"The Mothman Prophecies" by John A. Keel
I have no idea what caused me to suddenly find an interest in the Mothman but here I am. I suspect it has something to do with his presence in the Fallout 76 video game, even though I set that game down months ago. It's also probably due to the ease with which the Mothman can be compared to H.P. Lovecraft's Mi-Go. The Whisperer in Darkness is a fantastic campfire tale.
John Keel wasn't a remarkable writer but I'd say he made up for it with the subject matter and the events he covered. In the first two sentences of his book he commits the "show; don't tell" crime that most freshman learn to never commit after their first creative writing class. He had the oafish habit of describing women based on how attractive he found them. The second-most important character in the book is a female reporter who, aside from being intelligent, capable, and possessing nerves of steel, is also an older, matronly woman - Keel was sure to make it clear to the reader that their relationship was "strictly professional".
I didn't know that the Men In Black (MIB) originated with Keel's collection of UFO reports (although they were extraterrestrial spies and provocateurs in "reality"), as well as an explanation for the Edgar suit and the neuralyzer.
The most illuminating thing I read in The Mothman Prophecies was Keel describing how, once a person accepts that UFOs are real, EVERYTHING becomes about UFOs - world events, bad luck, religion, illnesses, coincidences. Which of course can easily lead to paranoia. Keel demonstrated quite a bit of it himself. In the same paragraph he would describe how rock concerts are events where extraterrestrial beings carry out mass hypnosis attempts, and then go on to speak with utter contempt about someone else's belief that a slamming door is to be blamed on a poltergeist. And then a page later he's speaking of ghosts as though their existence is completely reasonable. He was both a believer and a cynical skeptic.
I am assuredly a skeptic but as I was learning the typical nature of Mothman sightings I realized that 20 years ago I may have had my own "brush" with the extraterrestrial creature. I was volunteering at a rural rescue squad in Pulaski County, VA which is in the Blue Ridge Mountains - terrain identical to Mothman's usual haunt and only about 200 miles SE of Point Pleasant. One night we got toned out for a possible plane crash on Parrot Mountain, which was a sparsely populated area at the edge of our district. We were the typical volunteer department so we spent the next few hours bushwhacking through the hills in the dark with no direction, organization, or purpose. We eventually confirmed that there were no aircraft supposed to be operating in the area, and we found nothing. Later I learned the description that had been phoned in to Dispatch and led to the assumption of a possible plane crash: a large object with wings and red lights had been seen gliding soundlessly and low over the treetops, then disappeared around the edge of a hill.
Spooky, right? I know it's a stretch but it makes me happy to feel like I have a wisp of a connection to the legend.