[Kitsa]

Yeah, there are a lot of layers to the Mothman thing. I don't know if anyone will ever figure out what actually happened. I think the people saw something, because they are legitimately scared out of their minds. I just don't know what that something was. There are still people there who refuse to talk about the Mothman because they think it will summon him back. There are photos of people who were "visited", for lack of a better term, and they have big red rings around their eyes from staring, and unexplained radiation burns on their bodies.

I also believe that the townspeople were stalked by government agents, because there are actual photos of that and reports of attempted kidnappings where they attempted to bundle old church ladies off in unmarked vans. I have no idea why they'd find the need to do that, though.

West Virginia is one of those places that is just completely exploited by richer areas, sapped of all resources, polluted all to hell and just sort of left to die. The "TNT area", the government munitions dump, was originally a wildlife preserve. They drained some of the swampland, built "igloos" to hide a wartime arsenal, and made a factory that produced TNT. After the war was over, TNT and other chemicals were stored in the locked underground igloos. Pretty soon, there were reports of red liquid seeping into the local ponds and of weird, deformed fish being caught there. Turned out it was pure liquid TNT seeping out, among other things, and the ground itself was so carcinogenic it was scraped off and removed. So, could there be a giant mutant bird calling the TNT area home? Possibly. There were definitely mutant fish.

The conspiracy theorists were out in force at this thing, and you could hear it loudly discussed by folded-arm beerbellies on every streetcorner. The government was covering up alien visits. Someone knew someone who knew someone who saw a UFO crash in the nearby river. The Mothman was warning everyone of the bridge collapse. The Mothman caused the bridge collapse. The CIA was after Grandma. And so on.

At the core of it, though, you still had the older townspeople, most of whom still have clippings of the bridge disaster story in their downtown businesses (it's a tiny community, so nearly everyone lost a friend or loved one in the collapse) who were terrorized in the sixties and are still afraid to say a word about it. The Mothman thing is mostly the younger generation, and outsiders, trying to turn tragedy into profit and give the area a claim to fame.