Customer Reviews

Mothman Prophecies

5 star:		(59)
4 star:		(30)
3 star:		(21)
2 star:		(20)
1 star:		(32)

 

 

John A. Keel's The Mothman Prophecies, as a book, is just as intriguing and mysterious as the topics he is writing about. In a nutshell, the book reads as if Keel kept a loose-leaf journal about paranormal events, both reported to and experienced by him, over the course of many years, then decided to throw all of the individual pages in the air, let them land as they might, stuck a couple hundred of them in a notebook and sent them off to his publisher. There is no novel-like narrative in The Mothman Prophecies, and it's not in chronological order-instead it choppily bounces back and forth and for its entire length.

The funny thing is that it works for the most part. I'm hesitant to say that the atemporally schizophrenic nature of the journal entries was an intentional, clever move on Keel's part, but it just may have been. The net effect is to mirror the inexplicability, seeming pointlessness, and skewered nature of the phenomena that Keel is talking about, but unfortunately, sometimes the attention-deficit-disorder-ladenness of the book is just aggravating. The primary thing to remember, if the book sounds interesting enough to you to tackle it (not that it's longer than your average pulp novel), is not to expect anything like a normal plot. There's an endless parade of names and events, many of which are only mentioned in one section, and it takes awhile to stop thinking that you're going to have to remember them to understand the story later. There really is no story. But once you stop waiting for a story to begin, The Mothman Prophecies should be more enjoyable to you.

There are plenty of reasons you might be interested in this book. Of course, there's the surface topic-a series of paranormal events ranging from UFO's to flying "birdmen" (the Mothman) to misbehaving telephones. If you're at all a student of the paranormal, you'll want to read this. Or, you probably already have. For me, I was initially intrigued by the film and the claim that it was based on true events (although publisher Tor calls it fiction on the copyright/catalog data page). But once I started reading, I quickly forgot about the film and instead was fascinated with the realization that The Mothman Prophecies must have been one of Chris Carter's primary sources for various plots of The X-Files.

If you're an X-Files fan, The Mothman Prophecies will tie the show together for you in an unprecedented way. After you read this book, the "mytharc" shows (all the alien conspiracy stuff) will no longer seem disconnected from the monster shows. And you'll frequently find yourself reminded of specific episodes correlated to specific journal entries in the book.

Undoubtedly, you'll find yourself wondering at some point how much of The Mothman Prophecies is fact and how much is fiction. Tor calling the book "fiction" doesn't help towards taking it too seriously, and neither does Keel's frequent references to UFO-monger Gray Barker, who was exposed as making up at least some of the things he wrote about--see, for instance, John C. Sherwood's May/June 1998 article in Skeptical Inquirer magazine. Joe Nickell has also prepared a "debunking" of the Mothman for Skeptical Inquirer's March/April 2002 issue. I'm nothing if not a skeptic, but Nickell doesn't actually debunk much. He suggests that Mothman sightings were actually sightings of owls, and that's about all there is to his article. Keel's book, and the film that prompted Nickell's article, is about much more than can be explained by sighting an owl and mistaking it for something else.

From my standpoint as a philosopher, there's something even more interesting about Keel's book. It's a wonderful example of instrumentalism. Instrumentalism, briefly, is the idea that theories about phenomena, insofar as they depart from simply recounting the phenomena in a dry manner, are interchangeable. That is, there are a multitude of possible theories for the metaphysics "behind" any observed event, and even allowing Occam's Razor (which is just a convention, not a fact, so we need not allow it-it could be misleading), any of them that accounts for the observed event is just as good as any other.

Of course Keel sometimes leads us on by simple juxtaposition of easily explainable events-even going so far as implying that there could have been something paranormal about the missing minutes on the Watergate tapes-and he could be making up a sizable percentage of the anecdotes to entertain us, but that's ultimately why you should read this book anyway-for entertainment. It's also, even if fiction, a fascinating psychological artifact, and even as fiction with plenty of structural quirks, an entertaining read.

I just had to clarify the fact that the movie is "based" on the events that are recorded in Keel's book. The book is by far and away better than the movie. First off the book takes place in 1967/68 not the present. Besides giving you a look into all the paranormal phenomenon floating around Point Pleasant at the time it also gives you a look into the attitude and fear the people of the small town were feeling at the time.
There are stories of aliens, strange lights, men in black, mysterious phone calls and of course the mothman. The name is misleading as he does not resemble a moth at all (in fact the name came from a reporter making a reference to a Batman villian). But to anyone interested in cryptozoology he is a beast that is worth looking into.
True the book is a little egotistical as John Keel makes himself out to be a superhero at times but I genuinely enjoy his take on the situations. His writing style is a little choppy and sometimes jumps into other accounts of unexplained events but it is easy to get through.
As this is really the only book that centers on the Mothman and the events in Point Pleasant it is definately reccommended reading for paranormal fans. There is even a section on Indrid Cold (another being worth looking into for the interesting and sometimes ridiculous story).
Just please don't slight this chilling tale because of the terrible movie apparently made from the book's cliff notes.

