Thinking Sideways: Mothman

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Thinking Sideways. I don't you never know the story is
of things we simply don't know the answer too. Hey guys,
what's up. It's a Thinking Sideways the podcast. I'm I'm Devin,

(00:25):
joined as usual by Steve, and I apologize for my
lack of enthusiasm. It's not a real lack of enthusiasm.
It's just that I have a cold that's waging war
with my body right now. The creeping crud. It's the
creeping crud crap in a tiny studio. I'm sure we

(00:47):
all have it at this point. So I apologize if
like my voice cracks or anything. I think we're gonna
be okay. I'll take pauses for hydration if we need to,
but just no, I'm sorry if I get overexcited and
my voice just loses. That sounds good, Okay, Okay, everybody,
let's just let's just do this mystery day. My boy
just gotta sound a little funy because I'm working to
put on a hazmat suit. We'll stiff the mic in

(01:10):
there with you, don't worry. Okay. So today we're gonna
do uh, something we haven't done in a long time,
which is a cryptid Yeah, crypto zoology, and we're gonna
go talk about the moth man. Okay, yeah, the moth person. Okay,
this also listener suggestion like a really long time ago,
I think, yeah, I think it was Tom Tom or Thomas, Yeah,

(01:35):
which he has a long time, probably at least a year.
I apologize it took us so long to get to it,
but I and I know this came through recently on
Twitter too. We've got people. Yeah, I guess the man
is a very popular one apparently. Yes, so I wrote
a nice little like lead in which I totally ruined

(01:56):
with all of our other stuff. So I'm just gonna
read it. Everybody, get ready, alright, colored by the fire, everybody.
From November nineteen sixty six to December nineteen sixty seven,
or maybe as late as two thousand, West Virginia, in
the area of Point Pleasant, kind of the middle of
the western border of the state was plagued by sightings
of a very mysterious kind that was good. Right, Why

(02:18):
did I like just run over that it was good? Yeah.
Mothman is perhaps six or seven feet tall, one standing.
He can fold his wings and walk with this like
weird kind of shuffle. People talk about it being penguin,
like penguin, you know, but penguins don't fly, so maybe

(02:42):
his pants are just down around his ankles. Maybe that's it. Yeah,
when he flies, his wings kind of just unfold. He
has arms too, right, so that it's not he doesn't
like lift up his arms and their wings. He unfolds
his wings from his back and just shoot straight up
into the air with great speed, is how they say it,
and then levels out and goes wherever he wants. And

(03:04):
nobody's ever seen him flap his wings exactly. And they
say he can go like three hundred miles an hour
or something, right, Yeah, I don't know how people are
able to Yeah, I don't know either. I mean, you know,
it's one thing to be like, oh, I'm driving in
my car and he's going a significant amount faster than me,
but like that's crazy fast. He apparently he just like

(03:24):
holds his wings out straight and goes spower. I guess
ill and this this will come to play in the
theories and later on and all of that stuff. Of course,
of course, um not to be a tease, but he
apparently can fly much faster, as Joe was talking about,
than any kind of bird should be able to fly.

(03:44):
They say it's like three hundred miles an hour, Like
Joe said, Apparently, Mothman's favorite activity is chasing cars, which
is how people are able to tell that he goes
three hundred miles an hour. I don't know who these
crazy people are that are like like a dog. Yeah, yeah,
well maybe maybe it's a dog with wings. That would

(04:06):
makes sense kind of, wouldn't it. And he also likes
to try to tear the roofs off people inside inside
they're just like they're moving anchovy tins. In some versions,
he doesn't have arms. I know, I said he has arms.
I think he has arms. Lots of the pictures that

(04:27):
I've seen, the renderings I've seen, he does have arms.
But some versions say he doesn't have arms, and he
just has wings with like no palms or fingers or
hands or anything like that. So he's like futilely trying
is futileing the right word? Fueling? Futilely, I don't know,

(04:48):
trying to tear the roof off of cars with like
no hands or palms. That sounds funny to me, So
it's not very smart. Yeah, So when the stories of
him trying to rip car roofs off. I'm willing to
like say he doesn't have arms, for the pure humor
of it. I will go with that. All right, So
here's how the story goes. You guys ready, really cuddle

(05:09):
up to the fire this time? Do it? You guys
doing it? I'm scared. On November twelve, nineteen six, five
men who were digging a grave at a cemetery, which
is already totally normal sauce a lot of Yeah, it
does seem like a lot o work. Yeah. Maybe. Uh.

