Doc Talk: Accursed Mountain State, Belgium abandoned
By Peter Keough Globe Correspondent,Updated December 23, 2020, 12:47 p.m.
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The National Geographic series â
Atlas of Cursed Placesâ manages to sneak in some sly political commentary under the trappings of the usual sensationalistic tales of the strange and supernatural. In the episode â
The Curse of West Virginiaâ host Sam Sheridan journeys to the Mountain State, where the curse he investigates is the elusive Mothman, perhaps best known as the subject of âThe Mothman Prophecies,â a 2002 horror movie starring Richard Gere.
In November 1966, in Point Pleasant, a town at the confluence of the Kanawha and Ohio rivers, two couples claimed to have been chased by a giant winged man with glowing red eyes while they were driving in the vicinity of an old army munitions dump. More sightings and other strange phenomena occurred, such as a dog disappearing and strange men in black appearing in a diner who didnât know how to use utensils. Then in December 1967 a sighting of the Mothman was reported at the nearby Silver Bridge just before it collapsed, killing 46 people. Other disasters followed, including a flood of coal slurry from a mine in 1972 that killed 125 people in Buffalo Creek Valley.