JOSH: On this episode of Expedition X...
JESSICA: Oh, I got something. Right there, right there.
...my team and I investigate sightings
of a gigantic winged creature...
said to be terrorizing the mid-West.
Everybody sort of described a large bat-like creature.
I just thought...
JOSH: According to witnesses...
You're not the only one who is seeing something strange.
...the Mothman...
Whoa, whoa! That's huge!
...is back.
My name is Josh Gates.
In my travels I've experienced strange things that defy logic
and made me question everything.
Oh, my god!
Now, I've put together a team
to investigate the stranger side of the unknown.
Let's go.
Phil Torres is a scientist who hunts for rational explanations.
Jessica Chobot's paranormal research has made her a true believer.
There is a monster living in this forest.
Phil, Phil, Phil.
I just saw something run across.
JOSH: Together, we're searching for answers...
PHIL: What is that?
...to the world's most extraordinary mysteries.
This is Expedition X.
the case that we're dealing with today
is something that has actually been frightening a lot of people.
It's a strange case and frankly it's pretty unsettling stuff.
Well, you had me at frightening.
Yeah, what are we dealing with here?
Well, it's not exactly an unidentified flying object,
this case involves an unidentified flying creature.
And before you run out of the room Phil, I wanna show you a video.
Check this out.
JESSICA: Whoa!
Maybe a bird?
Almost like a bat?
What is that?
Looks like a dragon.
Right?
-I mean those wings are huge. -Wow.
It's a dragon.
So, whatever this is has not been identified
but it's one of a number of reports that people have come forward with
seeing flying, often humanoid looking creatures.
And most of the people that see this stuff are terrified by it.
Well, that makes sense.
And there's also something just naturally menacing about it.
Well, that brings us to the case in question.
People in two different parts of the country
are recently reporting encounters with not just a flying creature
but the most famous flying crypted of all time.
-Mothman. -Yes!
I was hoping you were gonna say that.
-You love Mothman? -I love Mothman.
-Phil? -I don't know about this one.
This is next level, Phil.
Let's bring you up to speed. (CHUCKLES)
That's when two young couples driving home after a double date
reported seeing a menacing winged humanoid creature
on the edge of town.
They said it had glowing red eyes and it attacked them from the air,
scratching the roof their car as they tried to escape.
Mothman sightings around Point Pleasant
continued for the next year,
culminating with the creature being reported
on Point Pleasant's Silver Bridge
shortly before it collapsed on December 15, 1967.
46 people died and many blamed Mothman.
According to reports, he was spotted in Ohio in 1975,
twice in 1981 in Pennsylvania.
He was reportedly seen in Kentucky in 1986,
then three more times in 1994 back in West Virginia.
After that, things were relatively quiet, until now.
Over the last two years,
there have been 87 sightings of Mothman in and around Chicago.
And in the Point Pleasant area, in the last three months alone,
there have been nearly a dozen sightings.
So Jess, what do you make of this?
He's back, baby!
-Yes! Mothman is back. -Yes!
I'm into it, I'm stoked for this.
Jess, why are you so into Mothman?
Well, I think it stems from when I was little
and I'd go to the library
and I'd sit there and read all these books
on the supernatural and for some reason you know,
Mothman as the crypted really spoke to me.
I found him super scary with the glowing red eyes,
the fact that he was chasing these teenagers down
and he was still being seen today
and he was kind of a harbinger of doom, right.
He affected this entire town
and everybody said they saw something.
OK, so, clearly you're in the believer column here.
I'm in the believer column.
Now, Phil I could guess
that you're a little bit more sceptical here
and I think you and I are in the same column
that this is a really wild story, right?
But what we can't deny is the sheer number of sightings.
It is a lot of sightings
and I can agree that these people are seeing something
but seeing what?
I mean there's more drones flying around us now
-than there are planes in the sky. -Right.
But planes and drones don't flap their wings...
and have glowing red eyes and chase you.
That is true.
She's got you there, Phil.
She does.
And look, this really is the heart of this mystery, you know...
could so many people
that are so adamant about what they're seeing, be wrong?
