Across America and in most modern countries, festivals are widely popular and used to showcase local heritage, food and culture. My own town of Troy has the Strawberry Festival every June, and it’s a big affair for the whole town.
Recently, however, I attended the 17th annual Mothman Festival in Point Pleasant, West Virginia on September 15, 2018 and it got me thinking.
Most festivals celebrate food, or the culture of the town, but very few celebrate local myths or paranormal legends, like cryptids.
For clarification, the Oxford English Dictionary defines the noun cryptid as “an animal whose existence or survival to the present day is disputed or unsubstantiated; any animal of interest to a cryptozoologist”. These things are very much a part of our culture today, so why aren’t they more celebrated?
For centuries, humans have had a fascination with the supernatural and unexplainable phenomena that occur across the country and the world. Take for instance, the Mothman of Point Pleasant. From 1966 to 1967, he was seen far and wide across the town, terrorizing and captivating the residents.
He became such a legend and so ingrained in the town’s history that in 2001, Jeff Wamsley created the Mothman Festival which later became an annual event that has run for the past 17 years to date. In 2005, he created the Mothman Museum, which is centrally located to the festival and draws a huge crowd.
The town embraced Mothman, honoring him with a statue and accepting that this was now part of their “claim to fame.”
The question remains in my mind, however, why aren’t there more festivals like this? With horror and paranormal being such an integral part in today’s society – we all love horror films, or scary stories told around a campfire – why don’t we in turn, celebrate local legends much like the town of Point Pleasant does?
If we were to dig into it, each state has its own myths and legends. Maybe some of them aren’t well known, but if you look into it, you’ll see just how much lore is woven into the societies we’ve built.
Ohio joins in on the fun with Minerva Monster Festival in Minerva, Ohio. It began in 2015 and was typically in September, but this year changed to June and was later cancelled. It is unclear if this means forever, or simply due to issues this year.
The creature seems to be a bigfoot-type cryptid seen in Minerva in 1978. The Minerva encounter remains as one of the top three bigfoot sightings in Ohio.
Roswell, New Mexico takes a hint from Mothman Festival, or perhaps it’s the other way around. Either way, they celebrate the many UFO sightings and the famed crash that have long been a part of the town’s history.
It’s more than that, however. The town not only holds a festival, but has many stores and restaurants that are themed around the UFOs.
Texas has its own Bigfoot Festival, hosted for the last 17 years on Oct. 20, 2018 and also a research center dedicated to the study of the creature, also dubbed the “wood ape.”
Bishopville, South Carolina recently had its Lizardman Festival on June 8 – 10, 2018, a celebration of the lizard-like humanoid seen from 1988 to 1990, and sporadically since then. This was the first year for the festival.
Bigfoot seems to travel the United States quite a lot, as California, Arkansas, Nebraska, Washington and Oregon join in on the squatchin’ fun, hosting their own versions of Bigfoot Festivals.
Cryptids will forever be a part of our culture, so it’s only fair that we celebrate them, right? I for one would love to see more people delve into the mythological and paranormal and bring it to light, rather than letting it sit, unnoticed, in some dark corner for years. Mothman Festival revitalized my love for all things creepy and supernatural.
Still, a lot of the reason these festivals are either small, or non-existent remains in the fact that there are people who don’t believe in these things, or believe in spending money on something that can’t be proven to exist.
Few festivals related to cryptids have the support of the town government, and those that do are still left struggling to get enough money to be fully functional. The question then remains, if you have one of these festivals, how do you get food for them?
The Strawberry Festival in Troy has a central theme based on a food ingredient that can be spun 5,000 ways to Sunday and create all sorts of treats.
But how do you make Bigfoot themed food? Lots of bananas? He is referred to as a “wood ape” afterall. When you don’t know what your beast of choice eats, it’s harder to find ways to spin food at a festival.
No matter what century it is, our society will always have cryptids and legends ingrained into it. Festivals are also a part of our culture.
It just makes sense to combine the two and give people a chance to learn about parts of their town’s history. Would you attend a festival of monsters? I would, and I bet I’m not alone, either.
Jeri Hensley
Graphic Designer