With thanks to Wallace Stevens
All italicized lines are quotations from the film
I
AS A VERSION OF THE TRUTH
What we know:
On December 15, 1967, a bridge connecting Point Pleasant, West Virginia and Gallipolis, Ohio collapsed into the Ohio River. The collapse has been described as a folding; the entire event took place in under twenty seconds. Forty-six people died.
In the months leading up to this tragedy, locals reported a variety of unusual experiences, including UFO sightings, mysterious strangers, and odd phone calls. Of all the strange sightings that preceded the Silver Bridge collapse, the most notorious was the Mothman: a winged humanoid creature, a harbinger of doom.
II
AS A MOSAIC
A single piece within a mosaic is called a tessera. An individual element lending itself in a small way to the bigger picture.
A legend like the Mothman is constructed from many unique stories. Recollections of funny feelings and missing dogs and a pair of glowing red eyes peering out from the gloomy dark. We seek out the places where these stories overlap; we build a character from the intersections. Together—in police reports, in journalism, in art—we attempt to taxonomize a mystery. Name it, if nothing else. The character, in turn, is immortalized through the story we build together.
III
AS AN ALTERNATE UNIVERSE
“Based on true events,” the promotional poster claimed. The Mothman Prophecies was released in January 2002, thirty-four years after the December 1967 bridge collapse. If you’re already familiar with John Keel’s book of the same name, you might recognize how screenwriter Richard Hatem remixed the real-life details. Stories blend and blur, details rearrange, composites form. Unmarried John Keel becomes grieving widower John Klein; local reporter and investigative partner Mary Hyre shapeshifts into Sheriff Connie Mills, whose first name is borrowed from the real Mary’s niece, while Mary’s own name is reassigned to movie John’s deceased wife; paranormal expert Alexander Leek’s surname is, of course, Keel backward. On and on.
Every small ping of recognition offers the eerie sensation of a half-remembered retelling, or an attempt to recall a dream. A faintly familiar sequence, enclosed in a new shell.
Or: just one more way the story could have gone.
IV
AS A FEELING
Often the body tenses in anticipation of pain. We believe something bad is coming, and so we experience negative physical effects in advance. It’s one of my least favorite parts of being human—the particular strain of fear that resides not just in the mind, but in skin and blood and bone.
Sometimes the worst does happen. Other times you wait and wait and nothing ever comes at all. And then, what was the use of all that tension? What was the point of all that fear?
The Mothman Prophecies illustrates anxiety’s steady build of dread. The deeper John tunnels into his investigation, the more he becomes convinced that some terrible event is fast approaching. Still mourning the death of his wife, he becomes consumed by the dream of knowing what will happen before it happens. The idea that if you simply knew the collision was coming, you could be the one to set the train on a different course.
But unchecked, such a fantasy can spiral into obsession. And obsession can blot out every other possibility—including happiness. Including peace.
And what if nothing happens? What if there’s no great tragedy, John?
What’ll you do then?
V
AS A PUZZLE
While watching, the viewer may be struck by the maddening sense that all of these pieces must fit together somehow. That the shards might hold some bigger truth—about god, about death, about whatever comes next. But not all stories neatly wrap themselves up with closure upon conclusion, and so art like this feels closer to real life.
Sometimes you pour out the whole puzzle box, painstakingly lock each piece together, and don’t realize until the end that one is missing. The Mothman Prophecies imagines a world where someone—something—removed that piece intentionally. The truth is held forever out of reach, no matter how long you spend looking.
We’re not allowed to know.
VI
AS A CHOICE
Have you assumed your role in the story yet?
(a) Skeptic
(b) Believer
(c) Something in between
VII
AS A COMMODITY
The Mothman Prophecies made over $55 million at the box office upon its release. Building off the buzz from the film, the town of Point Pleasant began hosting an annual Mothman Festival, which is still going strong: 20,000 attendees in its most recent iteration this past September. A few months prior, a Mothman Build-a-Bear sold out just hours after going live. A legend takes Hollywood, boosts tourism, becomes something we can hold in our hands.
Does transforming our fears into products always make them less frightening? I can search my fear on the internet whenever I want and scroll its seemingly infinite iterations. For $23.99 I can wear my fear on a t-shirt. I can stream my fear or rent my fear or watch my fear on DVD. When I make the bed each morning I place my fear on top of the duvet, leaning against the pillow where I lay my head at night. I become a fan of what frightens me. And maybe—just maybe—I become a little less afraid.