There are studied subjects and phenomenon out there that defy scientific explanation. Just because one cannot put a particular phenomenon under the rigours of scientific examination, doesn't mean such phenomenon is merely the product of a deranged mind. The reason the protectors of divine rationality are reluctant to examine the paranormal is it seems to contradict known physical laws. It doesn't follow the rules. However, if you have actually had the fortune or misfortune to experience such phenomenon i.e., spirits, UFO's, demonic creatures or source less cries of anguish in the night, ~The Mothman Prophecies~ can seem almost plausible. The book is certainly entertaining and, surprisingly, at times quite frightening.

The book essentially focuses on a series of unexplained events that manifested in and around the little West Virginia town of Point Pleasant. Numerous reports of Unidentified Flying Objects and strange lights in the southern skies motivated John Keel to investigate what all the fuss was about, and if there was any truth to the reports. His investigations led him down a peculiar path of events and personal experiences that finally pushed him to develop a theory, albeit an extrardinary one.

What is the 'Mothman'? A journalist coined the term from the popular Batman series, because the actual creature, taken from eyewitness accounts, resembles the legendary comic hero. The amount of actual sightings is nothing less than incredible, which leads one to suspect the beast's reality. The book only touches on the Mothman and relates a scattered assortment of weird events and unusual sightings from the 'Men in Black' to 'abductions' and the cries of infants in the night. Throughout the book, Keel attempts to connect the dots, so to speak, inferring that all the varied phenomenon could well come from a single source. This is a big reach, but so is the book as a whole.

Keel proposes that these manifestations, UFO's, MIB, winged-beasts et al, possibly originate from an alternate reality - another dimension if you will. These other dimensional being(s) guide and play with the human race and have been for a very long time. Throughout history these beings have manifested in many guises and forms, according to a specific historical/social context, depending on civilizations particular belief system at the time. For example, in the middle ages, this other dimensional phenomenon showed in the form of witches, warlocks, fairies and elves. For the American Indian, the phenomenon appeared as nature spirits; and in ancient times, they manifested as winged-lions, centaurs and Olympic gods. Because of our technological advancements and predilection to anything 'scientific', they now show as flying saucers, aliens and FBI agents. In other words, Keel suggests that their form shows in the way we 'interpret' these sightings - screened through our socially conditioned minds.

Generally these amazing stories are told in a matter of fact tone, a journalistic style, setting the reader up from the start to lend credence to the entire book. This is clever and it works. But one gets the impression that Keel is absolutely serious about his subject matter - and to this day is trying to get to the bottom of it. This is what makes the book intriguing and worth the time.

I have read over 200 books on UFOs and for many reasons, this is my favorite. Keel is an honest investigator who was fortunate to be involved in the strange, spooky events he writes about. Taken along with his first book, Operation Trojan Horse, this slim volume says more about the true nature of the UFO phenomenon than almost any other book written since. I was initially doubtful of the validity of Keel's claims, as some other reviewers are. However, I had the luck of meeting a man mentioned in the book who accompanied Keel on his investigations. This person, whom I trust and sincerely believe to be honest, flatly stated that everything in the book was true, that he had been there, spoke to the witnesses, and eventually became involved in the phenomena, as did Keel. The fact is, these things happened. In fact, Keel left some of the strangest evidence out of the book. Mothman Prophecies is a fascinating true story, and I recommend it to anyone who has a real desire to know the truth about UFOs and the paranormal.

If you want to read one book about how creepy the truly weird can become, start with this one. This book is probably the most frightening, bizarre book ever written in this field, by a reporter who was actually there when the events happened.

Some of the reviewers that gave this book one star probably missed the point. The reason that Mothman, the men in black, and UFO reports are all in the book is that these are all different pieces of the same puzzle; they didn't all show up there together by coincidence. The book seems to jump around from topic to topic because all of these things were happening at the same time, and they are interrelated. Some readers probably don't see that (or don't want to), probably the same ones who saw the movie first and then decided to pick up the book, not realizing that "the rest of the story" is much stranger than the movie ever hinted at.

