I wrote my reviews for Hell, Michigan years ago so I guess I'll make my review #666 about the…read moreMothman Museum. That creepy cryptid looks pretty demonic in a lot of the ways he's represented in here, especially with those glowing red eyes. Mothman Museum is cheekily billed as The World's Only Mothman Museum and you quickly see why. You have to be hardcore into the lore to actually be impressed by this small museum and not be seeing this at least a little tongue in cheek. It's all in good fun, though, except for the Silver Bridge collapse which is actually pretty harrowing and tragic. Admission is only $5 and if you really want to make it worth your while you can sit and watch the entire documentary in the little viewing area. I was pretty wore out from the road and was trying to make Akron by nightfall so I only watched a little. I meant to see if it's on YouTube just like I've been meaning to watch The Mothman Prophecies. Ha! Predictive text suggested Propaganda instead of Prophecies. That's pretty funny. The gift shop is almost half as big as the museum and it's really the highlight, easily outshining a bunch of old newspaper clippings. All the Mothman fanart is fun, too, but it seems like it's really to whet your appetite for buying souvenirs. And there's actually two or three other shops in town selling Mothman t-shirts. An old coworker I knew had 2 Mothman t-shirts and I thought that was so excessive but then I saw a design I liked better than the one I bought her in another shop and was tempted to do the same thing as Zach. I didn't but I kind of get it now. The statue outside has a separate listing here and I gave it a separate review but I will say it's so flipped out and such a powerful photo/selfie magnet that it does make this small kitschy museum seem more worthwhile. My theory is that the teens who originally encountered Mothman were time travelers who saw a future Point Pleasant that was utterly devastated, more abandoned than Gary or East St. Louis. So they came back to the 60s and came up with Mothman so at least this town would have something to hang its hat on. So there would at least be this museum, a couple gift shops, Mothman indoor black light mini-golf next door (!), etc. They went back to the future and said their work was done and that's probably the best that can be done for Point Pleasant. That's my Tale from the Cryptid and I'm sticking to it.

We came to Point Pleasant for the Mothman experience and we were not disappointed. The museum…read moreitself is small and quirky and maybe a little more underwhelming than you would anticipate. It has displays on the Mothman sightings from the '60s that basically put this tiny town on the map . It also has some coverage on the Silver Bridge collapse including newspaper clippings, eyewitness accounts and quite a few props from The Mothman Prophecy movie which was fun to see up close . The giant mothman hanging from the ceiling in the hallway was probably the most fun we had inside the museum . If you're into cryptids you'll probably love it, although I will admit I was hoping for a little more. Still, the price is right and they have a nice little gift shop in the front as well. Most importantly for me, the shop and the museum are dog friendly. It also stays very busy. We visited on a random weekday in winter and the shop got so packed that at one point that we ended up stepping outside because our dog is small and I was genuinely worried she'd get stepped on. We sat on the bench out front for a while and listened to the Fallout soundtrack play through the speakers. Honestly, that little break and the ambiance of this cool little town set to some pretty groovy tunes might have been one of my favorite parts of the whole stop. When you visit, don't forget to cross the street and check out the iconic Mothman statue. In the opposite direction you will find the point pleasant trading company which also has lots of treasures to check out as well. The gift shop here is decent on its own and I did find a couple of shirts that I really wanted but I was low on cash at that particular moment, so I figured I would order them online later. It turns out that they have some merchandise here that is exclusively licensed by Bethesda to the museum, so buying it from the museum or ordering it from the museum and having it shipped is the only way to get it anyway. Learn from my mistake and just put everything you want on a credit card. Great advice right?