VIII
AS A MEDITATION ON TIME
Your position in the stream of time shifts your understanding of events as they occur. Hindsight lends itself to connections, the possibility of deeper meaning. Looking to the past, it’s easy to construct a linear chain of events, to link cause and effect. The future is trickier. The symbols we find in the present may represent something else to us later on. Meaning is slippery and mutable, altered by individual experience.
In the film, a mysterious phone call warns of a forthcoming tragedy on the Ohio River. In a desperate attempt to attach this prediction to some known event, John fixates on the idea that disaster will occur during the governor’s planned tour of a local chemical plant. He expends a lot of energy trying to alert the appropriate parties, but nothing happens.
It’s only when John arrives at the bridge that he finally understands the warnings he was given.
IX
AS A TRAGEDY
What is Mothman’s role in the events that unfurl?
On his quest for the truth, John consults with Leek, the paranormal expert, who explains:
If there was a car crash ten blocks away, that window washer up there could probably see it. Now, that doesn’t mean he’s God, or even smarter than we are.
But from where he’s sitting, he can see a little further down the road.
Maybe Mothman is a tragic figure trapped in a loop. Not powerful enough to change the future; not human enough to communicate effectively with those who might help. Something in between.
But if you did know what was coming, wouldn’t you use everything in your power, still? Wouldn’t you try to set the train on a different course, right up until the final moment?
Even if the odds are stacked against you, if all your efforts meant the possibility that even one life might be spared—it’s worth trying.
It’ll always be worth trying.
X
AS A STORY WITH AN ENDING
As the film’s conclusion looms, John accepts Connie’s holiday invitation and returns to Point Pleasant. Finally, we witness what was coming. No more wondering. No more waiting. The tension releases; the bridge collapses; the tragedy occurs. John finally understands the harbinger’s warning.
While John isn’t able to stop the bridge from falling—in the film, thirty-six people still die—because he embraced Connie’s offer of companionship, he is there in time to save her life.
Maybe grief never ends, exactly. But John seems to realize he no longer has to be alone in it.
As Connie says, That’s just no way to be.
XI
AS A STORY WITHOUT AN ENDING
The Mothman Prophecies does not feature a climactic monster battle; John does not face off with a humanoid moth at the center of the bridge. Nor is there a final reveal that the mysterious calls were the work of a local with a voice modulator and an ulterior motive.
It would feel safer, in some ways, if this were the case. There is relief in definition, in simple explanations.
But John turns away from his obsession with uncovering the face of what haunts him. Accepts he will never know the whole truth, the satisfaction—or horror—of every piece falling perfectly into place. He calls a truce with the unknown, and chooses another life. The mystery remains.
As Hatem, the screenwriter, once said, “The harder you look at it and the more sense you try to make out of it, in a weird way, the further you get away from any answer.”
We must choose to live with the question.
XII
AS AN ATTEMPT TO UNDERSTAND
Making art can be a way of zooming out. Maybe you’re too close to fully understand an event as it’s happening; maybe you reapproach a question you’ve carried years later through a new lens. Art allows you to look at things from a different perspective, another angle, through someone else’s eyes—or many eyes. The mosaic again.
There is a kind of art that feels like grappling. As if, even years later, you are watching its creator wrestle with a question in real time. Some art exists to provide the creator’s idea of an answer, or the illusion of one. But for others, the question is what’s more important.
I’m learning that I write to understand—to figure out what I think, what I believe. There’s that persistent impulse to dig meaning out of tragedy, to investigate our fear. Some might approach fear or grief as something we can “solve.” And sometimes I do write to solve mysteries, even just for myself. But sometimes the answers evade you. Sometimes there’s no answer at all.
Sometimes all you can do is put a name to what haunts you.
Fear. Loss. Mothman.
Sometimes that’s enough.
XIII
AS YOURS
One evening in early October, I spot a small stuffed Mothman tucked into the corner of a table display at a book fair. He peers out at me amid the glossy covers, his little arm held aloft, as if he’s waving.
What do you look like?
It depends on who’s looking.
I pick up my little harbinger. I pay for him. I take him home.