(05:31):
They were in western West Virginia. They claimed to have
seen a man like figure Floyd flying low from tree
to tree overhead. And this is the widely accepted as
the first sighting of Mothman. Do we have a time
of when that was supposed to have happened? No, probably daylight.

(05:52):
People don't usually dig graves at night unless they're robbing them. Yeah,
and that's that's my question because that will pertain later.
But this, but all the other sightings that I've heard
of happened at night, So this could have happened at twilight. Say, yeah,
I guess it could have been the end of the shift.
I can buy that, you know, maybe they were. It's November,

(06:13):
so it gets darker. Yeah, okay, okay, I'll run with that, okay, okay.
Then on November of the same year, two young couples
who were doing total normal things in an area of
Point Pleasant. Uh lovers Lane. Yeah, they were Lovers Lane,

(06:35):
northwest northeast of that's actually yes, that's actually true. It
was the t N T. It was known as the
t N T Area, which is the site of former
World War two munitions plant. They were hanging out there
for totally normal reasons and then reported to police that
they saw large white creature whose eyes glowed red when
the car headlights picked them up, so they reflected they

(06:58):
didn't glow. I'm just gonna go ahead and make that
edit right now. As a reasonable human being, if you
shine a light at something and it reflects that light,
it's reflecting, not glowing. Yes, it's like a cat, yeah yeah,
or any animal that or like just any animal. Even
human eyes reflect light to some extent to some degree. Yeah,
not red, but yeah, yeah, well maybe who knows, depending

(07:23):
on the person. During the next few days, a lot
of other people started to report sightings to volunteer firefighters.
Um said that they saw a large bird with red eyes.
A Mason County sheriff said that he thought the sightings
were due to an unusually large heron that he nicknamed

(07:46):
a shape folk. I don't know, I really I've read
that a couple of times. I googled that word and
I couldn't find anything. That's probably the PC way to
say it tokey the origins. So harns do get quite large, actually,

(08:08):
by the way, some of them do, and we can
talk about that a little bit later. The largest herons
get think it was sixty seven now sixteen, they get
like a six or seven ft wingspan. Yeah, those herons
only live in South Africa, so probably not that. But
maybe let's get loose from or something. Possibly we'll talk

(08:33):
about that in a minute. Contractor Newell Partridge, that's how
you'd say that, right. Newell told this Mason County sheriff,
whose name is George Johnson, that when he aimed a
flashlight at the creature in fields nearby his house, they glowed.
The eyes glowed like bicycle reflectors, and also said that
there were some buzzing noises from his television set that

(08:56):
were caused by this animal, and that his German shepherd
dog definitely disappeared because of this creature. I'm going to
guess this guy's TV antenna was made out of tinfoil
too in the sixties. I'm guessing that's probably what it was. Yeah. Uh.
Wildlife biologists named Dr Smith from West Virginia University told

(09:17):
reporters that he thought that all of the sightings fit
the description of a sandhill crane, which is the largest
American crane, which can get almost seven foot wingspan, and
there have reddish coloring around their eyes. Bird may have
it's that's not its typical migration route. But you know,

(09:39):
birds wanders sometimes they aren't sometimes confined by rules. Sometimes
you get insane bird too, you know. You know, so
maybe he was a little nuts and just sort of
like a lot, and maybe maybe his friends ditched him
with migration self. And this is where having time stamps
on these would be really helpful because and we'll talk
about this when we start talking about the theories. But

(10:01):
I have some problems with the idea that it's a heron.
Given a lot of the time inferred times, I guess
that these sightings were happening mostly I infer that these
were happening at night, because everybody says, oh, when I
shined my flashlight the eyes glowed. That's a reasonable Pretty yeah,
pretty reasonable. And it's a lot easier to stake like
a heron or a crane for you know, a guy

