JBissett@DominionPost.com
FAIRMONT – Resolved: You know, when you think about that Mothman and that Flatwoods Monster, you do kind of have to wonder, if you know what I’m saying.
I mean, a lot of people were basically telling the same story.
Must be something to it.
Right?
Opposed: Well, let’s look at that, for a second.
People weren’t really sure what they did see – and even the ones who didn’t see anything at all were still quick to jump on and say they were there, too.
And you know there’s always going to be that one guy, lurking around the edges, ready to cash in on the merchandising.
Heck, what’s-his-name, Mothman, even got a movie and statue out of the deal … right?
Just in time for Halloween, Fairmont State University’s winning debate team is taking on a fog-shrouded argument, as it were.
FSU’s Frank and Jane Gabor West Virginia Folklife Center – the repurposed barn is said to be haunted, but that’s another tale – is hosting the debates, which will be at 6 p.m. Oct. 27 and 12:30 p.m. Oct. 28.
The team is pairing off to argue the existence, for or against, of the aforementioned, plus all those other cryptids who make the Mountain State a spooky, mystical place – even when a carved pumpkin and store-bought cobwebs aren’t involved.
The prequel to the story …
For the uninitiated, “cryptids” are those animals or creatures that simply defy standard genus-species characterization.
The name is derived from the practice of cryptozoology, which was founded by Bernard Heuvelmans, a zoologist who traveled the world seeking the marquee origins of such lore.
Is it science or pseudoscience? Depends upon your boundaries of cryptid conviction.
The Loch Ness Monster, of bonny Scotland, is likely the original cryptid, at least in turns of pop culture.
Add the inimitable Yeti – AKA the Abominable Snowman who has haunted the Himalayas for generations – in there also.
Don’t forget Sasquatch (Bigfoot), who enjoys scaring the pine cones out of people in the Pacific Northwest when he isn’t cutting beef jerky commercials.
Cryptids in these climes are indeed folklore, Robert Tinnell says.
Tinnell, who grew up in and around Fairmont and Marion County, is a writer and filmmaker.
West Virginia’s collective cryptid oeuvre, as he told The Dominion Post previously, owes itself to the very people and land here.
Storytelling – or a-storying, in the mountain vernacular – is still a thing here.
Particularly as a coping mechanism, as he said.
“It’s our Scots-Irish tradition,” he said. “If we can’t explain something, we’ll come up with a tale.”
The Flatwoods Monster, for example, might owe itself to Cold War paranoia.
A mom and her children were said to be terrified by the extraterrestrial visitor following a purported UFO crash near the Braxton County town in 1952.
Post-traumatic stress may have had something to do with Mothman, described as possessing red eyes and an enormous wingspan.
Mothman was said to have been spotted in the skies over Point Pleasant, Mason County, in 1966, which was a year before the devastating collapse of the town’s traffic-laden Point Pleasant Bridge, which killed 46 people.
Was he trying to warn the town?
More and more residents said yes, after the bridge buckled.
Of Mothman and Morgantown
The story gained legs after the tragedy, which is another Appalachian hallmark, Tinnell said.
And there’s even connection to the University City and The Dominion Post, courtesy of the late John Samsell, who was an editor and columnist for 30 years here. Samsell died in 2019 at the age of 84.
Samsell was fresh out of the U.S. Navy and journalism school and had just landed his first real job in the profession as the editor of Point Pleasant Register in 1966.
He was working the nightside when a deputy called. There was this young couple. They were driving and something – with red eyes and an enormous wingspan – swooped down and started following them.
They were really rattled, the deputy said.
“Heck yeah, I’ll talk to them,” came Samsell’s reply.
And the world’s first news account of Mothman clacked out of his typewriter.
