Having read this book umpteen times when younger, it was very interesting to skim back through it again. Back in print because of the less-than-stellar name-only movie, I was able to get it through my local library.

I grew up with John Keel and his ilk. I hungrily chomped down anything Fortean, anything High Strange. Since this was back when such books were far more scarce than now, I tended to re-read the ones I had and "Prophecies" was one of my favorites.

And TMP is an entertaining read, so chock-full of accounts of extraordinary flying objects, unlikely birds, monsters, poltergeists and Men In Black as to have been the inspiration for the whole run of The X-Files.

Entertaining? Certainly. Serious research material? Another question.

It has been at least 17 years since I last read the book. From that remove, a fresh exposure to it has a different taste. It is now in fact difficult not to view it as a paranoid fantasy.

I have respect for John Keel's aspirations as a researcher. Several of his precepts have worked solidly into my thinking. A phrase early on in the book --

"Paranormal phenomena are so widespread, so
diversified, and so sporadic yet so persistent
that separating and studying any single element
is not only a waste of time but also will
automatically lead to the development of belief."

-- has great resonance for me. I have seen far too many people start down the slippery slope of belief and become unable to climb back up.

And Belief, as Keel famously said, Is The Enemy. To accept a belief is to wear the blinders accompanying that belief, and miss things not associated with it. Beliefs are sticky things, easy to pick up but hard to set down again.

The quote above seems to support a position of investigatorial distancing from the subject, a desirable objectivity. But unfortunately for Keel's credibility he continues with the next sentence:

"Once you have established a belief, the
phenomenon adjusts its manifestations to
support that belief and thereby escalate it."

That is quite a different thing from the objectivity just previously presented! "Get interested in weird stuff," Keel is saying, "and not only will you become sucked in but you will be made an active focus of it."

TMP is full of instances of Keel himself being made the focus of "the phenomenon". Odd people come to town and ask not so much about UFO sightings, but about Keel's activities and interactions with his associates. His car is broken into and notes taken, his mail is tampered with; someone seems to be tapping his phone. On face value, the classic claims of a paranoid, only in this case it is not The Government which is doing it but Someone Else, the Agents of The Phenomenon.

Even the title smacks of delusions of grandeur: where there are "prophecies", there must be a "prophet", and the attentions Keel say were paid to him would prove him to be such an important personage.

A simultaneous problem and attraction of TMP is the wealth of anomalous reports with which Keel supplies us. In Keel's universe anomalous events are happening so continuously as to make those who are not witnesses feel inadequate. In the quote above he calls paranormal phenomena "sporadic" but you wouldn't know it from this book - unusual events are so constant as to not be unusual. Just as pornography may have the effect of leading you to believe that everyone else on the planet is having more and more-varied sex than you, so does "The Mothman Prophecies" make one feel unstudly for not having extraordinary paranormal experiences nightly.

"The Mothman Prophecies" is a landmark book in many ways. It helped to associate in the public's mind UFO reports with other paranormal activities such as monsters and poltergeists. (Just as Jacques Vallee's "Passport to Magonia" associated UFOs and fairy belief, in a more scholarly way.) TMP helped to standardize the image of the Men In Black, with results familiar to any moviegoer or X-Files fan. It gave us The Mothman, a critter right out of nightmare, resurrected by the movie to the degree that Mothman reports are now retroactively presented after major disasters.

But upon re-visiting this book, I have to feel that it is has less value as a representation of the events of the day, and more value as a record of one man's fascination with, and descent into, a particular form of belief. All the more ironic since Keel warns us against that belief even as he embraces it.

The book is the first book I completed on the topic of UFOs and high strangeness in general. I read this book at night before going to sleep. It was hard to put down for a couple reasons - it scaried me awake so I couldn't sleep, the story was an interesting mystery, and I felt I had to finish it as soon as possible so that the uneasy feeling I had at the time would go away. With that said I still suggest people read it, since the spookiness around the world seems to be increasing. Also, the book is far superior in my opinion as compared to the movie, so I suggest the book first then the movie.

Excellent and suspenseful information. All over the place as far as the material. We travel back and forth from West Virgina to London to Ohio... and back again. Would have enjoyed it if the first part of the book was supporting information as to the phenomena itself and how it has indeed appeared elsewhere in history, how the phenomena ties to UFO sightings etc. but Keel's hypothesis that all paranormal activity comes from a parallel universe it difficult to believe, even for paranormal studies. I'm sure that is a first.

Although the book was suspenseful and written well, it was just organized poorly. Revise, John. You can do it.

When I was a kid, I collected all sorts of books on the supernatural and unexplained. UFOs, Bigfoot, ghosts, the Loch Ness Monster. There was no mystery that didn't interest me. One of the books I found was called THE MOTHMAN PROPHECIES.

Growing up in Southern Ohio on the Ohio River, I didn't take much interest in this book. Probably because it read like a jumbled mess of monsters, UFO sightings, Men in Black, etc., and that the idea of a moth-man monster flying through the skies just down the river from where I lived sounded preposterous (even to a wishful, wide-eyed kid).

