This week’s fan-submitted story was actually sent to us by the Mothman Museum! It’s of a sighting someone had in Mattapan Square, Massachusetts, back in May of 2012.
The argument with my girlfriend had been loud and bitter, the kind that leaves your ears ringing in the silence that follows. It was May 2012, and we were pulling the night shift for her father’s security company at a construction site on Blue Hill Avenue in Mattapan. Needing to escape the tension in her car, I retreated to the cramped sanctuary of my own van, looking for a distraction on my phone.
The square was quiet, bathed in that sickly orange glow of streetlights, until a flicker of movement caught my eye.
On the roof of the building adjacent to the site, something was moving. I froze, my thumb hovering over the screen. At first, I thought it was a trespasser, but the movement was wrong. It didn’t walk; it glided, a massive, shadowy silhouette cutting through the darkness with an eerie, liquid grace.
As I stared through the glass, the figure stopped. It pivoted slowly, with mechanical precision, until it was facing the cars.
My breath hitched. In the gloom, two massive, almond-shaped eyes ignited. They weren’t reflecting the streetlights; they were glowing with a dull, golden intensity. It looked terrifyingly like the original sketches of the Mothman from the sixties—a heavy, hunched torso flanked by what appeared to be immense, feathery wings tucked against its back.
For five minutes, time seemed to coagulate. Neither of us moved. I sat in the suffocating dark of my van, certain that those golden eyes were looking straight through the metal and into my chest.
Then, without a sound, it pushed off.
It didn’t flap its wings like a bird; it vaulted into the night, heading toward Quincy and Braintree. I scrambled to the window, watching as it became a speck of light against the black sky. It was illuminated by a strange, internal golden radiance, making it look like a dying star falling upward.
It didn’t fly in a straight line. It dipped and dived in jagged, erratic patterns—nauseating zig-zags that defied the physics of any drone or aircraft I’d ever seen. I tracked it for five more minutes until the golden glow finally bled into the horizon and vanished.
I used to wonder if the stories of demons and cryptids were just campfire tales meant to spice up a boring reality. But as I sat there in the silence of Mattapan Square, the adrenaline finally cooling into a dull ache, I realized we haven’t even scratched the surface of what’s out there. The truth isn’t just stranger than fiction—it’s standing on the roof, watching you, and waiting for its turn to fly.
Big thanks to the Mothman Museum for letting us use this story. It was pretty wild! What did you guys think of it?
Remember if you’ve had a paranormal encounter like this and want to send it in, you can send it through our Google form. You can also email us at spookyappalachia@gmail.com!
Thank you to our patrons: Adam, Alvin, Charles, Chris Danielle, Donald, Jeff, Jordan, Julia, Linda, Shannon, and Taylor.
Special shout out to our content creator patrons: Scott and WerewolfRadar.
