Mothman on My Mind: My Winged-Thing Scare at Home

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Gather ’round the campfire, pets. That’s right, settle in nice and comfy. I have a bit of a spooky story to share. And there’s no better place to share it than on All Hallows Eve Night with a fire blazing.

All set? Okay, good. Here’s the tale of my winged-thing scare at home…

PROLOGUE: THE MOTHMAN INCIDENT

As movies go, The Mothman Prophecies wasn’t as good as it could’ve been. The acting was fine, the incident it was based on was true and creepy, but that’s the problem. Sometimes something gets lost in translation when trying to manipulate fact into fiction.

Everyone we saw the movie with agreed it was only so-so. (We being my husband, myself and a couple of friends.) It was a bit slow in parts, too artsy in others, and kind of anticlimactic overall.

However, it still managed to freak me out nonetheless.

Before seeing the movie I’d never heard of the Mothman. I rushed home and started scouring the Internet for more information. When I learned that, yes, the other Mothman incidents alluded to in the movie, and the one based on Mothman encounters in West Virginia in the 1960s, really happened…I couldn’t get it off my mind.

A couple weeks later I took Murph out for his right-before-bedtime pee pee walk. It was shortly after nine. Slightly chilly if I recall right. (We lived in Jacksonville, Florida, at the time. It rarely got truly “cold” there, even in winter –which is what time of the year it was.)

We never went very far. Maybe a few houses up or down depending on which direction Murph picked. We were about two houses away from ours when I became aware of a sound over my right shoulder. I stopped and listened, then realized it sounded an awful lot like flapping.

“Mothman! Mothman!” my mind shouted.

I turned to see something large and dark with wings outstretched flying right towards me!

I screamed, tugged on Murph’s leash and was about to bolt because I was sure it was Mothman and he was after me. But that’s when the winged-thing passed by…low and near enough I could see it was only an owl.

I started giggling, then full on started laughing at myself. I’d heard the owls at night around our home, and had caught a glimpse once or twice of one on a wire, but I’d never seen one flying like that until then.

After that, until we moved away in 2005 (this incident happened in 2002), I’d often spy my owl friend (or one of his compatriots) on nightly walks. When we got to Nashville, I missed seeing my owl buddy(ies). I’m sure there are owls here, but there are woods all around our neighborhood. I think that’s where the owls prefer to stay.

Or they did, until recently…

1. THE MYSTERIOUS CREATURE PERCHED ON MY ROOFTOP

Recently, again on a Murph last-pee-pee-of-the-day walk, I spied something on our roof as we were headed home.

At first I wasn’t sure. I thought it was just my mind playing tricks on me. I’ve been watching a lot of Destination Truth and such…I was simply letting my imagination get the best of me. It was probably some kind of shadow. Nothing was really there.

But when it all of a sudden rose up and scampered across the back side of the house…I freaked!

“What the hell was that?”

The way it had moved…it was hard to tell exactly what it had done, but my mind interpreted its movements as a kind of crawling/running and then…where did it go? Was it still up there?

I raced around the back of the house with Murph, but nothing was there. Not in the backyard and not on the roof.

Maybe it was only my imagination, I thought as I headed inside. I didn’t dare tell Wayne. I knew what he’d say, “That’s it! No more Ghost Hunters, Destination Truth, or spooky movies for you!”

2. MOTHMAN INCIDENT DÉJÀ VU

Then, just a few nights ago, it happened all over again.

The walking with Murph. The sound of flapping. Turning to see something large with wings outstretched flying at me.

“Oh dear God! This time it really is Mothman!”

Nope. It was an owl again…and I watched it soar past me and up onto our rooftop –where it perched in about the same spot as I’d seen the mysterious creature.

As I did during the first owl incident, I was struck by the giggles.

Murph and I headed up the walk to the front door. The owl was still perched on the roof above.

“Hey Mr. Owl. You gave me quite a scare…and a laugh. It’s good to see you, though. I like owls. You’re welcome here anytime.”

To my surprise, he didn’t fly away. He just looked at me.

“Have a nice night,” I said as I headed inside.

3. THE CASE OF THE MYSTERY POOP SOLVED!

The next morning Wayne and I got up to walk Murph together. We found something on our steps, something that we’d been finding recently but didn’t know what it was.

“Damn! There’s another one! What is this fucking stuff?” Wayne asked. (Pardon the French, but Wayne’s mouth is often colorful!)

I looked down and saw what I’d come to call the “fatty poo.” Lately, both on our front steps and on the railing of our back deck, we’d been finding these huge pellets about two to two and a half inches long/an inch or inch and a half wide that we knew must be poo –we just didn’t know what from!

But I suddenly realized what it was: owl poop!

I’d never seen any before, but something told me it had to be. So I looked it up, and sure enough, I found images similar to the fatty poos we’d been finding.

So now every time I find one I’ll smile. It’ll remind me that while I might not see them like I did in Jax, owls are around here nonetheless!