WEST VIRGINIA URBAN LEGENDS AND THEIR IMPACT ON CULTURES BOTH LOCAL AND ABROAD

Devin Michael Elliott

A Thesis

Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

August 2021

Committee:

Jeremy Wallach, Advisor

Esther Clinton

Montana Miller © 2021

Devin Elliott

All Rights Reserved iii

ABSTRACT

Jeremy Wallach, Advisor

Monstrous urban legends (or cryptids) from the Appalachian state of West Virginia,

specifically Mothman, the Flatwoods Monster, and the Grafton Monster, have gone from local

tales of horror to international popular culture icons known and loved around the world. While

the stories of these creatures have long been familiar to cryptid enthusiasts, more recently these

legends have had an impact on the communities surrounding them and entire cultures abroad.

Using models from dark tourism studies, first-hand interviews, on-location observations, translated documents, and various folkloric and monster study sources, the effects of these cryptids upon the areas from which they hail are observed and compared as well as the impact they have made upon popular culture both in the United States and in other countries such as

Japan. This thesis will explore how the towns of Point Pleasant, Flatwoods, and Grafton, West

Virginia use these legends as a means of financial income and how they are integral parts of their cultural identities.

Keywords: monsters, urban legends, West Virginia, folklore, Mothman, dark tourism, yōkai iv

To the friends and family that have cared about my life and well-being way more than I have

these last three years, without you all I would not even still be here. v

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

In the process of writing this thesis, countless hours were spent organizing and figuring out my thoughts and information relating to the subject matter at hand. Numerous tears were shed over this herculean effort that ended up taking me far longer than I had ever thought originally. There was absolutely no way I could have even begun to approach this lofty idea of a project by myself that spawned from a trip to West Virginia that I had wanted to make for years prior. Not only was I inspired to focus my studies on something that I had enjoyed for as long as

I could remember, but I was also inspired to study myself and find out who I really was after being stuck in the dark of what was and wasn’t possible for so many years of my life. These people were vital to my adventure studying the impact of the strange and unknown, and I can’t begin to stress my deep appreciation for every one of them being part of this process:

To the citizens of the weird and wonderful towns of Point Pleasant, Flatwoods, and

Grafton, West Virginia, for taking the time out of their busy days to speak with someone so obsessed with what makes their hometowns mysterious and incredible.

To my advisory committee, for supporting and guiding me on my academic journey.

To the Salt Block: Tristan, Lexi, Katie and Josh, for listening to my goofy ideas, spending many days and nights helping me formulate the plan that would eventually become this project, and helping me fully realize who I was as an individual and human being.

To Miss Rie Matsubara, for helping me find vital information that I never would have been able to find on my own due to language and cultural barriers unable to be overcome on my own.

To all my various friends I have met through the internet, for listening to me in the darkest of times and encouraging me to keep fighting even when times were rough. vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS Page

INTRODUCTION ...... 1

CHAPTER I: A FLUTTER OF MOTHMEN ...... 13

CHAPTER II: THE BUTTERFLY/MOTHMAN EFFECT...... 45

CHAPTER III: THE UCHUSEN (SPACESHIP) OF THE FLATWOODS MONSTER ...... 61

CHAPTER IV: CONCLUSION: THE BEGINNING OF A NEW LEGEND ...... 79

WORKS CITED ...... 86

APPENDIX A: INFORMED CONSENT FORM ...... 92 vii

LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page

1 "Mothman" by Jamie C. Sloane ...... 27

2 Mason County, WV Seal in Mason County Courthouse ...... 46

3 “History Meets Mystery" Mural, Point Pleasant, WV ...... 47

4 Flatwoods Monster Lantern ...... 56

5 Space Harrier II (1988) Japanese Box Art by SEGA ...... 62

6 "The Famous Picture" from "Sekai no Enban Misteri" by Hiroshi Minamiyama ...... 65 viii

LIST OF TABLES Table Page

1 Dark Tourism Spectrum by Philip Stone...... 20 1

INTRODUCTION

When I was a small child, I was enamored with the strange and bizarre stories of monsters and unknown animals on our planet, whether that be the stories of the elusive

Sasquatch across the United States, the ever-evasive Loch Ness Monster in Loch Ness, Scotland,

or the mysterious humanoid moth creature known as Mothman, seen around the small riverside

community of Point Pleasant, West Virginia. I voraciously consumed what few resources I

could find in my library at school and when I made occasional trips to the county library, but

while I was a child there was only so much one could find on the subject of “real-life” monsters

in a library. Nearly every book about monstrous urban legends was about Bigfoot, the Loch

Ness Monster, or Sea Serpents and mermaids. While they were well-read numerous times, a true adventurer never stops searching for more legends to hunt. While most kids were playing at recess, I was reading books from the library about urban legends in the United States and abroad, utterly fascinated by the countless stories and accounts written by real people that existed, rather than reading a fantastical piece of fiction.

Reading all these stories made me want to become an adventurer and discover the truth behind these legends, but being from a relatively poor family meant we could not travel as much as other people did, so books and television were my only means of adventuring into the unknown while I was a child growing up. The Discovery Kids show Mystery Hunters episode titled “Banshee/Mothman” would inspire me to fall in love with a legend that was both simultaneously near where I lived and tangible enough to almost seem like fact. This episode, known as ”Banshee/Mothman” aired in September of 2004, and it followed the main characters of the show as they investigated the legend of the Mothman in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, and talked with some of the people who were alive at the time of the sightings in 1966 and 1967. 2

The show specifically detailed how “some people think the Mothman may have come to the

town to warn people about the terrible accident that was about to happen” (Banshee/Mothman),

namely the tragic Silver Bridge disaster in 1967. Mystified with the strangeness and sudden

appearance of the creature before such an event, I became infatuated with the legend of the Point

Pleasant Mothman and even went so far as to attend the annual Mothman Festival in Point

Pleasant in September of 2018, inspiring me to write my thesis about how monsters like the

Mothman affect the community around them.

However, when I decided to focus on this subject, after attending the Mothman Festival, I ran into the problem of what exactly to write about relating to these regional monsters, due to the lack of theory surrounding them. There are countless books, films, and television shows already recounting the events of the monster sightings that happened in the 1950’s and 60’s. If I were to focus only on these stories, I would essentially be regurgitating already established literature. I had to figure out a way to add to the discussion with my own scholarship. I thought back to my time at the Mothman Festival: How do these legends affect the communities around them to the point where there are festivals put on in these creatures’ honor and entire tourism industries based around them? Why do these legends have such a massive presence in popular culture now compared to 15-20 years ago? What makes these West Virginian monsters so unique compared to other legends in the United States? Why are there so many legends involving unknown creatures specifically in West Virginia? I had these questions and many, many more swirling around my head as I formulated my thesis topic, considering how little scholarly literature there has been written about these monsters other than the accounts and events that made them famous in the first place. All of these research questions led me to consider a broad, overarching 3

question: How do unknown local urban legends become massive popular culture icons both

locally and around the world?

I must reiterate that I do not seek to retell the same stories that people have already

written about several times over. What I aim to do with this study is to fill in the void of

research relating to the impact urban legends have on local folklore and international popular

culture. While many people know the story, not everybody knows about the tourism industries,

festivals, museums, economies, and other commodities that have arisen in the last 20 years that are based around these unknown beings. However, in order to familiarize those who do not know the stories of the Mothman, the Flatwoods Monster, and the Grafton Beast, it would be pertinent to go over the basic histories of each of these stories here at the beginning of this project.

Before I start describing the appearances and histories of the monsters featured in this project, I want to also take the time to describe what a “cryptid” is, as I’ll be considering these creatures to be cryptids throughout the project. Merriam-Webster defines a cryptid as “an animal

(such as Sasquatch or the Loch Ness Monster) that has been claimed to exist but never proven to exist.” The term was first coined in 1983 in the summer newsletter of the now-defunct

International Society of Cryptozoology (ISC) and is now a prominent term in the cryptozoology subculture, a culture based around the search for legendary creatures like Sasquatch and the Loch

Ness Monster. It is also considered a pseudoscience since people who practice cryptozoology do not follow the regular scientific method when searching for their answers. Works by prominent cryptozoology authors like Bernard Heuvelmans and Loren Coleman have helped bring the search for legendary animals to the modern era. Heuvelmans pioneered the hunt for unknown creatures with works like in On the Track of Unknown Animals in 1955. Coleman opened the 4

Museum of Cryptozoology in Portland, Maine, and is also well-known for his book Mothman and Other Curious Encounters, which is just one book in the plethora of published works on the flying humanoid from Point Pleasant, West Virginia.

Since the Mothman will be taking up the brunt of my ethnographic work, having it be the first monster or “cryptid” I discuss, I felt, would be fitting as we delve into the subject of the effect of these creatures on the towns around them. The Mothman, as it is described in Donnie

Sergent and Jeff Wamsley’s piece Mothman: The Facts Behind the Legend, is a tall, winged humanoid creature that was supposedly seen by well over a hundred people in 1966 and 1967.

There is no one true description of how the Mothman looks, but the most popular version I found is usually a creature with human-like legs, and a torso. Coming out of the torso are two wings that are said to span at least ten feet. The creature is covered in ashy grey fur, much like a regular moth may have. The most striking, and frequently reported, part of the Mothman is the glowing red eyes that pierce the darkness, despite not actually reflecting any light. There have been several reinterpretations of this creature over the years as different artists bring their own view on a monster that terrified an entire area for over a year, despite never actually causing

harm to anyone who saw it.

The first sighting of the Mothman was on November 12, 1966, when a group of men digging a grave in Clendenin, West Virginia saw a pair of glowing red eyes in the tree line close by. When they went to investigate the eyes, the men claimed that a large, man-like figure flew low and close right over their heads and ducked out of sight. The creature that the men saw would become known as the Mothman, and many more sightings followed soon after. However, the initial craze behind the Mothman didn’t occur after this first sighting, instead it would come three days later in nearby Point Pleasant, West Virginia. 5

On November 15, 1966, Roger and Linda Scarberry and Steve and Mary Mallette were

parking just outside of Point Pleasant in the McClintock Wildlife Reserve, also known as the

“TNT Area” because there used to be a munitions plant there during World War II. 1 During their time out on the secluded roads of the reserve, they were sitting in the car in total darkness, but then heard something skittering around outside. The lights were turned on, and an enormous humanoid creature with a supposedly ten-foot wingspan and glowing red eyes was illuminated in front of them. Terrified, naturally, the group started the car and tore off down the isolated roads of the TNT Area towards Point Pleasant, going at speeds a hundred miles or more trying to get away from the creature that was keeping up with them. The group then went to the Village Inn restaurant in Point Pleasant, a pizza establishment that is still around to this day, trying to figure out what to do. From there, they voted to contact the sheriff of Point Pleasant, George Johnson, to report what they saw. In the days that followed there would be several more sightings of the creature around the area, and it was “alleged to have eaten a German Shepherd belonging to

Newell Partridge of Salem, West Virginia, in 1967,” (Telfer) but no proof was ever found.

The craze behind the Mothman had started, due to these initial incidents, and brought

droves of monster hunters and fanatics from all over the area after the story of the “Mason

County Birdman,” as it was initially called by the Huntington newspaper witness, fascinated

thousands. The Mothman had continued to be seen in the Point Pleasant area for about a year,

until it was seen for the last time on December 12th, 1967, three days before the fateful night that

would rock the community to its core. The Mothman was seen flying around the Silver Bridge

on December 12th, and supposedly even perched on it before flying off, never to be seen again.

1 As detailed within the article “Couples See Man-Sized Bird…Creature…Something” from the November 16th, 1966 edition of the Point Pleasant Register. 6

Three days later, the Silver Bridge would collapse during rush hour traffic going between Point

Pleasant, West Virginia and Gallipolis, Ohio, the town right across the river. 46 people fell into

the icy waters of the Ohio River that night, and since then people have said that the Mothman

was an omen to the town of Point Pleasant, a warning of the impending disaster that would

change the lives of so many families in the community. It has not been seen since then, but the

connections people have made between the Mothman, the collapse of the Silver Bridge, and the

different sightings all around Point Pleasant have given rise to a massive legend that continues to

fascinate thousands in the cryptozoological community.

The second figure that I aim to cover in this piece is sort of a double helping of monster.

Not only is it widely known throughout the cryptozoological community, but it is also widely

known in the realm of UFO (Unidentified Flying Object) studies as well, having been thought to

have come from beyond the stars. This creature is the Flatwoods Monster, or Braxton County

Monster, depending on who you ask in the area around Flatwoods, West Virginia. The event

happened on September 12th, 1952, on a cool late summer evening while a group of boys were

playing outside of their school in Flatwoods. The night was like any other until one of them

pointed out that something was falling from the sky and landed on a hill nearby. Naturally, the

group wanted to investigate, so two of the boys, Ed and Fred May, went and got their mother,

Kathleen May, to come along with them as they scaled the tall, rural West Virginian hill.

As they scaled the hill, the group noticed that the entire area seemed to smell like sulfur

and rotten eggs. Everything seemed fine as they went through the trees, trying to figure out what

exactly had landed in their little town, when they heard a sound, and shined a flashlight in the

sound’s direction. There, in the light of a flashlight, stood a tall, spade-headed figure with glowing eyes, what seemed to be a dark, metal “dress,” and long arms with twisted claws on the 7 end. 2 Naturally, this frightened the entire group, who was left running down the hill to both get away and call the sheriff of Braxton County. A search was done in the area by sheriff’s deputies, who then called the National Guard to come and contain the area, but supposedly nothing was found. After the event, Kathleen May and Eugene Lemon, one of the older boys from the group that saw the creature in the woods, went to CBS in New York where they presented a drawing

(by a New York sketch artist) of the figure live on television in some of the earliest days of its public use. No footage of May and Lemon in New York remains, but it still cemented what would become known as the Flatwoods Monster in the public eye for the very first time.

The incident “prompted a U.S. Air Force UFO inquiry, part of a project called Project

Blue Book that dispatched a handful of investigators around the country to look into such claims” (Wenzl). There were other reports in the county that slightly fit the description of the

Flatwoods Monster after the initial incident, but the one that was reported on CBS sticks out as the most iconic incident at that time, as the famous drawing of what the Monster was thought to have looked like was shown on national television. This would become the iconic look of the creature, and that spade-shaped visage with glowing eyes is still used in the various interpretations of the creature in popular culture today. Since then, like the Mothman, there have been no other sightings of the creature, but the Flatwoods Monster has made its mark on the county’s history and culture, even to the point where the locals affectionately call the Monster

“Braxxie,” after Braxton County, West Virginia.

A few hours north in Taylor County, West Virginia, is where the last monster in this study resides. Grafton, the seat of Taylor County, is home to the Grafton Monster, a hulking

2 As described by Marilyn Hosey on the Braxton County Tourism site section labeled “The Flatwoods Monster.” 8

monstrosity that even seems out of place beside Mothman and the Flatwoods Monster. The incident behind the Grafton Beast takes place on June 16th, 1964 when Grafton Sentinel reporter

Robert Cockrell was driving along the Tygart River on Route 119. It was late at night, which made things hard to see, but Cockrell looked as a massive white creature was standing on the

right side of the road, lumbering around while a “low whistling noise” emanated from the Tygart

River beside it, presumably coming from the creature’s spaceship. 3 Cockrell was in shock, so

he slowed down and coasted along beside the creature, which seemed to be about ten feet tall,

made almost entirely of muscle, and covered in slick, seal-like fur. As soon as it came into view,

it trailed out, and Cockrell drove off. Cockrell came into work the next day, unsure of what to

do, but felt that he should tell his editor about the event. The editor wanted no part of it, and

Cockrell assumed that would be the end of it. However, his friends, infatuated with the idea of a

Monster in their hometown, ran off to tell everyone they could about Cockrell’s encounter.