(10:22):
with wings. You're not really going to do that during
the days. And then this kind of tragic thing happened,
this bridge called the Silver Bridge, which was in Point Pleasant.
I believe is that the Ohio River was Mississippi knows
the Ohio River. Sorry that I'm thinking about a different
bridge collapse that we'll talk about again, Like, um, yeah,

(10:44):
it was the Ohio River caused the death of forty
six people. It collapsed on December sixty seven, and right
after the bridge collapsed, Mothman sightings essentially ceased. There are
a lot of I guess I should rephrase that. I'm

(11:05):
gonna rephrase it to say generally accepted sightings of Mothman ceased.
There are a lot of sightings since then, but almost
all of them are brushed off as hoaxes or crazy
people or somebody you know, falling for a prank or
things like that. I'm about to say your very favorite
word in this entire world, Steve upologistists. Supologist Jerome Clark

(11:31):
wrote has written a lot about Mothman, and he says
that for many years after the kind of initial events
that first sixteen months, I guess it is about sixteen months,
members of the Ohio UFO Investigation League reinterviewed everybody who
had seen the Mothman or claimed to have seen the Mothman,

(11:54):
all of whom insisted that their stories were accurate. Yeah,
and there was a There was a woman named Linda Scarberry.
You're welcome for that last name. She claimed that she
and her husband had seen the Mothman hundreds of times,
sometimes at clothes range, commenting, it seemed like it didn't
want to hurt you. It just wanted to communicate with you.

(12:14):
Most likely, otherwise I'd be a lot of dead people first.
Maybe he engineered the ridge collapse. I'm sorry. I I
really have a hard time when somebody is suddenly saying, oh, yeah,
he hangs out on my place all the time, try
to chat. I really, I've got a discount that perspective.

(12:36):
I agree, it's too easy. I agree. There's a crypto
zoologist named Lauren Coleman who did a bunch of reinterviewing
of witnesses that had been interviewed for a book that
we'll talk about in a minute. He re interviewed a
bunch of the witnesses and said that the sightings of
Mothman kind of continue today, and that the mothman was

(12:59):
a huge creature about seven feet tall, with huge wings
and red eyes, and they could see the creature flapping
right behind them as they fled. Sonesses are saying, yeah,
and they say that that Mothman did flap his wings. Yeah,
that's a little departure there, which weren't in the original interviews.

(13:21):
Apparently don't change over time. I got it. Yeah, I
mean the truth doesn't change over time. Really. There have
also been a lot of sightings of cryptids that could
be described in a very similar way to Mothman, just
worldwide and in the I guess the most interesting way

(13:42):
that these sightings correlate with the point pleasant sightings is
that they harold kind of big disasters, for instance, impending
doom for instance, Yeah, moth there were Mothman sightings or
Mothman like creatures sighted pretty close to right before Chernobyl

(14:02):
had the meltdown. Uh, there were Mothman sightings right before
mine collapse in Germany. Two of the less popular incidences,
which is one of the one that I was thinking
of earlier, was that there was a mothman or mothman
like Kryptid sited before the I thirty five bridge in
Minnesota collapsed on August first, two thousand and seven. That

(14:24):
was the one that went over the Mississippi Bridge or
Mississippi River. Sorry, so that that bridge collapsed, and there
were apparently reported sightings of Mothman or my mothman like
creature around that time. As apparently there were also two
pictures taken on nine eleven that were of Mothman or
a mothman like creature. Okay, I gotta stop here. Okay,

(14:48):
So I'm presuming that you've kind of gone through these
photos that are of Mothman at these events. Have you
seen these, Joe, They don't look like much. They they
they're their way off in the distance and their blurry
spots the bridge collapse. There's this protruding dark spot on

(15:08):
a collapsing bridge, which I'm sorry it is probably a
part of the bridge breaking away, not a creature hanging
out on the bridge. Most likely. I don't want to
poopoo this, but you know, this makes me think a
lot of the watchers in that show Fringe is there's

(15:28):
the guys who watch all these events, and so it's okay,
so the moth men or the moth creatures watch all
these events, and there the Harbingers and they're there to
witness them all. I mean, that's that's kind of where
this makes me think it's going. But okay, I can
see how people do that, except none of the photos