Is it a case of an unidentified creature?
Is it misidentification? Is it hysteria?
Is it some sort of folklore just working on their imaginations?
And that's what I want the two of you to find out.
I think you've gotta go to Chicago
but you've gotta start in Point Pleasant.
You've got to go to where the Mothman story began
and see if you can find some correlation
between those sightings and the ones happening in Chicago.
Sound good?
-Sounds good. -Sounds like a plan.
JOSH: The team is traveling 540 miles southwest
to Point Pleasant, West Virginia.
JESSICA: This place, I love it. It's fantastic.
It is super crazy, definitely a weird vibe.
It is steeped in Mothman law.
JESSICA (NARRATING): Our first stop
is a meeting with local eye witness, Johnny,
who says he recently spotted what he believes was the Mothman.
Hey, Johnny.
-Hey, how it's going? -Good, how are you?
-Nice to meet you guys. -Hey. Good to meet you.
Well, thanks for meeting with us, I really wanna hear your story,
we've talked to a few people in Chicago and couple of folks here
and they all have similar stories
but they also kinda have different takes on what it might be.
So, I'm curious to hear what you have to say.
I think that's what we've been hearing from everybody,
where they saw something, they don't know what it was
and Mothman kinda the story began in this area.
So, we thought it would be worth hearing you out.
Yeah, and we're just kinda doing some research
so anything that you can share about your experience at all
would be great.
So, basically I was over there fishing right on that corner
and as I was sitting there,
I was actually looking at that bridge
just kinda spacing 'til, you know, I had the bobber move,
and basically what I saw was a figure jumped down
and honestly I thought someone was just committing suicide
but then I saw it just swoop up and just fly away
and I was just thinking maybe it's an eagle or a hawk.
And then when I kinda came home and told my friends about it,
it just seemed kinda I don't know, kinda strange.
They were like,
"Well, you know that's the bridge that you know, Mothman,
the original bridge was right next to it
but that was the bridge that Mothman was actually first seen.
How big was the figure?
Could you tell from where you were sitting?
Yeah, so I know more about fish than birds
but it looked about seven or eight feet long
and the wings spanned.
And did you notice anything after it had swooped,
did it start flapping, which direction did it go in?
It started flying over and out that way towards the woods.
But I mean, honestly, it was kinda dark,
I still don't know really what I saw.
Well that's... I mean thank you sharing that with us.
JOSH (NARRATING): Point Pleasant is the epicentre
of Mothman mythology.
While thousands come from all over the world
for the annual Mothman Festival,
many locals see the creature as a genuine threat
and that's why they're obsessed with Mothman,
and I do mean obsessed.
Jeff Wamsley is a researcher
about the Mothman phenomenon.
JEFF: These are probably some of the rarest archives
we have in the museum.
These are the handwritten police reports
of those original four witnesses.
After they saw this thing,
they went immediately to the Sheriff's Department.
We're trying to wrap our heads around that first incident
and how it connects to all the other ones...
-Exactly. -...in Chicago.
So, can you break down the events of that evening for us?
Sure, on November 15th 1966, you had the two young couples,
they were just riding around.
JOSH (NARRATING): They were driving along a road
that bordered the Southern edge
of the West Virginia Ordinance works,
a former TNT plant on the outskirts of town.
That's where they encountered what they thought was a man...
but as they drove closer,
they saw it's ten foot wing span and glowing red eyes.
Suddenly it took off, flying over the top of the car.
Terrified, the driver tried to outrun the creature
but even at 75 miles an hour,
he couldn't shake the talons
that were clawing at the top of the car.
Once they go to the city limits, they veered off into a field.
That was the first official local sighting here.
Minutes after they came into town, they were scared enough
to go to the police department,
they didn't want to but they did.
Did they sequester them all in different rooms to get--
-Yes, they did. -Got it.
I have three of those four people's original reports right here.
And how long did that activity as far as the sightings go on for
before the Silver Bridge collapse?
13 months to the day that that original sighting.
It's the worst bridge disaster in US history.
Wow. You know, 46 people perished.
