Technically, should November 12th (or even November 1st) be the 40th anniversary of the first sighting of Mothman?

Since Kenneth Duncan only came forth with his and others’ encounter after the Scarberry-Mallette-Partridge events of three days later, the sighting on the 12th is hardly ever awarded the recognition of the honors of being mentioned as “first.”

No attempt was made to capture this multiple eyewitnesses event, even in a fictionalized fashion, in The Mothman Prophecies movie. It can be factually summarized, thusly:

November 12, 1966 – On this date, five men (including Kenneth Duncan) digging a grave in a cemetery near Clendenin, West Virginia saw something that looked like “a brown human being” that flew from some nearby trees and glided low over their heads. It was in sight for about a minute.

Later another eyewitness would tell of how he was “first,” when on November 1, 1966, at the National Armory, next to Camp Conley Road, near Point Pleasant, West Virginia, a large, brown man-shaped birdlike figure was seen on a tree limb by a National Guardsman.

Sources: John A. Keel, FSR, July-August 1968, p. 13; Strange Creatures of Time and Space. 1970, and Loren Coleman, Mothman and Other Curious Encounters, 2002.