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The Mothman Prophecies

3.48 of 5 stars 3.48 · rating details · 1,008 ratings · 137 reviews

West Virginia, 1966. For thirteen months the town of Point Pleasant is gripped by a real-life nightmare that culminates in a strategy that makes headlines around the world. Strange occurrences and sightings, including a bizarre winged apparition that becomes known as the Mothman, trouble this ordinary American community. Mysterious lights are seen moving across the sky. Do

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Paperback, 272 pages

Published February 18th 2002 by Tor Books (first published 1975)

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Jan 04, 2013 Mike (the Paladin) rated it 2 of 5 stars

In 1967 I was dating a girl from WV. She was very aware of the Silver Bridge disaster, so I was very aware of it also. Of course if she had been very aware of pink elephants in sweat clothes I would have been to. High school and "love" ain't it great? She was also interested in "esoteric literature" and as it happened I was to...and this time I had been interested in it before I got interested in her. Over the years that we were together we read a lot of this type of book, including Keel's earli...more

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Mar 01, 2008 Joshua rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: my-mysterious-universe

The book was pretty scary...veracity not withstanding. I like to look at it up on the bookshelf. It's a creepy title staring down at me, the haunting sound of fiddles off in the distance. Sometimes when I stare at this book for a while I get very hungry. Yet still scared and hungry in combination.

You might even say I get "Scungry". While reading this book on the toilet, my phone rang and and a disembodied voice on the other end screeched "Your in the bathroom aren't you?"

Turns out it was my mom...more

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Jan 22, 2008 Will rated it 2 of 5 stars

I'm giving this book two stars (rather than just one) because of the seemingly unintentional hilarity of it as well as its psychological depth. John Keel is clearly both delusional and megalomaniacal, and this book chronicles what appears to be his descent into madness.

My favorite parts are the ones in which he goes out to an abandoned road at night to commune with the Mothman BY HIMSELF, with no witnesses or cameras to prove it.

So yeah, this is a weird one. I'd be lying if I said I didn't get...more

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Aug 05, 2011 Randy rated it 5 of 5 stars

Books about the paranormal I never find to be entirely satisfying; you get teased and left to make up your own mind. I get drawn to this kind of material for some reason, always hoping to get some answers, to figure it out, to fit this into my theistic worldview. A year ago I got my first taste of satisfaction, from the book "Lights in the sky and little green men", in which the authors concluded that residual UFO's, the ones that cannot be explained away, are in fact real, but are not physical...more

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Nov 15, 2009 Darrell rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: reviewed

While I didn't buy that this was based on a true story, I did enjoy the movie, so I thought I'd read the book. However, the book has almost nothing to do with the movie. The Mothman barely makes an appearance and there isn't really any narrative structure. Instead of "based on a true story" the book should have "a series of unrelated anecdotes" on the cover.

John Keel lists numerous contactee stories from people all over the world and attempts to connect them. He claims that similarities between...more

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May 18, 2013 Renee Pinkston rated it 5 of 5 stars

A good friend handed me this book one night at his house and told me to take a look at it. I am usually weary when someone does this, but I put that aside and told myself that I would read it. If you know me, I am generally a big chicken when it comes to reading about things that are “based on a true story”, especially when it comes to two topics that I do not like: bigfoot and aliens. At first, I was okay because I figured that this book about would about the Mothman right…wrong! Aliens!

Keel’s...more A good friend handed me this book one night at his house and told me to take a look at it. I am usually weary when someone does this, but I put that aside and told myself that I would read it. If you know me, I am generally a big chicken when it comes to reading about things that are “based on a true story”, especially when it comes to two topics that I do not like: bigfoot and aliens. At first, I was okay because I figured that this book about would about the Mothman right…wrong! Aliens!

Keel’s writing style is highly readable; he makes you feel like you have known him for a bit so he trusts you and that you are having a face to face conversation with a man telling you a story. When reading a work of nonfiction, this is hard to find. I have read my fair share of non-fiction pieces in the past (and still continue to do so for school) and this is a problem that I have found with so many of those pieces. They just come off as dry and boring. Keel’s work is the complete opposite of this!