Before long, there were groups of teens armed with baseball bats clamoring up and down

Riverside Drive (where Cockrell witnessed the creature), all hoping to find the Monster for

themselves. Causing a commotion, this finally spurred the Sentinel to report on the matter on

June 18th but failed to mention their reporter’s sighting being the cause of the activity.4

On June 19th, a second article ran in the Sentinel detailing a statement from local police

after the first article by the Sentinel led to a craze, much like the Mothman, of even more monster hunters going out into the woods and trying to catch or kill the Monster. 5 Cars filled with teenagers packed Riverside Drive, all hoping to catch a glimpse of the hulking white creature

3 According to noted Ufologist Gray Barker and described in the featured write-up of the encounter on the “The Grafton Monster” Facebook page. 4 As detailed in “Teen-Age Monster Hunting Parties Lates Activity On Grafton Scene” from the June 18th, 1964 edition of the Grafton Sentinel newspaper. 5 As detailed in the “Monster” Result Of Spring Fever, Wild Imagination” article from the June 19th, 1964 edition of the Grafton Sentinel. 9

that was capturing the imagination of the region. Even to this day it is still said to lurk in the outskirts of town, most recently being recorded on an episode of Mountain Monsters by a cattle farmer from Grafton. While not nearly as dramatic as the Flatwoods Monster and Mothman, the

Grafton Monster has set itself up as part of a “trinity” of sorts, three West Virginian monsters that people from all over the world, including me, fawn over to figure out the true story behind them.

When it comes to a creature like those in the West Virginian Trinity (as I call them), what makes it a “monster” versus a “cryptid,” or any other type of unknown animal? I had this question fluttering about in my head ever since this project was initially prospected, but I like to think that it comes down to one specific element: the story. A cryptid can be any sort of unknown creature in the world. In fact, the Giant Panda was once a cryptid until a cub was purchased by the first Westerner believed to have seen the Giant Panda alive, German zoologist

Hugo Weigod, in 1916. A cryptid is only a cryptid because we have yet to extensively research it as part of the animal kingdom. A monster, however, is quite different. A monster has a story, a monster has a legend attached to it and becomes part of mythology, much like Grendel in

Beowulf. But what happens, like in the case of the West Virginia Trinity, when the creature in question is both a monster and a cryptid? As far as we know, they were real creatures, or at the very least they were real creatures mistaken for something much more terrifying. As we know by the stories attached to each creature, they were all monsters as well. For the sake of this project, however, I will be referring to these creatures as monsters, since I am looking at the stories of these strange beings and how they have affected the communities around them, rather than looking at if they are real or not at all. 10

Going a bit further into my reasoning for calling these creatures “monsters,” using previously discussed folkloric research, is necessary to keep my research from being a dive into the possibility of these creatures being real. However, I am only using this term as a means to give a definite name to these creatures, rather than keeping them as amorphous, inexplicable things. If given no form, then the difficulty of proper connections to real life people and events comes into play, rather than keeping them mysterious and ambiguous. In a way, these creatures are more “unclassifiable” than cryptids or monsters, because we do not know the truth behind what happened during these events in West Virginia.

Andy Stafford describes how Roland Barthes’ work, Classification Without Class, details the fascination Barthes had with the zoological oddity that is the platypus, and how he described it as “unclassifiable.” Stafford notes how “Barthes uses the ‘paradoxa’ (Mythical creatures) as part of a critique of analogy,” (151) rather than referring to mythical creatures themselves.

Instead of focusing on the animal itself, like the chimera or gorgon, we focus on what the animal means or what the story is and how it affects the world around it, which is what this thesis aims to do. But, as I described before, the creatures I talk about do not fit into any traditional classification, much like how Barthes believes that “The Platypus escapes classification”

(Stafford 156). As Stafford describes it:

The duck billed platypus…needs to be considered not for its classificatory identity (which is

fruitless because it is entirely singular, irreducibly semelfactive), but for its function within other

news reports (Stafford 156).

So, following Barthes’ observations, I reiterate how each of these monsters acts as a figure within a story rather than being a simply amorphous creature. What sets the West Virginian

Trinity apart is how these creatures have actual sightings attributed to them, rather than simply 11

being stories, which drives them even further into the “unclassifiable” category. These creatures

should be treated as a figure within their individual stories, rather than just simply being a

strange animal that somebody witnessed one day.

David Gilmore and Jeffrey Jerome Cohen both agree with the unclassifiable nature of

these creatures, primarily talking about folkloric monsters like the West Virginian Trinity as

more of a metaphor than yet-to-be-discovered animals. In Gilmore’s Tarasca: Ritual Monster of

Spain, we see how people on the Iberian Peninsula interact with the Tarasca, a dragon-like

creature that has been feared by adults and children alike in the region for centuries. Using

public display, they show their belief in the monster having possibly been a thing in the area at

one point or another in history. In Monster Theory: Reading Culture, Cohen asserts that monsters should be a folkloric metaphor, a central piece in the culture around it, as we will see from my research collected in the towns that surround Mothman, the Flatwoods Monster, and the

Grafton Monster. While the monsters we are talking about may be “unclassifiable” by folkloric and mythological means, it has not stopped folklorists from calling these types of creatures

“monsters,” due to the stories and narratives around them. Therefore, as previously stated, I will also call them monsters, rather than cryptozoological creatures that have yet to be discovered and stand alongside other scholars that have made the same distinction.

Now that the distinction of “cryptid” versus “monster” has been made, going into why people flock to these monsters as a touristic destination is important, before talking about what is at the destinations that these people are going to. As with telling the histories of the creatures, giving context to why people like going to strange locations such as Point Pleasant, Flatwoods, and Grafton, West Virginia is important in understanding the core of why people put so much 12 effort into making their town a tourist destination for others to enjoy and how the effects of the monsters have changed their towns, for better or worse. 13

CHAPTER I: A FLUTTER OF MOTHMEN

I chose the chapter title because I figured it would be fitting, a flock of Mothmen fluttering and flitting around a lightbulb the same way that people herd around sites where monsters once possibly roamed. What is it with places like Point Pleasant, Flatwoods, and

Grafton that make them so popular to stop in and take in the environment around you? Even if it’s just a stop, the final destination, or a festival being held in town, these monsters have brought people from all over the world to these previously unknown towns in West Virginia to share in the legends that have mystified people for years. What exactly have these towns done to capitalize on the mystifying legends in general? How was the legend of the Mothman brought to be the centerpiece of the town of Point Pleasant, West Virginia? Why have people come from places like Mexico and Japan to Flatwoods to bask in where a visitor from another world possibly touched down and scared the denizens of a sleepy village? Before I get into my first hand research about what these towns have done to put their images out into the world, it is crucial that I talk about why these towns are trying to use monsters to their advantage.

The West Virginian Trinity all contribute to one major thing that each town is trying to promote: tourism. Tourism is essential to the state of West Virginia as a whole, due to major rises in unemployment rates in the coal industry, with nearly 6,000 jobs lost in the coal industry in March and April alone in 2020 according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. What was once an 80,000 people strong labor force nationally in 2010 is now down to 45,000, with around

14,000 of those jobs set in mountainous West Virginia (Garside). Not to mention the chemical industry, West Virginia’s other main industry, which has seen significant losses in employment.

As Casey Korbini, Deputy Director of the West Virginia Department of Environmental

Protection (WVDEP) Division of Land Restoration, put it in an interview in May of 2020: 14

At the height of the chemical manufacturing industry in 1954, 38,000 people in West

Virginia were employed in the business. As of 2010, only 10,000 jobs remained, and that

number has remained largely unchanged over the past decade…these job losses are

especially significant due to lost wages and taxes, with the current average regional

chemical worker’s wage at $75,450 per year…the lost chemical industry jobs have also

accounted for an estimated 56,000 additional job losses (2 to 1 ratio) from support

businesses, with most of these from the small business sector. (Fritz)

What were once thriving, iconic industries in the Appalachian state are now a fraction of what

they once were. So naturally, those in the state must turn to the next thing they have to offer:

culture and natural features. So, due to the steep decrease in one job market, other job markets,

like tourism, have seen an increase. According to a press release by Governor Jim Justice’s

office, “research shows traveler spending in West Virginia grew at a rate of 6.5 percent, totaling

$4.55 billion in 2018” (Damron), while at the 2019 Governor’s Conference on Tourism in

Snowshoe, WV. Along with this increase, the state has gone to great lengths to promote its

cultural heritage and natural wonders in the past few years, including the mysterious West

Virginian Trinity of the Mothman, the Flatwoods Monster, and the Grafton Monster.

As the news article title proclaims, “WV Monster Lore Drives Tourism, Festivals,

Cottage Industries” (Calwell, “Crazy…”), it is plain to see the effects the West Virginian Trinity has had on the tourism economy of the state, considering the Mothman and the Flatwoods

Monster both have their own pages on the WV Tourism website. These monsters have also spurred an influx of festivals within West Virginia, these gatherings being symbolic of the

region’s rich and diverse cultures, with the identity of many small towns on display for any to

come and see. Much like Leslie Prosterman talks about in Ordinary Life, Festival Days: 15

Aesthetics in the Midwestern County Fair, these festivals are perfect showcases of the state, the

towns, and the cultural identities of the people living in them. However, one specific festival is

the reason why I based my thesis upon the topic of the cultural impact of West Virginian monsters and a festival that the state of West Virginia now proudly advertises throughout the year: The Mothman Festival. The Mothman Festival, once merely just a couple of tables in front of the Mothman statue in the middle of downtown Point Pleasant, gets bigger and bigger with each year. In 2019 the attendance was over 15,000 people (2020’s festival was cancelled due to

COVID-19). In a town of just over 18,000 people, the city nearly shuts down with the influx of people coming to see where the legendary Mothman once trod.

The Mothman Festival, put together by Mothman Museum owner Jeff Wamsley and the

late local diner owner Carolyn Harris, has been held every year since 2002 (except 2020), and

has become a pivotal part of West Virginian, and Point Pleasant, culture. The festival not only

celebrates the legend of the Mothman and the creature’s impact on the town, but also West

Virginian and cryptid culture. There are dozens of arts and crafts tables set up featuring artisans

from all around the Appalachian region and further, local bands playing live music, local food

trucks serving barbecue and all sorts of sweet, monstrous goodies, and there’s even

monster/cryptozoology experts who come and speak at the festival about their thoughts on the

Mothman and other monsters that they are studying around the world. People from all around the world flood the streets trying to find parking and a knick-knack that speaks to them among

the dozens of vendors that line the main street of Point Pleasant while snacking on one of the

elusive Mothman cookies that seem to go out of stock as soon as they are put out to be sold.

From its humble roots as just a simple niche festival in a sleepy little town to the thriving event

that it is today, the Mothman Festival has made leaps and bounds into becoming one of the 16 defining events for West Virginian culture today. The festival is heavily advertised, heavily marketed, and has also become one of the hottest events for any fan of monsters and cryptids to attend, with hotels in the area booking up months in advance of the event and prices being driven up to three times the amount on the weekend of the Mothman Festival instead what they usually are, according to the owners of the Lowe Hotel in downtown Point Pleasant.

Much like Point Pleasant, the village of Flatwoods has joined in on the festival craze by reinstating their Flatwoods Monster Festival after nearly ten years of being out of commission.

Connie Kniceley, along with a board of other festival planners, reinstated the Flatwoods Monster

Festival in 2019 to stand along the Mothman Festival as a monstrous West Virginian event to be advertised and known throughout the region. The Flatwoods Monster Festival rides off the recent rise of UFO tourism in Braxton County, where Flatwoods is located. “UFO tourism gaining foothold in Braxton County,” says the WV Gazette, “the small Braxton County community is embracing its own tale of alien visitation and enjoying success as an offbeat tourist destination” (Calwell, “UFO Tourism…”) and as a signifier of their unique cultural identity.

Unlike the Mothman Festival, however, the 2019 Flatwoods Monster Festival was held in conjunction with Char Con Bonus Round, a smaller version of the Char Con popular culture convention in Charleston, West Virginia. Whereas the Mothman Festival was only held on the main street of Point Pleasant, the Flatwoods Monster Festival was in both the village of

Flatwoods and the Flatwoods Convention Center just down the road, a centralized location in the vast state of West Virginia. There, one could check out vendors selling Braxxie, Mothman, and

Grafton Monster merchandise, play tabletop games, talk with popular paranormal authors and cryptozoological figures, and even attend panels talking about paranormal occurrences in

Braxton County. In Flatwoods proper, a parade was held in honor of the 1952 occurrence, bingo 17

was played with prizes given out, live music was played by local artists, and interpretive dancers

dressed like the Flatwoods Monster and the folkloric version of the Men in Black put on a performance for the locals. Like the Mothman Festival, the Flatwoods Monster Festival is now being put on to attract people from around the world and display the unique cultural identity of the town through tourism.

What is it about these three folkloric legends and cultural identities that make coming to rural West Virginia so attractive to people all around the world? Sure, anyone can tell a story about an alien that set down in a rural spot of the United States, as it seems to happen all the time, and every state seems to have some sort of monster to call their own. But what makes

West Virginia so unique compared to other states in the United States of America? Boiling it down to a couple of observations on the matter, it’s primarily because of dark tourism and the fact that the monsters are so inherently unique that you’re only able to find them in one place, which is West Virginia.

One can go to where aliens supposedly landed in Roswell, New Mexico in the middle of the desert, but Flatwoods and Sutton are right off Interstate 79 in West Virginia, making it much easier to access for people driving through the state since the state of West Virginia is smack dab between the Midwest and East Coast, so it is well-traveled by people going through Ohio,

Kentucky, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, as they make their way between the regions.

One could go to the Pacific Northwest and try and find a Bigfoot in a sea of trees and mountains, or they can go to Point Pleasant, see the one and only Mothman Museum, and eat a Mothman pizza to experience their favorite cryptid that has a dedicated home, and then travel through

Charleston (the state’s capital) up through the center of the state to the holler of Flatwoods, and then stop over in Grafton afterwards. There are dozens of alien and cryptid stories dotting the 18

United States, but there is only one Mothman, only one Flatwoods/Braxton County Monster, and only one Grafton Monster. The uniqueness of these creatures has led to the state pinning them on their lineup of cultural sites like proverbial badges of honor because it knows they’re weirdly unique to them and that they’re going to attract people of all types to stop in their towns, buy their merchandise, stay in their hotels, and remember that they could only find them in West

Virginia. But why is it that these monstrous destinations are popular at all? We have dark tourism and the theories behind it to thank for that.

What is dark tourism in the first place? Dark tourism, “also known as black tourism, thanatourism or grief tourism, is tourism that is associated with death or tragedy” (Stainton).

Seeing the sites associated with the Mothman can be considered “dark tourism,” considering the

Mothman is so heavily connected to the collapse of the Silver Bridge in 1967. People come from all over to see the sites relating to the Mothman, including the site of the former Silver Bridge.

People aren’t coming exclusively to see the bridge collapse site, but rather the Mothman.

However, paying respects at the site of such devastation and tragedy like the Silver Bridge collapse is akin to many other sites like Auschwitz and Ground Zero. Point Pleasant is unique in the fact that people come to see the site of the Silver Bridge due to the monster associated with it.

The Mothman is the draw to the rest of what the town has to offer, as we’ll explore later in this project, and contributes heavily to the dark tourism of this town and area. However, I think in the case of Point Pleasant, Flatwoods, and Grafton, their version of dark tourism is just a tad different from being simply because of tragedy or death. I try to approach the three towns from a lighter point of view than what most dark tourism scholars tend to go and place the three towns into a category that I aptly have named “Monster Tourism.” 19

While dark tourism deals with deadly events and tragedies that have occurred in certain spots in years prior, monster tourism tends to skew away from the death and tragedy portion of categorization in favor of intrigue and mystery. Whereas some people may go to New York to see Ground Zero and pay their respects at the 9/11 memorial there, others may be going simply because they want to go on a “haunted tour” and walk around supposedly haunted sites in the city. Both are dark tourism, both deal with death, but one deals with a narrative that happened instead of solely just death and tragedy. Monster tourism also tends to commercialize the events that happened, like how Point Pleasant commercializes the Mothman and how it was seen around the Silver Bridge right before its collapse, rather than solely memorializing the lives that were lost, like in the case of the Ground Zero memorial. Ground Zero, according to the chart below, would fall into the realm of “Darkest” tourism, and Point Pleasant, Flatwoods, and Grafton would fall into “Lightest.” However, Point Pleasant could be a little darker than the other two locations due to the fact that during the Mothman’s “Flap of Terror,” the Silver Bridge disaster occurred and killed dozens of people. As people often associate the Mothman with the collapse of the bridge, supposedly being an omen of its demise, many associate death with its identity, despite it not directly being the cause. 20

Table 1: Dark Tourism Spectrum by Philip Stone 21

Monster Tourism is just part of the lightest parts of dark tourism, but again, it does not

deal solely with death and tragedy like the classic definition of dark tourism describes. From

what my research has shown, Point Pleasant falls directly under the lightest category for several

reasons that will be shown later in this chapter from my time spent in the town. Not only is most

of the town entertainment oriented, like it shows in the chart, but a significant amount of time

has passed since the events surrounding the Mothman and the Silver Bridge collapse in 1967.