I didn't read the book until after they'd made the recent film with Richard Gere and Laura Linney. The movie manages to pull the creepiest moments but it didn't quite work either. (My major complaint remains that you can't have a monster movie and never give us a good look at the monster).

But I read the book and found it alternately interesting and amusing. Keel does a good job of taking the most outlandish elements of his "investigation" and blending them into a logical procession of ideas (if not always a logical story).

It's fun if you don't take it too seriously. I still enjoy the creepy thrill of mystery at the edges of our shrinking world...no matter how far-fetched and outlandish they sound. The Mothman of West Virginia certainly falls into that category.

The creature has taken on a life of its own. There's a 12-foot statue of the Mothman (it looks more like reptile-like Sleestak from "Land of the Lost" than a real Mothman) standing in Point Pleasant, West Virginia and a museum I hope to visit someday. Documentaries play on the Travel Channel and on youtube.com about the legend. I just saw there's a festival for the Mothman in Point Pleasant this month (Sept) so I'll have to check that out sometime if I'm back that way during that time.

For more info, check out the 5-part "The Search for the Mothman" on youtube and definitely the 3-part "The Mothman Debunked" also on youtube.com.

The Mothman Prophecies opens with a mysterious event--an unusual-looking stranger knocks on a door in rural West Virginia during a storm to ask to use a phone. The couple who live in the house can't help him--and three weeks later both are victims of the Silver Bridge collapse. A visit from the devil, one of his minions, or the angel of death? No. As it turns out, it was Keel himself, stranded and looking for assistance. This first anecdote shows how easy it is for superstitious people to misinterpret an ordinary event.

Most of The Mothman Prophecies consists of such anecdotes, some with explanations, many without. Many, not all, occur in the Ohio valley area centering on Point Pleasant, the focal point of the "Mothman" sightings, Point Pleasant was located on the West Virginia side of the Silver Bridge, which collapsed on December 15, 1967, due to a combination of factors, including heavy, backed-up traffic and a flawed piece of steel, the failure of which triggered the bridge's collapse.

Keel cleverly builds on anecdote after anecdote. Even if some are questionable or unbelievable, they all can't be, or that seems to be his rationale. Dozens of witnesses can't be mistaken, lying, or paranoid. For the susceptible, this accumulation of horror stories makes this a frightening book. Some of those people, including Keel himself, must have seen something--from the strangely moving lights in the sky to the aerodynamically impossible "Mothman," which doesn't flap its apparently unnecessary wings but flies straight up like a helicopter.

Keel decries "self-style investigators" and believes himself to be a thorough professional. Yet his reporting, whether first- or second-hand, is full of holes. He tells of an odd stranger with "thyroid eyes" (a common feature of these sightings) who comes into a fashionable New York City watering hole but can't read the menu and doesn't know how to cut or eat a steak. He tells the waitress he's from "another world." That is where Keel leaves the story, "a stranger in a strange land," with some seemingly trivial but critical questions unasked and unanswered, such as: Did he understand what the check was? How did he pay? Did he know to leave a tip? If so, did he leave an appropriate one? Where did he keep his money and what condition was it in? Without answers to those questions--things that a waitress would easily remember--her assessment that he's "another put-on artist" seems most likely.

He visits a farm where, coincidentally, the farmer has seen a UFO that frightened his cows off (in another anecdote, the exposed cows are found dead), burns out a piece of electrical equipment, and leaves behind a "fairy circle." All this is so familiar to Keel that he doesn't bring in someone to perform chemical analyses to see, for example, if there is any kind of residue in the circle that would help to explain its cause. The opportunity seems to be deliberately missed.

Conveniently, Keel's "ultra-dimensional beings" operate in a way that precludes independent verification of their existence. Cameras and film malfunction. Supporting witnesses are rendered unconscious or develop amnesia. While Keel believes these beings are interested in him, they contact him primarily through third parties whose reliability is questionable. When "Jane" reports that an envelope he sent was tampered with in the mail, he never considers the possibility that this woman, whose behavior is odd, is telling him what he wants to hear.

The beings also control the behavior of contactees. Dozens of "Orientals" with "sharp features" (since when do Asians have "sharp features"?) and "thyroid eyes" are invited into homes for hours at a time, and their questions about personal matters are answered freely. Personally, I don't know anyone who would do this.

"Jane" obligingly takes pills provided by her contacts,which make her ill and which prove to be an ordinary sulfa drug. Other people don't hesitate to climb aboard alien ships. Perhaps most telling, many of the descriptions are vague and refer to contemporary fixtures and technology. "Frosted glass" is one of the few details provided, and "Men in Black," who are smart enough to produced unissued license plate numbers but not smart enough to obtain late-model vehicles, use the same kind of camera and clunky flash available to 1960s reporters.

Keel cites a conversation with Gray Barker, who claimed not to have spoken with him on that occasion; Barker was later proven to be a hoaxer, and witnesses claimed that he did make the call while drunk. In fact, between "Jane's" assertions, Keel's stretched association of "A Pal" with "Apholes," and his phone troubles, he seems to have become a paranoiac by the end. He even determines that the phone company is tapping his phone, but doesn't explain why.

