In fact, we might as well get things off to a good start by adding a heaping dose of synchronicity: just as I was sitting down to write this piece, my phone inexplicably lit up, then shut itself off completely, and restarted. I usually ignore this kind of thing… but for some, it’s enough to keep one’s paranoid fantasies close to the edge for days at a time. With regard to my own situation, this isn’t the only time my phone has appeared to come to life on its own, and activate or deactivate itself arbitrarily. For several months now, I’ve been experiencing a remarkable amount of Keelian weirdness regarding my cellular phone… and in truth, I might as well admit it: I’ve kind of got a history with this sort of thing.

It gets even better, and much weirder! Perfect “Keelian” and Fortean reading!

It’s a different kind of Mothman tale in many ways, yet not so much at the same time. Communications between Mothman and humans on profoundly emotional levels seems to be a part of the phenomena for some, as well as premonitions of the Silver Bridge collapse.

On November 15, 1966, the World was introduced to the phenomenon that would become known as Mothman. After the first sighting reported by the press 44 years ago in the papers of the day, soon a copyeditor in Ohio, a fan of the “Batman” series then on television, would coin the word “Mothman” because it fit in the headlines better. The sightings of a “Big Bird” had become a “big insect” with one copyeditor’s action.

For the rest, visit Cryptomundo .

From 2002′s The Mothman Prophecies with Richard Gere, some of my favorite quotes:

“The nocturnal butterfly. In ancient cultures, the moth represents a form of the psyche, or the soul immortally trapped in the hellish death realms. Mothman. Well, that’s what the Ukrainian’s called him. Rough translation of course. There were a hundred sightings in Chernobyl when the nuclear pump went down. Galveston, nineteen sixty nine, just before the hurricane. They saw it. But seeing isn’t always believing.” ~ character of Alexander Leek, played by Alan Bates.

John Klein: I think we can assume that these entities are more advanced than us. Why don’t they just come right out and tell us what’s on their minds?
Alexander Leek: You’re more advanced than a cockroach, have you ever tried explaining yourself to one of them?

Alexander Leek: If there was a car crash ten blocks away, that window washer up there could probably see it. Now, that doesn’t mean he’s God, or even smarter than we are. But from where he’s sitting, he can see a little further down the road.

And a bit of synchronicity for myself; if you read the comments left at his blog, you’ll where he mentions listening to the interiview with Tim Binnall and the “Paranormal Pastor,” who warns against getting too obsessed about the darker side of esoterica. I was just again thinking about that today; I’ve had an idea for some months now about a project — maybe a blog, site, or a book, not sure where I wanted to go — about the “dark side” of one aspect of Forteana. Then thought better of it. I have enough going on and there’s enough dark side stuff on its own to occupy any student of high strangeness.

Greg Taylor, who runs the awesome site The Daily Grail, published a journal last year of great articles on the occult, the esoteric, the Fortean. Writers like Nick Redfern, Greg, and many others contributed. Fortunately, Greg has just published Volume 2 of Darklore, which include an article on Mothman by me! I am very honored to be in such fantastic company. Volume 2 contains articles by Nick Redfern, Theo Paijmans, Taylor, Jon Downes, and many more.

You can find Darklore Vol 2 on Amazon.com as well as The Daily Grail site.

Thompson starts off by reviewing the film Mothman Prophecies. He professes to be confused about Richard Gere’s character and Mothman, apparently he was expecting Gere to fly around in a giant moth suit. I suppose Thompson can’t be blamed too much for thinking along these lines, since he writes he wasn’t familiar with Mothman before the film.

Being a skeptoid, he naturally makes all kinds of sarcastic assumptions about the witnesses; this after doing “research” into the mOthman story. He also comes to the expected conclusions: mass hysteria, Mothman “ended” in the nineteen sixties, and of course, the skeptibunkie talking point that Mothman was just a silly old barn owl. The owl theory is, of course, the favorite skeptibunkie theory of all time to explain away Fortean events. Mothman was an owl, the Flatwoods “Monster” was an owl, the Kentucky, Hopkinsville entities were owls. (For more on the owl theory nonsense, visit my blog Snarly Skepticism.)