraphs to the Derenberger case, denouncing it as a hoax, misspelling Woody's name, and referring to Cold as “Kuld.” Woody had spelled the name C-o-l-d from the outset and it was spelled that way throughout the subcommittee's documents. How NICAP arrived at the K-u-l-d spelling is a mystery in itself.

III.

“Look at that crazy character coming in 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. 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. But by the time he was airborne the giant creature had vanished somewhere down river.

Three days later, on December 7, I arrived in Point Pleasant for the first time. I found a sleepy little town, clean, well-managed, prosperous. The Ohio valley is a busy industrial area and the river is lined with chemical factories and thriving businesses. It is a far cry from the dreary coal mining towns of Appalachia further east. The neat, modern homes of the valley boasted more than their share of color television sets and late model cars. The people are not hillbillies but, for the most part, are skilled technicians employed in the many factories; well-educated, well-paid Americans leading quiet, average lives. Although there was a hotel in Point Pleasant I chose to cross the Silver Bridge and take a room in one of the many modern motels on the Ohio side of the river.

My first stop was the Mason County courthouse and a chat with Deputy Halstead, a soft-spoken, serious man with a receding hairline and just a trace of the curse of all small-town policemen—the potbelly.

“There's something to it,” he assured me. “The people who have seen this Bird were all mighty scared. They saw something. I don't know what. Some say it's just a crane.”

I asked him if there had been any flying saucer reports in the area.

“No, we haven't had any of that. Just the ‘Bird.' That's enough!”

He told me how to find the McDaniel home and I drove out to do the thing I hated most—knock on the door of a total stranger, introduce myself as a hotshot writer from New York, and invade the privacy of people already weary from the publicity, reporters, and self-styled investigators. Mabel McDaniel came to the door, an attractive woman not at all like the frail, drawn sparrowlike women I so often met up in the hills of Appalachia. It was early evening and within an hour Mabel had made a series of phone calls and the little house was filled with people. Roger and Linda, Steve and Mary Mallette, and Connie Carpenter and her fiance Keith, and Mrs. Mary Hyre all arrived. My first reaction to Mrs. Hyre was negative. Every town has a local busybody and I pegged her as that, erroneously it turned out.

Connie's eyes were red and swollen, as I have already noted, but she was the only one who had experienced this telltale reaction. She seemed to be an emotionally fragile girl, but down-to-earth. Roger and Steve, lifelong buddies, talked with great enthusiasm about their great adventure. But I had learned long ago that young men usually tend to color their experiences with rich imagination and heroic posturing. However, there were no false heroics here. They had been genuinely frightened out of their wits and were not ashamed to admit it.

Later Mary Hyre told me she had heard them recount the episode dozens of times to innumerable reporters and investigators. “None of them have ever changed it or added a word,” she noted.

Since they had viewed the creature only briefly and in the dark, their descriptions were understandably lacking in significant detail. Even Connie, who had seen the creature in broad daylight, could not describe the thing beyond the fact that it was gray, huge, and flew. Its face, she said, was “science-fiction-like.” The glowing red eyes had made the biggest impression on her, as they had on the others. And the overriding sense of unreasonable fear was the main reaction. There had been no smells in the areas of the sightings. No footprints or droppings or other tangible evidence.

After taping their individual stories, we decided to go out to the TNT area so I could have my first look at the site. At about 9
P.M.
we drove to the old ammunition dump. The police had now locked the old gate leading to the power plant, but it was no problem to squeeze through the fence. The night was dark and overcast and the rickety building was just a huge, black lump on the landscape. We gathered outside the main entrance. The crowds who had swarmed there weeks earlier had given up so we were alone … ten people. I carried my powerful six-cell flashlight. To me, this was just another broken, deserted building in a remote spot. I was used to prowling around such places alone in the dark, but I was troubled by the fear that now seemed to be gripping our little expedition. Their nervousness was real. Only Connie and Keith volunteered to enter the building with me. The others clustered outside.

The three of us went into the ruin. Connie was joking and in good spirits. Keith was sober and quiet. The interior of the building was filled with debris and silence except for the soft sound of dripping water. Large rusting boilers stood on the ground floor. I peered into them with my flashlight. Mothman wasn't hiding there. I climbed the steel ladders and strolled the catwalks. Even the pigeons seemed to have deserted the place.

Satisfied that the building was empty, we started for the exit. I preceded the other two with my flashlight. As she stepped through the door which led into the smaller chamber where the main exit was located, Connie glanced over her shoulder and let out a horrified gasp.