He assesses the reliability of each of his witnesses, but he is not reliable. For example, he discusses a map developed by anthropologists that shows that Indians avoided West Virginia. Keel doesn't provide a source, which makes it difficult to verify this assertion. Of course, there were Indians in West Virginia, despite his claim.

The Mothman Prophecies is entertaining, and Keel tries to make the cumulative evidence compelling. The "facts" are not always accurate, the witnesses are not reliable ("Jane," his favorite, least of all), and questions are not raised or answered.

In 2007, do "ultra-dimensional beings" tap into digital phones? VOIP? Mobiles? E-mail? Instant messages? Digital cable? Have they adapted to today's technology? The anxieties that underlie The Mothman Prophecies seem to reflect those of the times--the fears surrounding the Cold War, Eisenhower's "military-industrial complex," and big government. The Mothman Prophecies is a manifestation of the troubled times in which it was set. Today's "Mothman" or "Indrid Cold" might be very different creatures indeed.

Diane Schirf
15 April 2007.

This was a very fascinating read. It does not focus only on Mothamn sightings, but all the other strange events that were supposed to have happened. If you are looking for a book that will prove Mothman exists, I don't think this is the proper book for you. It is mainly about what went on from the first sighting of Mothman to the felling of the bridge. There were a lot of strange happenings during that time. I read this as "I'm presenting you with the information as to what heppened as I saw it and was involved in it, and you make up your mind as to whether its true or not".

I LOVED THE MOVIE BASED ON THIS BOOK SO I DECIDED TO BUY & READ THE BOOK FOR MYSELF. I THOUGHT I WOULD READ IT WHEN I WAS UP ALONE LATE ONE NIGHT AFTER MY HUSBAND HAD GONE TO BED. THAT WAS NOT SUCH A GOOD IDEA! THE BOOK SCARED ME MORE THAN THE MOVIE DID! I AM NOT SAYING THAT I ACCEPT EVERYTHING IN THIS BOOK AS PURE FACT, BUT I DO BELIEVE IN THE SUPERNATURAL AND IT CAN BE VERY, VERY SCARY. AT ANY RATE, WHETHER THIS BOOK IS TRUE OR NOT IT IS VERY INTERESTING & A VERY GOOD & EASY READ. I JUST DON'T RECCOMEND THAT YOU READ IT WHEN YOURE UP ALONE LATE AT NIGHT. IT MIGHT JUST GIVE YOU THE CREEPS LIKE IT DID ME. I WAS SPOOKED FOR THE REST OF THE NIGHT AND PART OF THE NEXT DAY! THE EVENTS IN THIS BOOK ARE VERY BIZAREE & CREEPY!!!!!! (JUST A FAIR WARNING!!!!) BUT LIKE I SAID IT WAS A VERY GOOD READ. 5 STARS.

Although I realize at the time it was written, politically correct descriptions of people were not the same as today, yet some of these things are too strong to be overlooked. The following descriptions are honestly found in the book:

negroids or colored person
describing a gay men as a sexual deviant
all small town cops have pot bellies
most contactees are poorly read (the West Virginian residents)
craggy foreign face
they were foreigners, you know, Japs or something
men in formal suits and ties were never seen in West Virginia before his arrival
dreary coal mining towns of Appalachia where he suggests the people are hillbillies
frail sparrowlike women I usually see in Appalachia
rapid fire language that sounded like Spanish
"cocoa" cola bottle


I give the book merits on the fierce and intense research Mr. Keel put into the book, and it is more entertaining than I thought it would be. However, other points that need to be identified are: He finds strange pieces of wood in people's phones, people who claim their phones are bugged, but he doesn't keep the strange object? He sits in his car and witness several UFO going overhead, with a film camera beside him, yet forgot to take any footage. A UFO comes within yards of him and some viewers and he shines a "spotlight" on them (so convenient he just happened to have one handy), the UFO takes off and the only thing he can say was "guess I blew it" when most people would be on their knees in astonishment. He claims to have kept these facts secret until the publishing of the book, so as to not create hoaxers. He waited to published the book after the bridge collapse?
If John Keel was selected to be a contactee as he claims. Then why did he get such laughable feedback from the aliens? Wouldn't the aliens be technologically advanced, much more than earthlings. Then how come they failed to know there are more than 9 planets in our solar system and other heavenly bodies in it as well. Why did the UFO's have "frosted glass" windows and bucket seats? Such a painstakingly tacky reminder of the period in which the book was written. A definite retro look. Why would the aliens refer to phonographic records? They could travel thru time but their most advanced technology was a record? The aliens photographed people and houses with huge cameras with huge lights on them, yet a mere 30 years later we have cameras the size of pencils. The part about the high starch diets touched a nerve as far as contactees craving starch, and when he explains the alien voices that sound like records being played too fast is because of the time contiuum they are challenged with was really well thought out..this book was written in the era of hallucinatory drugs and the acid craze..could explain a lot of the hallucinations. One person saw a "blob" floating over their house, yet no other description is added. And finally, the chapter about Princess Moon Owl is where the book starts to fall apart. But hold on, if you keep reading it is all worth it, when he gets to the bridge collapse, which is brilliantly written.
All I am saying is Mr. Keel admits that as a hobby he enjoys performing magic tricks and parlor games (aimed at deceiving people).
You think I am here to debunk him, but I am not. One of the events described in the book actaully happened to me and I had never known there were others who experienced it as well.

