Loafer's guide

The Mothman
Don't tell me. Half-man, half-moth. Steady on. The Mothman tag was coined by an Associated Press wag after a character in the Batman TV series. It refers to sightings of a strange winged creature in a US town. One woman described it as a giant butterfly, others say it had feathers. Some grave-diggers thought they saw a 'brown human being' fly out of the trees.

Uh oh, I can feel the icy hand of scepticism creeping up the back of my neck. Wait, there's more. Sightings were often accompanied by physical aftereffects, such as burns and rashes, which were photographed. Plus, there were more than 100 reports of the creature over a 13-month period. In fact, it regularly made the front page of the Point Pleasant Register in West Virginia during 1966-67.

1967? I'm sorry, the story might have had legs - wings even - but isn't it old news? Not quite. UFO researcher John A Keel wrote a 1975 book about it, and now there's a film based on the events - The Mothman Prophecies, starring Richard Gere.

Hmm, Gere as a giant moth. It's a bit of a come-down, isn't it? He's not the Mothman. He's a Washington Post reporter, inexplicably drawn to the town after his wife's death, who finds himself trying to understand the Mothman phenomenon. It's pretty creepy in places.

And the prophecies? Not to give too much away, but some people believe the Mothman is a harbinger of doom. There were reported sightings in the Ukraine before the Chernobyl disaster.

He wasn't spotted hovering over the Millennium Dome by any chance? No, and we don't know that it's a he. All that most witnesses agree on is that the Mothman is 6-8ft tall, with red glowing eyes and a 10ft wing-span. It's variously believed to be an angel, an alien, a demon... or a very big bird.

· The Mothman Prophecies is released on 1 March.

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