(15:49):
show anything to Yeah, well, I think you know, one
of the interesting things is that it's it's actually been
proven that um, the moth of the quote unquote mothmn
sighting near Chernobyl it was just really made up on
the internet. Definitely was totally made up, and I think,
you know, many of the other ones likely were as well.
And I guess it kind of that takes us pretty

(16:10):
nicely into theories because I guess there are only really
two theories here, and that can kind of spread into
the rest of the sightings. It's either that the mothman
is real or the mothman is not real. Now the
Mothman again and some descriptions of them at least and
most of them actually he doesn't appear to have a head.
It's like he's got shoulders and then he's got the
two his two glowing eyes are like kind of set

(16:32):
in his chest. Correct. Yeah, the schwing shoulder thing is
higher than than head level, I guess is kind of
the way that the faces lower. That's why they call
it mothman, right, is because it doesn't look like he's
like a man with the head and wings that come
out of his shoulders. It looks like his head is

(16:53):
down on his body more like where you would put
moth's head. Well. Yeah, if you look at a moth,
their torso extends and then it actually ends, but you
can't really tell that from a little bit of ways
because their neck is the same size, and so they
look like one kind of cylindrical thing with big eyeballs

(17:14):
on it. Yeah, pretty much. And I can see like
an owl too. Yeah. Now it's great. A great analogy
is and the whole is a great analogy. Yeah. Do
you guys wanna just go ahead and hop into those theories?
And there are a lot of theories out there about mothman.

(17:34):
Of course, as I'm sure all of you know, if
you're even mildly into cryptids of any kind, Mothman's kind
of the starter cryptid for a lot of people, I feel.
But we're just gonna do some of them the thing,
you know, of course, the top contenders. Of course I can't.
We can't do all of them. And as I said,
we're going to break them into two different sections. Either

(17:57):
Mothman is real or Mothman is not real. Okay, and
the lines do get a little fuzzy here, but just
bear with me. Just doesn't matter anyways. Okay, the first
Mothman is real theory, Mothman is real and an alien. Yeah,
actually this is really interesting. So, uh, Lauren Coleman, that

(18:19):
zoologist do you remember who went around reinterviewing quote, I'm sorry,
the crypto zoologist who went around re interviewing people was
actually re interviewing people that were described as being interviewed
in this book written by a man named John Keel.
He wrote it in nineteen five. It's called The Mothman Prophecies,

(18:41):
and it laid out a lot of investigation. It was
battered deeply with a lot of personal theories. There was
a movie made of it with Richard Gear. With Richard Gear,
I know, to talk about Richard Gear, he's in love
with him apparently. I don't know what's going on here, actually,
Richard gear oh no, I know, but he'll has a

(19:05):
lot of theories about UFO sightings. Apparently there were like
strange lights seen around. Oh, I do remember something about
lights in the sky at the same time. Yeah, and
he he thought pretty strongly that Mothman was indeed an alien. Okay,

(19:25):
the alien theories my favorite theory. It is well explains
a lot, I guess I kind of like the next theory. Okay,
it's that Mothman is actually a mutated bird. This is awesome.
So actually, it turns out that that you remember that
TNT factory, the place or what did they call it,
the ten or whatever that the Yeah, it was Lover's Lane.

(19:48):
It was the old World War two munition storage area.
So it's a hot spot, which, as it turns out,
was evidently a bird sanctuary prior to that. Afterwards too,
and afterwards, and also it was declared I don't remember
exactly when, but it was declared a super fun site
at one point it was. Yeah, I don't either, I

(20:14):
don't remember where I saw that, but yeah, apparently it
was declared a super fun where young teens in the
sixties went to make out, so apparently since it was
a super fun site and a bird sanctuary, if you
just mixed those disgust it's just I mean, honestly like
that it's that is an origin story legitimately, Like I'm
sure that I've read that in a comic book somewhere right,

(20:36):
Like I'm sure that's how Hawkman was formed. I'm sure
of it. So the fact that this could be some
kind of mutated bird over the years, like, it's not
that much of a stretch actually kind of what hawk
Man apparently. Listen, okay, I understand that he was, Yeah,
and he said like he had a one liner that