Point Pleasant has taken on the Mothman as part of their heritage and is commercializing the

creature as a tourist draw for the rest of the town and what it has to offer, which attributes to the

“Lightest” section of dark tourism. There is also a high tourism infrastructure in Point Pleasant

now, with the bureau of tourism being situated right as you come into town after taking the exit

off of US-35 going towards Charleston, WV. What was once a town that was built solely for

locals is now built for outsiders to come and spend their money on Mothman-related activities through Monster Tourism, and eventually on the rest of the town’s unique cultural features that are easily accessible by tourists.

A good comparison for Point Pleasant in terms of lightest dark tourism would be Salem,

Massachusetts, considering all of the fun events and tourist spots centered around the heinous

Salem Witch Trials of the 1600’s. During the month of October, Salem becomes a hotspot for those seeking to experience the spooky side of life, with Halloween in Salem being one of the hot events to go to during the year in the area. People come and tour the Witch Museum, see one of the various horror-related shops in the area, and spend time having fun in a place where so many people died a terrible, painful death. At the same time, however, there is still a memorial for those who died in town, a wall of names of those who were convicted during the trials. What 22 sets up Salem as a place to go and have fun, much like Point Pleasant, is the entertainment orientation of the town, as well as time passed since the events that took place.

Dark tourism accounts for the main reason why Point Pleasant has become such a popular tourist destination in the past 15 years, as places like the Mothman Museum and the Flatwoods

Monster Museum use their widespread appeal as a means to lure people in from around the world to come and see what makes their town special. What do businesses in these towns do to try and lure people to experience what their towns have to offer? What are the other things that make these towns special that the Mothman, Flatwoods Monster, and Grafton Beast introduce people to? This leads us into the next section of this chapter, where I will discuss the research I conducted in Point Pleasant concerning businesses and other organizations around Point

Pleasant, Flatwoods, and Grafton and how they use the appeal of the Trinity to bring people into their businesses, and also how it all got started in terms of the very first businesses and establishments that started promoting the legends that now make their towns famous.

Starting with the Mothman Museum and Research Center in Point Pleasant would be pertinent, considering it is the central hub for all things Mothman in the town and is the “World’s

Only Mothman Museum,” as the sign on the front of the museum so proudly proclaims. The museum was first established in 2005 and has moved locations on the main street of the town once across the street, to where it now resides right in the center of it all and right next to the

Mothman statue that is the centerpiece of the Mothman’s iconic reputation. Inside the museum one will immediately find themselves in the middle of a large gift shop dedicated to Mothman, the Men in Black who were said to have come in the wake of the creature that terrorized the community, and other West Virginian legends like the Flatwoods Monster and the many Bigfoot sightings that occur in the mountainous state. The variety of gifts is incredible, ranging from the 23

typical, like shirts with the image of the Mothman printed upon them, postcards, magnets, etc., to

the unique, being Mothman wine and root beer that can be bought by the bottle, cute toys made

with the likeness of the Mothman, and pennants made with “MOTHMAN” printed across them.

One can also see various decorations around the gift shop: Fake boxes of TNT (Referring to the alleged “nesting area” of the Mothman, the Point Pleasant TNT Area/McClintic Wildlife

Reserve), dummies wearing Men in Black attire, and a Mothman figure hung from the ceiling, making it look like it is swooping down on people attending the museum.

Inside the actual exhibit hall is an impressive array of different artifacts, documents, articles, and pieces of evidence all talking about the Mothman legend and how it happened during the Mothman “Flap” of Point Pleasant. A Mothman “Flap” is a term coined by legendary paranormal author John Keel, the writer of the Mothman Prophecies book, used to describe an event in which the Mothman is seen in a specific area for a specific period. You’ll find clippings from local newspapers, state, and national newspapers all neatly lined up in glass cases within the museum. There are also movie props from the Mothman Prophecies (2002) film that are in one section of the museum, including pieces of the fake bridge that falls into the water at the climax of the film, fake Mason County Sheriff’s emblems, and costumes that Laura Linney wore in the film as her character, Connie Mills. Further into the Museum, we can see a Mothman- themed crane game and a professionally made Mothman costume that is set up on a dummy.

There are also various Mothman toys set up in glass cases on display, as well as comics that take inspiration from both the Mothman and the Men in Black. Recently, a new section was added onto the museum, expanding the floorspace of the exhibit hall and adding new documents and articles into the already expansive collection on display. There is even a little room in the museum that was renovated to look like a retro 1950’s-era diner, calling back to the late Carolyn 24

Harris’ Harris Steakhouse that was found in town before her passing in 2016. This room is purposely darkened and shows movie clips of various documentaries relating to the Mothman

Mythos. The museum has been expanding in the last few years, as more and more people come to view the many historical pieces that the place has to offer, and so it has bought adjacent vacant buildings in order to add on to their original 2005 floorplan. Of course, it helps that the

Mothman Museum is also in the center of Main Street of Point Pleasant as well and is adjacent to the iconic Mothman statue that came originally and helped start Mothman “Mania,” as it were, along with the 2002 film. There is even a “Mothcam” that is run 24 hours a day by the Mothman

Museum pointing at the Mothman statue for people that can’t come see it in person to enjoy and marvel over the massive steel sculpture.

The Mothman Statue was commissioned by City Planner Charles Humphrey, also known as “Mothman’s Daddy,” as he likes to call himself, in 2003. Humphrey was among the first people in town to really get on board with basing the town of Point Pleasant around the legend of the Mothman to draw in tourists. I met Mr. Humphrey in the Red Parrot Café, situated in the

Lowe Hotel, right across the street from the Mothman Museum. We talked for a while over drinks about Point Pleasant, and how it was a “neat little town,” as well as how far it has come since Mothman was introduced as the main selling point of the town. Apparently, at one point

15 years ago there was only 12 businesses open on the main street of Point Pleasant, now there’s

50 or so businesses open, and growing, due to the influx of business into the town. Mr.

Humphrey then told me the story of how he got the Mothman Statue commissioned for the town by local late artist Bob Roach. Mr. Roach was well known around town for his various welded steel statues that dotted the area. When Mr. Humphrey approached Roach about building a

Mothman statue in the first place, Roach replied with “What’s a Mothman?” Despite living near 25

Point Pleasant, even Mr. Roach hadn’t heard of the Mothman until he started working on the now famous statue. It’s said that Mr. Roach used the image reference of a bodybuilder, specifically a Mr. Universe competitor, from a magazine to create the muscular-looking statue that now sits in the middle of the main street of Point Pleasant. The definition of the statue’s muscles led to Humphrey joking about how people come specifically to see the rear region of

Mothman and get pictures with it, adding to the mythos and in-joke within the Mothman fandom that “Mothman has a great rear end.” The Mothman Statue was soon erected, and it has been a stopping point for tourists and curious minds alike coming through Point Pleasant, all coming to read the plaque set into the statue:

On a chilly, fall night in November 1966, two young couples drove into the TNT area north of

Point Pleasant, West Virginia, when they realized they were not alone. What they saw that night

has evolved into one of the great mysteries of all time; hence the Mothman Legacy began. It has

grown into a phenomenon known all over the world by millions of curious people asking

questions: What really happened? What did these people see? Has it been seen since? It still

sparks the world's curiosity - the mystery behind Point Pleasant, West Virginia's MOTHMAN.

Sculpture by: Artist and Sculptor Bob Roach New Haven, West Virginia Mr. Humphrey is particularly proud of his work with the Mothman statue, to the point where he has had the sculpture of the Mothman printed on his business cards that he hands out when he meets people. He often walks up and down the main street, turning on oldies tunes to play through various speakers around the main street to give the town a “nostalgic” feel while 26

meeting old and new people that come into town to experience the Mothman and the rest of what

Point Pleasant has to offer.

Right across the street from the Mothman Museum is the Point Pleasant Trading

Company, which goes hand in hand with the Mothman Museum as a tourist shop. The store

opened in 2019 and sells all different kinds of paraphernalia relating to Mothman and other West

Virginian legends. Not only is Mothman represented in the merchandise, but so is the Flatwoods

Monster and Bigfoot as well. The shop also has Mothman root beer on tap and has different pamphlets and information for attractions in the area for tourists to go and see. The store is owned by Jeff Wamsley, the owner of the Mothman Museum, and is run by him and his family as an offshoot of the museum.

Next door to the Point Pleasant Trading Company, Gallery at 409 resides as the only art gallery in Point Pleasant. While the Gallery has traditional art on display, done by artists like local Larry Bragg who draws tropical birds and nature scenes, there is also a section in the back of the gallery dedicated solely to Mothman and art influenced by the local legend. The most prominent Mothman artist on display is Jamie C. Sloane, the artist of several different interpretations of Mothman. 27

Figure 1: "Mothman" by Jamie C. Sloane There is also a wrought iron Mothman candle stand in the back by another artist, adding

to the plethora of Mothman art available for purchase. However, according to Mr. Bragg, the

gallery really fills up with art and other paraphernalia when it is around time for the Mothman

Festival. When I sat down with him, he told me about how the legend “inspires people in the

area” and their art. He also told me about the “Curse of Chief Cornstalk” a legend supposedly

connected to all the hardships that had befallen Point Pleasant since the murder of Chief

Cornstalk, a First Nations chief, in the 1700’s in the area. He said that the curse recently ended,

and that is why Point Pleasant has seen such a turnaround in terms of business and tourism

coming through the town. While Bragg thinks that Mothman is the reason for the town’s growth,

he could not really say if it was real or not. He even said that Point Pleasant got its first four lane

road 15 years ago and that has tremendously helped the town with handling the influx of people coming to see the Mothman Museum and statue. Bragg also thinks being defined by a horror icon is wonderful and thinks it has done wonders for the town. 28

Connected to Gallery at 409 in Point Pleasant is the Lowe Hotel, which is the oldest hotel in the area and has been family owned ever since it opened in 1901. The current owners have been banking on the fact that they are right across the street from the Mothman Museum and statue ever since the two of them went up but the hotel has been a focal point in the town’s history for the last century. In fact, the Lowe Hotel is where Mothman Prophecies author John

Keel stayed while he investigated the Mothman sightings in the area, as well as the other strange occurrences that were happening at the same time. Inside the Lowe, there are pictures at the front desk of the owners with Keel, as well as Mothman-related postcards for sale. When I talked with some of the owners about Mothman, they all said that it was “great for business,” and come time for the Mothman Festival, they can charge four times what they usually do for a room, due to the huge demand for hotel rooms that weekend. One of the owners thought the

Mothman craze would all crack wide open when the statue first went up in 2003. She also mentioned that video games like Bethesda Studios’ Fallout 76 (2018) was a big reason for the

Mothman becoming big, as “Games aren’t going anywhere,” and the Mothman is an integral part of the plot of the game that takes place in a post-apocalyptic West Virginia. For anyone staying in Point Pleasant for Mothman Monster Tourism, the Lowe Hotel is the place to stay, because then they are in the center of it all.

Across the street from the Lowe Hotel and across Mothman Park where the Mothman

Statue resides is the Coffee Grinder, Point Pleasant’s local coffee shop. It is apparent when you walk up to the shop that they are on board with using Mothman as a way to bring in customers from out of town, due to the wooden stump art that you see propped up in the front window.

When you walk in, it looks like any other coffee shop, until your eyes fall on the six-foot-tall cutout of Mothman holding a cup of coffee that you can take pictures of your face poking 29 through the hole looking like a decaffeinated Mothman. This coffee shop is also the home of the

Mothman brew, which is made by the Silver Bridge Coffee Company in Columbus, Ohio. The owner of the Coffee Grinder said it “made a big difference, opening right next to the Mothman

Statue,” as so many things in the shop are Mothman themed.

One can even see dozens of Mothman related books on a little bookshelf in the shop, including a sketchbook left out for people to doodle their own versions of Mothman in. Some of the drawings include a Queen frontman Freddie Mercury version of Mothman and a Mothman

“as done by an Australian.” People are coming from all over the world to experience Mothman through this little coffee shop. One can also buy painted glass bottles that look like the

Mothman, paracord bracelets that are done in the colors generally associated with the Mothman

(Black, grey, and red) as well as mugs that bear the image of the Mothman upon them in bundles of coffee beans and mugs put together. The Coffee Grinder is not just famous for their coffee, they are also famous for their Mothman cookies, which are cut out in the shape of a human with wings and are covered in green icing with two little red candy eyes. They come in two different sizes, and sell out quickly, especially during the Mothman Festival, according to the owner. You can also buy chocolate covered espresso beans, or “Mothman Droppings,” to snack on, with a little picture of a stick figure Mothman “pooping” out the delicious tasting treats.

Speaking of food in Point Pleasant that takes the legend of the Mothman and turns a scary creature into something delicious, there are several other places in Point Pleasant that take advantage of their local folklore. For example, Rio Bravo 2 on the main street of Point Pleasant is a local Mexican restaurant that uses the Mothman image to sell their “Mothman Burrito,” which is a burrito with two tortilla chip wings and two red peppers for eyes. My waitress, as I was cashing out for my meal, told me about what it was like to be a Mexican restaurant in the 30 middle of Point Pleasant where the main draw of the town is a monster. She said that it brought

“good business,” and even mentioned that one Memorial Day they had briefly considered closing for the holiday but didn’t and ended up making more money than usual because “everyone had the day off and could come to town to see the [Mothman] Museum and eat in the area” at restaurants like Rio Bravo 2. According to my waitress, “the monster allowed family-run places to thrive.”

Another place in Point Pleasant that takes advantage of the Mothman legend, and its own part in the Mothman mythos, is the Village Pizza Inn. The Village Pizza Inn, formerly known as

Tiny’s Pizza back during the time of the Mothman Flap, is important in the story of Mothman due to being the location where the four teenagers that encountered Mothman on a backcountry road went to call the sheriff of Point Pleasant to report what they saw. Today, it has become a popular tourist stop for fans of the popular Buzzfeed Unsolved web series as well as their signature dish, the Mothman pizza. According to my waitress there, people came to sit in the booth where the Buzzfeed investigators sat just as much as people came to enjoy Mothman pizza and the business’ part in the story of Mothman. It is interesting to see what a web series that millions watch can do for the popularity of a business in such a short time from when it came out in 2018. As for the Mothman Pizza itself, it is composed of a pepperoni body, mushroom wings, green pepper legs, and cherry tomato eyes. The pizza is rather large and hard for one person to complete, so naturally it is primarily made for families and groups of people coming through town to stop and try a “must-have” when in the area. You can also purchase shirts that read “I ate a Mothman Pizza!” furthering the mass array of food and merchandise that is based around the legend of the Mothman. 31

There are several other stores along the main street of Point Pleasant that take advantage

of the Mothman legend and use it in their storefronts and merchandise that they sell to the public.

