The Mothman's Photographer II: Meetings With Remarkable Witnesses Touched by Paranormal Phenomena, UFOs, and the Prophecies of West Virginia's Infamous Mothman [Paperback]

Andrew Colvin (Author), John A. Keel (Contributor), Adam Gorightly (Foreword), Keith Hansen (Foreword), David A. Scott (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 10, 2007

Spurred in 2001 by the realization that the 9/11 attacks were accurately predicted - in 1967 - by a friend who was seeing Mothman, Seattle artist Andrew Colvin began filming a video series, "The Mothman's Photographer," documenting his experiences growing up near Pt. Pleasant, WV.

"The Mothman's Photographer II" book is based on the first half of that series, where Colvin returns to West Virginia to interview friends and family who saw Mothman. While there, Colvin is granted the last in-depth interview with the late John Keel, author of "The Mothman Prophecies." Keel actually contributes several chapters to "The Mothman's Photographer II," in the form of never-before-published transcripts of various Mothman lectures.

Colvin also travels to several Mothman, UFO, and Bigfoot sighting spots in the Ohio Valley, including his old neighborhood in Mound, WV, where the shadows of Charles Manson and Sara Jane Moore are still cast. At a "vortex" spot where many creatures were seen, Colvin and his team encounter an energy field whose behavior leads Colvin to a breakthrough. Using an array of facts, figures, and synchronicities, Colvin shocks listeners to one of America's top conspiracy shows, "The Grassy Knoll," by explaining who Mothman may really be, and what his prophecies may really mean.

"Powerful... Perhaps more unsettling than 'The Mothman Prophecies'..." -Adam Gorightly, Untamed Dimensions

"Very cool..." -Jeff Wamsley, curator, The Mothman Museum

"We can now drop the word 'conspiracy." Colvin is one of our country's greatest thinkers, period..." -Ben Camp, Taos Public Radio

"Obsessed... Unusual... Fascinating..." -John Keel, author, The Mothman Prophecies

“Better than the Hollywood version of Mothman...” -Bonnie Brault, Ph.D.

"Inspired..." -Allen Greenfield, Secret Cipher of the Ufonauts

"Pertinent... Iconoclastic... Semi-legendary... An essential procurement for the paranormal enthusiast." -Jeff Harvey, Singularity Rare & Fine Books

"The most exciting, compelling work to come along in quite some time... Filled with a flood of new ideas, theories, and observations..." -Mothman.com

"Engaging and honest... Loosens mental constructs in ways that are most beneficial..." -Kevin Aagaard

"Exciting, thought-provoking, 'lateral' thinking." -Mark Randall

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

In the late 1960s, on a West Virginia backroad, Andy Colvin and his family and friends had encounters with the entity popularly known as "Mothman." Following those encounters, Colvin found that he could draw, sing, and take pictures, and that he had a photographic memory. Colvin was recognized as a prodigy, and was eventually offered a National Merit scholarship to Harvard University.

While attending graduate school at the Univ. of Texas at Austin, Colvin helped found U.T.'s celebrated Transmedia Dept. as well as the Austin Film Society, an organization now credited with bringing commercial filmmaking to Texas. In 1985, Colvin used his tuition grant money to purchase the only 8mm camcorder then available, becoming the first filmmaker in Austin to shoot in the new format. His ensuing documentation of the lives of Austin "slackers" influenced the seminal cult hit that defined Generation X, "Slacker" - a project for which Colvin helped raise funds and equipment. Colvin's band, Ed Hall, appeared in the film and on the soundtrack.

Following graduate school, Colvin worked on Hollywood films, toured with his experimental band, The Interdimensional Vortex League (once named America's "most underground band" by Europe's hip arts magazine, "Blitz"), and began making small, ethnographic documentaries about unusual tribes, subcultures, and personalities.

Colvin's work has been seen or heard in all 50 states, and in several foreign countries. His writing has been featured in various magazines, including Paranoia, Inside the Grassy Knoll, The Stranger, and "D'Art," the arts journal for the Church of the Subgenius. Colvin's unique career has been studded with various mind-blowing, synchronistic events, some of which allowed him to study with, or work with, some of the greatest creative minds of the 20th Century, including Nam June Paik, Lee Friedlander, Keith Haring, Dennis Hopper, David Lynch, Robert Anton Wilson, Laurie Anderson, Daniel Johnston, Vito Acconci, Bruce Bickford, and the Butthole Surfers.