(20:58):
was like totally off topic just so that you could
be in it to continue, I mean, okay, and to
be fair, yes, I'm sure sure Joe is going to
do the like naything like well that he never flapped
his wings and like you take off really fast. Whatever
Man could too, It's fine, doesn't matter. So the bird
mutating into a really huge bird with red blowing eyes

(21:20):
and so well, I don't think the thing is that
I'm going to human beings. I'm not sold on the
like glowing eyes thing. I really like I think all
of the descriptions were that they were reflective, and lots
of things glow red when you shine something. I mean,
like cat's eyes do that all the time. We talked
about that already. Yeah, so I'm not I mean, I

(21:40):
don't think that that's so much of a problem for me. Okay,
but now that But the trouble with the mutation theory
is that it's that exposure to chemicals can cause mutations,
but those those typically manifest as cancer, not as you know,
magic properties and you know, like you know, sudden changes
in your size. Excuse me, those chemicals don't automatically equate

(22:03):
to getting the three eyed fish in the Simpsons. It
doesn't just automatically wolf something new automatically evolved, but over
over generations and decades of breeding in a bird sanctuary
that also is a super fun site. So why isn't
the Mothman actually at Chernobyl if that's the case, because

(22:25):
it wasn't a bird sanctuary radiation but anyway, but but yeah,
my logic is just full proof baffled. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
is a normal part of the of the of the
whole process of evolution works. Just let me have my fun, Okay, sorry, sorry, sorry,

(22:46):
thank you, but okay, Nick theory, Mokman is real and
actually a different kind of cryptid or the other kind
of cryptid, is it? It's hard to tell people. Yeah,
he's he's actually a transformer. Uh. You know a lot
of people have suggested that Mothman actually might be a

(23:06):
thunderbird from Native American war or or that, or that
I'm just gonna keep talking here, or that thunderbirds were
actually Mothman. I'm not totally clear on which went which way,
but lifted from Wikipedia, the plural thunderbirds could shape shift

(23:26):
into human form by tilting back their beaks like a
mask and removing their feathers as if they were feather
covered blankets. Their stories of thunderbirds in human form marrying
into human families, and some families can trace their lineage
to such an event. Uh. This of course would mean
that Mothman would date to the sixteen hundreds, if not earlier,
or that moth Man is a type of animal. It's

(23:49):
like a like a classification, not one super shy creature
that we rarely see. This the leopards and stuff that
live the mountains that are seen once every thirty years
or something is that what you're getting at. Or Bigfoot, Yeah,
sort of Bigfoot like creature totally. Maybe Bigfoot got exposed
to all these chemicals and humutiated. Maybe it was actually

(24:12):
makes sense. Yeah, I'm not really sold on this whole.
Like thunder thunderboard birds are pretty much accepted as lore,
even by the people who perpetuate the myth. I mean,
you know, back at back, you know, eons ago in
places like New Zealand, I think here too in the US,
there were enormous eagles and things like that. I mean
they were like in New Zealand, animals that were big

(24:33):
enough to carry away a child. Well, I mean he's
still kind of I mean, like California condors are huge still,
and they're like not even that big compared to how
big birds used to be. Certainly that existed, does it anymore?
Would be used with Mothman in the sixties at the
well and I was going to say, is that if
we're going to go down the thunderbird route, that is

(24:56):
a legend that was passed down in an oral addition
for who knows how many hundreds of years. It's kind
of like when we were talking about the progress into
the New World and that there would be some prehistoric
creatures like mammoths and stuff like that. So there's big,

(25:17):
large creatures around and then the stories and they probably
weren't as big as they were described, but of course,
as with all good lore, it evolved. So it goes
from a five or ten foot wide wing span to
a thirty foot wing span over time. Is a story evolved.

