Chapter 17

So for that week I explored every place I

could think of, ears open and notebook in hand. I returned to the

museum four times, listening to tourists and other people that

sounded like regulars. I listened to guests at the hotel, and I ate

breakfast, lunch, and dinner out. I hiked the areas in which the

Mothman had been spotted and I talked to any hikers I passed,

hoping someone would mention the Mothman and tell me their thoughts

of him.

By the end of the week, I felt like I had

heard every possible theory about the Mothman’s origins and his

purpose. Knowing he was real, I ignored the ones that tried to

debunk his existence, like the one that said that the people

claiming to see him had actually seen an owl, or that it was all a

hoax. I knew that what Esteban and I had seen was not an owl, and

it was definitely not a hoax. The other theories were numerous.

Some people believed that the Mothman was an

alien as he had been seen around the time of several UFO sightings.