For example, the store labeled “Mothman Antiques'' has a storefront display with flashing strobe

lights and little figurines of Mothman taped on the window to make it look like the creature is

flying around. Inside you will find a small amount of Mothman paraphernalia next to normal

antiques that the store owners have thrifted from various sources. Down the street from the

Mothman Museum, you will find the Mason Jar antique mall. In the mall, the usual array of

stalls are set up selling West Virginian arts and crafts along with regular antiques. However, the

Mason Jar is special for its wide variety of stalls selling handmade Mothman merchandise and

memorabilia. One stall had magnetic stones that are painted with the image of the Mothman on

them, while another has t-shirts with Mothman on them, and “Point Pleasant, WV” proudly

emblazoned on the front of it below the image of the legendary creature, proudly showing off the

crafter’s hometown pride when it comes to the monster. There are also mason jars, much like

the name of the antique mall, painted up with the image of the Mothman on them.

Woodworking projects involving Mothman line the shelves as well, with spooky painted signs

that say “DANGER: MOTHMAN!” warning people about the monster in the area. Not only do

businesses in Point Pleasant actively use the image of the Mothman to their advantage, but the

city and county government do as well.

I had the chance to sit down with Mason County Tourism Director Denny Bellamy for a

discussion about what Point Pleasant and Mason County has done to bank on the legend of the

Mothman. I met with him on a rainy morning at the Point Pleasant tourism center that one can pull into right when they pull off I-35 into town. Inspecting the welcome center, I found tiny sculptures of the Mothman placed around the room, books about the other monsters and legends 32 that reign in West Virginia, and pictures of Point Pleasant. We talked for about four hours while it poured outside about what Point Pleasant has done to really get the name of the Mothman out across the world, as well as how the legend got out into the world in the first place. Our conversation began with his main duties as the Director of the Tourism Center of Point Pleasant, which is primarily coordinating film crews that want to come into town in order to film documentaries and various other types of shows. He has even had crews from Japan come and film bits on the Mothman, with one of them staying in the TNT area and “searching” for the monster. In fact, many Japanese people come to Point Pleasant in order to see the Mothman statue and get married in front of it, and there is even an exact replica of the statue in the

Hiroshima Monster Museum. He also talks to a lot of folklore and film students looking to write their papers and base their projects on the subject of the Mothman. Mr. Bellamy then went on to talk about how Point Pleasant operates on “earned advertising,” which is essentially advertising that you do not have to pay for. Mothman, being the massive draw that it is, has provided great earned advertising for the town because of how unique the creature is compared to the selling points of other towns that rely on earned advertising. People want to come and see the Mothman but end up seeing what other attractions Point Pleasant has to offer in the process, according to

Mr. Bellamy. There weren’t even signs for Point Pleasant up when Mr. Bellamy first started working for the Tourism Bureau, showing how much the town has grown in recognition since the introduction of the Mothman as the town’s mascot.

Mr. Bellamy and I then went on to talk about how he really enjoys helping crews and researchers with things around town, as it is free advertising for him and the area. The subject of shows that have filmed in Point Pleasant came up, and I talked with him about my inspiration:

Mystery Hunters. As it turned out, Mr. Bellamy was crucial to the filming of the 33

“Banshee/Mothman” episode of the show that I mentioned earlier in this project, and that the

Mystery Hunters episode was the first show to document the story of the Mothman. In fact, his

kids were in the episode as guest stars with the main cast investigating the legend. That one

episode helped spark a rush of people trying to come out to investigate the legend and document

it, and Mr. Bellamy cannot believe people keep wanting to come out.

Our conversation turned to the Mothman Festival, and how more and more people keep coming out for that every year. According to Mr. Bellamy, the Mothman Festival is organized primarily by the owner of the Mothman Museum, Jeff Wamsley, and the rest of the county comes together to help put on the festival, as places like churches come down with buses and donation jars to help shuttle people to and from the main street to various campgrounds in the area. Mr. Bellamy also talked about how the Festival was once only just a few tables around the

Mothman statue, but now it shuts down the entire main street for the weekend. He is even sold

$1000 dollars in books one year just because people wanted pictures with him while at the

Festival, for his contributions to the spread of the legend. He also talked about how the internet was the prime reason for the Festival being spread around the world. It’s being spread to the point where four people that live in completely different places, as overheard by Bellamy, all come together and meet at the Mothman Festival each year.

However, not everyone in the county is on board with using the Mothman to make money for the town. Mr. Bellamy was frustrated that most people in town “don’t care about how much money is being made,” and that “people don’t see the Mothman as a big moneymaker.” Mr.

Bellamy and others who bank on the Mothman legend have tried to get more hotels built around

Point Pleasant, but even the wealthiest in the county do not want to invest in them. This is a

problem for the town, especially during the time of the Mothman Festival, since all the hotels are 34

always booked full during that weekend of the 15,000+ in attendance event. “There’s no crime

in making money,” Mr. Bellamy said, “I like seeing my town grow, I’ve been here all my life.”

To people like Mr. Bellamy, Mothman has allowed the town to continuously get better each year,

but it takes the right people to get the legend’s name out there.

People like Jeff Wamsley, the owner of the Mothman Museums, who is one of the main

people who continuously tries to get the name of the Mothman out into the world in the name of tourism and business. Mr. Wamsley, who is also a high school teacher in the area, and I sat just

outside the Mothman Museum on a warm, sunny day with tourists walking in and out of the

museum next to us. As we talked, I began to learn a bit of history relating to the Mothman craze

that he helped to fan the inferno of. He started the Mothman Festival in 2002 but did not open

the Mothman Museum until 2006. He originally had a collection of Mothman related articles

hanging up in his record store that he used to run on the main street of Point Pleasant that people

could come in and see. Then, Wamsley transitioned from music to monsters once he saw that

the Mothman was getting more and more attention, with the old record store being the inspiration

for what is now the full-fledged Mothman Museum. He does not think it is bad to be a tourist

trap, as many people call the Mothman Museum a “cool tourist trap,” according to what he has

heard. Mr. Wamsley and I talked about the museum itself, and how he never really expected the

legend and the Museum to get as big as it is now. We discussed the different types of people that

come to the museum, and how kids come for the mystery while the adults come for the history.

He said that there was a lot of “sourpusses” against the idea of the Mothman Museum at first, but

he has never really gotten any negative comments about his business to his face. However, most

people have been incredibly supportive of the museum, and strive to help make it a bigger tourist

destination each year. 35

In terms of other people who strive to make Point Pleasant’s tourism industry bigger each year, you could look no further than County Commissioner Rick Handley, responsible for the events that go on around town and in Mason County. I sat in on a County Commissioner’s meeting when I met Mr. Handley and the other County Commissioners, where there was a prayer led to thank God for the economic boost that the town had seen recently, and then listened in on the meeting as the Mason County Tourism Queens were inducted into their positions. According to Mr. Handley, the Tourism Queen position was not around until just a couple of years before that point, but with the influx of tourism to Mason County, the County saw fit to create the position in order to help promote the tourism available in the area. There is also a Mothman

Festival Queen and a Mrs. Mothman position, furthering how much festival princesses and queens mean to the state of West Virginia. After they were inducted, several other matters were attended to, along with the planning of a country music festival in the area around Point Pleasant.

Like stated previously, the town is growing due to the overwhelming success of the introduction of the Mothman, and the branching out into different varieties of gatherings is testament to just how much of a tourist destination Point Pleasant has become.

After the County Commissioners meeting, Mr. Handley sat down with me and continued talking for a long while about the county and how far it had come in terms of tourism and business because of the Mothman. We talked about the importance of pageants, parades, and festivals to the state of West Virginia, clarifying why the Mothman Festival was so important to the town and its people. According to Mr. Handley and the Mason County Commission,

“without Mothman there wouldn’t be 90% as many people coming through the area” to spend their money in the town and many of the businesses that are open now would not be in existence.

Despite the negative connotations behind the legend (i.e., The Silver Bridge Tragedy), the town 36 has managed to find the good in the bad in a way that puts them on the map. Mr. Handley also talked about how there has been a wave of declining industries in the area and the state of West

Virginia, as I discussed earlier in this project, leaving tourism to fill the void by making destinations, events, and experiences in the area for people to enjoy.

Mr. Handley thinks that the Mothman being the unofficial icon of the county is a good thing, since “it gets people here and it gets them to spend money.” The amount of traffic that the town now gets spurs the city to keep the Ohio riverfront looking nice and free of debris for people to laze along the trails while they visit the town. He also says that many people in their

40’s and 50’s own businesses in town, but people in their 20’s are starting new businesses as well, spurred on by their love for the Mothman. “It’s a different generation,” he said, “it’s a fascination for them.” My later interactions with people on the main street of Point Pleasant soon showed how many people that were close to my age interacted with the legend of the

Mothman to make their living. “Whatever brings them here,” he said, seeing the potential for more businesses in town to open and pushed for it as the County Commissioner. He then talked about how the coal plant left the town and the City Commission lost $500,000, mirroring my observations about the loss of vital industries being luckily replaced by touristic destinations as one of the biggest economies in the state of West Virginia. In this case, counties like Mason

County base their tourism around their folklore and legends, namely the Mothman and the events surrounding it.

Mason County is not the only place in West Virginia that uses its folklore and legends to draw tourists in to experience what they have to offer, as Braxton County, home of the

Flatwoods Monster, also has been at the forefront of using monsters as a draw. Braxton County, at the mountainous center of the state of West Virginia, has become a lot like Mason County 37 when it comes to drawing people in from around the world to see the area where a monster supposedly landed over half a century ago. Two major places in the area use the Flatwoods

Monster as a means of doing business and attracting tourists, as opposed to many different businesses in the area taking advantage of the legend however they can. The first notable location is the Flatwoods Monster Museum, the parallel museum of the Mothman Museum in

Point Pleasant. The Museum is situated in the town of Sutton, WV, only ten minutes down the road from the site where the monster supposedly landed in 1952. It is located right next to a coffee shop in an old soda shop and pharmacy, complete with the soda bar still standing in the museum. The Museum was opened in response to the success of the Mothman Museum after

Braxton County CVB Director Andrew Smith wanted to try and get the name of Braxton

County’s headliner legend out into the world like the Mothman’s was quickly being spread.

When you walk into the museum, after seeing the various Flatwoods Monster/Braxxie stickers on the front door, you can see the soda bar to the left, lined with different informational books and binders to read about the Flatwoods Monster, its history, and the history of the famous

Flatwoods Monster lantern that you can buy in the gift shop that’s been around since the early

1960’s. To the right is a television playing various documentaries on the Flatwoods Monster, with pamphlets and brochures highlighting various tourist destinations in Braxton County aside from the Flatwoods Monster Museum stops, as the Monster Museum also serves as the County’s visitor center. In the center is a bunch of chairs and sofas for people to sit around and take in the museum, as well as various t-shirt racks with all kinds of different shirts relating to the Monster.

Lining the walls on the left, right, and back of the museum are dozens of historical objects that relate to the Flatwoods Monster. Paintings, ceramic lanterns, Japanese video games, newspaper articles, vinyl records, wooden cutouts, and even costumes of the Flatwoods Monster can all be 38 perused in this completely free museum. Near the front of the store is a professionally made

Flatwoods Monster costume that sits with its arms outstretched as if it is about to embrace you, but it is mirroring the exact same movements that the Monster supposedly did in 1952. The

Flatwoods Monster Museum may not be as big as the Mothman Museum, but it has a lot of content to make up for it.

One of the big things that the Flatwoods Monster Museum does to get people hyped about the legend is the #Free Braxxie campaign, in which the Museum gives you a map of

Braxton County, to “search” for the Flatwoods Monster/Braxxie. On the map are the locations of five different chairs placed around some of the best parts of Braxton County for people to drive to and take pictures with. What is so special about these chairs is that they’re cut and painted in the shape of the Flatwoods Monster and are big enough for two people to sit in. What you are supposed to do is take pictures with each of these chairs around Braxton County in order to gain a sticker at the very end of it all that reads #Free Braxxie with a little image of the

Flatwoods Monster on it. This campaign was started by the Braxton County CVB in an effort to get people to see the rest of the area aside from just the Flatwoods Monster Museum, much like the aim of the Mothman Museum is to get people to stay and spend their money in Point

Pleasant.

Speaking of other places where people spend their money on Flatwoods Monster related merchandise, the Spot Dairy Bar in Flatwoods, WV, is a must-see location for those who want to eat and take part in the legend of Braxxie. The Spot has become famous on the internet as a tourist destination where one can eat, relax, and take part in the legend of the Flatwoods Monster in their own way, considering it is only a few hundred yards away from where the creature supposedly was seen in 1952. There have been film crews from China, Los Angeles, and even 39

the popular website The Nerdist who have come to document this place. The Spot looks like any

other small-town restaurant, except it is covered in Flatwoods Monster posters. It also has a large sign out in front of the restaurant, which was added in July of 2018, that depicts a man and a woman running away from a painted Flatwoods Monster, but the faces are cut out of the man and the woman so it can provide a photo opportunity for those who come to the Spot. Inside of the restaurant, you will find a normal ice cream joint that serves sandwiches that appear quite

different than other places, on closer inspection. Some of the sandwiches here are known as

“Saucer Sandwiches,” in reference to the fact that the Flatwoods Monster was reportedly an

extraterrestrial from beyond the stars. The Saucer sandwiches all have different alien-related

names, including the “Roswell” and “Area 51,” both names being big figures in the lore of UFO

research. To the side, you can see different souvenirs relating to the Flatwoods Monster,

including stickers, decals, and the Spot’s signature souvenir: A tall, green plastic drinking glass

with the image of the Flatwoods Monster portrayed on it along with the logo of the Spot.

According to the owners of the Spot Dairy Bar, Terry and Amy Perkins, it sells out all the time,

despite being one of the most expensive things in the restaurant.

At the Spot, I had the pleasure of talking with Terry and Amy Perkins, who provided me

with more information on the restaurant and the impact of the Flatwoods Monster on their

business. They both told me that they were not from the area, only being around the area for

about 16 years, but one of their family members bought it a few years ago and they have been

working together to get it going since then. Their decision to base the restaurant around the

Flatwoods Monster seems to have been an obvious one, as “it had to be something” which they

could use to draw in customers to the location. As is evident by the number of people making

videos based on the restaurant, their decision was a good one. In fact, the two of them told me 40

how they “were aware of the rising trends” when it came to things like monsters being much

trendier in popular culture compared to 20 or so years ago. They have capitalized on the trend

and it has made their tiny little restaurant one of the go-to places both locally and among people

around the world. It was only a couple of years ago in July of 2018 when they got the big cutout

sign for people to take fun pictures of people “running away” from the Flatwoods Monster with.

Terry also told me during our conversation that he was the one who renamed the Saucer

Sandwiches. From there, our conversation turned to how the Flatwoods Monster Festival was being put on again, and Terry and Amy were on the planning committee for the festival, and they both invited me to sit in on a meeting, which naturally I accepted and went to the next day.

When I went to the Flatwoods Monster Festival committee meeting, it was just after a rainstorm, so the smell of earth tickled my nose as I drove to the Flatwoods Volunteer Fire

Department where the meeting was being held. I pulled up and met Amy and Terry outside, where Amy showed me a quilt from her classroom, as Amy teaches at Flatwoods Elementary

School in town (where the original group of boys came from to investigate the landing site of the

Monster in 1952). On the quilt, you could see numerous squares relating to West Virginia and different icons associated with it. There were squares with the West Virginia University logo drawn on them, Marshall University’s logo, coal miner helmets with pickaxes, and of course,

Mothman and the Flatwoods Monster. You could see the different children’s interpretations that they drew for this quilt, mostly Flatwoods Monsters, and feel how they have been exposed to the local legends that their town has been trying to capitalize on for the last few years. After I took a look at the quilt and how it represented the legend in the area, we all went inside to start the

Festival planning meeting. 41

During the meeting, I listened to the committee, including Terry and Amy Perkins and

Connie Kniceley, a resident who talked about how she used to do the Flatwoods Days Festival, a festival celebrating the rich history of the town, until it stopped in 2010. Now the Flatwoods

Monster is the main icon of the Flatwoods Monster Festival that happens every September, taking the place of the older Flatwoods Day Festival. Connie also talked about how while the

Monster was included in the older festival, it was never really accepted as the main icon of a festival until now. Since it was not really accepted much into the Flatwoods Days Festival, the group I talked with just wanted to make their own celebrating the Monster. The Flatwoods Days

Festival was not really a thing for years, considering it stopped happening in 2010, so the

Flatwoods Monster Festival is “kind of the resurrection of the older festival, but kind of not.”