I still cant believe this book was turned into a movie. Though the movie didn't capture even 5% of the scariest moments in the book. This book could easily change your perspective on UFO's and monsters forever. Despite the fact that this could be John Keels most unpolished work it is perhaps the most ground breaking too.

If you are the type of person who can believe that scores of people would frantically contact local authority and the press to foolishly report a rare stork with red eyes then this book isn't for you. A 7-ft leathery gray humanoid with glowing red eyes and a huge wingspan that flies fast enough to chase cars down is not something dozens of people are mistaking for anything else.

I almost didn't buy this book years ago when I first heard about it. It just seemed too fantastic. When I finally picked it up I was stunned by all the 1st hand experiences of the author.

The first Wednesday after I read the book I looked outside my house for UFOs. An old school Cadillac rolled by and made a turn at the end of my block, which would force it to back track. The windows were black. Nothing else happened. When I got back inside I had a message from my best friend. He was somewhat frantic. He said: "Dude, I just heard a really weird UFO whirring sound outside of my house." His girlfriend heard it too, and she told him in an uncharacteristic manner: "better go tell your friend what just happened" I hadn't told him what I was reading (or anyone else) and I never had a serious discussions about UFO's with him before that event.

If you are looking for a great story that will really drag you into it, don't read this book. Lord help me I thought I would go crazy and only got through the first three chapters. There is not an ounce of structure to this. It's just a bunch of thoughts and "reports" of sightings of UFO's, "mothmen" and other oddities. I'm not sure if Keel intended for this to be a re-telling of things he believed really happened or if he honestly thought he was writing a novel. I can't take anymore, I give up and usually I'll read just about anything all the way through to give it a fair chance. All of these little scraps of sitings in no order whatsoever make me say... So what?!?!?!?!

The author claims the book is factual. My gut feeling is it's fictional. As fiction it is not well written. Just a bunch of short tales kind of mixed together.

If you watched the movie and found it interesting, then by all means pick up this book and see what the movie left out. Certainly there are topics and events which did not make it into the movie, yet when you read this book you think "how could this have been condensed into the movie?". There is just TOO much stuff happening not only in West Virginia but seemingly everywhere (UFOs, contactees, MIB, Mothman, livestock mutilations, possessions, prophecies, etc.). This is a great read. Reading a John Keel book is like watching a Quentin Tarantino movie...sure, it's jumpy but enjoyable and your attention is demanded. But it's worth the closer inspection because the events which Keel describes easily provoke contemplation on "alternate" levels. Whether you believe his loosely defined conclusions about the events or whether you think the events of this period are just LSD hippie hype and old school party-line confusion, this book will surely please. It's worth a read and a re-read and maybe more.

I really wanted THE MOTHMAN PROPHECIES because I thought that the story of the Mothman would be fascinating reading, a really intriguing narrative of the sightings of the tall, grayish man with wings and red eyes who could take off in flight straight up off the ground, an interesting examination of the myth and the legend. There is something to me very frightening about this type of legend, and I was eager to read the exploration of sightings around Point Pleasant, Va., in 1966 and 1967 before the Silver Bridge collapsed and nearly 40 area residents died in the tragedy. What a great tale could be told, I thought...

I am still waiting. This book is not well structured or told. It seems to be the dumping ground of every otherwordly event Keel has ever seen or heard of. There is little narrative arc here or suspense. Keel has the mistaken notion that loading the book with every bizarre occurence he's ever been told or witnessed gives him credibility, but it is actually the opposite. He and his "colleagues" saw so many UFOs and strange lights in the sky in West Virginia (and other places across the country) in the late 1960s, that one simply cannot believe that there isn't more corroboration of these sightings.

Keel does say that he doesn't believe in beings from other planets, but rather beings from a dimension outside of our own who like to make trouble for us, find things out about us, and sometimes warn us of things that are going to happen. Because of their inexperience with earth time, they often use out of date slang and drive old cars that are in mint condition and still smell new. For some unexplained reason, the "people" from this other dimension seem always to wear thick-soled shoes.

Keel as a true believer is a poor writer of a convincing book, as he often justifies a witnesses credibility by saying that they are respectable people, or some such qualifier. He anticipates, then, no need the reader might have to be convinced that thousands of sightings of UFOs and Mothman may need some evidentiary backup. This lack of the writer's disbelief and proof, the lack of any plot or arc and the muddled content of the book make this work a solid disappointment. Someone needs to let me know if the book that can be written about this ever is written.

Don't waste your time reading them...

They tell you absolutely nothing. Each entry contradicts the other.

