Near Point Pleasant, WV being encounter — November 15, 1966

Shortly before midnight on 15 November 1966, Roger and Linda Scarberry and Steve and Mary Mallette were driving near the abandoned wartime TNT works outside Point Pleasant. In the account printed the next day by the Point Pleasant Register, the four described a light-gray, manlike creature about six or seven feet tall, with large folded wings and red eyes that reflected the car lights. Its head was not a prominent separate feature. The description subsequently became central to the Mothman story. The couples said the creature ran awkwardly, then rose and followed their black 1957 Chevrolet while they drove toward town. They estimated that the car reached approximately 100 miles per hour while the creature kept pace without visibly flapping its wings. Their account included further roadside appearances when they returned toward the area. Deputy Millard Halstead accompanied a search afterward, but no creature was found. These are reported observations and speed estimates, rather than verified measurements. The original report did not describe an accompanying spacecraft; the creature itself was the aerial subject. Later Mothman traditions, the separate Newell Partridge incident and retrospective links to the Silver Bridge collapse should not be folded into this single night's account. Bird explanations have been proposed, but the newspaper account alone cannot establish an identification.