We then talked about all the different cryptid art vendors that were coming to the festival to sell their wares, along with the different performances that were being planned during the festival.

Some of these performances would be a local country singer along with the West Virginian dance group known as Final Form Fusion, a geek-culture centric belly dancing group, that all came dressed up like the Flatwoods Monster as well as the Men in Black to do a number based on the landing of the creature in town. They were even planning a parade through the town of

Flatwoods, with the Flatwoods Monster at the very front, which was just the costume from the

Flatwoods Monster Museum worn by Andrew Smith. The committee had put up flags in town advertising the Flatwoods Monster Festival, made a Facebook event for people to RSVP to, and had flyers scattered around various tourist destinations in the area for people to peruse. It was fascinating watching this committee meet and talk with me about their progress towards the

Festival that would most undoubtedly bring people in the area in to see attractions related to the 42

Flatwoods Monster, much like how the city of Grafton has just recently been attempting to capitalize off their own monster as well.

My last stop to find out the tourism effects of the Trinity landed me in Grafton, a northern

West Virginia town close to the border of Pennsylvania. I met with my contact, Brendan

Gallagher, at the Espresso Yourself coffee shop in Grafton, where they have a sign featuring the

Grafton Monster placed above the front door of the shop, welcoming all to Grafton, West

Virginia, the home of the Grafton Monster. According to Gallagher, the sign had been stolen from its original placement area, where the monster had been witnessed by Grafton Sentinel reporter Robert Cockrell in 1964, by someone who soon after returned it without a problem.

Now it rests upon the façade of Espresso Yourself, beckoning all to come in and grab a drink, as well as a Grafton Monster shirt. Inside is like any regular coffee shop, aside from the fact that there is a setup of Grafton Monster shirts next to a painting of the creature chasing two teenagers in a car down the road. Unlike the towns of Point Pleasant and Flatwoods, Grafton is in the very vestiges of capitalizing on their hometown monster that is still said to lurk in the woods outside of the city.

My conversation with Gallagher was quite in depth, as we talked about his position in economic development for the town and what he has done to try and cash in on the Grafton

Monster like Point Pleasant and Flatwoods do. Like in Point Pleasant, some people do not see the importance in using the monster as a draw for tourism, according to Mr. Gallagher. The people who do come are mostly younger people around my own age and generation, as opposed to his own. “Small towns need to capitalize on this stuff,” he said, “it opens up so many opportunities for tourism.” He then remarked on how important the tourism aspect of the

Monster is, considering the town used to be a huge hub for industry and trade, but the railroad 43

left, the coal industry is in decline, and the highway that was recently built has drawn people

away from the town. I found out that Gallagher was the one who really revived the legend in the

town of Grafton, and if he has his way, he wants to make the Monster the icon of the town, much

like Point Pleasant and Flatwoods do with their respective creatures.

Mr. Gallagher hopes to have a full-fledged festival dedicated to the Grafton Monster one day, as well as a shop, a metal statue, and is even working on plush toys done in the image of the

Monster. From what he told me, Gallagher has really taken ownership over the Monster and the legend behind it, even being “slightly overprotective of it.” He has even spoken to a local high school about the value of the monster in terms of marketing. The Monster means a lot to him because of the attention it brings to the town than how Grafton is simply where Mother’s Day and Memorial Day both started. Gallagher has also only recently started using the Monster as a selling point for the town, so he is excited to see where it goes from just a sign on top of the coffee shop we talked in.

We also briefly talked about why there are so many different unique monsters in West

Virginia alone, since the topic of his heritage as the descendant of Irish immigrants came up and

I had mentioned that it was one of the questions I had been trying to explore within this project.

As he told me:

“Many immigrants from Scotland and Ireland came to the US. The landscape of both

countries is similar to what West Virginia is like (hilly and green), and so they felt like

they were at home. They also had numerous stories about creatures living in the hills of

both countries, like fairies and elves. So, as time went on, and the immigrants became

American, the countless stories of fairies and elves lurking in the hills became Mothmen,

hulking masses of walking flesh, and aliens harassing groups of schoolboys” (Gallagher). 44

Also, thinking about the few opportunities for work that these people would have had back in the

day, such as coal mining and agricultural work, finding entertainment to pass the time would

have been both hard to reach and rather expensive for those who were not very well off, especially newly settled immigrants. So, families would gather round and tell stories and tales of the magical creatures lurking in the woods and hills, and the pastime has carried on to the descendants of these people today in West Virginia, as it is now the proud home of many unique stories about the American monsters around them. Only this time, the rise of the internet has allowed these previously local tales of mystery and intrigue to become part of a global phenomenon.

As we can see by these cases of Point Pleasant, Flatwoods, and Grafton, the legends of the West Virginian Trinity have greatly affected the dark tourism environments of these small towns. Not only are these towns embracing these legends, they are also actively attempting to

capitalize on them through museums, food, merchandise, and festivals. From what I have

researched, it appears that the trend of monsters and other dark creatures being capitalized upon

is growing, especially in the state of West Virginia. Some towns are farther along with using

these identifiers to bring in tourists and are set in their position as a Monster Tourism destination,

like Point Pleasant and Flatwoods, while other towns are just getting started in using their

legends to bring people in, like the city of Grafton. It just goes to show how using the cultural

identifiers of your town can lead to significant changes in terms of how people view your town

as either just another place along the highway or a significant destination to stop at and sate your

desires for the strange and unknown. 45

CHAPTER II: THE BUTTERFLY/MOTHMAN EFFECT

Not only do people and businesses in these towns use the aspects of dark tourism to bring

people from around the world to experience regular tourist destinations, they have also made it part of their cultural identity as well. What were once sleepy little towns in West Virginia on the

Ohio River, the center, and northern part of the state have all become proud of the weird parts of their culture and actively strive to make it part of their everyday lives now. In fact, when Rick

Handley was buying something from the Home Shopping Network, he mentioned where he lived, which is Point Pleasant. The lady on the other end exclaimed “Like in the Mothman

Prophecies!” The lady was a fan of the 2002 film starring Richard Gere and Laura Linney, and the legend of the Mothman, and had immediately pointed out the fact to Mr. Handley, who was shocked that someone would suddenly say that to him. The Mothman is now part of the cultural identity of the town of Point Pleasant, as shown by Mr. Handley’s encounter, as well as how the

Flatwoods Monster and Grafton Monster is for the towns of Flatwoods and Grafton, West

Virginia.

Point Pleasant is home to more than a few cultural identifiers that cement the town as

“wild and weird” in West Virginia. One of the biggest identifiers in Point Pleasant is the

Mothman Statue itself. It is inherently the symbol for everything relating to Mothman, and without that statue there Point Pleasant would not be nearly as active and alive as it is today.

People from Point Pleasant immediately identify with the statue as a part of their cultural identity whenever they go abroad, because when someone looks at the Mothman statue they automatically think “Point Pleasant, West Virginia.” But what other types of identifiers are there? What do people think about these identifiers? How do people interact with these legends that they have grown up around, and how have they made it part of their identity? This section 46 will look at how some of the cultural identifiers of these towns help to define the identity of their residents and how outsiders view them looking in. I will be retouching on some of the interviewees that I have already mentioned in this project but bringing up more information rather than just the touristic effects of the West Virginian Trinity.

Point Pleasant is home to many more cultural identifiers regarding the Mothman that are inherently made to identify Point Pleasant as the “town where the Mothman was.” For example, consider the seal of Mason County, as seen in Point Pleasant city hall, and what is featured on it.

One can see the many facets of Mason County’s history: Coal, Native American culture, the memorial obelisk for the Battle of Point Pleasant, and the Mothman. The Mothman has become so intrinsic to Mason County that it is part of an official seal that people walk by and see every day. The local government adopted it into a crucial part of the town’s history and image, furthering the idea that the creature is part of the identity of everybody who lives in the county.

Figure 2: Mason County, WV Seal in Mason County Courthouse 47

Another iconic identifier that one can find in the area can be seen on the back of the

Mason Jar antique mall that I mentioned in the last chapter. On the back of the building, a large mural is painted on the wall, depicting Mothman holding the American flag in a patriotic display of pride for the town. The mural depicts Mothman as the focal point of pride for the town, along with the historical features of the area that also define the town’s identity. Chief Cornstalk, the many riverboats that used Point Pleasant as a stopping point on the way through the Ohio River, the doomed Silver Bridge, and the Battle of Point Pleasant memorial all play an important part in this mural’s message of “History Meets Mystery.” The rich history of Point Pleasant meeting the mystery of the legendary Mothman is an integral part of the average citizen’s identity in Point

Pleasant, and this mural tells the story of everybody that lives in the tiny town on the Ohio River.

Figure 3: "History Meets Mystery" Mural, Point Pleasant, WV

However, not everybody in Point Pleasant agrees with the widespread usage of the

Mothman in their town. Some people would rather the town be known for the historical aspects 48

of their home than the legend of the Mothman. I found this information out after going to the

Point Pleasant River Museum, an institution recommended to me by many of my interviewees

that is dedicated to the historical aspects of Point Pleasant’s history as a stopping point along the

Ohio and Kanawha Rivers for countless riverboats for years. I had found out that the original

River Museum had relocated to a different building on the main street of Point Pleasant after

catching on fire in 2018. It was a rather large fire, but the staff of the museum and locals all worked together to save the many historical artifacts and sculptures that were held inside from the water damage and flames. I walked into the museum and met with Ruth Fout, one of the museum attendees, who then proceeded to tell me about the River Museum’s role as one of the first places to display Mothman-related artifacts and merchandise before the Mothman Museum was opened. Ruth is responsible for the daily activities in the museum, as well as having written a book on Point Pleasant’s Silver Bridge tragedy, so she is incredibly well-versed in the history of the area.

Despite having a stuffed plushie of the Mothman behind her desk, she talked with me about how she did not like the statue in the middle of town, quoting a Bible verse about “the Idol in the Square,” and mentioned how she didn’t think the statue was making as big of an impact as people were saying. “Things are cooling down with the Mothman,” she said, “have been since about five years ago.” An older man then walked into the room, and Ruth introduced me to him.

His name was Jack Fowler, and he was the head of the River Museum. We shook hands, and I made the unfortunate mistake of saying “So I hear this was the first ‘Mothman Museum,’” which was not the aim of the River Museum. “Before the Mothman Museum,” he said, after we sat down to discuss more about the impact of the Mothman, “there was the River Museum.” We went on to talk about how people at the Point Pleasant River Museum hold nothing against Jeff 49

Wamsley and his work with the Mothman Museum, they would just rather have the town be

known for its history regarding the Ohio River and its part in the Revolutionary War as the first

congressionally recognized battle site of the War.

I relieved some of the tension between me and Mr. Fowler by talking about some of the legends I enjoyed about the Ohio River area like that of Mike Fink, the Ohio River pirate, as well as Lewis and Clark having journeyed down the Ohio River to get to the Pacific Ocean. Luckily, we both got really into the topic of Ohio River legends and it helped provide a segue into the legend of the Mothman and what it had done for the town of Point Pleasant. Mr. Fowler begrudgingly talked about the Mothman at first but got more into it as he realized I wasn’t asking for information solely about the story of the Mothman, but rather the impact. He and Ms. Fout both agreed that “despite how much we dislike the legend of the Mothman, we both tolerate how much money it’s made for the town.” In fact, the Mothman Museum helps the River Museum get traffic, as people come into town and see that there is more to do than just seeing the

Mothman Museum and go on to see the River Museum as well. They also mentioned how Jeff

Wamsley even tries to point people towards the River Museum. According to Mr. Fowler and

Ms. Fout there is no real competition between the museums in town, and they think very highly of Mr. Wamsley.

The people at the River Museum wanted to reiterate how they really want the town Point

Pleasant to be known for its history, and not the Mothman. In fact, all of the people at the River

Museum did not believe in the Mothman’s existence and hated the fact that the Silver Bridge tragedy was connected so much to the Mothman to the point that people think the Mothman caused the tragedy, despite being originally known as an “omen” for the eventual collapse of the bridge. In reality, the collapse was caused by human neglect and error, and the bridge was 50

poorly maintained and near the brink of collapse at any time. The legend has grown to the point

where many people have come to believe that the Mothman was responsible, and that has made many in Point Pleasant, much like those who run the River Museum, upset that some people reduce the deaths of so many to a part of a legend that may or may not have actually occurred.

Many of these people are older citizens of the town who grew up with those who died in the tragedy, so it is understandable that there’d be apprehensive individuals who would not want to make friends and family be forgotten in the shadow of the Mothman’s legend.

While some older people in Point Pleasant do not like the legend of the Mothman being the icon of their town, a lot of younger people seem to enjoy it, or just have accepted it as part of their everyday life. During my time at the Village Pizza Inn, when I was eating my personal

Mothman pizza, I had the pleasure of speaking with some of the waitresses there about growing up with the legend of the Mothman in their lives. My waitress did not really believe in the

Mothman, but she does not mind the attention, even if it does not really have the same meaning for her generation as it does for older people. We even got to talking about The Mothman

Prophecies movie, and how she did not really like it since the Point Pleasant in the movie did not look like Point Pleasant in reality, considering it was filmed in Pennsylvania. The other waitress who was on duty along with my waitress liked feeding into the craze and all of the people who come to town for the legend and the attractions around it. However, she did not really believe in the legend, much like my waitress. According to the other waitress, “it’s just told so often that it doesn’t have the same impact,” compared to the older people like Jeff Wamsley who have made it a critical part of their identity. While neither of the girls believed in the legend, they both like to accommodate it into their lives since it makes their town famous, even if they must blatantly

(but understandably) lie to children when asked if it is real or not. 51

There are younger people that are embracing the legend of the Mothman and using the widespread appeal to their advantage, as is evident with local filmmaker Shane Leonard at Solid

Rock Studios in town. Solid Rock Studios is a movie studio in town that Mr. Leonard owns and produces films while drawing in more people into town using his hometown’s cultural identifier of the Mothman. He told me that before The Mothman Prophecies, Point Pleasant was a dead town, but the film is one of the biggest reasons why the town came back to life and spurred the rest of the Monster Tourism in town. Many of the businesses were shut down and jobs were leaving as the coal industry became smaller and smaller in the area. Now, thanks to the usage of the Mothman, the town’s economy is booming significantly.

“We’re an anomaly in the United States,” he said, talking about how the town is famous for a monster, “popular culture things (like Mothman) draw in business.” We then talked about how he wants more film and popular culture work to come through Point Pleasant, because of its identity. While he does not really make films about Mothman, being a primarily Christianity- based studio, he often helps out with other crews making films about the legend. “I like being the square peg on the main street of town,” he commented, “I just think it’s a cool myth and really want the film industry to come to town.” According to Mr. Leonard, new media, like the internet and modern filmmaking, is the biggest reason for the spread of the legend in the last 20 years. Mr. Leonard actively advertises his business online, unlike a lot of other businesses in town, due to them “not seeing the value of advertising on the internet.” On the topic of new media bringing forth the cultural identifiers of Point Pleasant, Flatwoods, and Grafton, Shane and

I discussed his love of video games and how a particular video game has helped the town of

Point Pleasant experience a boom in tourism since its release: Fallout 76. 52

Fallout 76, released in October of 2018, is an MMO RPG (Massively Multiplayer Online

Roleplaying Game) created by Bethesda Game Studios and released on the XBOX One,

Playstation 4, and for the PC. The game, part of a long-running franchise, is set in a fictional

post-nuclear apocalyptic West Virginia 25 years after the bombs fell. The player takes the role

of a Vault Dweller, a resident of a nuclear bunker hidden deep in the West Virginia hills, safe

from harm, and is given the task of stopping a mysterious illness that causes people to go crazy

with homicidal rage and become zombie-like in appearance before it is too late. The game focuses on a leveling system that players progress through as they complete quests and become more powerful through completing various activities in the game. The game was advertised for months in advance as a massive exploration experience with friends, but it opened to lukewarm,

even scathing reviews because of how “empty and buggy” the game was. However, the

important part of the game is how the game features many real-life West Virginian locations like

Point Pleasant, Flatwoods, and Grafton. It also features the folkloric creatures that are associated

with these towns as well, providing many with their very own “cryptid hunt” while exploring the

vast wilderness of the game.

