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West Virginia Urban Legends and Their Impact on Cultures Both Local and Abroad

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West Virginia Urban Legends and Their Impact on Cultures Both Local and Abroad 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.
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