I've talked to people who said they saw, you know,
a creature or a bird on top of the bridge.
JOSH: It has long been rumoured that Mothman was sighted
on top of the Silver Bridge
before it collapsed and killed 46 people.
This event cemented Mothman's sinister reputation,
where he appears, tragedy follows.
People claim that Mothman popped up
before the Chernobyl disaster in 1986
and in Mexico during the swine flu epidemic of 2009.
And many say he's often trailed by other mysterious figures.
So, I've often heard that when the Mothman would show up
that you would get some Men In Black activity too.
People coming in and knocking on doors and asking questions.
-Did you see something like that? -Yeah.
You know, The Men In Black were notorious
for just showing up unexpectedly.
My own mother, she saw The Men In Black.
JOSH: Point Pleasant residents who claim to have seen Mothman,
reportedly received a visit from federal agents.
It's unknown what the agents said but after those visits,
the witnesses never spoke of Mothman again.
If the reports are true,
what drew these so called, 'Men in Black'
to this small West Virginia town?
Were they trying to cover up a top secret military project
or were they attempting to silence any talk about a real life crypted?
So, is it possible for us to go there to where it all began?
Sure, yeah the area is still accessible.
JESSICA (NARRATING): Hearing about where the sightings happened
is one thing,
but we wanna see it for ourselves.
Ground zero for Mothman phenomenon...
the former West Virginia Ordinance works.
This is the area where there was a huge cluster of sightings
and it's like sighting, sighting, sighting,
sighting all the way round the perimeter.
I figured this was the perfect place for us to poke around a little bit.
JOSH (NARRATING): Over the years,
there have been dozens of credible witnesses
who describe seeing a winged human-like figure
either coming out of or disappearing into this area
and those sightings continue to this day.
Retired Air Force veteran and military police officer
He has a unique theory about what these people are seeing.
JESSICA: So, it looks like an abandoned city.
That's pretty much what it was.
DAVE: You are standing in the heart of the West Virginia Ordinance works
here in Point Pleasant, West Virginia.
So, when you say ordinance, you mean explosives?
Yes, exactly.
JOSH (NARRATING): This eerie tract of land
just outside of Point Pleasant
was an 8,000 acre facility
that manufactured TNT during World War II
and stored it in 100 concrete bunkers,
but rumours have swirled for decades
that there was more going on here than the military was admitting.
They actually manufactured the explosives
for the atomic bomb here.
PHIL: Wow!
What's your personal take on the Mothman sightings in this area?
I believe it could be some type of military clandestine project.
JOSH (NARRATING): Though a military Mothman
might sound like science fiction,
it's a fact that during the Cold War,
the United States funded a number
of highly unusual top secret programs,
many with animals.
'Project Pigeon' deployed bombs
with pigeons acting as guidance mechanisms
and 'Project Acoustic Kitty',
intended to use cats to spy on the Kremlin.
The bat bomb was a plan to use bats
to deliver explosive devices into enemy cities.
Some have suggested Mothman is actually the biological product
of similar top secret experiments.
A genetically modified bird or perhaps even a human.
It's a wild theory, but what can't be ignored
is that people have been seeing something lurking in these woods.
Check this out.
PHIL (NARRATING): Dave has uncovered a once classified 1940 site map
for the ordinance works.
So, right out here what we have is 300 acres of war department land
other than the TNT area.
My contacts told me that there was definitely clandestine activity
going on out here.
So, out of those 8,000 acres, 300 of them are this war department.
-Don't go in there, no trespassing? -Absolutely.
PHIL (NARRATING): It does seem possible
that during the time of the original Mothman sightings,
there could be been top secret military activity at this plant.
We're following Dave's map to see if we can find any evidence
to support this theory.
To get there, we'll have to navigate a river of toxic sludge
that's surrounds the entire abandoned facility.
Some say it's a man made barrier, meant to keep people out.
Have you ever bought a boat down this way before?
Yes.
On a scale of one to ten, ten being the worst,
how crazy are we for doing this?
-Probably a ten. -Oh, good.
I always wanted to be an over achiever.
