Extra Credit: The Mothman Prophecies

(Available to buy or rent on YouTube)

    The 2002 movie The Mothman Prophecies is based on John Keel's novel of the same name and follows the main character, John Klein, two years after his wife died. In it, John Klein is a reporter for the Washington Post and is traveling down to Richmond for an interview when his car breaks down in the middle of the night. He finds out he was transported over 400 miles in an hour span to Point Pleasant, WV, and discovers the locals experience strange phenomena surrounding lights in the sky, a strange man called Indrid Cold that is giving out inescapably accurate prophecies of death, and a moth-like humanoid. 

The movie culminates in the dramatic end scene where [SPOILERS] John realizes the messages he had been getting from Indrid Cold weren't warning for an explosion at the nearby chemical plant, but rather a warning for the collapse of the Silver Bridge. He fervently runs onto the bridge to warn as many people to get off, but everyone brushes him off till the cables start flying and the bridge starts shaking. The area quickly descends into chaos as people try to save themselves over others. John jumps in to save his cop friend and manages to pull her out of the wreck of her car in the river. Shortly afterward one of the local deputies informs John that 36 were killed in the collapse, which shocks John as Indrid told him that 46 would die. He is then further surprised when his friend informs him that she too had heard from Indrid, where he called her "number 37" [END SPOILERS].

The contents of the film deviate greatly from many's thoughts on the Mothman, including my own, as the film delves into Keel's notion of "ultradimensional" beings, or aliens that exists on a "higher" dimension than our own. This film, however, generated enough interest in the Mothman and Point Pleasant leading up to its release that the city was inspired to hold its first-ever annual Mothman Festival, which now boasts over 10 thousand attendees a year and an estimated (by me using data from other festivals and educated guesses) over one million dollars in revenue.