The first widely reported encounter came the night of 15–16 November 1966. Roger and Linda Scarberry and Steve and Mary Mallette told police they saw a man-sized, bird-like creature — about six or seven feet tall, large wings, red eyes — near the old power plant / TNT complex outside Point Pleasant. They said it ran awkwardly, flew very fast, and followed their car partway toward town. Deputies searched and found nothing conclusive. The Point Pleasant Register ran the story the next day; other regional papers followed. The name “Mothman” came from media wordplay on the Batman TV craze, not from the witnesses.

Through late 1966 and 1967, more reports accumulated: red eyes in headlights, silent or near-silent flight, figures near roads and the TNT grounds, some multi-witness, some alone. Descriptions vary; the core motif is a large winged humanoid or bird-man with reflective red eyes. Wildlife officials and skeptics floated large birds (notably sandhill crane) as misidentification. Hoax and unknown-animal readings also circulated. No body, clear photo series, or physical type specimen entered the public record.

On 15 December 1967 the Silver Bridge (U.S. 35, Point Pleasant–Kanauga) collapsed into the Ohio River during rush hour. Forty-six people died. The National Transportation Safety Board traced the failure to a cleavage fracture in eyebar 330 of the north suspension chain, from stress corrosion and corrosion fatigue over the bridge’s life — not sabotage or the paranormal. After the disaster, writers folded Mothman into omen/harbinger folklore; many tellings claim sightings dropped off afterward.

John A. Keel’s The Mothman Prophecies (1975) widened the story into UFOs, Men in Black, precognition, and synchronicity. That book — and later film/tourism — shaped the modern mythology more than the 1966–67 newspaper cluster alone.