“Those eyes!” She screamed. “He's there!”

She dissolved into total hysteria, crying uncontrollably. The brave, cheerful girl of a moment ago was now a blubbering wreck. Keith and I rushed her outside.

“I saw those eyes—two big red eyes—by the wall in the back,” she managed to choke out.

While everyone gathered around her and tried to calm her, I turned and rushed back into the building. The wall at the far end of the boiler room was blank. There was nothing there that could have reflected the light from my flashlight. Again I searched the building from top to bottom and found nothing.

When I got back outside I found a police officer, Deputy Alva Sullivan, had joined our group. Like the others, he had been reluctant to enter the building and help me with my search. They were all looking through a fence facing a field that went behind the power plant.

“We thought we saw something back of the plant,” Mary Hyre explained. “A tall figure running. Was it you?”

“No … I never left the building.”

“What was that noise while you were in there?” Mabel McDaniel asked.

“What noise?”

“It was metallic and hollow. A loud noise. Like a piece of metal had fallen all the way down from the top or something.”

Everyone had heard the sound … except me. And I hadn't done anything to make such a noise.

Keith led Connie, still crying, to their car.

“Please, let's get out of here,” she begged.

“I'm bleeding,” Mary Mallette suddenly exclaimed, cupping her hand to her ear. I flashed my light into her ear. A small trickle of blood was oozing out.

“Did you hear anything else?” I asked. Everyone shook his head.

“No, but it doesn't feel right here, does it?” Mary Hyre observed. “It feels oppressive … heavy.”

I had to agree with her. Something did seem to be out of whack. Steve Mallette led his wife away. Now we had two hysterical women on our hands!

“Did you really see somebody back there?” I asked Deputy Sullivan quietly.

“It's hard to say. Might have been an animal. A deer or something.”

The whole group was now in a state bordering on sheer panic. I could see that their feelings were real. This was not just some kind of act being staged for my benefit. I'm no hero, but I did not share their fear. Mrs. Mallette's bleeding ear was a sign of concussion, meaning the air pressure had changed suddenly. Connie had apparently had an hallucinatory or psychic glimpse of those frightening eyes. The metallic clang could not have come from inside the building or I would have heard it, too. It may have been associated with the sudden change in air pressure. I scanned the black skies. There was not a star, not a light visible.

We all filed back to our cars and returned to the McDaniels' home. Mary Mallette's ear stopped bleeding. Keith drove a still-shaking Connie Carpenter home. And, being an all-time idiot, I returned to the TNT area for another look. It was well past midnight as I drove aimlessly up and down the dirt roads among the igloos. Mothman did not pop out of the bushes to cry “Boo!,” but I did have one curious experience. As I passed a certain point on one of the isolated roads I was suddenly engulfed in fear. I stepped on the gas and after I went a few yards my fear vanished as quickly as it came. I continued to drive, eventually returning again to the same spot. And again a wave of unspeakable fear swept over me. I drove quickly away from the place and then stopped, puzzled. Why would this one stretch of road produce this hair-raising effect? I turned around and slowly headed back, trying to note trees, fenceposts, and other landmarks in the dark. Once again, when I reached that particular point the hair tingled on the back of my neck and I became genuinely afraid. When I emerged from the other side of this invisible zone I stopped and got out of my car. The air was perfectly still. There wasn't any audible sound … not even a bird call. I was reminded of the hour of quiet that settles inexplicably over the jungle in early morning when suddenly, usually around 2
A.M.
, all of the animals, birds, even the insects, become totally silent for about two hours. If you're not used to the jungle and its ways, this sudden silence can wake you from a deep sleep.

I walked back to the “zone of fear” slowly, alert for any rustle of bushes, measuring my own breathing and emotions. I was perfectly calm until I took one step too many and was back in the zone. I almost panicked and ran, but I forced myself to look around and proceed slowly. By now I had figured out that I was probably walking through a beam of ultrasonic waves and really had nothing to be afraid of. After I had gone about fifteen feet I stepped outside the zone and everything was normal again. Now I had to walk through that damned spot again to get back to my car! It was too dark, almost pitch-black, and I was too unfamiliar with the TNT area at the time to attempt to go around the zone. Although I knew it was harmless, I dreaded reentering it. I actually considered remaining there, only yards from my car, until daybreak. But I finally steeled myself and walked once more through that invisible stream, scared out of my wits in transit yet privately pleased with my discovery.