(25:37):
So I can see how that could be a story.
I just have a hard time with rapping into the bothman,
I agree. Uh so two things I don't I don't
want to discuss, but I just want to say. Also,
maybe it's maybe mothman is an angel, or also maybe
a dude with wings, because that's different than an angel
the angels from doctor who know what? The biblical thing

(25:58):
kind of I would like weeping angels. Okay, so we're
talking like like a scary old Testament angels. Are we
talking like like it's a beautiful, yeah, penevolent kinds of things?
Or it's a dude with wings, which again a guy
in a flying suit. Well, actually, okay, that's may as
well just talk about that now, that's actually dude in

(26:21):
a flying suit or with a personal flight suit is
in my Mothman is a hoax slash not real theory. See,
I was going a dude with wings, actual wings, right,
and I don't. I don't just hawkman, which we've already
talked many Okay, so personal flight suit Okay, And I guess,
like for me, I'm willing to jump down this rabbit

(26:42):
hole to use a term that we use like all
the time, apparently probably overused. We do. We definitely do, evidently,
but that gets overused a lot. Evidently we evidently use
evidently just evidently too much. I actually really like this
theory if I can get over the like nineteen sixties,
the technology probably didn't exist, especially for like semi silent,

(27:04):
pretty quiet flight. You know, that's the like kind of
crux of this whole argument. Are you talking like what
they referred to as the squirrel suit suit like wings
with propulsion systems? Oh okay, just making sure not like
the glider the guys you do the base jumps with
the squirrel sites. This would have had to have a

(27:25):
propulsion system because he took off, and also from the
point it was silent. So some sort of or at
least alien, Yeah, some sort of very expanding I'm thinking
some sort of alien anti gravity technology something like that.
Maybe I'm thinking that probably it's alien origin and the
military got ahold of the alien and mugged him and
took a special suit and dressed up one of their

(27:45):
test pilots in it. Yeah. I I just I like
the idea that unknown technology flight suit totally testing people
are jerks mess with people sometimes. Also, things like night
vision goggles that glow red. They do have the red
night they have the red lenses. So if you were
to flashlights at some that somebody wearing those, they would

(28:08):
maybe reflect red. I don't know, it makes sense to me. Again,
we talked about this a little bit, but we'll talk
about it's more very large heron Yeah really, I mean
herons do get pretty big. They do, but they aren't
super nocturnal, especially not super nocturnal like chasing cars. Yeah,
they're not known for that. Actually. Okay, here's the thing

(28:29):
about birds. The majority of birds have no night vision.
That's why birds roost at night is they they can't
see at night. So let's just suppose that there is
a bird roosting somewhere and it gets disturbed. I've got
a bird, and if it's dark and he gets lose.

(28:51):
He freaks out and he flies around like a crazy creature,
running into things because you can't see where he's going,
and he goes for the one spot of light so
I could see. Let's just let's just propose that there's
one of these heron's and I can't remember what is
the name of the heron with the big red circles
around its side. It's that was a sandhill crane. Okay,

(29:14):
it's a crane. Sorry I was calling it inherent, but
the crane thing essentially, if it's something spooks it from
where it is roosting or sleeping, and it's automatic reaction
is to get away and fly. It then can't see
where the heck it's going, so it's gonna go to

(29:34):
a point of light where it can see to land,
which would explain why it was following a car. Totally
totally explain it. It was a bird, Yeah, it could
have could have just been a really really huge owl too,
because that was the other thing. Yeah, And they do.
The other thing about owls that's like super interesting is

(29:55):
especially like barn owls, Like if it was a really
large barn owl, for instance, they have they have those
legs that like look kind of like tiny men legs.
They are, they're a little stubby, but they are also
kind of thicker, or at least with all the feathers
and stuff, they do kind of look like little dude legs.
And they look kind of furry a little bit. And
you know, I haven't done my research on how big

(30:18):
certain owls get, but if it was a particularly large
owl and people were set well, and if people were
seeing it as a distance at a distance, and it
just happens to be in that area, I think that,
you know, the idea of it being a barn owl
could make a lot of sense. They fly so silently,
we're a great horned owl. They get even bigger. And

(30:39):
then and for both of those owls, they appear to
have no heads. Yeah, they're they're torso just segways completely
up and they're sort of square, just like yeah, just
like yeah. And another support for this series isn't a
little known fact at that couple that was chased down
Highway sixty two six they were driving a Volkswagen rabbit

(31:04):
that he made it up. But it was good. It
was good. No, I mean, you know, I like that
theory probably the best. And then the last theory is
that it was just a hoax. It was a hoax,
and it probably was just a hope. I mean, you know,
I think that I'm willing to say that, like that
first sighting probably happened. They were tired, there were five
of them. He was getting dark. They've probably been drinking

