News Mothman, Bigfoot and Little Green Men: the mysterious cryptids of the Ohio Valley By Kaitlin Thorne, Ohio Valley ReSource, Katie Myers, Liam Niemeyer, Ohio Valley ReSource, Justin Hicks Published October 31, 2022 at 8:00 PM EDT Facebook Bluesky Twitter LinkedIn Email Kaitlin Thorne Mysterious creatures are lurking deep in the heart of the Ohio Valley. At least, so say generations of people who have passed down folktales of the unknown.The region is rife with stories, festivals and museums dedicated to “cryptids,” that is, animals or entities that some believe exist, but haven’t been accepted by mainstream science.Some say the Ohio Valley is a hotbed for shadowy creatures, citing the hills, twisting roads and deep caves filled with darkness and possibilities.Jack Byers, of Dayton, Ohio, believes that the isolation of the communities in Appalachia may be responsible for the noted sightings.“I think it’s the small communities, something happens and the small communities just rally around it,” Byers said.Growing up, cryptids and monster movies were a bonding point between Byers and his grandfather. That interest led him to celebrate his 18th birthday in September at a festival celebrating one of the most famous cryptids of the region: the Mothman.MothmanA crescent moon hung in the ink-stained sky in October 1966, barely lighting the road to the abandoned munitions plant in Point Pleasant, West Virginia. Faye DeWitt Leport and her siblings were driving past the plant on their way home from a movie. She remembers a sudden thud, as a creature with glowing red eyes dropped onto the hood of their car. “We were scared of course. Yelling, everybody, don’t move, don’t move,” Leport said. “Everybody shut up. And the other two were bawling and crying back there, the younger ones. We were just telling them to be quiet, don’t do anything to make the thing kick out the glass and come through there.”Leport describes the creature as having glowing red eyes and down feathers all over its body. She said it crouched down and stared at them through the window for around five minutes before taking flight.“It just jumped and opened up the prettiest, biggest wings and then just flew and we could see the moon, it was like a crescent moon and we could see it, just as it flew off,” Leport said. Leport’s brother went back to the area the next day and she claims that the area was cordoned off by the military and police. The family never saw the Mothman again.But the Mothman continued to be seen by others in the area over the next year, and local news began to take notice. Reporter Mary Hyre wrote what may be the first printed record of the creature for the Athens Messenger in Athens, Ohio. “Winged, Red-Eyed ‘Thing’ Chases Point Couples Across Countryside” ran on the front page on Nov. 16, 1966. The Mothman is often associated with the 1967 collapse of the Silver Bridge in Point Pleasant that killed 46 people. The 1975 novel, “The Mothman Prophecies” by John Keel linked the two and the story was later turned into a popular 2002 film of the same name, starring Richard Gere.Theories of what the Mothman vary. Some believe it is an alien, others a government experiment as it was seen around a military munitions plant. Wildlife biologist Robert L. Smith at West Virginia University told reporters at the time he believed it was a large sandhill crane, a bird nearly as tall as a grown human with a seven-foot wingspan and red circles around its eyes.The Mothman’s true nature doesn’t matter much to Leport, who describes herself as a Christan. She just knows seeing the Mothman affirmed her belief that we are not alone in the universe.“I knew there is something out there besides us. What, I don’t know, I don’t care to speculate, I say God’s got everything in his hands and he created everything. What’s to say he ain’t got other life things on other planets. They’re all his, he created them,” Leport said.Goblins, Brownies, and Little PeopleIt’s 5 o’clock somewhere, but in Letcher County, Kentucky, it’s still about 4:30. Nonetheless, Doug Adams is doing what he often does – nursing an afternoon beer at the local bar and telling tales.Adams is, he says proudly, one of the longest-tenured teachers in Letcher County. He teaches art at Letcher County Central High School and is a big lover of folklore, just like his father was. He spoke at length about the strange things — shapes in the woods, mysterious balls of light — he’s seen over his time growing up in eastern Kentucky. But one of the strangest were the little people.“There was little brownies,” said Adams. “Little bitty people that lived in those cliffs around the area here.”It’s said the little people live in the ridges, deep in the limestone caves of Pine Mountain. Some call them “goblins” — so did a group of documentarians who once attempted to summon them in Hellier, Kentucky. But Adams always called them “brownies”, like his father did.“Oh, my dad, he was big into those kinds of things,” sai...