Remember, humans write these things.

Let me set the record straight- love the book, hated the travesty of the movie. To compare the movie with the book is much like comparing ancient & modern Rome- there's a few remnants of the original here and there but not much else. This is a classic work that demonstrates how truly strange our world and minds are. From Keel's first published work, "Jadoo" onwards, I find an author that exemplifies a crisp journalistic style much like a paranormal Mickey Spillane that carries you along at an exciting pace. This is the gothic non-fictional novel of the post-modern world in which intrusions into ordinary reality remain the enigmas of a surreal universe.
If you can locate a copy of the Illuminet Press version with the Frank Frazetta cover, you will be rewarded by an insightful afterword by Keel that places much into perspective after the initial events of 1966-67. Highly recommended. This is one book I read every year, waiting for a rainy weekend to escape into the wonder of an eclectic unknown.

I enjoy reading about "unexplained phenomena". I really do. I love "real" ghost stories and the like. However, I prefer an author to take a very scientific stance, exhausting all possibilities. Keel does not. He's a "true believer" and that's the problem.

Somewhere in the book he supposes that this mysterious Mothman could have been a man on a hang-glider. "Wow," I thought. "That could almost be construed as logical." However, he IMMEDIATELY debunks that theory with a statement to this affect: "But hang-gliders were not very well known at that time."

*shaking my head*

Whatever...the man needed to become familiar with Occam's Razor.

This book is typical Keel--chock-full of anecdotes, skewed information, speculation, hoaxes (many of Keel's "weird" experiences in the case were jokes perpetrated by Gray Barker)--all presented as factual reporting.

"Mothman" does not exist. Several writers--most notably Joe Nickell--have thoroughly debunked the incident. But true facts have never stopped Keel.

I'm a fan of Keel's writings, but you have to take them with a grain of salt. This is not one of his best efforts, and it rankles me that he positions himself as a serious journalist.

Have I quit reading a book.
I made it to page 123 before I had to stop. I've waited years to read this, oh man was I disappointed.
I thought it would be an intelligent well written peice on the mothman mystery. I don't know what this was. Holy mackeral. i've never seen such bad writing. Someone else mentioned incoherent, tell me about it! This was all over the place. I had absolutely no clue was was going on in this book. Just crazy!

Just a few of my favourites:
" so horrified she dropped the small baby in her arms. The child began to cry, more insulted than hurt." what!? I'm thinking the kids was more hurt than insulted. This Keel dude is too much....

Talking about this "mysterious" guy Tiny who a witness said saw a wire running up his pant leg. and i quote
" was tiny wearing electric socks? or was he a wired android operated by remote control."
what???! pretty much where I stopped before my mind turned to mush

Although the movie was very well done for those who enjoyed a spooky and suspenseful story, the book however is not the movie. It seems that Hollywood took very few pieces from the book and turned it in to a great movie which is kind of the other way around from the usual book being better than the movie. This book is good if your a UFO buff only. It mentions the Mothman but other than that it was a very boring read as I expected to be reading about the same scenario as what I saw in the movie. I was extremely disappointed.

I like the book just because it was fun to read, but very skeptical about the way the writer admits he had seen ufo sightings night after night in chapter 10 of the book. My question is why in the world a guy like John Keel arms himself with only a flashlight and not a camera. He obviously sets himself up to see strange lights but does not bring a camera to capture the event. Unless he makes a book that has pictures for us to examine, and not hording all the evidence for himeself. Then I will have put him in the "Good story teller" catagory and not a "ufooligist". I must admit I am tired of all the hidden evidence about this matter, and I think we are all ready for the truth. If you want my opinion I just threw all his credibility in the bin. I must admit I really enjoyed this book.

This book was great! If you aren't sure if you believe in these tyes of things, you will after you read this! It'll make you look at strangers in your hometown with a whole new perspective. If you've ever had anything crazy happen with your telephone, this book will really make you wonder what happened! And it's true - the movie was horrible and has nothing at all to do with the book! Read this book and forget about the movie!

After watching the movie and being substantially moved by the piece, I decided to purchase the book and look further into the phenomeneon of the 'Mothman', and to be honest I was a little dissappointed.
Although able to go places the movie was not able, providing large amounts of data and witness reports of UFO activity and MIB appearances, it seemed to lack something. The title subject of the 'Mothman' was glazed over a bit and seemingly took a back seat to the other Phenomenon that Keel investigates.
I was able to move through the book at a rapid pace though, surprisingly helped by Keel's narative method of splitting the chapters into sub-chapters of no relationship. Keel does enough work to build the witness reports of those he interviews and his own eye-witness testimony, to a level by which one can only really believe them, crucial in this genre.
At the end of the day 'The Mothman Prophecies' was an entertaining read that certainly leaves the reader with more questions than answers, as every good book should do. If you are looking for 'truth' then perhaps look elsewhere but, highly recommended for cold, wet nights

Well for one thing, the book is pretty freakin' freaky. Aside from the fact that Keel often goes off on crazy tangents about how he thinks the world works, the book is pretty good. I'm not sure if all of this actually happened, but if it did then I'm sold!