JESSICA (NARRATING): After securing the boat to navigate the swamp,
we travel down to the waters edge.
-Ready? -Yep.
OK. Going in.
(OMINOUS MUSIC PLAYING)
PHIL: I mean this area out here, this is next level habitat.
This is where a lot of the sightings happened,
this is where the government was active.
JESSICA: This was, like, his default go to spot.
PHIL: This is where it all went down.
There we go.
JESSICA (NARRATING): After paddling through the muck,
we eventually come ashore and set out on foot.
PHIL: So, right now I'm checking up in the trees.
There's gotta be birds around here at night...
-aka Mothman. -All I am seeing is bugs.
I know, there's a lot.
(GROANS)
(INSECTS CHIRPING)
(GROANS)
Even though they're giant, they're surprisingly hard to see.
Well--
Because they're kind of like buried in the ground.
They're buried in the ground, the concrete's not too different
in the dark as the colour of the trees.
Yeah, that's true.
So, you know, it makes it extra hard to find this stuff.
It really does.
JESSICA (NARRATING): Finally, we make it to the area on the map
where some believe the government conducted a secret military project
that can explain the Mothman sightings.
PHIL: I think I see something.
There we go.
This thing is completely covered by earth, look at this.
It is like part of the landscape here.
This thing hasn't been opened in decades.
(METAL CREAKING)
-Get ready. -Mm-hm.
(GROANING)
-Alright one more, ready, set. -Yep.
-Holy... -Oh, what is that?
JOSH: Our Mothman investigation has led to the innermost area
of the West Virginia Ordinance plant.
Phil and Jess are tracking a controversial theory
that top secret military experiments with animals or even people
conducted out of these bunkers,
could be responsible for the Mothman sightings.
Either way, people have been seeing something hiding amidst these ruins.
The question is, what?
-Ready, set. -Yep.
(GROANING)
-Holy. -Oh!
What is that?
(EERIE MUSIC PLAYING)
A barrel of diesel oil.
What is this?
(CLANKING) Oh!
And a sprocket.
-This place-- -Oh, look at this, look.
Why would you choose to leave all this stuff behind?
I don't know, why does it look like something was chained up here?
That does look like, kind of like a wrist restraint or something.
That's kinda creepy.
(CLANKING)
What's this?
Look, an old fire extinguisher.
Dayton fire extinguisher.
Dayton, Ohio. Is there a date on here at all?
I don't think so,
but yeah that's interesting this is coming from Dayton.
Yeah.
PHIL (NARRATING): Having fully explored the bunker,
we return to the boat and begin paddling back...
only to find another mysterious structure.
Look at that, what is this?
Let's see if we can get in.
(OMINOUS DRONING MUSIC PLAYING)
PHIL: Oh!
JESSICA: Oh, my god.
(EERIE HOWLING)
Oh, wow.
This is huge.
Wow!
I'm almost to put my paddle in the water,
it is, look at it there's--
What's down there, what's down there?
I don't know.
So did you see anything under the water, what's there?
I don't know.
I mean if you're gonna be a Mothman why wouldn't you live here?
(WATER DRIPPING)
(ANIMAL SQUEAKING)
Oh, did you hear that?
It was from over there.
(SINISTER MUSIC PLAYING)
That sounded like it was coming from outside.
Come on, let's get out there.
(THUD)
-Did you hear that? -Whoa, whoa, whoa.
There's something out there, there's something out there.
Did you see it? I heard it over here somewhere.
Shine the flash light up in that tree.
Wait, I think I see it.
What is that?
It just moved.
To the left, to the left. It's trying to avoid the light.
There is something over there, I'm gonna paddle us a little closer.
OK.
I've go the thermal camera,
if there's anything biological giving off heat,
we'll see it on this.
It sounded like it was up in the tree tops here.
Where? Point your light where you think you saw it.
-Right up here. -Alright.
I'm looking.
Hey, I think I see something on the thermal.
Oh, my god.
Whoa, what do you think that is?
I think I lost it.
Well let's keep heading towards the shore
and see what we can find once we're on land.
Alright.
