The Mothman mystery is actually not a single mystery, but a trio of mysteries. The first, of course, is the titular creature dubbed the Mothman, the other two are the UFOs and the Men in Black. All three popped up out of the blue and ended just as quickly.

It was November 15, 1966, when the Mothman first appeared to two couples driving through the TNT area towards Point Pleasant, West Virginia, just before midnight.

As they drove, their headlights bounced off what appeared to be red reflectors, but as they neared these reflectors, the couples discovered that they were actually the eyes of a large, gray creature with the physique of a man. As they passed the creature, two wings on its back snapped open and the creature took flight, pursuing them. The driver accelerated to 100 miles per hour, but the creature easily kept up. It even slammed itself against the roof of their car a few times. It eventually fell back, and the two couples made it safe and sound to Point Pleasant. That was the first of many appearances that would plague the town for more than a year.

The Mothman was spotted again the next night, and reports came in of previous sightings before November 15, that resulted in a missing dog that was later found dead.

It was around the North Power plant in the TNT area (named so because it was once a munitions storage ground for the military during WWII) that people believe this creature roamed. Local police and residents of the town went searching for this creature — to perhaps solve the mystery of its existence — but found nothing.

Yet, the sightings continued. Reports came in regularly of people seeing the creature. The witnesses were not under the influence of any drugs or alcohol, and many were respected members of the community that were not taken to telling wild stories of flying monsters in the dark.

More curious were the sudden appearances of strange lights and UFOs in the sky above the town. The reports of these sightings were coming in as frequently as the Mothman sightings. In fact, the phenomenon was so frequent that people began to gather nightly on a hill in nearby Gallipolis, Ohio to get a better view of the mysterious lights.

As the witness reports piled in, the witnesses themselves began receiving visits from mysterious men dressed in black.

These men wore black suits with black ties and white shirts. They had shiny black hair and perfect olive-colored skin, free of blemishes of any kind. Some witnesses even described their skin as "almost translucent." Some reports described the men as having Oriental or eastern European features. Their faces were apparently expressionless and their movements were described as robotic.

They would always pull up in black, old-fashioned cars with odd logos and insignia. Somehow, these men would know personal things about the witnesses that they shouldn't be able to know. Their visits all had the same purpose: to warn witnesses to stop filing police reports about the Mothman or UFOs and to stop talking about them to friends or family.

One woman, a reporter named Mary Hyre who frequently wrote about the UFO sightings, was visited by one of these men who kept one hand in his pocket the entire time and never blinked his eyes. The encounter terrified Mary, and she told a friend later that she felt like she was talking to an alien disguised as a human being.

Some people believe that these events were a manifestation of a curse laid upon the land by a Shawnee chief named Cornstalk who was viciously gunned down by Virginian soldiers during the American Revolution.

This belief is supported by the way the sightings ended. On December 15, 1967, 13 months to the day the Mothman arrived in Point Pleasant, the city's busy Silver Bridge collapsed in the Ohio River, killing 46 motorists. The phenomenon of the Mothman, the UFOs, and the Men In Black ended when the bridge collapsed, leaving the residents of the town with nothing but questions and grief.

Today, there is a museum in Point Pleasant that holds artifacts related to the events of those bizarre 13 months, with everything from artwork, to newspaper clippings and even a small viewing room playing documentaries on the phenomenon.

Point Pleasant also hosts an annual festival to commemorate those events, centered around the famous steel statue of the mysterious cryptid that terrorized the town.

Even though the creature has not appeared in Point Pleasant since 1967, its legacy remains. But its appearances did not end entirely. People have claimed to see the creature numerous times over the years, and many have taken photographs. It seems that despite its frequent appearances, we may never know what the people of Point Pleasant saw during that time.

Do you have any stories about the Mothman phenomenon, or know someone who witnesses these events? Feel free to comment below and join the discussion.

Do you want to hear another baffling mystery about a strange creature? Check out this strange phenomenon in West Virginia that's too weird for words.