This is a gripping book about the strange "mothman" encounters in West Virginia in the 1960s. If you have any interest in the paranormal you should definitely give this book a try. It is great entertainment, even if you're one of those skeptics who don't believe a word the author is saying. I wish the plot of the movie had been closer to the book.

Let me just start by saying that the " MOTHMAN PROPHECIES" is not a novel, nor is it a coherent story. It starts strong, just enough to draw you in, then it goes down the spectral energy crap hole. Were led to believe that Mr. Keel is a sensiable, unbiased investigator, when really he's a parinoid delusional whack. I'm only 15, and I don't buy a word of it!!! see the movie instead.

John Keel did an absolutely terrific job, researching, developing and organizing this story. I purchased the original release and read it the same day. Overwhelmed would be a good term to use here, the book encompassed all aspects of the case.
Was Mothman real, imaginary or a paranormal entity ? Did Mothman truly have something to do with the collapse of the Silver Bridge? And have we seen or heard the last of Mothman? Some of these answer you may find in "Mothman Prophecies" if you look hard enough. Easy, enjoyable read, better than the movie !

Upon my initial reading of this book one thought came to my mind: "confusing". There wasn't anything even remotely like a "stroy" going on, but rather a mishmash of facts, and experiences from a number of individuals related to the phenomenon known as the mothman, the MIB, and UFO encounters.

After having saw the film, I then took another chance to read it, and found it to be fascinating in the way that I believe that Keel had intended for it to be confusing (this is due to a scene in the film where one of the characters utters "We aren't supposed to know what they mean..."), and I give him the utmost respect for it. He has created a book that is both unsettling, and highly enjoyable (it reminds me of the feeling I got when I first read Burrough's "dope" manifesto "Naked Lunch")

This is one of those books where all things aren't supposed to make sense, and where you are supposed to get your own interpretation from the "prophecies" contained within. Whether a work of fiction, or non-fiction, "The Mothman Prophecies" is a fascinating read, and a good primer to the world of UFOs, MIB, and cryptozoology. I definitely recommend this to any fan of the paranormal.

If you're new to the paranormal and/or crytozoological studies, you should deffinately pick this up. Its light reading, so you won't have to constantly analyze if something is symbolic or not. Its written like an episode of "Law and Order", really. In the book, Keel relates events that he experienced, centered around the West Virginia town of Point Pleasant. Very rarely does Keel ever color the events with his view or interpritation of things. Usually he relates the facts and lets the reader come to any conclusions that need to be come to. This is very important, as usually books of the paranormal ilk are SATURATED with the authors view of what a specific event is or means. Overall, its highly enjoyable. If you are even remotely interested in paranormal phenemonons, this is a fantastic book to start with. Any conclusions you come to will be those of yourself based on the evidence provided, not because the author colored things to make it appear more one way than another. The only thing that could have made this book any better was maybe a deluxe edition that would include pictures of some of the reoccuring characters and scenes, such as Mrs. Hyre and the TNT area. Sometimes sketches of visiting entities are mentioned, it would have been awesome to see these sketches. There is a whole realm of possibilities for additional photographic illustrations to this book that could add more depth and realism. That is the only thing that could have made this book better, for what it is. However, this is just bonus material, none of it is needed to better understand the story, so there is no reason to mark down for such things not being included.

I don't know quite what to make of this book, because I don't know quite what to make of the events that occured in West Virginia (and Ohio and Long Island, among other places) in the late 60's. The story is probably well-known if you've seen the movie. The book does differ somewhat from the movie but this isn't exactly a linear tale. I did read that Keel was pleased with the results.

In brief, in the late 60's a lot of peculiar events took place in the area around the Ohio/West Virginia border centered around the town of Point Pleasant, WV. Most of the events involved sightings of the Mothman (whose name was coined from a Batman villain) but there were various other Men in Black types running around Point Pleasant too. Other events are too numerous to mention and seem to involve lots of peculiar folk showing up on people's doorsteps and beeping phonecalls and maybe an abduction or two. The events culminate in the collapse of the Silver Bridge. Despite some criticisms of the book (the reason for the Bridge collapse had a scientific explanation), Keel does not suggest that the tragedy was caused by the Mothman, et al. He simply suggests that these visitors knew about it and purposefully misled him and others. How did they know? Keel thinks they are time-travelling visitors from another dimension that come here for purposes unknown and maybe unknowable, although possibly just because it amuses them. It all sounds fairly ridiculous when you try to explain it. Keel seems reasonable and he's well-respected by his peers (his peers, granted, probably including some rather flaky folks.)

The book is well-documented and not especially sensationalistic. I actually grew tired of the repeated stories of odd occurences at crossroads and a seemingly endless parade of unexplained lights in the sky. It is short and worth a read if your interest was especially piqued by the movie or you just have an interest in this sort of thing, in which case adjust the rating upwards. Otherwise, this book probably isn't for you. Do be prepared to be haunted by Keel's final words (a quote from Charles Fort, a famed student of the unexplainable): "If there is a universal mind, must it necessarily be sane?"

