Front Porch Mysteries with Carole Townsend
Author and veteran journalist Carole Townsend shares remarkable tales from the South, tales of mystery, terror, and wonder. Townsend has built a career on the premise that truth really is stranger than fiction.
Here in the South, we love our stories. We begin in childhood huddled around campfires, whispering of things best spoken in the dark, confiding in our small trusting circles. Why is that, do you suppose? I have researched and investigated Southern history for more than 20 years and I believe it has to do with this region itself. There's a lot that hangs in the ether here and much that is buried deep in the soil. There's beauty here in the South and shame and courage and, make no mistake, there is evil. There's always been the element of the unexplained, the just out of reach that we can all feel but can never quite describe. And the best place for telling tales about such things is the comfort and safety of an old front porch. So I invite you tonight to come up here with me, settle back into a chair and get comfortable, pour yourself a drink if you like, and I'll share with you some of the tales best told in the company of friends, tales that prove that truth really is stranger than fiction, and I'll turn on the light. You're going to want that. I'm Carole Townsend. Welcome to my front porch.
Front Porch Mysteries with Carole Townsend
The Mothman
Lurking in the shadows of Appalachia's misty mountains is a tale that defies rational explanation. When a group of gravediggers in Clendenin, West Virginia reported seeing a massive winged figure soaring overhead in November 1966, no one could have predicted how this sighting would become entwined with one of America's greatest tragedies.
The creature they glimpsed—soon to be known as the Mothman—stood seven to eight feet tall with a wingspan of ten feet and hypnotic red eyes that paralyzed those who gazed into them. Within days, two young couples in Point Pleasant had their own terrifying encounter, reporting the creature chased their car at speeds reaching 100 miles per hour. As dozens more sightings flooded in, a pattern emerged: this wasn't just any monster tale. The Mothman appeared primarily around an abandoned WWII munitions facility locals called the "TNT area," a contaminated landscape dotted with underground bunkers where deadly secrets lay buried.
Strange phenomena accompanied the Mothman's appearances—electrical disturbances, screeching phones, cars dying on empty roads, and visits from oddly-behaving men in ill-fitting black suits who spoke in sing-song voices. All these events culminated on December 15, 1967, when witnesses spotted the creature circling the Silver Bridge moments before its catastrophic collapse killed 46 people. Was the Mothman trying to warn the townspeople, or did it somehow cause the disaster? Or perhaps the tragedy connects to something even older—the curse a dying Shawnee chief placed on the land nearly two centuries earlier when he was murdered by white soldiers: "May the curse of the Great Spirit rest upon this land."
Whether you view the Mothman as a harbinger of doom, an environmental aberration, or the manifestation of an ancient Native American curse, its story continues to haunt our collective imagination. Join me on this journey through folklore, tragedy, and mystery as we examine what happened when something otherworldly cast its shadow over Point Pleasant. Listen carefully—and maybe think twice before looking too deeply into glowing red eyes in the darkness.
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Folk Tales. They're every bit as much a part of the fabric of our history as are the facts were taught in school. They tell the tales of the people that came before us. They reveal to us who we are and who we came from and how we got here. Some are discounted as silly meanderings, as tall tales, and often that's what they are, but it seems that there's always at least a kernel of truth in each one, and sometimes there's more.
Carole Townsend:Is there anything better than a really good story? I mean a story told by a friend among friends. An engaging tale, told in the right place at the right time, captures us. It captures our imagination. It takes us away from the here and now and carries us to the world of what, if? I think a really good story taps into our childhood, that magical time when anything was possible if we could just close our eyes and imagine it. As adults, we don't hide under the covers anymore as we listen to the whispered tales of brave knights or beautiful princesses or scary monsters. We don't walk through the woods talking as we go, telling tales of forest creatures that live among the trees and the animals. We do, however, still spin our tails, and a comfortable front porch is often where we do that. We sit in swings or rocking chairs or rickety woven lawn chairs, and we still gather with friends At the end of the day, when the soft light of dusk opens its arms to embrace nightfall, we're taken back to a time when the story is real, it's possible. So join me tonight here on my front porch, won't you, as we step into another tale that's rooted in both truth and in myth. And as night swallows the soft dusk, I'll turn on the light. You might want that. The following podcast contains material that may be disturbing. Listener discretion is advised.
Carole Townsend:The 1960s in the United States was a decade of turbulence and change. The cocoon of the 1950s was safe, innocent. The youth of America were innocent as well, falling in line with what was expected of them. The 1960s, however, brought questions, a yearning for young people to break free of what their parents expected and to go the way of their music and their beliefs. An unwanted war clawed at the very fabric of this country that had so recently been riding the wave of peace and assurance that had come with the end of World War II. The 1960s youth of America rebelled against the Vietnam War. They discovered and indulged in psychedelic drugs that provided a colorful backdrop to the music of the day, the storybook days of 1950s America came to an abrupt end in the 1960s. A young culture awakened largely by music and fringe philosophy now defined the times. There were, however, a few protected pockets of innocence dotted throughout the country, and those pockets were typically small rural towns. Point Pleasant, west Virginia, was one of those towns.