(31:24):
a little bit. They saw probably an owl or something
that was pretty large fly. They weren't used to seeing.
That's kind of the time of year where things are migrating.
It's totally possible a bird was migrating through there. They
saw it go past the corner of their eye and
one of them was like, oh, dude, you see that,
And he's like, oh yeah, it looks super creepy. Looks
like a dude flying. We should get out of here

(31:45):
because it's creepy already, because it's dark and we're in
a cemetery and we're digging a grave. Let's get out
of here. They told they told somebody about it. These
kids were out at the T and T Place or
whatever they call it. Got also probably spooked by the
same animals close enough, you know that, or they didn't,
and they just like freaked themselves out. So, I mean,

(32:06):
you know, I think it's it's really easy for somebody
to uh, either say hey, I want to be cool
and have seen the Mothman, said oh crap, I saw
them offman and this is my story. Or a bunch
of teenagers or you know whatever, being jerks and going
out and dressing up like the Mothman and creeping a
bunch of people out. You know, it's equally easy that
it could just be like a whole mix of a
bunch of that stuff, and then you know, the rest

(32:28):
is history, do you do? You know? The thing is
what I never I expected to find in the research
of the theories on this and the explanations and disclaimers
and all of that, but I never saw mass hysteria.
Well yeah, I mean that's kind of the hoax idea, right,
But but as as the you know, on the detractor

(32:51):
side of the Mothman is real, I expect to just
find something that talked about it was mass hysteria, because
mass hysteria is typically a bunch of people in the
same area all begin to believe very seriously that they're
seeing the same event or experiencing the same thing, and
that can go on for a while. And I could

(33:11):
see you know, the story ends very abruptly with that
bridge collapse, which is a huge shocking tragedy, which would
really rattle that that continued thing that people were quote
unquote experiencing. Well, that'shole time, that's the thing is like,

(33:32):
you know, it's like they lived in a very small town.
I don't know if you if you've gone and looked
at Point Pleasant on Google Maps, yeah, it's a really
small town. Not a lot going on. And I could
see why something like this would become kind of a
fat not necessarily mass hysteria, but just something kind of
fun to break that they break the monotony, and I
can see where a lot of people would sort of

(33:53):
get in on the act. And that of course it
all ended with a class to the bridge because suddenly
this whole thing was just knocked out of everybody's minds
because you have this huge tragedy and suddenly this this
this silly moth Man stuff just seem kind of pointless
and stupid when you have this massive die off of
so many people you knew. I guess my argument against
the mass hysteria thing would be that to explain mothman

(34:16):
sightings as mass hysteria would be the same as trying
to explain most like UFO sightings as mass hysteria. Well,
but but the caveat is that this is in such
a small area, in a very small window of times,
very small window of time, whereas UFOs tend to be
spread over a wider geographical area. I don't have the

(34:40):
sense that the sightings were so rampant that the legitimate
sorry quote unquote, legitimate sightings were so rampant that it
would be attributed to mass hysteria. I think it was
a handful of people who and I guess to make
mass hysteria be a valid theory, we would have to
accept all of the reports during that time frame, which

(35:01):
we're we've said we've kind of discounted a number of them.
I don't think that many reports actually, I think a
lot of them have been just sort of tacked on
over the years. I would agree with that. Yeah, So
with that, that's the end of the theories we've talked about.
My favorite, which is the flight suit somehow also mutated

(35:22):
bird thoughts. Yeah, I think it's a combination aliens and
flight suit alien technology flight suit, Yeah, I think so.
I really I really buy into the bird theory. Whether
it be a you know, a crane or an owl
or whatever. I think that that's more likely it cool
not mutated, just a regular bird. Actually, I think most

(35:45):
likely that actually is probably really hunting a VW rebbit. Yeah,
you can find links to some of our research on
our website, which is thinking site was podcast dot com.
You might be listen to us there. You probably are not,
but you might be if you are, or you happen
to visit it to check out the links. There's a

(36:06):
little survey on the left hand right hand, right hand side. Obviously,
I've taken it so many times that I totally know
where it. It's, you know, just a little quick I
think it's less than five minutes survey. Um. So if
you fill that out, we greatly appreciate it. You are
probably listening to us on iTunes, that would be my guess.
If you are, leave us a comment and a rating.