I'll admit it, I didn't have a clue what was going on in this book (which claims to be real, but is obviously a work of fiction), nor did I really have much of a reason to.

UFOs...Men in black...Mothmen...Abductees...government coverups...sightings...It's all here, and regardless makes no sense whatsoever.

I actually walked into this thinking it was going to be great, that there would be a wonderful story based upon the legend of the mothman, but no I was bombarded with 266 pages of "research" having no really meaning, or thesis. Honestly, I say avoid this like the plague.

The movie was good but forget about connecting that flick to this book. This book was first written in 1975 - NEARLY 30 YEARS AGO! If you have ever read "true story" UFO books before, then you have probably come across a lot of recent material that seems more plausible like "The Gulf Breeze Sightings by Ed Walters" and "Fire in the Sky: The Walton Experience by Travis Walton" but both of these books have since had their day - they have been pretty much debunked and are widely known as absolute hoaxes, if not downright fabrications at best. After 30 years, The Mothman Prophecies is still a SOLID story because of the amount of witnesses to the events, biological medical evidence and the final catastrophe that ended the phenomena. The only case that debunkers have against this story is that the Mothman could be an owl or a large species of crane, but eyewitnesses deny that it is any such animal.

In fact the Mothman is not part of any category of cryptozoology. Much like the chupacabra, it is a zoological impossibility so the only possible realm of existence for this thing is genetic experimentation, an apparition or extraterrestrial. The latter category is what the Mothman falls into and this book is all about just that.

Keel went to Point Pleasant West Virginia in 1966 and 1967 to investigate a series of unexplained happenings that the towns people where experiencing at the time. Most importantly was the sighting of a creature that could only be described as some sort of a flying monster. This creature, dubbed the Mothman, was new to Point Pleasant but not to the history books and so Keel went digging around to see what he could find. While doing this he unearthed an astonishing amount of information on this mythical beast. At the same time there was some UFO activity in the area and Keel was the one who made the connection between the Mothman and the UFOs.

Essentially "The Mothman Prophecies" is a book that documents and reports on a HUGE UFO FLAP in Point Pleasant, West Virginia. Coupled with this event where strange lights in the sky, encounters with the unknown, men in black, psychic phenomena, cattle mutilations and an impeding of Keels investigation by possible secret government agencies. Keel is only one of many people that where exposed to these events and although the book must be treated skeptically, it does open your mind because there is simply too much activity taking place to call it a hoax or work of fiction. Various people seemed to be attacked by the Mothman. Even an ambulance used for blood donation was chased and attacked by the thing. In short this is an excellent UFO book that still stands the test of time.

For years we have been waiting for its re-release and the movie has helped spur that along. When you compare this book to other true stories about UFOs you really begin to appreciate its value. I have read a lot of UFO books and books about strange encounters but this is the one that really got me gripped from start to finish. After reading this book it is very hard to see it as anything less than real and truthful. "Occam's Razor" tells us that in explaining a thing no more assumptions should be made than are necessary - but when applied to this book you must explain how everything occurred in this one region to so many people. Keel not only researches the Mothman but documents everything that happened at Point Pleasant during that fateful period of time.

It is a whopping story that is highly intriguing, absolutely baffling, horrific and extremely hard to dismiss as a work of fiction. It is not until you see the Mothman documentary that is on the movie DVD that you actually get to put faces to the people in this book and hear them talk about their experiences. This is first rate investigative reporting and an amazing story to boot that can't simply be dismissed as all in Keel's mind, or a hoax or fabrication. Strange things went on in Point Pleasant, West Virginia and the people where scared. Then it ended with a massive tragedy and the supernatural phenomena stopped. There is no doubt that something completely out-of-this-world occurred at Point Pleasant and you should not miss reading about it.

Exceptionally riveting journalism!