Product Details

• Paperback: 456 pages
• Publisher: BookSurge Publishing (August 10, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1419652664
• ISBN-13: 978-1419652660
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #865,033 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Andy Colvin is a West Coast artist, photographer, and writer who has been called "his generation's Charles Fort," due to his intensive documentation of synchronicities in relation to investigative research (i.e., "synchromysticism" or "synchroconspiracy"). Colvin's often controversial theories have made him a popular speaker on venues like Coast to Coast AM, The Paracast, and PBS, and have gained him a dedicated following. Colvin currently co-hosts the popular conspiracy show, "That Was the Month That Wasn't," which examines how the media blends stories to subconsciously "manufacture consent" in the public mind. Following in the footsteps of Fortean author John A. Keel, Colvin has blazed a 21st Century trail of investigation into mysteries that have plagued mankind for centuries, such as UFOs, creature entities, magic, and the creative workings of the human mind. Colvin's approach is unique in that it blends a background of genuine paranormal experience with decades of research into political science, history, media behavior, and social psychology. His understanding of art and symbology has, at times, allowed Colvin to connect dots that previously escaped attention.

In the 1960s, on a West Virginia backroad, Colvin's neighborhood was hit by a series of mysterious phenomena, such as exotic flying craft, Men in Black, and the intriguing entity now known as "Mothman." Following these encounters, Colvin found that he could draw, sing, and take pictures, and that he had a photographic memory. He was recognized as a prodigy, and was eventually offered a scholarship to Harvard University. While in college, Colvin broke ground in several then-new disciplines, such as guerilla art, performance art, and "shamanic conceptual" art. In the early 1980s, Colvin made a splash in the New York art world by taking on the persona of "Whiz," a practitioner of "collaborative art." This unique approach allowed Colvin to actually work in some manner with several notable artists.

While attending graduate school at the Univ. of Texas at Austin, Colvin helped found U.T.'s celebrated Transmedia Dept. as well as the Austin Film Society, an organization now credited with bringing commercial filmmaking to Texas. In 1985, Colvin used his tuition grant money to purchase the only 8mm camcorder then available in town, becoming the first filmmaker in Austin to shoot in the new format. His ensuing documentation of the lives of local "slackers" influenced the seminal cult hit that defined Generation-X, "Slacker" - a project for which Colvin helped raise funds and equipment. Colvin's band, "Ed Hall," appeared in the film and on the soundtrack.

Following graduate school, Colvin worked on Hollywood films, toured with his experimental troupe, The Interdimensional Vortex League (once named America's "most underground band" by Europe's hip arts magazine, Blitz), and began making small, ethnographic documentaries about unusual tribes, subcultures, and personalities. His 25-year study of modern Texans, "Multislack," is slated for production in 2012.

Colvin's work has been seen or heard in all 50 states, and in several foreign countries. His writing has appeared in various magazines, including Paranoia, Inside the Grassy Knoll, The Stranger, and D'Art, the arts journal for the Church of the Subgenius. Colvin's unique career has been studded with various mind-blowing, synchronistic events, some of which allowed him to study with, or work with, some of the greatest creative minds of the 20th Century, including Nam June Paik, Lee Friedlander, Keith Haring, Dennis Hopper, David Lynch, Robert Anton Wilson, Laurie Anderson, Daniel Johnston, Vito Acconci, Bruce Bickford, and the Butthole Surfers.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great New Study of the Mothman Controversy, July 16, 2008

By 

Nick Redfern "Author, journalist, lecturer" (Dallas, Texas, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Mothman's Photographer II: Meetings With Remarkable Witnesses Touched by Paranormal Phenomena, UFOs, and the Prophecies of West Virginia's Infamous Mothman (Paperback)

Last night, I finished reading Andy Colvin's book, The Mothman's Photographer II. This is one of those books that is essential reading for those of you fascinated with Mothman.

Somewhat appropriately, and like the Mothman mystery itself, the book is full of all sorts of twists and turns, dark and disturbing scenarios, contains as many questions as it does answers, and definitely defies convention.

The book basically tells the very personal story of Colvin's interest in, and obsession with, the Mothman; something that began in his childhood in the sixties when he and his friends constructed a "shrine" to the Mothman - and after which strange and bizarre things began happening to Colvin, to his family, and to those around him.

In many ways, Colvin's book is more mind-bending than John Keel's The Mothman Prophecies. But this is a good thing: rather than simply go over old ground, and recount the original story, Colvin describes for us how the Mothman personally affected, manipulated, and possibly guided, his own life experiences, right through to the present day.