One part that I really did enjoy however, was Keel's discussion on what Forteans are and how he views these visitors that people have been seeing. In general, Forteans are beings that cannot be explained; so they are the paranormal and/or supernatural beings that we come into contact with. They are named so from some scholar...this wasn't really explained well. I did google this just to make it was legit and it did hold some water. Keel then goes on to state that these visitors and UFO's are not from outer space or another planet, but rather another dimension or realm. This makes so much sense to me because it is part of my own basic belief system that we (humans and the world we know) exists in one dimension that is constantly butting up against and coming into contact with others. At those points of weakness/contact, gaps are created and things can come through. This last part is not one that Keel really discusses, but does elude to the idea of specific spots or areas where things can come through. He generally states that Point Pleasant, WV was one of those "spots" and is what allowed the Mothman to come into contact with people, as well as the Men in Black, and UFO's.
This book made me paranoid, extremely. In many cases that Keel discusses, I felt like they could happen to anyone, anywhere. He is heavy on talk about “aliens” and UFO’s and not so much the Mothman himself. This was a fault that I found in a book with such a title. It could have been two completely separate books I think. After reading this, I am not looking over my shoulder a little more, watching the stars a little more, and studying people to see if they have extremely long fingers.

If you want something that will creep you out and make you think twice about answering telephones and the door late at night, I would recommend reading this book at some point. Just don’t do it alone, in the dark, or by a phone.
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Mar 03, 2011 Adamantium rated it 4 of 5 stars

I am a believer in the Mothman. The '60s were a trying time for Point Pleasant, West Virginia, and John A. Keel's book is filled with many stories that clarify things left untouched in the 2001 movie.

In this book, he shares his personal experiences in Point Pleasant and at other times in his UFOlogy career. The way he searches for the Mothman is quite amusing, and a tad bit ridiculous. Also, he seems to connect too many incidents to the huge theories of extraterrestrial visitors, including the...more

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Jun 14, 2010 Ben Loory rated it 4 of 5 stars

this is a fascinating book. it's got nothing to do with the movie (which was scary as hell, i'm not putting it down); it's not a novel in any normal sense; nor is it exactly non-fiction (as i'm sure john keel would agree). it's more like a glimpse into a possible universe, a possible way of seeing... if you let it, maybe the world works this way... or maybe it works this way anyway... or maybe just if you're nuts. in any case, it's funny and frightening and eminently readable and quite well-writ...more

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May 09, 2011 Joey rated it 1 of 5 stars

What a disappointing book. After watching the movie and reading online about the Mothman phenomenon of Point Pleasant, I was expecting a very detailed journalistic look at the strange phenomenon that happened.
Firstly, Keel claims in the start of the book that he takes a scientific approach to study and does not base any of his observations on pop culture notions. However, he often makes assumptions in the book of aliens and other phenomenon with little or no proof other than witness testimony.
I...more

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Dec 07, 2010 Donald rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010, shorts

The movie of the same name, starring Richard Gere, is a very focused work. Kudos should be showered on the screenwriter(s) for pulling off such a fantastic film from John's book. What was culled from John's work made an excellent story. The viewer should pay attention to some of the subtleties within the film which capture the real weirdness inherent in the story. For instance, watch the mirror action in Richard Gere's hotel room.

The book itself is not a novelized version of the movie, it's not...more The movie of the same name, starring Richard Gere, is a very focused work. Kudos should be showered on the screenwriter(s) for pulling off such a fantastic film from John's book. What was culled from John's work made an excellent story. The viewer should pay attention to some of the subtleties within the film which capture the real weirdness inherent in the story. For instance, watch the mirror action in Richard Gere's hotel room.

The book itself is not a novelized version of the movie, it's not a novel at all. It reports a series of occurances. The two are worlds apart in story line and experience. John does not adhere to a timeline. Instead he chose to adhere to an idea, a concept, or a person and run with it. It sounds a little wonkier than it actually is. John makes it easy enough to follow—just don't zone off to another thought process about feeding your cat while reading or you will fall behind.

John starts this effort in West Virginia, setting the stage which is Point Pleasant in November of 1967. The Mothman (which seems to start this whole thing off) is seven feet tall, black or dark gray, winged like a moth, with a nondescript face and glowing red eyes. When it flies, it merely glides (sometimes chasing a car at a hundred miles per hour)—no one has witnessed it flapping its wings. And that is the first thing I noticed that was out of sync with our perception of reality in regards to all this. It does not flap its wings. Idiosyncracies such as this abound.