The movie, which only focused on psychic effects of the Mothman sightings, left out many important aspects of the mystery (mostly so they could add a fictional love story for Richard Gere.) A friend who hadn't read the book called the movie "incomplete", which is the best description I could give it too. But the book weaves all the bizarre elements together gradually as the events unfold, and they all need to be taken together to find some understanding of these phenomena. (Read Keel's classic "Operation Trojan Horse" for even more on solving these deep mysteries.)

Sure, this book isn't "All About Mothman", but that's a weak criticism. The movie wasn't about Mothman at all! At least the book has enough scary moments for a decade of Stephen King TV miniseries. That's more than enough reason to give it 5 stars, whether or not you believe in these types of phenomena. Read it before bedtime at your own risk.

I never read 5 star reviews because they usually just gush about how wonderful the book is and don't provide a balanced view. Yet here I am doing just that. But this book is perhaps the only of the many I have read on UFOs, the "paranormal" or the occult that truly deserves it. First and foremost, Keel is a great storyteller. He transcends the dry facts of the phenomena he investigates and weaves them into compelling human stories while, at the same time, challenges the readers to examine their own assumptions and biases about paranormal phenomena. I began reading about flying saucers and related phenomena because I thought they were silly and they appealed to the same part of me that appreciates Alfred Jarry or Marcel Duchamp. But by reading Mothman, I discovered that there are real human stories, real lives changed forever by these events that I found so silly. That reality is so much stranger and wonderous than I was willing to accept.

The fact is, these things "happened" - in the sense that they were reported about - and the Mothman phenomena is fairly well-documented in other places. However, this is one of the only actual published books I have managed to locate on the topic, so it deserves scrutiny. Its very apparent that something very strange was going on in West Virginia in the months leading up to the Point Pleasant bridge disaster. Taken as a more or less matter-of-fact document of the times, it works pretty well. Its almost funny how Keel describes his participation in these events, like sitting up and watching strange lights in the sky every Wednesday evening is no big deal. Keel maintains a general tone of paranoia and eerieness throughout the book, due to his rambling, but more or less matter-of-fact tone. Credibility is questionable because lot of the reconstructed conversations sound a little too contrived and detailed to be anything more than fiction or imagination (I should mention Carlos Castaneda's name at this point).

Keel seems to be putting forward a very Terence McKenna-like philosophy of the goings-on, that there are invisible inter-dimensional psychic entities that are capable of influencing the world about them (except of course the part about needing heroic doses of psylocibin to see them) and they were somehow involved with what happened around Point Pleasant. But to what end? Keel seems to have opinions but he more or less keeps them to himself, or allowed his publisher to purge them. The book has been too chopped up and filtered to be anything more than kitsch. Its still a fascinating read and recommended for fans of the paranormal.

John Keel's THE MOTHMAN PROPHECIES can stand simply as a "stranger than science" potboiler, but it's much more than that. Keel is recognized as one of the few "serious" researchers into the paranormal, and the power of his insights into this vexing subject shows in the fact that his ideas are quoted and seconded by no less a UFO authority than Dr. Jacques Vallee. The "high strangeness" nature of what is described in the book morphs easily into what is generally perceived as "pure kookiness" -- but the strength of the book lies in the way that line between belief and disbelief and truth and fiction is pushed further and further, with a good deal of shivers and goosebumps building up along the way. Bottom line: The book's utterly unique, and worthwhile reading.

I was both amused and entertained! Yet there is an air of realism to this book that really gets to you. When you are finished reading this book, even being the grandest sceptic... The only thing that left me slightly short was the fact we are not informed of where these paranormals originate. But that is not important as the story is super written and not a weak spot in it. I say absolutely yes, get it.
If you enjoyed this another book which states all these events(including the Roswell crash) are actually from our future in a very good book, SB 1 or God By Karl Mark Maddox.

An interesting and fascinating report on paranormal events that took place in small town West Virginia in 1966/67. The author records the events as he experiences them or they are reported to him by others. The reports are many. These are mostly regarding a huge winged figure that many people witnessed and who supposedly terrorized the residents of the area for an entire year. The most fascinating and unnerving part of the book is it's reports of all the "men in black" contacts and ufo incidents. It has been many years since these events and therefore this book was probably quite scary when it was first published, but has lost some of the impact in our desensitized society. The book falters though when the author suggests that ufo experiences in general are a mass hallucination of somekind, which at this point in time is more ridiculous than just admitting their existence. The writing style is rather lacking, but not so noticed due to the content. The book might turn off someone who realizes that the author's ego is of more focus than the information he is reporting.