(OMINOUS DRONING MUSIC PLAYING)
Is that the tree we saw something in?
I'm not sure, it might be that one over there.
I don't see anything.
PHIL (NARRATING): After another hour of searching
we still haven't made contact with the source of the noise
and whatever we saw on the thermal camera.
With the sun on the horizon, we decide to head back.
The items that we found at the ordinance plant
support Dave's theory that a secret military operation
could have been conducted here,
but what sort of experiment could it count for the Mothman?
We check in with Josh to update him on our investigation,
but first we grab some caffeine.
-Hello, there. -Hi.
We're looking for the Mothman experience.
-Awesome, we have Mothman brew. -OK.
And for coffee we have Mothman droppings
(JESSICA LAUGHING)
...and we have Mothman sugar cookies.
Oh, those are the cutest.
Little glowing red eyes.
-Oh, I for sure want one. -OK.
I for sure want this one.
I will take some Mothman droppings because gross and delicious.
Good choice.
And then we shall get two Mothman brews?
-Yeah, can we get two of those? -Absolutely.
How often would you say you guys get people coming in
and asking for the Mothman stuff?
Everyday, there is a tonne of tourists everyday.
-It's like one big Mothman party? -Hm-mm.
People come from everywhere, across the country
and we have like all kinds of events here in town.
Have you ever seen the Mothman?
I personally have never seen the Mothman
but I do think he's out there.
-For sure. Thank you. -Yeah.
I feel like that's a good luck omen.
Cheers.
Alright let's go talk to Josh.
Let's do it.
Hello. How's West Virginia treating ya?
We're definitely getting into some weird stuff out here.
Alright, so bring me up to speed.
So, that area where all the original Mothman sightings took place,
the West Virginia Ordinance works.
The TNT plant?
Yeah, exactly.
We got the plans for the area
and right there in the centre has been just been sectioned off
as 'War Department' with no explanation given.
War Department?
OK, so what are you thinking,
maybe something top secret was going on out there?
Possibly, and we actually went out to that area last night.
And is there anything in that area?
There were these sealed-off bunkers there
and we went into one of them
and it was basically half-hidden kind of buried
in the ground right there.
What was inside?
For a place that was supposed to be storing TNT,
there was a lot of weird stuff in there.
We found chains, shackles a diesel drum.
There was a really old fire extinguisher from Dayton, Ohio.
-There were tools-- -Hold on, hold on.
The fire extinguisher was from Dayton,
it was labelled Dayton?
-Yeah. -Yeah.
Dayton, Ohio is home to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base,
one of the most famous military bases in the country,
also a place
where a lot of top secret military activity took place.
That's on record.
If in fact there was some sort of top secret facility
in Point Pleasant,
Wright Patterson and Dayton, that's like 150 miles away,
that's not far at all. Maybe there is a relationship there.
But that place is extremely restricted.
You're talking about what a lot of people consider
to be the real area 51.
And I just don't know
how we would ever be able to investigate that.
Well, I might have a way.
JOSH (NARRATING): The team and I are reviewing the discoveries they made
at the West Virginia Ordinance plant
and whether the Mothman sightings might be explained
by a top secret military program.
The challenge now
is getting access to one of the most secretive military bases
in existence,
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.
from a military investigation we did several years ago.
I'll see if I can connect all of you.
In the meantime,
we've still got these eyewitness sightings in Chicago
and I think you've got to head there next.
Absolutely.
Also, I've learned back here that one of the eyewitnesses there,
claims that he actually has images
-of his encounter with Mothman.. -Wow.
...although he's been hesitant to show it.
I wanna see that.
Alright, let's go to Chicago.
-Yeah, done. -To Chicago, good luck.
JOSH (NARRATING): While I work on access on access
to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base,
the team travels 438 North West to Chicago.
I'll admit it's a strange place to find Mothman,
but don't tell that to the people who say they've seen him here.
So, I've actually hooked us up with somebody
that's gonna work us through all those recent sightings
and we're gonna have to go up like really high.
What do you mean high?
Like, Mothman high.
Whoa.
JOSH (NARRATING): No Chicago structure is more iconic
than Willis Tower.