Fallout 76 features the West Virginian Trinity prominently as one of the main selling

points of the game, with the player encountering them at various points throughout the game.

They are random encounters sporadically placed throughout the map, and act as mini-boss

encounters that test the limits of the player’s abilities. Mothman is portrayed as a giant mutated

bug-creature that stalks the player unseen until it decides to attack. The Flatwoods Monster is an

alien-being that belongs to the franchise’s alien race known as the Zetans. The Grafton Monster

is a walking pillar of warped muscle and flesh, the terrible victim of a botched science

experiment conducted on prisoners by the military in an attempt to create a super-soldier for use 53

in the war preceding the events of the apocalypse. Just like in real life, these creatures are

portrayed in-game as oddities that people come and see for fun, but they all wholly represent the

communities from which they hail.

The Mothman Museum in Point Pleasant makes an appearance in the game, complete with the Mothman statue right outside. It is not nearly as big in the game as it is in reality, but it is still featured in the game, nonetheless. According to Jeff Wamsley, he had no idea that his museum was even being put in a video game until one of his students in the class he was

teaching told him about it and showed him, which prompted him to contact Bethesda Game

Studios to arrange merchandising rights and promotional materials. In fact, because of

Wamsley’s involvement, Bethesda made an appearance at the 2018 Mothman Festival to help

promote the game a month before its release. They brought promotional materials, masks with

the visage of the company’s mascot, the Vault Boy, a remote-control robot from the game made

by one of the game’s developers and had someone dressed in a Vault Boy mascot outfit taking

pictures with people. They even brought specially made shirts with the logo of the in-game

Mothman Museum on them, as well as special Mothman posters only available at the Mothman

Festival in conjunction with the Mothman Museum. Shane Leonard even helped Bethesda with

a photograph session for the Vault Boy mascot during the festival and talked about “how cool it

was to see his hometown and its folklore in a video game played around the world.”

Just like Point Pleasant, Flatwoods and Grafton have also felt the effects of Fallout 76

and how they portrayed their towns and local legends. Flatwoods, according to Andrew Smith of

the Flatwoods Monster Museum, has seen a significant boost in people coming to interact with

the legend because of the game. The brochures for the museum all feature the logo of the game

along with “As seen in Fallout 76!” written on them, and there is a Fallout 76 version of the 54

Flatwoods Monster featured on one of the many shirts Smith has had made for the museum.

There is also a Flatwoods Monster lantern painted with the likeness of the in-game version of the creature among the many items within the museum. Also, as the mayor of Flatwoods told me, there was someone from Mexico that had contacted her about visiting the town for a vacation because of the game.

Brendan Gallagher of Grafton also talked with me about the role of Grafton in Fallout 76, as the Grafton Monster and the town of Grafton play a pivotal part as one of the major towns found within the game. Gallagher told me about how he had seen that the Mothman Museum was planned to be in the game and being very protective of and into the legend of the Grafton

Monster, he took it upon himself to get into contact with Bethesda Game Studios in order to get the Grafton Monster in the game. In fact, the design of the monster on the sign proclaiming the town of Grafton as the “home of the Grafton Monster” and the Grafton Monster shirts is the same design used in-game for the model of the creature. Not to mention Grafton High School in the game uses the Grafton Monster as their mascot, and even has a parade with the monster being led through the center of town, which inevitably fights the player. Like Shane Leonard,

Gallagher sees the importance of using new media like video games and Fallout 76 to get their cultural identifiers out into the world to let all sorts of people interact with their otherwise local legends.

While there are new types of media representing the cultural identifiers of Point Pleasant,

Flatwoods, and Grafton, there are also pieces of merchandise that have represented the monsters of these towns for years. I am specifically looking at the Flatwoods Monster lantern, and how it has been representing the legend of the Flatwoods Monster for nearly 60 years. The Flatwoods

Monster Lantern is almost as iconic as the legend itself, being around for nearly sixty years at 55

this point. While it functions as a normal lantern, a staple in many West Virginia homes during

the time in which it was made, what is unique about this lantern is that it is fashioned to look like

the Flatwoods Monster itself, complete with glowing eyes once you put a candle in it. It stands

about a foot tall and is made of ceramic and is painted with a glaze paint to resemble the striking

red and green of the monster that was seen by the witnesses in 1952. The lanterns are made in

Ohio, with the original molds now sitting in the Flatwoods Monster Museum. One can buy the

lantern at various stores around the area like gas stations, hotels, and the Museum in Sutton. At

the Museum, you will find a section of binders, with one of them telling the story of the lantern

and showing the man who spearheaded the creation of the lantern into the local phenomenon that it is today: John Gibson.

Mr. Gibson and I met in a coffee shop in Sutton where we sat down and had a casual

conversation over the shop’s morning brew about the lantern, his role in it, and how it was one of

the very first pieces of merchandise made in the image of a cryptozoology legend and West

Virginian icon. We began with when it was first thought of in 1963, when Gibson was working

at a hardware store. At the hardware store, a paint salesman, Bob Bossert, suggested to Gibson

that people should “capitalize on the legend” of the Flatwoods Monster. Around that same time,

he was part of the Braxton County Junior Chamber of Commerce, which needed to think of an

idea to help raise funds for the Braxton County cemetery. So, Gibson ran the idea of making the

lantern through Bob Bossert and basing it on the Flatwoods Monster. The two of them got going

on making the lanterns, preparing the original mold for the ceramic lantern, producing the

lanterns, and ended up selling about 500 lanterns until the Junior Chamber of Commerce

disbanded, leaving Gibson with the molds and about 10 of the monster lanterns left. According

to Mr. Gibson, the peak of when the monster lanterns were being sold, was in 1970, where he 56

had the picture taken of him holding the lantern that now resides in the Flatwoods Monster

Museum.

Figure 4: Flatwoods Monster Lantern

In 1986, Mr. Gibson moved to Somersville, West Virginia, and heard that there was resurgence in interest over the statue, so he called up Bob Bossert. This resurgence was due to

Ufologist Gray Barker doing an important article on the Flatwoods Monster, and he now has a room dedicated to his studies at the Clarksburg, WV library. So, in 1992, Gibson and Bossert began banking off the next resurgence of the lantern. Though he forgot how much he sold them for in the 1990’s, he ended up selling about 40-50 of them a year through the newspaper.

Around that same time Gibson was part of the County Commission and wanted to try and find a 57 way to make money for the county using the cultural identifier of his community. The lanterns then saw another, more constant resurgence in the early 2000’s.

Although Bossert had moved away, he gave Gibson the name of the ceramic company that made the lantern and he became acquainted with the people who run it. At that same time, he got involved with the local CVB, and started pushing the idea that one way to develop the area of Braxton County more was to start embracing the monster. As Mr. Gibson stated, “The

Monster is what we have. We don’t have any heroes, fishing ports, or beaches.” Much like

Point Pleasant using Mothman, Braxton County is using the Flatwoods Monster as a cultural identifier to their advantage. In fact, Gibson even wanted a giant version of the statue made to be placed somewhere around Flatwoods like the Mothman statue was made for Point Pleasant as a way for a community to gather around the shared cultural identifier. Gibson then went on to tell me about his various efforts to push the Flatwoods Monster, but also how he has passed the torch onto Andrew Smith as the Director of the Braxton County CVB.

Ever since Smith took over at the CVB and has implemented the steps to really push the

Flatwoods Monster through the internet, social media, and further beyond the immediate area,

Gibson says he has been selling more lanterns than ever before. Now, he gets 60 at a time made for the Flatwoods Monster Museum and the various other businesses in the area that sell the statue like a local gas station off the highway. At the time when I talked with Mr. Gibson, he had sold about 48 lanterns in the previous week, which is significant, considering they go for about 20-25 dollars a lantern. According to Mr. Gibson, it cost him about 1000 dollars to get the mold made for the lantern but can make around 900 dollars a month selling the Flatwoods

Monster Lanterns. 58

However, Mr. Gibson does have his own concerns when it comes to the Flatwoods

Monster and the lanterns made in its image. As a Christian, he does not want to create “a big

ugly monster for people to worship.” This belief mirrors some of the concerns I ran into when I

was in Point Pleasant talking with the people who ran the River Museum, as they did not want

people to worship “the idol in the square.” So, Mr. Gibson would much rather look at the

lanterns that he produces as pieces of folklore, rather than idols. He uses the lanterns to become

closer to his local culture, rather than putting the monster on a pedestal above his faith. In fact,

he even mentioned how he would drop making lanterns in a minute if it eroded his faith. The

lantern, to him, is an economic development project to bring tourism to Braxton County and to

have people look at the cultural identifiers available in the area. The lantern remains a passion for him, and he even talked about how “the monster gives Braxton County some identity.”

According to him, all you have to do is say something about the monster and someone around you will know about it.

Our conversation turned from the lantern to other topics, including the Flatwoods

Monster itself and the impact it has had on the community around him. We then talked about the

Flatwoods Monster Festival a bit and how it has not really gelled together yet as a solid idea but is on its way. Gibson would be working on it along with the rest of the planning committee that

I talked with, but he just doesn’t have the energy to plan festivals anymore. I had asked him what he thought about the Mothman Festival being as big as it was, and he replied how he

“wasn’t jealous of it, but [he] just wishes the Flatwoods Monster Festival could be just as big.”

However, he still cannot believe how big the legend of the monster has gotten, and never expected the attention it gets. 59

We had then talked about his travels to Michigan and how he once saw a statue of a giant metal grasshopper, and how it gave him the idea of a giant metal statue in town just like the metal Mothman in Point Pleasant by Bob Roach. However, he could never really get anyone on board with the idea of using the cultural identifier of the Flatwoods Monster to pay for a big statue, but hopefully someday there could be one. This calls back to Rick Handley’s problem that he has run into with getting local business leaders to get on board with the idea of putting more hotels into town for when the Mothman Festival rolls around and to just house more travelers in general. In fact, Gibson has had very good friends who were against the idea of the monster being used to identify the town. As Mr. Gibson said, “There are some people who like to believe, but then there are people who don’t believe anything at all.” To that end, he does not really think the County has done what has been needed yet to make the legend big to the scale of what Point Pleasant and Mason County have done.

To John Gibson, however, the Flatwoods Monster lantern has just been another project.

He was just trying to make a means for the county to flourish and was motivated to do something for the community. All that he has done with the monster was to create interest in the community and what makes it up. Though, he does think if he had put more effort into the marketing of the monster then it would be bigger. Since he did not make the lantern or actually come up with the idea, he doesn’t really think he deserves much credit for the lantern. However, it was his marketing efforts that got the lantern out there as a pinnacle piece of the culture behind the Flatwoods Monster, so credit where it is due. All in all, he thinks the lantern and Monster are

“very unique,” but thinks there’s a lot of “missed opportunities to capitalize on the cultural identifier.” But at the same time, he thinks that now is the right time to capitalize on the monster, in the height of the West Virginia Trinity’s popularity. “While my generation didn’t 60 capitalize on it, Mr. Smith’s and yours [referring to my own generation] may be the people to do it.” Time will tell if the Flatwoods Monster becomes as embraced as the Mothman by the local community, but the lantern being a piece of local identity will remain constant if people want to keep on buying them. 61

CHAPTER III: THE UCHUSEN (SPACESHIP) OF THE FLATWOODS MONSTER

While the Mothman, Flatwoods Monster, and the Grafton Monster have been cultural identifiers for the towns of Point Pleasant, Flatwoods, and Grafton, another place has taken on one of these monsters as a part of their cavalcade of monstrous legends. Communities in Japan, oddly enough, have taken on the Flatwoods Monster as a piece of their culture. I first noticed this during my research for this project while looking up images of the Flatwoods Monster in popular culture. Time and time again, it kept coming up in a lot of Japanese-based media. The piece that most prominently stood out was the game Space Harrier II (1988), a Sega Genesis game released in Japan and North America. Looking specifically on the Japanese case, one can plainly see a stylized version of the Flatwoods Monster in the center of the case.

Of course, I was curious as to why the Monster was in a Japanese video game, so I asked

Andrew Smith of the Flatwoods Monster Museum about his thoughts on the matter, since he has had shirts made of the Flatwoods Monster with Japanese katakana and kanji (two forms of phonetic Japanese lettering) next to it. Not to mention he has a version of the Flatwoods Monster lantern displayed in the Monster Museum that was once broken but fixed with the Japanese kintsugi, or golden joinery, way of repairing ceramics. Kintsugi is when the cracks of a formerly broken ceramic piece are sealed together with golden lacquer to highlight where the cracks once were to show off the breakage and repairs as part of the history of the piece, rather than be something to hide. We talked for a little bit about how it was interesting to see it so popular in 62 another culture, and he talked about and introduced me to Rie Matsubara, who would later help me tremendously in the final part of my research for this project.

Figure 5: Space Harrier II (1988) Japanese Box Art by SEGA

Ms. Matsubara had apparently made a trip from her home in California to Flatwoods,

West Virginia in order to see the sites relating to the Flatwoods Monster. When I asked about her reasoning for this, she said that “I saw it when I was a child in Japan, and when I saw an advertisement for the Flatwoods Monster Museum on Facebook I wanted to come and learn more about it.” So, she booked a flight to Pittsburgh International Airport, and drove all the way down to the middle of West Virginia so she could see the Museum, where she met Andrew

Smith, the Director of the Museum. I had told her about my efforts with my thesis, and asked her several questions about her experiences with growing up knowing about the Flatwoods

Monster, and more specifically one question: Why is the Flatwoods Monster so prevalent in 63

Japanese media and popular culture? Luckily, I was fortunate enough to meet someone with the

same passion for research and the unknown that I have, and we got to talking over email about

the subject of the Flatwoods Monster in Japan as a whole. When did it show up? When was it

first featured in Japanese media? What is the Flatwoods Monster like in Japan today? These

questions and more were brought up during my conversations and time spent with Ms.

Matsubara.

To start, we delved into the Flatwoods monster and how it first appeared to Matsubara in

her childhood. Up until a few years ago, she had no idea that it was called the “Flatwoods

Monster.” This is because in Japan the Flatwoods Monster is known as "３ｍの宇宙人" (san-

mētoru no uchū-jin), or "three-meter-tall alien,” and Rie looked up the article for it on

Wikipedia, where she learned that the monster was called another name. On the Flatwoods

Monster Museum shirts featuring Japanese writing, you can see “３ｍの宇宙人” written

alongside the picture of the creature. I personally had no idea up until this point that it was

called anything other than the Flatwoods Monster or Braxton County Monster, so it was

delightful to find out that it had another alias on the opposite side of the world. Name aside, the

Flatwoods Monster had a significant impact on Matsubara.

She first came across the monster in her 4th (1974) or 5th (1975) year of elementary

school in East Nagoya, and was very much into natural science, especially astronomy, which led

her to the concept of UFOs coming from outer space. Around that same time, she started a

private club called "UFO Kenkyu-kai GF" (UFO Study Society GF) with her best friend and read

several books for children on UFOs. Matsubara would read books from the library, books from

bookstores, and also had her parents buy her a few of them. While she did not have the books anymore, they had stories (one to two pages long) about the three-meter-tall alien as most of the 64

Japanese UFO books for children did then. What really struck her the most was the picture unclearly printed on children's books. “The alien looked like kind of an illustration, but the background trees looked real, so I thought it was a photograph rather than an artwork.” So, because of these books, she was able to learn about the Flatwoods Monster for the very first time.

