At the heart of West Virginia’s most famous cryptid lies a difficult question: How does a town build a thriving tourism industry around a legend rooted in real tragedy?
That question took center stage Feb. 12, at the Shepherdstown Opera House, where The Mothman Prophecies was screened followed by a discussion led by Dr. Benjamin Bankhurst, director of Shepherd University’s Center for Appalachian Studies and Communities, and Chris Rizer, executive director of Main Street Point Pleasant.
While the 2002 film leans into suspense and supernatural mystery, the conversation that followed focused less on glowing red eyes and more on economics, ethics and community memory.
“It’s not a pleasant story,” Bankhurst told the audience. “So why are we doing it, and how do we do it responsibly?”
The discussion examined how the Mothman legend has evolved from reported sightings in 1966 into a modern tourism engine for Point Pleasant, a town still marked by the Dec. 15, 1967, Silver Bridge collapse that killed 46 people.
According to Rizer, Mothman is no longer just folklore. It is, in his words, a “million-dollar industry.”
He estimated that about 270,000 visitors travel to Point Pleasant each year to see the Mothman Museum, take photos with the Mothman statue and attend the annual Mothman Festival. That traffic, he said, has helped generate approximately $30 million in downtown investment, with 15 buildings currently under renovation.
“All because 270,000 people a year are coming to see Mothman,” Rizer said.
Rizer explained that the investment includes private redevelopment of downtown buildings, new businesses and long-term renovation projects aimed at revitalizing the town’s historic Main Street. For a community that experienced decades of economic decline following the bridge collapse and subsequent traffic rerouting, tourism has become a key driver of renewal.
But the economic revival carries emotional weight.
The original Mothman sightings occurred near an abandoned munitions site north of Point Pleasant in 1966. Witnesses reported seeing a large winged figure with glowing eyes. About a year later, during rush hour just days before Christmas, the Silver Bridge collapsed into the Ohio River.
The tragedy devastated the town and left lasting scars. Many current residents still have personal connections to the 46 people who died.
“Not everyone in town was happy about it,” Rizer said of the rise of Mothman tourism. “This was all still a little too fresh for everybody.”
When the Mothman statue was installed in 2003 and the annual festival gained traction, some residents objected to tying the town’s identity to a legend associated in the public imagination with the bridge disaster. Churches criticized early promotional efforts, and families connected to the collapse expressed concern about commercialization.
That tension formed the core of the Opera House discussion.
Bankhurst described the issue as a form of dark tourism, in which visitors are drawn to sites associated with tragedy or mystery. He said communities must carefully balance economic opportunity with historical integrity.
“How do you reap the benefits of this fascination,” he asked, “while also respecting the families who lost loved ones during that tragedy?”
Rizer outlined how Point Pleasant attempts to maintain that balance.
He said tourism messaging intentionally avoids directly linking Mothman to the Silver Bridge collapse. The Mothman Museum focuses on eyewitness accounts, media coverage and pop culture interpretations of the legend. Visitors interested in learning more about the engineering failure and the victims are directed across the street to the Point Pleasant River Museum, which houses artifacts, reports and memorial exhibits dedicated to the collapse.
Every year on Dec. 15, the town holds a public memorial ceremony. The names of the 46 victims are read aloud, and bells are rung in remembrance.
“We make it a point that we commemorate the collapse,” Rizer said, “even though Mothman is our main attraction.”
Bankhurst also placed the discussion within a broader state context. West Virginia has made tourism a priority in recent years, particularly as nearby metropolitan areas such as Washington, D.C., and Pittsburgh continue to grow. Interest in Appalachian folklore has expanded beyond local audiences, with cryptids such as Mothman becoming symbols of regional identity.
“Mothman in particular has become kind of a stamp of West Virginia identity,” Bankhurst said.
The film may have drawn viewers in with mystery, but the discussion grounded the legend in reality. Behind the statue, the festival and the museum stands a community still negotiating how its story is told, and how it honors the past while building its future.
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