The Mothman Prophecies

What a giant disappointment of a book. After hearing the Astonishing Legends pod-cast on the Mothman, this book was the next obvious place to look to more info. What I found was a giant waste of time. The book starts and ends with Point Pleasant and the Mothman sightings, but a huge part of it is Keel's direction-less collection of anecdotes in a totally disjointed, stream of consciousness style format. Stories told and re-referenced later, with no real reason, jumping around different time periods and different topics.

While the pod-cast gave it a sense of something mysterious and scary going on, Keel makes so many weird little joking remarks that really make it hard to take the whole thing seriously. He comes across as someone who is in a bigger joke being played, but he isn't. The subject matter obviously leads to skepticism, but when it is presented in this way, it really makes it hard to take even a little seriously.

One thing that really stuck out, was that John Keel feels like John Keel is very important. I realize that all this is from his point of view, placing him in center of every story, but he comes across as smug and self-important like everyone else's experiences in the book are in a way directed at him. Again he seems like he is above on all the people who don't have a riddle figured out, he in reality, he doesn't know the answer either. This is really an interesting story with a lot going, and it is obvious that Keel did a ton of research and legwork, it is just presented here so poorly and in such a disorganized way that makes this book beyond pointless.