Today, Ms. Matsubara reads a lot of blogs, tweets, and web pages where stories like the one she was exposed to are shared by people very similar to herself. She thinks that most of them saw the picture in books for children published at that time and/or in articles in manga magazines for boys like Weekly Shōnen Magazine. Weekly Shōnen Magazine is a widely read publication in Japan primarily read by teenaged boys that usually feature action packed manga and other forms of popular “masculine” entertainment. Many of the people she interacts with say the picture became their trauma, and she was frightened, too, “worrying what if I come across the alien when I was alone!” We then found out how the "3-Meter Alien" picture, was actually a composite of a drawing made for the TV show We the People and a photograph of the incident site and was in every UFO book she read in her childhood.

However, the picture and story had to have originated in one singular publication in

Japan. Sekai no Enban Misuterī, a book for children by Hiroshi Minamiyama was first printed and published on August 30, 1968. The article titled "3-Meter Monster Alien" in the book includes about 2.5-page-long text, a photo of 4 boy-witnesses and that famous composite picture of the monster floating in front of the woods. This book is said to be the first publication in Japan that features the famous picture that Ms. Matsubara would then later see during her childhood years. However, this was not the very first mention of the Flatwoods Monster in Japan, as we would soon find out. Along with Ms. Matsubara, many Japanese children were traumatized by 65

the picture in Minamiyama’s book, with some later going on to say things like "I bought the

book with my allowance when I was in elementary school....The most scary thing in the book

was the picture of a 3-meter-tall alien....I could not open the page for about 20 years after I glanced at the picture” (ライブドアブログ) on their blogs. However, while Ms. Matsubara feared the image of the Three-Meter-Tall Alien, she did not want to look away at the same time,

as she was completely fascinated by the image. Which, of course, went on to inspire her to come

to West Virginia later in her life despite how afraid of it she was.

Figure 6: "The Famous Picture" from "Sekai no Enban Misteri" by Hiroshi Minamiyama 66

The first Japanese article, as we would soon find out after discussing Minamiyama’s

book, on the Flatwoods Monster incident was the article titled "フラットウッヅの怪物"

(Flatwoods Monster) by 金沢元基 (Motoki KANAZAWA) that appeared in "宇宙機" (Uchūki,

or Spacecraft) Issue No. 8 (February 1957 Issue) of 日本空飛ぶ円盤研究会 (Japan Flying

Saucer Research Association). The article is referred as "フラットウッヅの怪事件"

(Mysterious Event in Flatwoods) on the front cover. The JFSA is the first UFO research group

in Japan, which was established in 1955 in Gotanda, Tokyo, by 荒井欣一 (Kin-ichi ARAI).

Uchūki was JFSA's monthly journal which was published from July 1956 (Issue No. 1) to April

1960 (Issue No. 32). Issue No.8 was published on February 28, 1957. The article "Flatwoods

Monster" (or "Mysterious Event in Flatwoods") was on pp. 4-5. The article was reprinted later in the organization's publication titled "宇宙人？着陸す!!" (Alien? Has Landed!!), which was the

3rd volume in 空飛ぶ円盤研究シリーズ (Flying Saucer Research Series). The JFSA had planned to publish the series up to Vol. 100, but it ended at Vol. 4. Vol 3 "Alien? Has Landed!!" was published on December 20, 1958.

While Ms. Matsubara had witnessed the Flatwoods Monster in Minamiyama’s book for the first time, Japan was experiencing what was now known as a “UFO Boom.” The UFO Boom in the 1970’s was one of the many popular culture fads that swept over Japan in the latter 20th

century. Many books, magazines and TV programs dedicated to UFOs, flying saucers, “alien-

contacted” individuals, and strange incidents related to them were published/broadcast. This fad

seemed to join the paranormal, UMA, ESP, etc. later and became a larger trend called "Occult

Boom" in the late 70’s through 80’s. People in Japan were becoming fascinated with the strange 67

and bizarre once more like they had in the Edo Period with traditional monsters and ghosts that

dotted facets of their everyday life.

Our conversation at one point had turned towards Japanese folk tales, specifically yōkai,

which are traditional Japanese folk monsters that dot almost every facet of Japanese life.

Monsters like the Kappa came up, which is an incredibly popular monster that appears around

the many waterways around the country, whether it be on signs or through statues warning young

children to stay away from the water’s edge. Yōkai come up frequently in Japanese popular

culture and folklore, and have been redone time and time again to fit new stories that they are

featured in. So, I was naturally curious about the Flatwoods Monster in Japan, and if it could be

considered a yōkai since it has been adopted into the cavalcade of many monsters since it was

first introduced in the mid-20th century. However, it could not be considered amongst the yōkai to people like Ms. Matsubara, as it is not only not Japanese, but, as she said “to [her], the alien from outer space (or from any space and time) is something that physically existed, and yōkai are fictional or exists only in our minds.”

After my conversation with Ms. Matsubara, I could not help but keep thinking about the

Flatwoods Monster not being a yōkai, in the traditional sense of the word. It is a monster that is

(at least recently) regularly present in Japanese popular culture and media, that represents the strange, scary, and unknown parts of the world (or what can come from outside our world), and is intrinsically a folktale, despite a physical event where the creature has “appeared” to people.

After all the information I had dug up along with Ms. Matsubara about the impact of this creature on Japanese culture, why couldn’t it be a yōkai? Of course, I absolutely agree that it is not a

“traditional” yōkai story by any means, but it could be considered a modern urban legend, a term coined by American folklorist Jan Harold Brunvand in 1981 in The Vanishing Hitchhiker: 68

American Urban Legends and their Meanings when describing word of mouth oral stories

describing weird and otherwise strange occurrences, much like the feared Kuchisake-Onna, a

murderous, disfigured woman who found her origins in the tabloids of late-1970’s and early

1980’s Japan, going as far back as 1979, after her supposed exploits attacking children around

the country. She still sticks around in Japanese popular culture to this day, despite no longer

being the hot topic, due to the fear she struck into an entire country. As Michael Dylan Foster

puts it, when describing the Kuchisake-Onna:

In contemporary Japan, the Slit-Mouthed Woman may no longer be

newsworthy, but her voice has never entirely disappeared. She does not,

of course, carry the same cultural weight and meaning as she did in 1979,

but the flurry of excitement that surrounded her almost three decades

ago has made her an indelible part of the Japanese cultural landscape. Not

only has she become a stock character for horror films and anime, a

monster listed in compendiums of supernatural creatures, but for scholars

her story also provides the quintessential example of a contemporary legend

or rumor (Foster 721).

While the Slit-Mouthed Woman/Kuchisake-Onna has most commonly been described as an urban legend rather than a traditional folktale, there are some who consider her a “contemporary yōkai,” due to her indelible insertion into the Japanese horror canon alongside other horrific monsters that are still referenced in various forms of media. Much like the Slit-Mouthed Woman causing such an impact on the culture of Japan, the Flatwoods Monster has seemingly cut a 69

swathe across the landscape of Japanese horror and created its own spot amongst other monsters.

Considering it is still being referenced in games and various anime to this day as well, its staying

power is apparent as a constant figure within Japanese popular culture, despite not originally

being from Japan.

What we know now as the “Slit-Mouthed Woman” across the world found its origins in

Japan, so why couldn’t an extraterrestrial creature from the United States and sensationalized by the media at the time have the same effect on the country? To approach this idea of an American urban legend becoming a Japanese yōkai like how a Japanese yōkai can become an international urban legend through the diffusing of stories and the effects of transnationalism, I figured I should use an example of a yōkai that has gone from simply a fairy tale when it was first popularized to what is now an often-sought cryptozoological entity in Japan to use as a comparison. So, I tried to bridge the gap for what is considered a fictional creature in Japanese culture versus an animal that is yet to be found by scientists (despite the Flatwoods Monster being an alien being, rather than a terrestrial animal), and why there is a stark difference between a yōkai and what we know as a “cryptozoological entity,” but also how a creature can become both, given time.

Firstly, we must look at the definitions between each entity: Yōkai are supernatural monsters and spirits rooted in Japanese folklore, but the word is an amalgamation of two different words, while a cryptid is “an animal that has been claimed to exist but never proven to exist” (Cryptid). Yōkai, as defined by Zack Davisson on hyakumonogatari.com, is as follows: 70

Yōkai uses two kanji;

● 妖 (yo) which means “mysterious, bewitching, unearthly, weird.” It doesn’t really have a

scary nuance to it, but more of the attraction to something beyond the normal. It can be

used in words like yoka (妖花) meaning an ethereally beautiful flower, or ayashii (妖し

い) meaning bewitching or charming.

● 怪(kai) which means “mystery, wonder, strange.” Kai has more of a sense of horror, or

the bizarre. It is the same kanji used in kaidan (怪談) meaning “weird tales” and kaiki (怪

奇) meaning “bizarre, strange, outrageous” (Davisson).

Going off these two definitions, it is plain to see that there are stark differences between the two types of entities, but mostly when it comes to nationality and where these entities are located specifically. However, Davisson goes on to say in the same blog entry, after quoting what he calls “Japanese Wikipedia,” something that really stood out among other sources citing yōkai firmly as Japanese creatures:

“Yōkai as a term encompasses oni, obake, strange phenomenon, monsters, evil spirits of

rivers and mountains, demons, goblins, apparitions, shape-changers, magic, ghosts, and

mysterious occurrences. Yōkai can either be legendary figures from Japanese folklore, or

purely fictional creations with little or no history. There are many yōkai that come from

outside Japan, including strange creatures and phenomena from outer space. Anything

that can not readily be understood or explained, anything mysterious and unconfirmed,

can be a yōkai” (Davisson). 71

While Wikipedia is not looked on by most scholars as a valid source of information, due to its purpose as a tertiary informational source, seeing that “there are many yōkai that come from outside Japan, including strange creatures and phenomena from outer space” (Davisson) made me stop and think about my conversation with Ms. Matsubara on whether or not the Flatwoods

Monster can be considered a “yōkai.” Going by the traditional definition, and what Ms.

Matsubara and I discussed together, the Monster doesn’t really fit the bill as a yōkai, mostly because it is not from Japan and it physically “existed” at one point or another, whether or not the encounter in 1952 was with an actual alien from outer space or an ordinary animal found among the hills of West Virginia that the darkness of nighttime gave a terrifying disguise of an

“extraterrestrial being” to. However, after being so firmly ingrained into Japanese culture now since the first time the being was brought into the Japanese lens in the 1970’s as part of the UFO

Boom, the Monster now holds a proud place amongst what “scares” people in Japanese popular culture along with the many monsters first thought up centuries ago. The Flatwoods Monster in

Japan, much like many American entities (not just monsters, even!) that have made their way around the world and diffused by Japanese culture, could be almost considered to be almost wholly Japanese itself now, despite where it comes from. Knowing this, why couldn’t it be considered a yōkai? Considering the many different forms it has taken in Japanese culture in the last half-century or so as an icon of mystery and strangeness, it almost has more of a foothold as a pop culture icon in Japanese culture than how it is known in America, despite it most undoubtedly originating in the rough-hewn hills of central Appalachia.

Perhaps looking at a well-known yōkai in Japanese culture may help in the case of whether the Flatwoods Monster can also be considered a yōkai, despite not originally coming from Japan. The Tsuchinoko, a mysterious, wide-bodied snake hailing from the Kansai and 72

Shikoku regions of Japan, has been present alongside other yōkai as far back as 1400 years ago,

is like the Flatwoods Monster since, despite coming from fictional origins like most other yōkai

found within folktales, it has made itself known in the cryptozoological community as a cryptid

that dots the lesser-traveled parts of the countryside. Despite its odd and bulky appearance, it is

“reminiscent of a beer bottle, mallet, or pestle” (Tsuchinoko). The name Tsuchinoko is literally

“mallet child,” due to the mallet-like appearance of the snake’s body. The tales from back when

speak of this incredibly dangerous creature like any other yōkai that one may come across while

out and about in the countryside, and all are given a warning to stay away from it as “when

spotted, it laughs and vanishes in a flash of light, causing the onlookers to fall ill. When angered,

a Tsuchinoko will hiss, spit, and even jump at its pursuer before biting with its fangs”

(Tsuchinoko).

In recent years, the Tsuchinoko has gone from a frightening story to warn children (and

adults) of going near snakes, to becoming a full-blown cryptid, mostly since “the 2000 discovery

of an alleged Tsuchinoko skeleton in Yoshii, Okayama prefecture, firmly cemented the snake’s

existence in popular culture” (Tsuchinoko). Since the discovery of the supposed skeleton dug up

and a sighting of an allegedly living Tsuchinoko in the vicinity of Yoshii village, a 20-million-

yen (Roughly $205,000) reward was put out by the Okayama prefecture government for the

capture of a Tsuchinoko. As it has gone unclaimed to this day, and all captured specimens were

deemed not to be a genuine Tsuchinoko, the reward has been raised to 100-million-yen (a million

US dollars), waiting for somebody to finally capture a creature that was once merely a fairy tale, but has turned into much more than just a simple story to warn people about snakes. In fact, even before the discovery of the supposed skeleton in the early 2000’s “the various different images and beliefs about Tsuchinoko-type creatures came together in the 1970’s during a so- 73

called Tsuchinoko boom” (Foster and Shinonome 199), riding alongside the obsession Japan was

currently going through at the time with the strange and bizarre, including the events in

Flatwoods! Perhaps a genuine Tsuchinoko will never truly be brought forth to the public, the

skeleton dug up and examined by the government is truly “just a snake,” and the reward posted

by the Okayama prefecture government will go unclaimed while people continue to search for a

living specimen of the legendary creature in the remote mountains of Okayama. What matters

most about the fat-bodied snake, however, is the fact that “we can say that [the] tsuchinoko has received a status of similar to cryptoids [cryptids] in western cultures” (Ishohanni 77).

Coincidentally, the Tsuchinoko and the Flatwoods Monster also bear striking similarities

with how separate communities on different sides of the planet treat their monstrous tales and

strange encounters. Much like how the towns of Point Pleasant and Flatwoods, West Virginia

are capitalizing on their local legends and bringing revitalized interest and tourism to their towns,

the town of “Higashi-Shirakawa, a village in Gifu prefecture, has been attempting to vitalize

itself by using Tsuchinoko…” (Masayuki). Even today, “the village boasts the largest number of

Tsuchinoko sightings in Japan'' (Masayuki). As Higashi-Shirakawa lies in a rather remote part of

Gifu prefecture, it makes sense that the town would try to lure people in to experience what the rather tiny village has to offer, sell toys and knick-knacks of the monster, and maybe find the creature themselves if they are lucky. Not to be outdone, the community of Nunagawa in the

Niigata prefecture holds an annual “Tsuchinoko Search Party,” or “Tsuchinoko Tankentai,” in which professional and amateur cryptozoologists along with regular families are invited to go out hunting for the legendary snake. The Search Party, during the 2018 hunt, would reward the

“photographer of the creature with the cash prize of one million yen, while a concrete proof of existence would net one hundred million yen” (Ishohanni 77) if the Tsuchinoko were to be 74

found. As Ishohanni puts it, “there is a hint of sensationalism surrounding the creature, but it

seems that there are a lot of believers for the odd creature” (77) much like how the

sensationalized nature of the Flatwoods Monster in Japan spurred people like Ms. Matsubara to

come and investigate the legend in person. These efforts are directly reflected by remote

communities in the United States like the town of Flatwoods, also located in the center of a

remote, mountainous region of the country, and it is still attempting to solidify themselves as a

well-traveled tourist spot for people who love the strange, bizarre, and monstrous parts of the

planet.

Not only does the Flatwoods Monster share the folkloric and real-life qualities of a

Japanese Tsuchinoko being more than just a folktale due to relatively recent recorded accounts dubiously stating the “existence” of these creatures, but it also shares the qualities of other

American entities being put under the Japanese cultural lens to diffuse what was previously “All-

American” into a new, wholly Japanese version of itself. The usage of the term “entity,” in this case, deals with American-born companies, rather than an American folkloric monster.