Once known as the Sears Tower,
it is the second tallest building in the Americas
and the place where eyewitnesses have reported seeing Mothman.
Jessica and Phil are here
to meet author and paranormal investigator...
Going up.
Hey, Tobias.
Sorry I'm a little late. It's a lot of stairs.
-Sure is. -Yeah.
So, why did you bring us here?
Well, it wasn't me. The Mothman did.
The Mothman, over 1,000 feet up chose this location.
Higher actually,
the sighting that supposedly took place right here
had the creature at the very top.
Wow.
There was a guy, Guillermo, and he was outside smoking
just after 5pm in July of 2017
and he sees something on top of the tower.
And as he's standing there,
this winged human jumps off of the tower.
After that the sightings just kept coming
and everybody sort of described the same thing,
which was a large bat-like creature.
We've got probably well over 100 different reports
and associated phenomenon.
All within this area or just across the board?
We've heard 200 miles of Lake Michigan.
Well, it's really interesting because Mothman always...
at least the reports and stories that I've heard and read
is that it's usually in kind of rural areas.
I've never heard of him in the middle of Chicago.
Let me show you a map.
-They are almost always... -Wow!
-...yeah, cantered around... -Oh, OK.
...green spaces.
-I'm actually... -That's a lot of sightings.
...really surprised at how many are in the city too.
A lot of people probably don't realize
that they are surrounded by nature.
That there are owls here, there are herons here,
there are a lot of big birds.
And so, when it's dark and they see something flying
and they know that Mothman has been sighted here,
maybe that's why they're thinking it's Mothman.
There isn't going to be as much physical evidence
and so the criteria I have to use to judge those sightings
is a credibility of the witnesses themselves.
And there have been a good number of very frightened,
very otherwise normal people who have come forward
and recounted these stories.
And when you're dealing with a normal, credible person
who's telling you that they were standing
only several feel away from something
that looked like a winged humanoid,
I feel like under those circumstances
it would be very difficult if not impossible
to mis-identify some sort of large bird.
JESS (NARRATING): I'm eager to speak with a Chicago eyewitness
to see if the Mothman sightings here
might also be explained by some kind of secret military program.
So, we head South West from the Willis Tower
to Lower West Side.
That's where we're meeting Kelley Hanada,
the eyewitness that has been reluctant to release his evidence,
at least so far.
What's your experience been, walk us through it?
When I was on my way to work, riding my bike,
this is the route that I take pretty much daily.
So, as I'm pulling up to this intersection,
I'm just kind of gazing out looking at the flags above the library
and I see another gentleman start pointing to the sky
and that's when I see a large flying object
and so I immediately think in my head,
"Hey, I think that's the Mothman".
So, you immediately went to Mothman.
I had the Go Pro on me and I was able to get that captured.
Is there any way we could see that footage?
-Yes, please. -Uh...
I kind of hesitate even showing people now
just because it almost seems like a point of ridicule
just for like, people will either see one thing or the other
and then I look like a crazy person
for coming forward with a Mothman sighting, so.
You know, I tell you what, what's important here
is you're not the only one who has seen something strange
and what you saw still is a mystery
and we're here to help
and see if we can get to the bottom of that mystery.
Yeah, well I mean...
So, I do have it with me and I have a few of the stills.
Oh, whoa.
JOSH (NARRATING): My team is in Chicago
investigating recent reports of a giant winged creature.
Kelley Hanada was cycling to work wearing a camera on his helmet,
when he captured images of something large flying in the sky.
-Oh, yeah, there he is. -Oh, wow.
So, here's where it is right here.
It's basically starts from this area
heading kind of in a South West direction
and almost into the wind the entire time.
as much as it would be amazing if this was a photo of Mothman,
to me this just looks like a really big impressive bird.
Well, it would have to been at least a ten foot wing span given the size.
Yeah, but a bird is not gonna attract that kind of attention
from people on the ground,
to actually stop on their way to work and point up in the sky.
I do that if it were like a great horned owl or a dura falcon.
I mean, I think this is really cool--
Yeah, but you're...
unique, amazing person. Were you gonna call me a nerd?
