– – We’ve posted here before on Mothman, but that was before the MonsterQuest edition. After all of the humdrum episodes on rats, feral dogs, snakes, and killer bees The Quest has again found a cryptid subject worthy of their consideration! One wonders why they took this long to get to Mothman…
This cryptid has been drawing attention for decades, and is described as appearing somewhat like a man-bat, standing about 7 feet tall, weighing around 250 pounds, and boasting an impressive 10-15 foot wingspan. He has prominent red eyes, emits a high-pitched shriek, and can reach incredible speeds in flight, readily keeping up with a speeding car! I love the re-creations of cryptid encounters that they do on The Quest! One idiot, after drag-racing Mothie in his car, was shown pulling over and chucking rocks at the cryptid! Impressive was another re-creation that depicted Mothman perched gargoyle-like atop a tall bridge; really great stuff! – -This image alone made the episode for me, but I digress…
Anyhow, reports of the winged creature were previously best associated with sightings in Point Pleasant, West Virginia beginning in 1966 when over 100 encounters were recorded. In 1967, the Silver Bridge buckled and collapsed in that town, causing 40 deaths and leading to the reputation of Mothman as a “dark angel” of some sort who shows up before local tragedies. More recently, Mothman is reputed to have branched out, showing up as far away from his original stomping grounds as Wisconsin. Other supposed sightings were said to have taken place in New York City prior to the 9-11-01 terrorist attacks; even more recent was a 2009 sighting in Sacramento, California.
Now MonsterQuest tested the theory that Mothman is a known animal, most specifically a barn owl. Their experiment showed that size estimates of Mothman cut-outs placed in locations varied widely, and were generally over-estimated. In spite of this, a psychological expert testified that people will have high confidence in a distorted memory image, an image which can be fleeting and further distorted by the fear response. “Psychological contagion” is also known to cause people to see things once they are reported. MonsterQuest further demonstrated that the eyes of many animals will glow red as they reflect light at night, including barn owls.
Be this as it may, one is hard pressed to believe that misidentified barn owls account for all of the Mothman sightings. In the absence of hard evidence, however, the truth as often happens is still out there…
…long live this “dark angel!”
– -Worth a look and arriving November 13th is Fantastic Mr. Fox, 
– -The end is near!
-“Inside every man there are two people–one good, one beast.”
— It’s been called, rather unkindly and dismissively, “a movie for furries.” I don’t think that James Cameron’s Avatar is going to be that, but there may be furry elements in it, specifically ten-foot blue humanoids called Na’vi who are striped like tigers. 
— I had an unusually vivid dream last night about Bigfoot…In my dream, I went to the Post Office, and they had a juvenile female Bigfoot there in a back room, acting like it was nothing new and really no big deal to them; the postal workers went about sorting their mail. The Bigfoot was not being held captive, but 
— Disney has a mixed record on their portrayal of foxes, which range from the villainous to the heroic. On the one hand, “Honest John” Foulfellow of the 1940 Disney film Pinocchio was a scoundrel, a sly anthropomorphic fox and known criminal who tricks Pinocchio twice in the film; negative stereotyping! In fairness to Disney, however, both the fox and cat characters were depicted as con men who lead Pinocchio astray and try unsuccessfully to murder him in the original Adventures of Pinocchio story, a tale which is quite dark in places. The Fox and Cat in the original story even pretend to sport disabilities, the Fox lameness and the Cat blindness! Felines will probably take offen
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— Then for a heroic fox, it’s hard to beat Disney’s Robin Hood, with a very affable vulpine in the title role. Most furolks genuinely like this film and for good reason, even though the characters are somewhat stereotypic and parts of the film footage including dance sequences were borrowed or adapted from other Disney creations to save a little time and money.– Still, two paws up for Robin Hood and a positive portrayal of foxes!
— Having already considered the Trix Rabbit, it is only fair that we also consider the Nesquik Bunny, wondering perhaps which one might win in a Deadliest Warrior deathmatch…
— Disney stuff is usually too mainstream and white breadish for me, but I have to love Perry the Platypus, pet of the title characters in the Disney Channel show, Phineas and Ferb. Unknown to his owners, Perry (aka “Agent P”) lives a parallel life as a secret agent for The Agency, a government organization of animal spies. Pretending to be a mindless house pet, Perry is secretly a fedora-wearing secret agent who enjoys romance soap operas and potato chips.
FOXSYLVANIA 
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