Instead of dress shoes, the MIB always seem to be wearing thick rubber-souled shoes that sound like sneakers(with a wavy pattern left in muddy tracks). These visitors from the multiverse never seem to get it quite right, bumbling their way through time like stoner high-schoolers in a B movie comedy.

John mentions utility-worker/posers wearing black pants and checked shirts which have me envisioning jockeys at the race track. They (the visitors) never seem to get the panel truck right either.

The idea that these visitors can know and reveal things over phone lines as if they are sitting next to and reading the mind of the party at the other end is both—a little unsettling and interesting.

The players in this set of occurances are routinely manipulated with phantom phone calls, memory lapses, hallucinatory episodes, time shifts and more. John makes every effort to get it all down in these pages while trying to remain a stoic accountant of the facts as he sees them.

At the end of reading this book I'm left with a sense of wonder, nearly child-like awe, at the possibilities which abound if even a part of this whole thing is true. Apropriately, he ends the book with a quote from Charles Fort: "If there is a universal mind, must it be sane?"

I'm glad I read this book, if not for any other reason than its entertainment value. It is a memorable work. It is also a fitting read for one who wishes to read about the multiverse.(less)

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Aug 05, 2011 Scott Meesey rated it 1 of 5 stars

I'm actually surprised at the number of positive reviews of this book. Here's why:

0.5/5 stars because I feel obligated to give it something.

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. "...more

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Feb 24, 2011 Supernatural Book Club rated it 4 of 5 stars

As a life long fan of science fiction and fantasy, reading real people's accounts of strange beings and flying objects was fascinating. Keel does a great job of remaining objective and not inserting his opinion or interpretation into the accounts, he tells them as he heard them, as fact. Whether or not you as the reader believe everything in the book as fact is another story. Either way though, for anyone who likes this kind of stuff I'd highly recommend this book. Without it we wouldn't have "T...more

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Mar 25, 2011 John rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The book came my way after I saw the movie, starring Richard Gere. I’m including both versions in this review as I feel the movie’s the better of the two: a sharper and more focused retelling of the accounts leading up to and including the Silver Bridge tragedy on the Ohio River, between Gallipolis, Ohio, and Point Pleasant, West Virginia, in 1967.
How much readers believe of the mystery surrounding the Mothman encounters and sightings depends on how open-minded they are.
The book is a catalogue...more The book came my way after I saw the movie, starring Richard Gere. I’m including both versions in this review as I feel the movie’s the better of the two: a sharper and more focused retelling of the accounts leading up to and including the Silver Bridge tragedy on the Ohio River, between Gallipolis, Ohio, and Point Pleasant, West Virginia, in 1967.
How much readers believe of the mystery surrounding the Mothman encounters and sightings depends on how open-minded they are.
The book is a catalogue of various sightings and experiences of not only the Mothman, but also a wide variety of paranormal phenomena, including angels, demons, alien visitations, mutilated animals, accounts of UFO sightings, testimonies from witnesses, including several who have been approached by the “Men in Black” – among them the enigmatic and indefinable Indrid Cold. Several witness were afflicted by a strange conjunctivitis, having seen “something” and been exposed to an energy that left them injured. Many of the Mothman witnesses share a mindset in common: what they saw frightened them, they don’t feel privileged to have seen it and they hope they never see it again.
The fact that people witnessed and experienced this phenomenon can’t be repudiated; there are similar accounts from all over the world and at different times throughout history.
The movie is fabulously intense, eerie and atmospheric with excellent performances from all the actors. It’s a mesmerizing story about the blurring of our perception of the natural and supernatural world, where the “sensitive” among us may glimpse things not usually apparent to the majority. One explanation I like is that this phenomenon has been around us all the time and they are a form of natural energy.
In the end, a lot comes down to faith. Many are simply frightened by what they don’t understand, or what doesn’t fit into their view of what constitutes “normality”. It’s easy to be sceptical, particularly when knowledge often comes marred in sound-bites, information overload and disinformation, but we live in a big world, surrounded by a vast, infinite universe.
How much of that is still mystery?
We have a need to know. But maybe it’s as the character Alexander Leek in the movie, played by Alan Bates, points out: we’re not allowed to know!(less)