Specifically, I am looking at how a well-known company like Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) can be introduced to a society vastly different from the one it comes from, yet changes to fit the customs, norms, tastes, and general culture of the new environment/country it finds itself in, in this case being Japan, and in the process becomes its own separate entity from what the original version of the company was. Compared to the relatively low-key (and some might say “low- class”) American version of the fried chicken fast food company, the Japanese version has evolved to hold a much more different way of presenting itself with even higher standards than its American counterpart, essentially becoming an entirely new company in the process. KFC

Japan resembles the localization of McDonald’s in Japan as well, much like it is outlined in 75

James Watson’s Golden Arches East: McDonald’s In East Asia, with how the company has changed to suit the local cultures of Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and China. However, in

the case of KFC, it still retains its uniquely “American” ideals and identity with the smiling face

of (the very American) Colonel Sanders in front of every store, as opposed to the clownish

McDonald’s mascot, Ronald McDonald, that can be any nationality due to his red hair and heavy

makeup. Not only is “KFC in Japan…a lot more expensive” (Marshall) than it is in the United

States, “the customer service here is leaps and bounds ahead of that in the US” (Marshall).

Through the ongoing process of transnationalism and cultural diffusion, KFC Japan has become

uniquely suited to Japanese tastes and ideals while fulfilling the constant battle for top-quality

customer service, which is not nearly as prioritized in the United States, all while becoming an

integral part of Japanese culture at this point, even going so far as to become a Christmas dinner

“tradition” in many households.

So, using KFC as a model for the transnational effects that uniquely “American”

institutions and icons have undergone, we can apply the same logic to other American icons and

“entities,” namely the spade-shaped visage of the Flatwoods Monster, originating in the rough,

mountainous, Appalachian state of West Virginia. While originating in the picture book that Ms.

Matsubara and many others came across in their youth as an “American” alien creature as the

“Flatwoods Monster,” the being from beyond the stars soon became integrated into Japanese

culture under a different name and adopted a different cultural significance as the Three-Meter-

Tall Alien. As time went on, and Japanese artists began using the Three-Meter-Tall Alien in their various creations to represent extraterrestrials within pieces of animation, video games, and drawn formats within Japanese popular culture, the once wholly “American” icon has now 76

become dubiously Japanese as it is American. As Watson puts it when it comes to recognizing

“iconic” characters from around the world:

In the realm of popular culture, it is no longer possible to distinguish what is “local” and

what is “foreign.” Who is to say that Mickey Mouse is not Japanese, or that Ronald

McDonald is not Chinese? To millions of children who watch Chinese television, “Uncle

McDonald” (alias Ronald) is probably more familiar than the mythical characters of

Chinese folklore (Watson 10).

Through constant exposure to the Three-Meter-Tall Alien in modern Japanese popular culture, it can feasibly be said that the American-born Flatwoods Monster may possibly be more familiar to some people than the overwhelming number and variety of traditional monsters and Yōkai found within the many centuries of Japanese literature and cultural artifacts available. For all intents and purposes, the once big and scary Flatwoods Monster has been “domesticated” for Japanese consumption and is now just as much a part of the vast landscape of Japanese popular culture and folklore as much as any other of the many monsters that inhabit these spaces.

Domestication, as Joseph Tobin puts it, being a “process that is active (unlike westernization, modernization, or postmodernism), morally neutral (unlike imitation or parasitism), and demystifying (there is nothing inherently strange, exotic, or Japanese going on here)” (Tobin 4).

Yes, the creature itself may be “strange,” considering it is what was “seen” by people during the real-life 1952 event in Flatwoods, but now that it has been brought into Japanese culture, the meaning of the monster has changed. While nothing is being taken away from the being’s origin or what happened in the real-life event, what Americans may know as the utterly terrifying

“Flatwoods Monster” has been domesticated into a new breed of culturally palatable extraterrestrial creature that is now known in Japan as the Three-Meter-Tall Alien. 77

The creature, as shown before, has now become the villain in video games to blast away

at to save the world, the mascot for alien life beyond our own planet, a representation of the

strange and unknown, and has now been made to be a cute and visually unique way to sell toys,

books, and video games featuring the monster. It is now ingrained into the culture just as much

as any other creature within Japanese lore because of transnationalism and domestication, as

“domestication also suggests that Western goods, practices and ideas are changed (Japanized) in

their encounter with Japan,” (Tobin 4) as the resulting monster is now definitely “Japanese.” It

stands alongside other notable modern Japanese urban legends like the Kuchisake-Onna, along

with traditional yōkai like the that have managed to make their way into being dubiously real

creatures with eyewitness accounts claiming their existence and are just waiting to be found by

the right person and confirmed by science like the previously discussed snake creature known as

the Tsuchinoko.

For these reasons, I wholeheartedly agree with Ms. Matsubara that the American

Flatwoods Monster is not a Japanese yōkai. However, the resulting monster that has been put

through the proverbial cultural wringer, the Three-Meter-Tall Alien, most definitely is a

“contemporary yōkai,” as both Foster and Ishohanni might put it, due to its unique

characteristics, cultural significance, and recent addition to the culture following the ongoing

cultural influence of the West (specifically the United States) on Japan following World War II.

By being known as a “contemporary yōkai,” and since the idea of a yōkai is inherently a

Japanese cultural innovation, the Three-Meter-Tall Alien has managed to cement itself alongside standing traditional Japanese cultural inventions that have stood for centuries and newer legends that have come about in the age of mass media and widespread popular culture as an entirely new and unique form of Japanese monster, despite originating in the United States. Through 78 this, and the firsthand accounts of Ms. Matsubara’s experiences in her youth with what would become known as the Three-Meter-Tall Alien, one can see the profound ethnographic impact that this previously local legend from the hills of West Virginia has had on not only the rather small community around it, but an entire culture on the other side of the planet that enjoys the more strange and bizarre parts of our world (or, rather, from out of this world) just as much, if not more in some cases, as the United States does. 79

CHAPTER IV: CONCLUSION: THE BEGINNING OF A NEW LEGEND

As this project draws to a close, from start to finish, including conceptualization of ideas, laying out the framework of my topic, figuring out what research has needed to be done, actually conducting said research, reviewing my data, finding out I did not have enough data for certain sections of this project, and too much for others, ideas falling apart, relationships ending, and being so physically and mentally unwell that I have been unable to sit and actually write about this topic, about two and a half years will have passed. In that time, not only has my own life drastically changed, but my entire self-identity, the way I think and how I perceive the world around me has changed in the process. To put it simply, who I was two years ago when this project started is not the same person writing this right now. In the course of that time, and the eventual nearly half of a year it has taken for me to sit and write this project out in entirety and decide what to include and what not to include in terms of what I have come across in that time has drastically changed since the inception of this idea, which sprouted after my first

Introduction to Folklore class taught by Dr. Montana Miller at Bowling Green State University, as part of my requirements to complete my Popular Culture Master’s Degree. My love of monsters, cryptids, legends, and the most bizarre portions of our world had been revived by me attending the Mothman Festival in Point Pleasant in September of 2018, but the idea for this project came about when I first heard of the term “legend tripping” from her. I remember the moment everything fell into place when I heard that term and began to consume as much as I could in the way of what “legend tripping” was, and how it applied to my hobby of monster study and monster hunting. Where I had no direction up until that point in terms of what I wanted to do with the skills that I have learned here, that one moment had turned me on the path of folklore, ethnography, and one binding subject that ties it all together: Monsters, legends, and 80 how people create and consume these prehistoric innovations. What was once just a hobby turned into a burning passion, and into an almost full-blown obsession with uncovering the strangest creatures and secrets the world has to offer, both fictional and non-fictional, and why people love talking about them, despite probably never learning the truth about them.

Far from what I originally came to Bowling Green State University for in August of

2018, which was Japanese film studies, this project has essentially been both the best and worst thing that has ever happened to me thus far in my life. It has opened doors for me that I never thought were even possible paths I could take in life and has inserted me into multiple communities where I know I can flourish intellectually and physically, rather than not knowing where I want to be. In the process of studying the otherness of the Mothman, Flatwoods

Monster, the Grafton Beast, and how their communities now accept and embrace them as defining traits of their cultural identity, I became the other as well, and am now accepted and embraced by the communities I studied. As the old saying goes when it comes to monsters and those who interact with them, “He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee”

(Nietzsche). To put it much less nihilistically and negatively, when it comes to the studies upon monsters and the bizarre that I have conducted with various communities and individuals and will continue to conduct in the years to come: Those who go searching for monsters may never end up finding monsters, but in the process, the monster ends up helping them find themselves.

This not only applies to me and my own life over the past two and a half years, but also the communities and people I have studied. These small communities and individuals who were once so concerned with finding the creatures that seemingly appeared out of nowhere have 81

chosen to make them part of their identity and what makes their homes special, finding

themselves in the process by embracing the weird.

Through active participation in legend-tripping, due to the decline of other industries within the state of West Virginia, the once sleepy towns of Point Pleasant and Flatwoods have actively made names for themselves as tourist and exploration destinations, rather than just stops along the way through the state. Where Point Pleasant was terribly depressed due to many of the town’s businesses shutting down 20 years ago, now stands a community not only proud of its pivotal history in the story of the birth of the United States of America and the native peoples who lived along the Ohio River far before the first explorers ever came to the area, but also the now internationally famous mystery of the Mothman that has brought them back from the brink.

Not only are Mothman-centric businesses continuing to open and grow along the main street of town even since my ethnographic research took place in May and June of 2019, but other types of businesses have followed in their wake to be around when tourists coming to town inevitably want to check out what the rest of Point Pleasant has to offer than just the legendary creature known as Mothman.

Not to be outdone, Flatwoods is taking the same route that Point Pleasant has taken in the last twenty years or so, but they are at the beginning of their journey into cementing Flatwoods as a well-traveled tourist destination in the state of West Virginia. The Flatwoods Monster

Festival has been revived, the Flatwoods Monster Museum continues to grow after it has changed locations to Sutton, WV, and places like the Spot Dairy Bar (a mere few hundred yards away from where the alien landed in 1952) encourage visitors to the village of around 261 people

(as of 2019) to embrace the legend while supporting the people who have made their livelihoods around it while making it part of their image, like in the case of the Flatwoods Volunteer Fire 82

Department using the Monster as their mascot. Not to mention the town of Grafton, once only famous for being the birthplace of the now internationally celebrated Mother’s Day, is on the trailhead to being just like Point Pleasant and Flatwoods with how their hometown horror, the

Grafton Beast, has become intrinsic to their cultural identity. The town is just starting to use it as a means to get people to come to their town to explore and possibly find the creature for themselves, as it is said to still be lurking in the hills and woods just outside of town almost 57 years later, with sightings still being reported occasionally, but with the efforts of people like

Brendan Gallagher, Grafton will soon be just as iconic for the Great White Horror as it is for

Mother’s Day.

As for ways these towns have made themselves iconic while using the images of the

West Virginian Trinity, I have found that there are three defining items, one in each town, that have been pivotal in getting people to come to their respective areas to experience the best of what they have to offer. For example, concerning the town of Point Pleasant, the most iconic feature of the town’s efforts to put the image of the Mothman out into the world to get people to experience their towns is the giant, shiny, muscled statue of the creature itself, sitting in the middle of the town for everybody to see and stop to get a picture with. Since being commissioned by Point Pleasant City Planner Charles Humphrey, sculpted by late local artist

Bob Roach, and erected in the center of town 2003, it has become one of the hottest roadside stops in the United States, and the subject of many jokes regarding the statue’s well-sculpted and otherwise callipygian derriere. Due to the popularity of the statue and overall the creature known as Mothman, the town of Point Pleasant, as seen through the interviews I have conducted with people through the process of this project and the fact that new storefronts along the main street 83 still continue to open after being nearly all closed for a significant time, has been drastically affected by their embracing of the urban legend in the past two decades.

For the village of Flatwoods, it would have to be the Flatwoods Monster lantern that was first spearheaded by John Gibson in the late 1960’s. While it was made as a fun way to raise money, it quickly grew to be one of the hottest items for tourists to pick up on their way by the tiny village in the middle of the state at various points in the last half century. While it has relatively been popular at various points in that time, it now is one of the most frequently bought souvenirs relating to the creature that many people pick up during their own “pilgrimages” to the area where the famous red and green being from beyond the stars landed in 1952. Not only is the lantern one of the earliest forms of merchandising done for the Flatwoods Monster, but cryptozoological entities in general. Not to mention how it is one of the first big efforts, if not

THE first, to capitalize on their local legends and to get the word out about what makes their area special and why people should come to it. Since it is now essentially Braxton County’s driving factor when it comes to attracting people to the area, one can see, along with the interviews conducted with John Gibson, Andrew Smith of the Flatwoods Monster Museum, organizers of the Flatwoods Monster Festival, and the owners of the Spot Dairy bar, the impact firsthand that the otherworldly being has had locally upon this otherwise rural area in the mountainous state of

West Virginia.

As shown in the last chapter of this project, the Flatwoods Monster has not only had a local impact, but an international impact as well. After terrifying an entire generation of people, including Rie Matsubara, in the 1970’s with one of the first widely available pictures of the alien, the Flatwoods Monster, or how it is now known in Japan, Three-Meter-Tall Alien, has managed to wedge itself in as one of the many strange creatures that dot the Japanese cultural landscape. 84

Through years of transnationalism and cultural diffusion, this previously solely American local

urban legend has become as much of a part of Japanese popular culture as traditional folkloric

creatures (yōkai) and modern urban legends like the Kuchisake-Onna (Slit Mouthed Woman).

As we saw, this is due to its similarities with traditional monsters that have become dubiously

“real” after new information being reported about their existence (like the tsuchinoko), making

them cryptids like the original Flatwoods Monster, and more modern monsters and legends like

the Kuchisake Onna because of its current widespread presence in popular culture and media

since its initial time in the limelight. Because of the Three-Meter-Tall Alien’s status now as a

“contemporary yōkai,” the profound effect of the original Flatwoods Monster legend upon an entire culture and community on a much larger scale can be seen.

Finally, for the city of Grafton, their current most iconic “thing” would have to be the

Grafton Monster sign that now hangs above the Espresso Yourself coffee store. It once stood in the location where the Monster was seen for the first time and represents the city’s (at least one person’s, at least) efforts to begin going in the direction that both the towns of Point Pleasant and

Flatwoods are doing with their own monsters. But since the sign had been stolen from its original location, it sadly does less of a job drawing people to the exact area where the monster was seen, but thankfully still serves to let it be known that their town is not only famous for

Mother’s Day, but also the Headless Horror that is the Grafton Monster. Plus, it being easily found in internationally played games like Fallout 76 (2018) does well to more than just affect the immediate area of the physical town of Grafton. Through efforts of people like Brendan

Gallagher, and the increased interest in the Grafton Monster in the last five years through video games and television shows displaying the creature still lurking around the outskirts of the city

(on Mountain Monsters in 2014), the impact of the monster is evident, and it seems that it will 85 continue to grow like the Mothman and Flatwoods Monster as long as people are interested in cryptids, the bizarre, and stranger parts of our world.

To end this study, I figured I should reflect just a little more, and look forward to what I can expect from the future regarding this information I have assembled. Looking back, I wish I had been able to do just a little more research on the local effects of these creatures on the communities around them. Not to say I do not have enough, I just figured I could collect so much more data. In the future, I would really like to try and turn the information I have gathered here into a comprehensive text of some kind, or a short book to be shared among not only the cryptozoological community, but folkloric and popular culture academia alike. Perhaps, if my future career allows, I will be able to, or I can work with somebody to help make this a reality. I know for a fact, however, that I will be continuing my folkloric research on the strangest parts of our world, and further study what may lurk in the darkness, just on the fringes of what most of humanity is able to see and study, along with the many, many stories handed down from generation to generation. Luckily, the stories of the Mothman, the Flatwoods Monster, and the

Grafton Monster have shown me that this is more than possible to do with enough persistence, passion, people skills, and constantly wondering what the truth could actually be, but always being okay with never being able to find it out. 86

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APPENDIX A: INFORMED CONSENT FORM 93