(36:28):
How other people find us uh and like us and
become new avid listeners. You can also stream us on Stitcher.
Maybe you might not be hearing this part if you're theoretically,
who knows, We don't. We don't really know what's going on.
Their apologies all around. If you are listening to Stitcher,

(36:49):
and this is the first time that you've heard this
little bit. Apologies all around you. We have a Facebook
page and group you can guess and join us. I guess.
We also have a Twitter Thinking Sideways without the G
because we're so hip and cool, and you can always

(37:10):
send us an email. If you are the moth Man
and you do have fingers and palms, send us an email.
That email address is Thinking Sideways podcast at gmail dot com.
Speaking of email, this is something we haven't done in
a while. We've been at about that. We just we've
got to have to hire a couple of interns. We

(37:31):
might actually have to at this point. You guys are
sending up so much stuff better I might need to
get better. Yeah, well we did. We talked about this,
I think a couple episodes ago where I was just like, wow,
you guys have just suggested literally every unsolved mystery that
any of us have ever heard of. So cool, we're
listeners suggestions for the next three years. Awesome. Anyway, this

(37:55):
one actually was not a suggestion, um, and I'm really really,
really really happy we got it for chains to the
Bill Brennan episode Who's the Guy from Las Vegas from
Las Vegans. Yeah, and it's from a girl named Rachel.
And she says, hey, there, I'm sure you received a
lot of email about this, but I just wanted to
let you know that the Stardust sign is actually located
in the Neon Museum in Las Vegas, So no worries,

(38:17):
it's safe and sound. I highly recommend a trip to
the museum if you find yourself in Las Vegas. And
then she of course says that she loves our show
and everything's perfect and wonderful in this world. Well, no,
I'm really glad. Yeah, I had no idea that wasn't
Neon Museum. That's awesome. So I bet that thing is spectacular.
I bet, yeah, I would. I need to find a
reason to go to Vegas, mainly because I need a

(38:39):
reason to go to Vegas. Are you getting married soon? Like? Yeah,
you just do that? Yeah, that might have to be
a well I'm I don't like to spend money, but
that might be a bachelor thing or just like take
your lovely fiance and like, don't spend money on a wedding.
I'm just saying. I'm just saying I know she'd be
totally into it. I don't think she'd be totally into that.
That would not go over well. Well, we do have

(39:01):
one other email that I wanted to share. Yeah, um,
so this is from Jason, and Jason said, you've probably
heard this a thousand times so far, but I recently
discovered your podcast. And he did what so many people do,
he binge listened to the whole catalog. I like, that's cool.

(39:22):
That's a lot of listening. Well, there's lots of listening
to our stupid voices, Jason, Jason, I hope you didn't
like neglect your personal hygiene or eat or anything like that. Well,
Jason did say that, you know, of course, thanks for
all the great work, which I appreciate and thank you, uh,
and he really enjoyed it. But this is what I
found so great is that he said that he's never
really listened to podcasts, so ours was the first one

(39:46):
of only two that he does listen to, which I
I really I find that kind of a little feather
in our cap. What's the other one? He didn't say,
But you know what what I did like is, and
just paraphrase this, is that he, uh, he likes stories
like what we cover. But he was having a hard

(40:06):
time finding someplace to explore him and talk about him.
I guess he had tried to go on message boards
and stuff like that. He got to web sluices, which
kind of evidently, well, web slues gets a little depressing
after a while, and he'd gone to some of the
paranormal boards, but of course because he was trying to
put up some alternate theories, they didn't like him so much.

(40:29):
So Jason, we like you. You're totally welcome here and
we are totally glad you you found the show, and
thank you for sending this the email. Thank you, I
gotta say, is careful kind of hard to slock to ca. Yeah, No,
you can't spend a lot of time and we should
be careful. Yeah. Anyways, with that having been said, to

(40:50):
steal a phrase, We're gonna get out of here. I'm
gonna not flap my wings and fly away. I'm gonna
shoot straight up, straight up in the air, and then
I'm not just goodbye. Everybody who