Carole Townsend:In November 1966, point Pleasant and the surrounding area would be forever changed, and Point Pleasant's history would take an astonishing turn toward the extraordinary. This change had nothing to do with war or music or drugs. You see, a winged creature lurks in the shadows of the mountains of West Virginia, in Appalachia, and it occasionally makes itself known. The last time it chose to do so was around 1967. But why then?
Carole Townsend:The first reported sighting of the winged beast, many believe, was when a group of gravediggers at work in Clendenin, west Virginia, saw a giant creature, a brown human being they described soaring above the trees overhead. It was the size of a large man, maybe seven to eight feet tall, with very large wings. The gravediggers reported what they saw to friends and family and to local news outlets, but never to the authorities, at least not then, because who would believe them? Just days later, in the town of Point Pleasant, two young couples, roger and Linda Scarberry and Steve and Mary Mallett, claimed to witness a similar sight, getting a better look at the creature that would soon be branded the Mothman. They reported a 10-foot wingspan not on the body of a large bird, but on the bare body of a man, and if that wasn't strange enough, they also made particular note of the creature's large red eyes. The couples, with each individual being interviewed separately by police. They also made particular note of the creature's large red eyes. The couples, with each individual being interviewed separately by police, stated that the creature watched them for a while, always staying within sight of the moving car, but as the young driver increased his speed in an attempt to outrun the creature, it chased their car to the outskirts of town, easily flying behind them at a rate of, at times, 100 miles per hour.
Carole Townsend:While the wingspan of this creature has been estimated at about 10 feet and many have described the wings as being beautiful, the creature does not seem to need those wings to fly. Rather, it glides, whether slowly or at high speed, with little to no effort. Dozens of Point Pleasant residents reported seeing the Mothman at around the same time as the Scarberries and Mallets did. They described similar features the glowing red eyes, the magnificent, beautifully shaped wings and the ability to fly, with or without the use of those wings, often at incredibly high rates of speed. And those who were unfortunate enough to come face to face with Mothman all report the same phenomenon when their eyes met the creature's, they were powerless to look away, powerless to move or scream or run, and very often the creature's powerful gaze brought those witnesses to their knees, often passing out cold simply by having looked into its eyes. At the time that locals were reporting seeing this giant winged mothman around Point Pleasant, ufo sightings also skyrocketed. In fact, the local newspaper had to establish a hotline for callers to report UFO sightings all in the general area of Point Pleasant and Charleston Collars described the same thing being stopped on a rural road and approached by something that came to be known as the Grinning man, believed to be an extraterrestrial being that communicated telepathically.
Carole Townsend:The area of these sightings is known by locals as the TNT area t area. It's called that because during world war ii that region more than 8 000 acres, was devoted to an ammunition manufacturing facility called the west virginia ordinance works. For safety reasons, the explosives were stored in bunkers. They look like igloos now, or menacing black caves, strategically scattered across the territory and disguised by a thick layer of earth, moss and brush. After the war, the area was, for all practical purposes, abandoned, being converted in part to a wildlife management area and partly a landfill. By no surprise, it was discovered in the 1980s that the land was severely contaminated by explosives byproducts. It was then added to a federal list of hazardous waste sites. What was left behind when the war ended and in the 80 years that have followed is a stark, foreboding landscape dotted with the ominous, partially buried bunkers. Foreboding landscape dotted with the ominous, partially buried bunkers. In May of 2010, one of the bunkers that contained 20,000 pounds of unstable materials suddenly exploded.
Carole Townsend:Clearly, these 8,000 acres hold dangers and secrets that we quite possibly don't understand. The creature, the Mothman, has been sighted on top of an abandoned building called the North Tower in the TNT area. Is there a connection to the Mothman's sightings and the contaminated, abandoned forest, since he is seen primarily in this very area? Many have asked that question. Is the Mothman a hoax, a fantasy creature dreamed up by one person about 65 years ago? Maybe, but allow yourself to let go of all you know as a rational adult. Allow yourself to imagine what if? What if a Shawnee chief cursed this land with his dying breath back in 1777? What if the Native American Thunderbird really does cruise and patrol the area where the Ohio River and the Kanoa Rivers meet? And what if the US military's production of explosives that poisoned the land somehow added to this perfect storm brewing in the vast deserted forest? In the days after the initial Mothman sighting back in 1966, there would be many additional reports of locals seeing the creature flying overhead, weaving in and out of treetops and lighting on church steeples and other towering structures in the area.