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Apr 25, 2009 Kayla rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2009-read

So I picked up this book after the movie came out in 2002. I tried to read it as a freshman in college, and was bored to death. After sitting on my shelf for 7 years, I decided to pick it up again and give it another shot. I was more interested, but not in the story itself. What I thought was an examination of the Mothman was nothing more than an investigation into ufology. I was a little disappointed. I suppose the most interesting part is the fact that most of the eyewitness accounts are so ho...more

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Dec 30, 2008 Saman added it

Shelves: novel

در صورت تمایل، جهت مشخصات فیلمی که بر اساس این کتاب ساخته شده‌ است؛ می‌توانید از لینک زیر استفاده بفرمایید
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0265349

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Apr 13, 2013 Cecilia Perez rated it 3 of 5 stars

I have always been a fan of the movie and the paranormal. The book is very different than the movie. Mr. Keel coined the term Men In Black and this book is one of the first modern day documentations of the MIBs. More than just Mothman and the MIBs were going on in Point Pleasant around the Silver Bridge disaster. Mr. Keel tells of UFOs, spirits and even monsters. The book is eerie and entertaining. Skeptics will find it hard to believe. I enjoyed it. I always want to believe. I will say, this bo...more

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Jan 10, 2013 Hannah rated it 5 of 5 stars

I've read this several times and even have highlighted portions. If you don't believe in the supernatural you won't like it. I do and I love the info on so many lesser known sightings of strange happenings and such. This is NOT like the movie. The movie was only slightly based on the real events of the Silver Bridge. Also, this book deals with a lot more than just the Mothman and the bridge. John Keel has a different view on what all these supernatural things are than most do and while I don't a...more

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Jul 07, 2010 Denise rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: folklore-myths, nonfiction, fiction

Book of research and eyewitness testimonies about mysterious lights, sightings and creatures in the Point Pleasant, West Virginia, area during the 1960's. The conversations are detailed but jump back and forth on various dates instead of being placed chronologically (very distracting)!

No pictures or hard evidence was available (flash didn't work? tape recordings were garbled?) so I take this book with a grain of salt as to its credibility.

There are, however, stories in our world (past and prese...more

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Nov 21, 2012 Ken rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: occult, library

This was the perfect complement to the other major books on the UFO phenomenon I read this year: Mirage Men, Sight Unseen, and Solving the Communion Enigma. Interesting that all the major investigators are converging on the hypothesis that UFOs are not separate from other paranormal events and are probably extra-dimensional rather than extra-terrestrial. I learned so many interesting tidbits from reading this book, from the fact that poltergeist hauntings often follow UFO fly-overs, to the fact...more

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Feb 07, 2013 Chris Moran rated it 5 of 5 stars

This was a really fantastic and extremely bizarre look at eyewitness accounts of various strange and unsettling phenomena centered in Point Pleasant, WV while also delving into larger issues relating to these topics. Keel has an obsessive focus and weird humor that reminded me of Fox Mulder. I found Keel’s prose genuinely exciting and I admired his amazing encyclopedic knowledge in the field of ‘high strangeness’ / Forteana as well as his willingness to insert himself in the book in such a risky...more

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Apr 27, 2011 Lucy rated it 2 of 5 stars

The afterword was written in 2001, but the text itself appears to date from the late '70s, and as I've mentioned in some of my updates, Mr. Keel has an irritating habit of describing the attractiveness of his female correspondents. He uses racial labels and descriptors that feel out of date (does anyone describe people as "Oriental" anymore?)