-No, no. -You were gonna call me a nerd.
JESSICA (NARRATING): Kelley's footage shows something human-sized,
flying above Chicago.
Given it's size and shape,
many have suggested it might have been a person in a wing suit.
Experts have also theorized that sightings at Willis Tower
could have been a base jumper illegally jumping from the roof.
To put these theories to the test,
we're heading to an indoor sky diving facility
We've actually been running around Chicago
investigating the Mothman sightings.
Interesting.
Yes, we suspect it could be any number of things
but one of the things we were thinking of
is maybe a base jumper or a guy wearing a wing suit.
Basically, somebody like you,
because you've done a lot of jumps, yeah?
Yeah, absolutely, I'm just under 1,500 jumps right now.
-Wow. -Yeah.
PHIL (NARRATING) To be clear, base jumping is an extreme sport
where people leap and then parachute from cliffs and yes, tall buildings.
On the other hand, a wing suit has sections of fabric
that inflate to allow gliding through the air
before deploying a chute for landing.
What would be a giveaway sign that that person is a base jumper
or wearing a wing suit versus "Oh, hey, that's Mothman"?
When it comes to base jumping,
there all kinda ninjas of the night.
It's not exactly an illegal sport to participate in.
So, jumping in the day would be one red flag.
Another would be you know the height of the object
that you're jumping off of,
another is landing area.
PHIL (NARRATING): We show Joe
the schematic of where eyewitness, Guillermo,
spotted the winged figure.
He said he was looking up at that ledge and a guy jumped.
He claims he saw it just, kind of, fly away towards the lake.
-Is that doable? -Oh, no, absolutely not.
-So, the height of this ledge... -Mm-hm.
...is high enough to do a wing suit base jump
but given all of the complexities of the landing areas around here
probably not a plausible solution.
JESSICA (NARRATING): We also showed Joe
the images that Kelley Hanada took with this Go Pro,
which Joe also dismisses.
They weren't a wing suit or a base jumper either.
PHIL (NARRATING): If we're going to document our own encounter
with the Mothman,
we need to look for it in its natural habitat.
A biological creature of this size
might pass through the big city on occasion,
but it certainly won't make its home here.
One the densest areas of recent sightings nearby
is only 15 miles North West of the city
in a 20 mile stretch of forest preserve.
No humans, lots of animals, plenty of water.
If the Mothman is real, this could be his home.
By the way, wait till you see what I got inside.
What did you get?
PHIL (NARRATING): Our goal is to try to photograph whatever it is
that people are seeing out here
and to do that, we use several motion sensitive wildlife cameras.
So, what do you think about this?
Oh, overkill. What's the crossbow for?
We're gonna shoot it up into the tree
and at the end of the fishing line, we'll put a trail cam.
So, if anything flies by, we'll get a photo of it.
PHIL (NARRATING): We're dividing the forest into quadrants
and placing cameras in each corner.
We attach cameras to trees along trails
and use the crossbow to hoist cameras to higher positions
with a better view of the skies.
We finish setting up the cameras just as day turns to night.
Any motion, it'll trigger it, it'll take a photo.
When I think of an area like this, this is habitat at its prime,
there's tonnes of sightings around this park.
I am sure there are all sorts of things living around here.
So, what is the weirdest thing you've ever seen with those cameras?
In Central America, I've seen jaguars.
Sometimes we actually see the poachers in the area
and they come by with their guns and...
(ANIMAL GROWLING)
Wait. What was that?
I don't know. It sounded like it was coming from over there.
I got the thermal camera.
Yeah, we definitely got movement.
It's definitely there.
Yeah, right up in that tree.
Oh, my god, come here, yeah, right there.
Right there, right there. It just moved.
JOSH (NARRATING): Phil and Jessica are North of Chicago
investigating a cluster of recent Mothman sightings.
Whilst setting up motion-activated wildlife cameras,
they hear something in the tree line.
JESSICA: It's moving.
(RUSTLING)
PHIL: Yeah, we definitely got movement.