Carole Townsend:Other strange phenomena began to occur at about the same time. People described odd repeated interference with electrical objects. High-pitched screeching noises would come from telephones and radios in the area. Televisions would lose their signal or they would display colors they'd never shown before. High-pitched screeching noises would come from telephones and radios in the area. Televisions would lose their signal or they would display colors they'd never shown before. Remember, most televisions back then were black and white, so they shouldn't have shown any color, point.
Carole Townsend:Pleasant residents reported their cars suddenly losing all power and dying in the middle of the road for no apparent reason, leaving drivers and their passengers stranded and bewildered. Perhaps most disturbing was the sudden appearance of odd-looking men, all dressed in ill-fitting black suits. These men would knock on residents' doors at all hours, pretending to be any type of official in order to get inside the house. They acted very strangely. Some said they were obviously not human. These strange men scared people so badly, in fact, that they started contacting the police anytime they spotted one, and they began bolting their doors day and night a very unusual practice in that community. Townspeople who had seen these mysterious men generally described them as having cold, dark eyes, and they spoke in a weird sing-song voice. Witnesses also relayed that these men seemed amazed by common everyday items, as if they'd never seen them before. People in the Point Pleasant area reported these electrical anomalies, the automobile problems and visits from odd men at strange hours for weeks, with more than 100 such reports on file in the local police department around that time.
Carole Townsend:Without a doubt, the most infamous of these incidents is that of the Silver Bridge, and it happened just over a year after the gravedigger's first sighting of the Mothman. On December 15, 1967, point Pleasant locals claimed to see the Mothman flying over the Silver Bridge, a suspension bridge that connected the towns of Point Pleasant, west Virginia, and Galapagos, ohio. During one of these flights, the creature circled the bridge and eventually landed atop the structure. There it sat. On that very same day, not long after the Mothman had flown away, the Silver Bridge would collapse. It was the late afternoon, rush hour, and dozens of cars were packed bumper to bumper, going both directions the entire length of the bridge. At 5 pm, eyewitnesses recall there was a loud noise like a gunshot and in fewer than 20 seconds the bridge folded like a deck of cards Without warning. The entire suspended portion of Silver Bridge, 1,460 feet of it, collapsed into the Ohio River. 31 vehicles plunged into the frigid water below. There were 46 deaths and only 21 survivors in this incident, and two bodies have never been found. The collapse of Silver Bridge would go down as the deadliest bridge disaster in modern history. Families throughout the area were left shocked and shattered, and this tragic nightmare is marked and mourned to this day.
Carole Townsend:It will forever be connected to the strange creature that sat atop the Silver Bridge that day, the one with watchful, glowing red eyes. Many locals who were in the vicinity at the time claimed to have seen the mysterious creature atop the bridge. They all described a very large man, brown in color but with magnificent wings and the eyes. Despite his astonishing physical characteristics, the's eyes were unforgettable. They were large and glowed a bloody red. Everyone remembered the eyes. No one could forget them. Had Mothman come to warn them of the impending tragedy, or had the creature somehow caused the structurally sound bridge to collapse? That question and others surrounding the Mothman are still hotly debated today.
Carole Townsend:I had the good fortune to talk with an Appalachian woman who was very familiar with both the Silver Bridge disaster and the mysterious Mothman. Having been raised in the West Virginia mountains and being of Native American descent. She gave me invaluable insights into the strange phenomenon that I had never heard before. The Mothman, she told me, while very possibly a real creature, had nothing at all to do with causing the collapse of the bridge. That disaster, she said, was the direct result of a 200-year-old curse placed on the area by Cornstalk, chief of the Shawnee tribe of Point Pleasant. At the peak of his power he lived west of the Ohio River. For my own reasons, I tend to believe the Native American version of most such stories, so I'll share with you what she told me most such stories, so I'll share with you what she told me.
Carole Townsend:As american frontiersmen began to move west in the 1770s, seven native american nations formed a powerful alliance to keep the white men from infringing on their territory. The shawnee were the most powerful of the seven tribes and cornstalk was their chief. The allied Allied nations sent about 1,200 warriors to form a line from a point along the Ohio River across to the Conowa River. They planned to attack the white soldiers as they entered the area that is now known as Point Pleasant, west Virginia. The warriors defended their territory bravely, but their arrows were no match for the muskets that the colonial soldiers brought with them. The white men did, in fact, begin to occupy their territory. Time passed and in 1777, chief Cornstalk befriended the white soldiers, bringing them news of British plans of attack when they tried to get him to agree to join the fight against the new settlers. A peaceful coexistence between the Native Americans and the soldiers was reached Temporarily.
