One of the first things you notice about the place is the atmosphere of general doom. It's like crossing from normalcy into soul-crushing depression. The Point Pleasant area is flanked by two enormous coal-fed power plants. One of them managed to
clear out an entire town with toxic gases; the other looks like a screencap from Portal. These big smokestacks...some of the tallest in the world...are just constantly churning poisonous crap into the atmosphere. It really sets the stage.
You have to cross two bridges to get there, one of which is the replacement bridge for the one that collapsed, and the main view is of these big cooling towers and the clouds of pollution. No matter where you are, you seem to have either big poison chimneys of doom or the remnants of a huge bridge disaster somewhere in the background. Add that to the general decrepit and run-down state of the town, and you have a recipe for depression.
The grave of Cornstalk, the betrayed and murdered Shawnee chief who cursed Point Pleasant, is in a park right downtown. In a curse-ending attempt you usually only see in movies, his remains (bone shards and a tooth, I believe) were unearthed and ceremonially sealed inside the monument. Didn't work.
Right in the center of the downtown area is an unexpectedly badass chrome statue of the Mothman. I can't imagine all of the townsfolk being on board with this, but there it is.
We got there on the opening night of the Festival, and the big attraction was the Miss Mothman pageant. From the moment I learned that it existed, I knew I had to be there, and it did not disappoint. The Pageant took place on a black-draped stage, with swags of green tulle that could have represented either swamp gas or alien tractor beams, I don't know. It kicked off with a big, choreographed opening number that must be seen to be believed. I think I will have those lyrics in my head till the day the Mothman chases me off this mortal coil.
("Mothman, he's not from Japan, he's gen-u-ine, A-mer-i-caaan...")
Other than "Mothwear", a bewildering competition where contestants had to interpret the Mothman concept in fashion, it was a fairly standard beauty pageant, but Mothwear alone was worth attending. One contestant had sewn green flaps from her wrists to her waist, producing a look similar to that of a radioactive flying squirrel:
This one was a crowd favorite:
Here's Miss Mothman 2010 talking about her whirlwind year. It looks like that column has nefarious intentions.
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The Pageant was fun, but we wanted to avoid the crowds so we crept away to poke around town. Next stop: the "World's Only Mothman Museum".