Mothman sightings in the late 60s around Point Pleasant, West Virginia preceded a bridge collapse that killed 46 people.

A mangled car is freed from its watery grave as a worker directs the operation from part of the wrecked Silver Bridge. The 39-year-old bridge, spanning 1,756 feet from Point Pleasant, West Virginia, to Gallipolis, Ohio, sending a number of vehicles and people plummeting into the Ohio River. Getty Images

In the months that followed, as legend has it, the Mothman continued to terrorize residents. One family that lived near the abandoned TNT plant reported seeing a red light in the sky above the plant that they could not identify. After seeing the red light, the mother of the family drove to a neighbor's house.

As she got out of her car, a figure who had been lying on the ground next to it stood up. She described it as a gray creature that was bigger than a man, with glowing eyes. The woman ran into her neighbor's house, and the creature followed her onto the porch and peered in through the window. The police were called, but it vanished before they arrived.

The woman said that, months later, she would hear what sounded like a woman keening outside her home, and she believed it was the Mothman.

The Mothman sightings, along with alleged UFO sightings and run-ins with strange men dressed in black in the area led to a swarm of "monster hunters" descending on the area. One famous paranormal writer, John Keel, visited Point Pleasant, bringing more widespread attention to the phenomenon along with him.

Keel was convinced that all the strange happenings, which included a number of cases of alleged poltergeist activity in the Ohio Valley, were linked. He wrote that over 100 people observed the Mothman in West Virginia between 1966 and 1967.

On December 15, 1967, a 700-foot bridge linking Point Pleasant to Ohio collapsed during rush hour, killing 46 people. On the same night, families who lived near the TNT factory reported seeing strange lights above the facility. Keel wrote that a "window" of supernatural activity had been opened in the area, leading to above-average paranormal sightings and tragic events.