And it's written in an appropriately unconventional style too: via interviews, transcripts, personal comments and thoughts, and more.

For those who view Mothman as purely a crypto-zoological puzzle, you'll find yourselves at odds with Colvin, who places the creature in a very different category.

Essentially, Colvin views the Mothman as being akin to the Garuda - the majestic bird-like entity of Buddhist and Hindu mythology. Colvin's view is that the presence of the Mothman at the Point Pleasant, West Virginia bridge-collapse of 1967 (as described in Keel's book) was not in any way sinister.

Rather, Colvin sees the Mothman/Garuda as being basically a benign entity, and one that surfaces from its strange realm of existence at times of peril and strife, and when things are distinctly ill with the world. Part-helper, part-guide, it's inextricably linked with us - but generally for the better, Colvin believes.

But it's also a creature whose presence should not be taken lightly - nor should the fact that the creature's presence at Point Pleasant may have been tied in with a whole host of other activity, including classified government projects in the fields of mind-manipulations and psychotronics, synchronicities, the Men in Black, dark and tragic prophecies, the world of big-business, the military-industrial complex, and much more.

The Mothman's Photographer II is a fantastically strange trip into a world without rules, where just about anything goes, and where convention is thrown out of the window. But it works - and it works very well.

If you read the book, you are likely going to come away with a new view (or, at the very least, a modified view) of Mothman, thanks to a man who had the vision and guts to follow his instinct and present his data, ideas, theories and thoughts to those willing to listen.

And, given the fact that it seems the nature of Colvin's life was almost pre-destined from the day he first immersed himself in the world of the Mothman, perhaps he was meant to write the book. And perhaps we're all meant to read it. If so, Colvin has done us a great service in providing a book that is unique, unusual, riveting reading, and beyond thought-provoking.

Read and prepare to have your mind blown, bent, reorganized and, if you get the message, elevated, too.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Andy Colvin Rocks Your Mothy Socks!, September 24, 2008

By 

Lesley Gunter - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Mothman's Photographer II: Meetings With Remarkable Witnesses Touched by Paranormal Phenomena, UFOs, and the Prophecies of West Virginia's Infamous Mothman (Paperback)

This book is not only full of Mothy goodness, but much more.

Andy Colvin shows there is much more going on with Mothman than just the sightings of the creature. There are endless synchronicities and connections with other paranormal subjects, as well as fringe science such as mind control.

Honestly I think you could take the research in this book and make a great conspiracy/paranormal thriller film from it.

You get so much with this book -- interviews with Andy and dozens of other interesting people that have something to add to the Mothman tale. There are witnesses and esoteric legends like John Keel adding their two cents.

I would think this is required reading not only for those interested in Mothman, but anyone interested in the paranormal, ufos and/or conspiracy.

Two thumbs up for Andy!

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mothman's Boswell, July 14, 2008

By 

A. W. Senior "The Carpal Tunnel Kid" (Utica, New York United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Mothman's Photographer II: Meetings With Remarkable Witnesses Touched by Paranormal Phenomena, UFOs, and the Prophecies of West Virginia's Infamous Mothman (Paperback)

Andrew Colvin has put together an amazing, detailed, and compendious book on sightings of the Mothman, or Garuda, whose visage Colvin has apparently captured on film--but which also touches on the Rockefellers, the Manson Family, The Philadelphia Experiment, Union Carbide, and strange 1967 premonitions of the destruction of the World Trade Center.

With transcripts of his interviews by the excellent Keith Hansen ("Vyzygoth") framing the work, Colvin weaves a fascinating tapestry of synchronicity, anomaly, and unexplained occurrence. There are transcripts also of talks by Grey Barker and John Keel, and of Colvin's own television program, The Mothman's Photograper, with annotations and asides by Colvin throughout. There is much, much more, though.

The Garuda has been legendary throughout human history as a harbinger and a protector--an inspirer of prophetic visions. That this legend would manifest itself to Americans in the 21st century is, in Colvin's view, some cause for alarm--and comfort. Alarm, because its appearance usually foretokens disaster; comfort, because those visited are forewarned and forearmed. Colvin's friends and family in and around Mound, West Virginia speak eloquently of their visitations.

My recommendation is that you unplug the phone, toss aside the iPod, shoot the television and spend a weekend delving into this most fascinating book.