Photos: All the Cryptid Love We Saw During West Virginia’s Mothman Festival

Each year, the town of Point Pleasant, West Virginia, located just over the border of southeastern Ohio, celebrates its claim to fame: Mothman. In 1966 and 1967, multiple people in the Point Pleasant area reported seeing a towering humanoid resembling a bird with glowing red eyes. In the years that followed, Mothman became an unlikely mascot of the small West Virginia town and a point of fascination for the rest of the world.

On Sept. 16 and 17, the annual Mothman Festival took over the streets of downtown Point Pleasant, welcoming merchants, food vendors, experts on urban legends and visitors dressed up as their favorite cryptid.

Keep scrolling to check out what we saw during the 2023 Mothman Festival.