(ORCHESTRAL STING)
Oh, I got something, come here. You got something?
Yeah, right there, right there, right there.
I don't see it anymore.
I don't see it either.
(GROWLING)
Do you hear something?
I don't hear anything.
JESSICA (NARRATING): We spend hours
searching for the source of the noise in the trees
to no avail.
With the sun about to come up,
and that's when we get word from Josh.
PHIL: Time for a road trip.
JESSICA (NARRATING): He's gotten us access
to a Wright-Patterson insider.
Someone who can speak to whether there's any military program
that might help explain
the Point Pleasant Mothman sightings.
So, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base
and the West Virginia Ordinance plant...
The link here, we don't quite have it down.
And I don't know if we sound crazy right now.
I mean, we probably do sound crazy, which is fine with me.
Here's the thing, military bases, they still talk to each other,
so it wouldn't surprise me at all if some out of the way area
had some sort of connection to nearby bases.
That's true.
PHIL (NARRATING): To meet Josh's contact
we're driving 300 miles South East from Chicago to Dayton, Ohio.
He's asked to meet us at an underground bunker
just a few miles away,
the location that once housed top secret research programs.
So Ray, how long did you work here?
I spent nearly four decades at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.
And what were you doing there?
I was an electrical engineer
of the Department of the Defences Weapons Systems.
So, as part of that
I worked on a number of secret programs
and in a place like this,
you can imagine how easy it was to keep a secret.
JOSH (NARRATING): This abandoned facility once played host
to the most secretive military research program in history...
the Manhattan Project.
From the late 1930s to the mid 1940s
more than 130,000 people worked in absolute secrecy
building the world's first atomic bomb.
So, the theory that we're kind of coming up with
for these Mothman sightings
is that perhaps it is an experiment by the government,
some sort of testing they were doing or anything like that?
You know, that is possible because it's early '60s,
in fact the timeframe is perfect for it.
New laboratories were being built,
new technologies were being developed.
A lot of that technology would have been perfected
at Wright-Patterson Air Force.
Integrated circuits and fibre optics and new materials,
tough durable materials for flight suits
or anything that they would send off for a military application.
So, what you're telling us is that Wright-Patterson Air Force Base
might have engineered flight suits
and then that might explain the potential
for some Mothman sightings?
I'm saying exactly that.
This was the height of the Cold War.
What was the big motivation at the time
for developing technology,
something like a flight suit or a parachute?
The military would be interested
in some type of a singular soldier air transportation
because they could do some sabotage or they could do some surveillance
with either a parafoil or a cruciform type suit
that was being developed at the time
or even those jet packs.
And it turns out
that the wind tunnel at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base
was used to perfect the design. Wow.
So, the military was very much aware of this new technology
and it's possible that flight testing was being done.
It could have been done anywhere
and perhaps when somebody saw a person
flying for the very first time,
could easily have been mis-identified
as somebody that we now call Mothman.
JOSH (NARRATING): It's possible that Mothman may be related
to an extraordinary but very real top secret government program.
the Delta Force,
the US military's most elite special forces troops
was testing combat flight suits in you guessed it, West Virginia.
Such a program could explain the visits from Men In Black,
government agents putting a lid on our latest secret technology.
And the recent Point Pleasant eyewitness accounts,
like many others, Phil and Jess did detect animals
living in the ruins of the abandoned military plant.
JESSICA: Point your light where you think you saw it.
PHIL: Right up here.
I think I see something on the thermal.
Oh, my god.
JOSH (NARRATING): But those who claim it's a monster,
are probably getting caught up in 50 years of Mothman mania.
As for the Chicago sightings,
we believe we were able to rule out the possibility
of a rogue base jumper or wing suit in flight.
Is that doable?
Oh, no, absolutely not.
JOSH (NARRATING) But photos continue to come in
from our remote wildlife cameras
and the evidence is in.
Sandhill Crane, check.
Golden eagle, check,
but no Mothman.
Even Jess now supports Phil's original suspicion
are nothing more than the misidentification
of large winged birds.
Imagine seeing that
soaring in the windy city.
Subtitle Caption by ZestCorp