By 9 a.m.. It's.

It's chaos.

It's good chaos, but it's chaos.

It's chaotic good.

Yeah.

My mom and dad and aunt, he's like walking into all the Cryptids?

Yeah.

That and Jimothy, if, if I had to describe him off, man, in, like, the most basic sense to someone who was completely unfamiliar with the legend, I would say that it is a paranormal creature, a cryptid like Bigfoot or Nessie.

It was a a entity that visited Point Pleasant in 1966, showed up for about 13 months from the bridge, collapsed.

Then basically he just took off.

So they say anyways but probably like Bigfoot cousin or something like that.

But yeah, he used to be a part of a Point Pleasant.

So as far as the connectio between Mothman and the bridge, it was really a John Keel and Gray Barker that started to make those connections.

And then other paranormal researchers have furthered that research.

It's put Poin Pleasant on the map, literally.

People from all over the world recognize Mothman and the history and the myster that goes right along with it.

And I don't think it would exist if those others hadn't came first.

I was actually going t come here just on a regular day.

Then my friend reached out to me and said, hey, there's a mothman festival going on, let's go see it.

Looking around and seeing what Mothman is about.

I mean, I'm from Florida.

They got the skunk ape.

The skunk ape isn't as celebrated as the Mothman is.

You see how integrated it is with with the townsfolk, the tow itself, the history behind that.

There's so many other things.

I think that's what really kind of, stood out.

So the the first festiva was actually held in a building just down the street, and it was indoor and it was very small.

The very first Mothman Festival, I think we had maybe 50 people.

It was it's crazy.

You go from 50 people to 24,000 or so for the whole weekend, and a population of like 5 or 6000.

The whole reason why the Mothman Festival started was because my dad, Jeff, who owns the Mothman Museum he wanted to bring people down to Main Street in Poin Pleasant, him, Carolyn Harris, she was one of the festival directors, too.

She had a diner here on Main Street in the 60s.

70s you know, Main Street was a lot busier.

Of course, once the bridge collapsed that kind of changed everything.

But that was the goal is to create an even to attract people to the area.

And it worked.

And I don't know that he ever imagined that it would work as well as it has.

And then the culmination of events between that and The Mothman Prophecies, all the documentaries, so many things that highlight Mothman, that it's just encompassed all of West Virginia, like it started here in Point Pleasant, but it just turned around and grabbed the whole state.

We kind of follow all the weird TV shows and Mothman and all of that.

The hundreds who have seen it have given it a name, the Mothman.

The people down here are wonderful.

They love this festival.

We love this festival.

And we came down here on a very hot summer day to see the Mothman Museum.

My dad, Jef Walmsley, is the one who founded the Mothman Museum.

Shortly after The Mothman Prophecies came out.

We had a, of course the Mothman Festival every year, but when it first started, there was a group of guys that purchased all of the props from Sony Pictures, and they used to come and bring it down and set it up every year during the Moth Man Festival.

Eventually they got to the point where they couldn't come down anymore, so they donated it.

And that's ho the Mothman Museum came about.

Some people like to donate, like their pop art to us, some things we purchase, some things we have to make ourselves.

One of the most important things that are in.

There are handwritten depositions from the eyewitnesses themselves when it happened, and those were given to us by Linda Scarbrough, who was the firs one of the first eyewitnesses.

The Scarborough's in the mallet sightings, the thing that put us on the map, basically, and those are in the museum.

And then we've got the Woodro Darren Burger, Tate Woodrow Dam burger tapes are like the coolest thing we have.

Honestly, those two things and newspaper clippings, the newspaper clippings in their most of them my grandpa collected.

So my dad's dad had all of those saved, which is cool when you think about it, to turn, turn it into the museum artifacts.

So my friend made him.

I talked to him into it and he did a great job.

Nobody could do any better, and it's just a tremendous things for Point Pleasant.

I think for Mothman just kind of represents the how this one thin can happen in such a little area like Point Pleasant.

It could just skyrocketed.

This whole thing, like so many people know about it, even knows from a smaller area.

I don't know, man.

It's just the atmosphere.

I really enjoy getting out here.

It's a great day to do it.

And, I do like the costumes.

I've seen, like 50 moth man's walking around, so that's been awesome.

How long it takes.

Put the costume together.

Oh, probably around two months.

I've simply been a fan of the Mothman.

Like, for for so long.

I've just really enjoye seeing the community of Mothman.

Like, there being a monster around West Virginia, around our hometown.

And I just love it so much.

And I just like how off man looks.

So as far as how many people come to it to see the statue in the museum, I have no idea.

We have a 24 over seven moth cam that you can go to, and they're out there all hours, day and night.

I have no idea.

I don't even know how you would.

Which I guess is a good problem to have.

What's your favorite feature on the man statue?

Off the cake.

He's got more cake than a bakery.

Oh, they love it.

They actually had the had to pour an extra concrete pad behind the statue because like, they had worn a pothole.

Yeah, because it used to.

Yeah.

Used to just be dirt.

And they had actually like, so many people walked back there, they had worn a one foot deep hole into the back of the statue.

At what point did that start?

Because that statues been there for a long time.

And it's just like.

It's like what, another pop culture thing, I guess.

Like the beans thing.

The beans thing just kind of had beans at the statue.

Mr.

B's chips.

Yeah, that's for West Virginia Daily, especially about pepperoni rolls in Mountain Dew on West Virginia Day eve for Mothman.

They put quarters in his crack.

Yeah.

Which we do not recommend.

Yeah, don't do that.

If you're gonna do it for a dollar, at least it won't hurt it.

Yeah.

You're scratched, you're scratching.

You're scratching up the crack.

We don't.

We don't stop scratching the crack.

Donate it to somebody.

It's kind of neat because, like, people leave trinkets there.

It's almost like a weird little memorial of some sort.

I'd say after the fallout stuff came out, we just went into a, I wouldn' say a different direction, but a new direction, you know to add that to the melting pot.

They love them.

They do.

And we appreciate their love.

Everyone just puts so much love into this festival, and the entire town comes together and everyone's a little bit weird, and that's okay.

And there's not enough spaces like that now, so it's fun to come and just have that every year as a place to go and meet people, even if it's something that surrounded by tragedy or mystery or anything like that, like peopl can make something out of that and make a community out of that.

And I think that's really cool.

That's my favorite thing about the festival is that there' so many different walks of life that come here, and that they all feel comfortable, and they feel at home and they feel like they're with family.

And that's my absolutely favorite thing, hands down, about Mothman Festival.

You know, you've got a lot of underdog or they think they're underdogs.

You know what I mean?

When they call it the black sheep of the family and things like that.

Mothman is the perfect representative for that as far as the cryptids go.

And he's supposed to be like this supposed harbinger of doom and all that, and he had to be in the exact opposite.

Just seems like he's kind of the one that brought all the people together I don't see Bigfoot doing that.

Right.

What's your name?

Where are you from?

What are you doing here at Mothman Festival?

All righty.

Is there anything else you want to add for us?

All right.

But that was perfect.

Thank you so, so much.

What other cryptids besides that?

We like you like.

Oh, this is my number one favorite.

Any of the water ones?

I don't know if megalodon counts, but I'm a big shark person so my favorite cryptid is a tie between the Hopkinsville goblins out of Kentuck and the Braxton County monster.

I love Braxton, she's she's right up there.

I say she because I believe that small lady might be.

Might be.