As someone who has enjoyed reading about UFOs and other paranormal events while maintaining an "open-minded skepticism" about them, I was looking forward to reading this "classic" 1975 book about the bizarre events in and around Point Pleasant, West Virginia in 1966 and 1967. I had read a few brief summaries of the "Mothman" sightings in other books, and they had usually referred to Keel's book as the "standard" work on the subject. After seeing the "Mothman Prophecies" film (which is excellent, by the way) I bought a copy of this book. Unfortunately, I was greatly disappointed in the "Mothman Prophecies". This appears to be one of those rare occasions where the movie is actually better than the book. Unlike the film, Keel's book has an annoying tendency to go off on tangents - he spends the entire book simply wandering from one story to the next, with no overall theme or focus to tie the stories together. Keel reminds me of a person who starts one story, then breaks off in the middle and launches into a second, unrelated story, then breaks off the second story and starts telling a third unrelated story, and so on. Much less than half of the book actually deals with the "Mothman" sightings in Point Pleasant. The rest of the book consists of Keel's rather wild-eyed speculations and theories (which he never bothers to support with anything resembling credible evidence) of how UFOs, demons, ghosts, the "Mothman", "Men In Black", etc. are all related. Keel repeatedly ridicules the notion that UFOs might be alien spacecraft, and instead he makes the dubious argument that UFOs are "projections" from "energy beings" from a "parallel universe or dimension". Keel recounts several stories of "Mothman" sightings, creepy phone calls to residents of Point Pleasant, and the like, but he rarely offers any evidence that the stories - or the people telling them - have any credibility. A couple of examples from the book illustrate how difficult it is to consider Keel to be a serious researcher: in one passage he writes that he helped a couple to "contact" a UFO by telling them to go outside their home at 9 pm one night and shine a flashlight in the direction of anything "unusual-looking" in the night sky. Lo and behold, writes Keel, a large orange UFO suddenly appeared over the couple's home, and loud beeps came out of their TV set. Keel then proudly announces that he has given this same "insane" (his word) advice to many other people, and almost invariably something similar happens: doorbells ring for no reason, UFOs appear over their home, etc. It's nice to know that Keel has discovered a foolproof method for contacting UFOs. In another section Keel describes driving down a lonely road near Point Pleasant and feeling absolutely terrified along the same stretch of highway. After some "experimentation" (which involved nothing more than walking back and forth over the stretch of road where he feels terrified), Keel announces that his terror was caused by a "beam of ultrasonic waves". Given that he has no equipment to check for an "ultrasonic wave", I'm still wondering how he came to that conclusion. As for the notion that Keel is believable because he does "on-site" research, simply repeating other people's stories as the absolute truth doesn't qualify as "research". Most credible researchers of the paranormal do background checks to try and verify the witnesses' claims, but not John Keel. Instead, he seems to believe that every person he spoke with in 1966 and 1967 is telling the absolute truth, and no further investigation is required. And the more outlandish and eccentric the story, the more Keel seems to trust the "witness". I have read numerous books on UFOs and other strange phenomena which have thorough research and references to back up the writer's claims. Do NOT be fooled into thinking that Keel is a serious-minded and objective researcher, as this book is anything but "serious-minded" or objective. When Keel does manage to focus on the "Mothman" sightings in Point Pleasant, the book improves considerably. However, Keel's penchant for going off on tangents with one unrelated story after another, and his insistence in focusing upon himself and his theories as much as the "Mothman" sightings themselves, made this book a real disappointment. If you want to see a first-rate account of the "Mothman" sightings in West Virginia, then buy the "Mothman Prophecies" Special Edition DVD set and watch the excellent "Searching for the Mothman" documentary contained therein. This fifty-minute documentary, which aired on the FX cable channel, is much more believable and realistic than Keel's book.

John Keel's ideas (now much repeated by the paranormal crowd) center around a sort of deconstructionist/quantum physics attitude applied to supernatural phenomenon.
I like the creepiness, and I like how from the very beginning, Keel describes that creepiness is relative.
All manner of weird things happen to poor John on his quest to find the Mothman, a large, winged being haunting Point Pleasant, W.Va., just across the river from Ohio. The process of investigation leads to Men In Black, hairy hominids, ufos and other odd flying machines and Keel leads us to believe that this bizarre process happens with every such investigation. Wild!
The other great thing about the Mothman Prophecies is that the story is an arc with a beginning, a middle, and a tragic (and frightening) end. Unlike many paranormal books, Keel dosen't wade into the material as a believer. He is in disbelief even as he reveals his strange facts.

It is worth noting that Keel wrote about Mothman just a few years before this book came out. A chapter in "The Complete Guide To Mysterious Beings" (1970) is devoted to the Point Pleasant phenomena. While Keel describes the various interviews he conducted with witnesses, at this point he doesn't involve himself in the story at all. He never indicates that he experienced any of these things himself. It was only later that he apparently had the idea of crafting a Mothman story with himself as the central character.
Even more notable, in "Mysterious Beings," Keel draws no connections between Mothman and the bridge collapse. In fact, he specifically says, "It is completely erroneous to blame the collapse of the rickety old Silver Bridge on flying saucers or 'Men In Black.'"
This represents direct evidence (something Keel never seems to have) that we are simply not dealing with a researcher or a journalist, as Keel so often claims to be. He is a clever storyteller. Nothing more. I know the stories seem much more exciting when you think they're true, and in the middle of the night, even I get creeped out thinking about Mothman. But the story is flimsy and transparent when held up to the light of day.
I loved the movie though!

I bought and reread this book that I read years ago. I still liked it. If you want a Novel or Liked the movie you might not like this book. The book isn't written that way and novel reads. you are a novel reader you may find it harder to follow and get lost by the end. It isn't a smooth read beause it's written more real life. Real life isn't a smooth read. If you want a first hand account by a investigator who was trying not to loose objectivity then you will like it. The people who might not like it are those readers who con't see a connection between UFO, Bigfoot or other strange creatures, Ghost & poltergeist phenomena. You won't see the writer trying to comunticate with undead spirits or make peace with extraterestirals. You will find an investigator who noticed that ufo sights seem to corispond with poltergiest and other supernatural activity.