The Silent Children of Point Pleasant.

On November 12, 1966, at approximately 6:42 PM, two married couples—Roger and Linda Scarberry and Steve and Mary Mallette—reported encountering a large, winged creature with glowing red eyes near the abandoned TNT plant in Point Pleasant, West Virginia. This sighting marked the beginning of what would become known as the Mothman phenomenon, culminating in the tragic collapse of the Silver Bridge on December 15, 1967, which claimed 46 lives.

But while the Mothman legend has been extensively documented, a darker mystery has remained buried in newspaper archives and county medical records: the cases of at least seven children who claimed to have seen the creature in the days before and after the initial sighting. Within weeks, each child inexplicably lost their ability to speak.

The first documented case was 8-year-old Timothy Watkins. On November 10, 1966—two days before the famous first sighting—Timothy returned home from playing near the old munitions domes at 5:15 PM. According to his mother's statement to the Mason County Sheriff's Department, recorded on November 23, 1966: "Timothy burst through the door, shaking and crying. He kept pointing toward the window, but wouldn't go near it. When I asked what he saw, he just kept drawing the same thing over and over—a tall figure with wings and two big red circles for eyes."

By November 16, Timothy had stopped speaking entirely. Medical records from Pleasant Valley Hospital dated November 18, 1966, indicate no physical trauma to his vocal cords or brain. Dr. Marcus Hoffman noted: "Patient appears physically capable of speech but refuses or is unable to vocalize. Exhibits extreme anxiety response to darkness and windows. Recommended psychiatric evaluation."

The second case emerged on November 15, 1966, when 10-year-old Emily Mason was found by her father in their backyard at 7:20 PM, staring motionless at the Ohio River. The Mason County Register reported on November 17 that "the Mason girl has not spoken since Tuesday evening when her father found her standing in the yard. The family reports she had been drawing pictures of a 'dark angel' for several days prior."

By December 1, 1966, five more children between the ages of 6 and 11 had been admitted to Pleasant Valley Hospital with similar symptoms: complete loss of speech following reported sightings of a tall, winged figure. None showed physical causes for their condition.

The Point Pleasant Register published a small article on December 3, 1966, titled "Hysteria Affecting Local Children," which stated: "Doctors attribute the unusual cases of mutism in local children to mass hysteria related to recent reported sightings of an unidentified creature. Parents are advised to limit children's exposure to these stories."

What makes these cases particularly disturbing is what happened after the Silver Bridge collapse. According to hospital records obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests in 1998, six of the seven children regained their ability to speak within hours of the bridge disaster—all except Timothy Watkins.

Mary Hyre, a local journalist who extensively covered the Mothman sightings for the Athens Messenger, mentioned the children briefly in her personal journal, which was discovered after her death in 1970. An entry dated January 3, 1967, reads: "Visited with the Mason girl today. She's speaking again but won't talk about what she saw. Her mother says she woke up screaming at 3 AM on December 16, saying 'It's in the water now,' then began speaking normally about breakfast as if nothing had happened."

Dr. Hoffman's notes from a follow-up examination of Emily Mason on January 10, 1967, state: Patient has regained full speech capabilities but exhibits selective amnesia regarding the period of November 15-December 15. When shown her drawings from that period, she becomes agitated and insists someone else drew them.

Former sheriff George Johnson, who served Mason County during the Mothman incidents, gave an interview to paranormal researcher David Grabias in 1996, stating: "Those kids... that was the thing that bothered me more than anything else. We had these children who just stopped talking, all around the same time, all after claiming to see this thing. The doctors called it hysteria, but I've seen hysteria. This was different. These kids were terrified of something."

The most haunting account comes from Timothy Watkins himself, who finally broke his silence on August 21, 1977, more than a decade after his initial experience. At 19 years old, he contacted John Keel, author of "The Mothman Prophecies," and provided a written statement that Keel included in his personal archives but never published. I couldn't talk because it was in my head all the time. Not just its face with those terrible eyes, but its voice. It showed me the bridge falling. It showed me people I knew would die. It showed me other things I still can't say. I didn't speak because I was afraid if I started, I would never stop screaming. The others stopped hearing it after the bridge fell. I still hear it sometimes. It says it isn't finished with Point Pleasant.

Archived records from Mason County Elementary School show that all seven children were frequently absent following their experiences. School psychologist Dr. Eleanor Cooper noted in a February 3, 1967, report: "These students exhibit symptoms consistent with severe trauma. They interact minimally with peers and react with panic to certain stimuli, particularly the color red and bird-like imagery. Several refuse to look out windows."

In 1987, local historian Carol Harris began interviewing residents for an oral history of the Mothman events. Her notes, stored in the Point Pleasant River Museum archives, include a disturbing pattern: all seven families with affected children relocated from Point Pleasant within two years of the bridge collapse. Attempts to locate them for follow-up interviews were unsuccessful.

The most recent development in this forgotten aspect of the Mothman legend occurred in October 2013, when construction workers demolishing an abandoned house on the outskirts of Point Pleasant discovered a cache of drawings in a sealed box within the wall cavity. According to the police report filed on October 23, 2013, the images depicted a winged figure standing over what appeared to be the Silver Bridge. The most disturbing aspect: the drawings were dated November 8, 1966—four days before the first official Mothman sighting, and thirteen months before the bridge collapsed. Property records identified the house as belonging to the Watkins family until 1969.

To this day, while tourists visit the Mothman Museum and attend the annual Mothman Festival in Point Pleasant, few hear about the children who seemingly predicted the coming tragedy through their artwork and paid for this foresight with their voices. Local residents, however, still warn their children not to play near the old TNT area, especially as dusk approaches.

As Emily Mason reportedly told researcher Carol Harris in their only brief conversation in 1990: "We all saw something different than what the adults saw. They saw a monster. We saw what it was showing us. That's why we couldn't speak. How do you tell someone their future is already written? The seven children of Point Pleasant remain the forgotten witnesses—those who perhaps saw more clearly than anyone else what the Mothman truly portended, and who bore their terrible knowledge in silence.