The Mothman Cometh, As Prophesied
A few weeks ago I ham-fistedly constructed my first needle felted sculpture, a cryptid that haunted my childhood, a chimera known as The Jersey Devil. This week, Michelle answered my Monster Sculpt-Off Challenge with her own cryptid, West Virginia’s famed and feared Mothman.
Just hanging out in the woods…looking for potential victims…how about you?
It goes without saying that she cleaned my clock. And she did much of the work in secret so I wouldn’t find out about the alternate materials and surprising enhancements to the figure until after it was complete, and too late for me to up my game. That’s the kind of subterfuge I thought only I was willing to engage in. Fair enough. I admire the hustle.
She added LEDs to the eyes. A nod to documented sightings of the monster.
Another hustle that’s hard not to admire is how the entire town of Point Pleasant, West Virginia holds an annual festival to commemorate the sighting of what very well may have been a large bird on the side of a dark road back in 1966. That takes moxie.
2016 was the last time we attended, but they hold one every September.
Don’t get me wrong. I am the last person who’s going to tell you monsters don’t exist. Michelle and I attended that festival like a couple of Mulders, wanting to believe. Sure, maybe seeing the famously reclusive Bigfoot chilling out in broad daylight with the equally secretive Batman gave us pause.
Crime rampant in Gotham and this guy’s just hanging with Bigfoot.
And maybe spotting the cables holding the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man in place shook our faith momentarily in the destructor’s power.
Stay puffed, Marshmallow Man…stay puffed.
Even the most stalwart of believers may have had moments of doubt at this point, but we quickly shook those feelings off and rallied when we saw the town’s statue of the Mothman. Not only is it a majestic, powerful monument to the monster that’s haunted their Point Pleasant for decades….it also has an ass that just won’t quit. Similarly, neither would we.
Legend tells how the mothman ate his own pants. Tragically poetic.
By the time we’d visited the Mothman Museum (the world’s only Mothman Museum, mind you), attended a screening of a Mothman documentary at the local theater, and toured the old munitions bunkers where witnesses have reported sightings of The Mothman, we were firm believers. During the walk back to our car we literally jumped and scurried when we heard some unexplained noises in the woods around us.
Oh, he’s poised, alright…
Nevertheless, when sculpting her own version of the Mothman, Michelle eschewed the idea that this creature was, in fact, a man with moth wings, or a giant black owl, or even a bat-winged demon. She decided to lean into the nomenclature and sculpt something that’s creepier than all of those things put together: A gigantic, man-sized moth.
This giant bug could give the Jersey Devil a run for his money.
And I can see why she did it. Sure, a man with moth wings or bat wings would be alarming. But I feel you could reason with something like that. And a giant owl or sandhill crane? That’s a matter best left to the local Fish and Wildlife Department. But if the beleaguered citizens of Point Pleasant, West Virginia, for the last fifty-plus years, have been stalked and terrorized by a giant, pincer-twitching, proboscis-unfurling, red-glowing-eyed insect-a-zoid thing…..well, then, god help them. Because I’d be too terrified to try.
Don’t look into its eyes or— too late. Now you’re doomed.
If you’d like to see how Michelle submarined me in her attempt to win the Monster Sculpt-Off, you can watch our video about it below.