Carole Townsend:Hostilities and further advances continued as Native Americans and upstart colonists fought for the rich land along both rivers. Cornstalk went to Captain Arbuckle, the garrison commander of the troops, and said that he opposed war with the colonists, but he wasn't sure how long he could hold out against the other six nations. With that understanding, he signed the Treaty of Camp Charlotte with the soldiers. This treaty stipulated that the Indians give up rights to the land south of the Ohio River and it allowed boats to travel on the river undisturbed. It also established the Ohio River as Virginia's boundary line, aiding in the settlement of the state of Kentucky, his boundary line, aiding in the settlement of the state of Kentucky. Cornstalk signed this treaty, but he admitted that he would allow his men to fight the white soldiers if necessary, hearing that the soldiers took Cornstalk, his son and the other tribal leaders hostage.
Carole Townsend:Now, cornstalk's people loved and honored their leader and the other tribes feared his skill. He was gifted with military genius. In fact, it was said that when his fighting tactics were adopted by the Americans, they were able to defeat the British in a number of battles where they had been both outnumbered and outgunned. Cornstalk may have been chief of the Shawnee Nation, but he was respected by all. Now, when they were captured and held hostage, cornstalk and the other leaders were treated well and given comfortable quarters. But when two soldiers ventured out one day to hunt deer, they were spotted carrying firearms by warriors who were stationed near the Americans' fort. All they saw were the enemy and their guns. They began shooting at the two hunters and, tragically, one was killed. That mistake led to the cold-blooded murder of all of the hostages in the fort. Chief cornstalk was shot eight times before he fell to the floor as the chief lay dying in the smoke-filled room.
Carole Townsend:He was set to have uttered these words I came as your friend and you murdered me and my young son for this. May the curse of the Great Spirit rest upon this land. May it be blighted by nature and blighted in the hopes of the people who live here. May the curse of the Great Spirit rest upon this land. May it be blighted by nature and blighted in the hopes of the people who live here. May the strength of its people be paralyzed by the stain of our blood. And with those words he breathed his last. The chief's body and then his bones were buried and then moved several times for various reasons, but today what's left of his bones rests in an obelisk located in a state park in the town of Point Pleasant.
Carole Townsend:The chief's last words are known as the Cornstalk Curse. Are his ominous words and the disrespectful treatment of his remains responsible for the Silver Bridge tragedy. Some say not to dismiss the notion. You see, there are drawings along the rock walls in Shawnee, another Native American dwellings of a tall winged man with piercing red eyes. Their name for this creature in English is Thunderbird and in their beliefs the Thunderbird was a servant of the Great Spirit.
Carole Townsend:It lived in the hills and mountains surrounding the Ohio River Valley, in the area known today as Point Pleasant. It was huge and, according to legend, could cause wind and rumbling thunder with its mighty wings. It could spark lightning simply by blinking its huge eyes. Native american lore tells that the thunderbird could change its appearance to that of a man by pulling back its beak and removing its feathers. It was a very dangerous and wrathful spirit and its power could be summoned through the great spirit to avenge the native americans against A curse and a wrathful spirit summoned perhaps by a powerful Shawnee chief, land that had been used by the US military to manufacture and hide explosives during World War II. Toxic chemicals left to seep into thousands of acres of fertile soil. Caves that have gone unexplored for 80 years.
Carole Townsend:Alien creatures and UFOs, and the reports of hundreds of people who say they've seen the very same thing A giant, winged, man-like creature with glowing red eyes, hundreds of people who experienced strange electrical anomalies, piercing, screeching sounds coming from their telephones and cars stopping for no apparent reason on busy roads and on deserted back roads, and the reports of hundreds of people who say they've seen the very same thing a giant, winged, man-like creature with glowing red eyes, hundreds of people who experience strange electrical anomalies, piercing, screeching sounds coming from their telephones and cars stopping for no apparent reason on busy roads and on deserted back roads. The silver bridge incident marks the last reported sighting of the Mothman. Today, mothman is responsible for most of the tourism that blesses Point Pleasant, west Virginia. There's a Mothman Museum and, of course, a Mothman retail shop to accompany it. There's a Mothman statue in the town center and I must tell you it's quite flattering regarding his physique. Tourists can buy mothman t-shirts, cookies, beer, mugs and costumes, but stay in the area until after dark, drive away from the lights and the fanfare of town center and venture down a rural road, dim your headlights and just wait.
Carole Townsend:I ask you who is to say what's possible in Point Pleasant, west Virginia. I'm Carole Townsend, veteran newspaper journalist and six-time award-winning author. You can find me on social media and check out my website at caroltownsendcom. As always, thanks for listening and if you're enjoying these tales of Southern history and lore, I hope you'll tell your friends. Subscribe to this podcast on Spotify, apple Play, iheart and anywhere you listen. My team and I use the following resources to look into the creature that's called the Mothman NorthAmericanCryptidscom. What does Mothman mean to people? The Ohio State University. The recollections of Virginia Mae Duffy, appalachian Woman of Appalachian Descent. And the Mothman of Point Pleasant, west Virginia Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.