This book was very odd. It began as a sort of catalogue and cross-reference of paranormal/extraterrestrial sightings and encounters of all kinds, and then,...more

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Aug 10, 2012 Kris Munson rated it 1 of 5 stars

I started to read this book because I really enjoyed the movie. As I began the book, I kept waiting for some resemblance to the movie, ... and waiting ... and waiting ... and waiting. After 100 pages, not only was the book nothing like the movie, but it was CRAZY. Boring, stupid, CRAZY stuff. A bunch of UFO sighting-crazy-stories stringed together with little in the way of a story. Possibly one of the most ridiculous books I've ever started to read -- so much so, that I have zero intention of co...more

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Jun 12, 2010 Danielle Jorgenson Akanat rated it 3 of 5 stars

I read it expecting it to be like the movie. It wasn't. It was interesting. But because of the movie I was expecting something more intense and concrete. I was naive! But that doesn't take away from the engaging art Keel has put together. Perhaps I had read too many other stories on anomalous phenomena and heard researchers name drop this as something more than it was. I still am excited to read Keel's other works. As a reporter he is excellent. I suppose the story just wasn't as incredible as I...more

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May 27, 2012 Robert Brase rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: supernatural

After completing this I am still not sure of what I have just read. I thought this would correspond with the crappy movie with the same title starring Richard Gere. However this is a book about contactees and strange problems that occurred after they experienced various U.F.O. sightings. The author goes into great detail about how these are not actually U.F.O. sightings. His explanation is even more bizarre than a spaceship from another planet. Overall I would not call this book horrible but I d...more

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Sep 07, 2012 Rich Hoffman rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is the scariest book I have ever read. It's not scary in the classic horror sense, but in the revelation that there is more to our world than we can see, hear or feel. In this book Keel introduces his concept of "ultraterrestrials" which is an updated theory on demons. The movie with Richard Gere was good, but only touched on the mysteries of this very profound, and well reported book that will scare you to your core if you allow it to soak into your learned responses to what is known and u...more

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Sep 09, 2012 Roxy rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: autobiography, non-fiction, science-fiction

Enjoyable and often scary read. But it could have been far more cohesive and less repetitive.

I was often really unsure of Keel's actual perspective on the phenomena - the distinctions he made between cases that were clearly just delusions (actually - and what he thought these hallucinations and delusions really were?) and ones that he thought must be true. I think readers should take the "A True Story" part of the title lightly. Keel presents too many things which he has no way of describing as...more

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Apr 23, 2008 Alissa rated it 2 of 5 stars

This is the first book I read for the Cryptozoology book club.

This book is entertaining, but it has little to say about the Mothman. One would think that since the Mothman is in the title of the book that he would play a greater role in the book, but alas, he does not. Keel spends most of the book discussing MIB, alien contactees, wire-tapping, etc.

I found the book to be quite disjointed--Keel follows no timeline and jumps from year to year and from story to story. It was hard to remember if th...more

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Feb 07, 2008 Kirsten rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-pre-12-07, own, crackpots, non-fiction

Oh wow. Um, yeah. So, this book starts out pretty well; it's about a series of sightings in and around Point Pleasant, WV of "The Mothman," a strange creature with a manlike body, enormous glowing red eyes, and wings. I find this kind of thing fascinating in a folklore/sociological kind of way, so I like to read about such sightings. Like I said, this starts out pretty well. Keel is a witty storyteller and draws a lot of interesting parallels between the Mothman and other sightings throughout hi...more

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Jul 07, 2012 Aaron rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: abandoned

I can't exactly describe why I'm giving this book 2 stars instead of 1. Perhaps it's a stilted sense of respect to a "classic." Who knows. The point is, I put this on my "abandoned" bookshelf for a reason.

First, a little backstory. I picked up this book after seeing The Mothman Prophecies movie, which, although sub-par overall, did have some suspenseful moments. Therefore, it seemed logical that the book might carry the same quasi-suspenseful feeling. WRONG.

Keel's manner of reporting-as-a-book...more

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Apr 24, 2013 Tasha rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The first thing I want to say is that if you came to read this book, because of the movie, you will be very disappointed. The two are nothing alike at all. This book deals more with UFO phenemom than it does with Mothman. This is the second time I read this book. I read it first when I was in high school and couldn't fall asleep for weeks. I have it a second read because I like to revisit things I read in high school, to see if I noticed something I didn't before and the book is just as awesome...more

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About John A. Keel

John Alva Keel (born Alva John Kiehle) was a Fortean author and professional journalist.

Keel wrote professionally from the age of 12, and was best known for his writings on unidentified flying objects, the "Mothman" of West Virginia, and other paranormal subjects. Keel was arguably one of the most widely read and influential ufologists since the early 1970s. Although his own thoughts about UFOs an...more

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