Reel Talk: Mothman Prophecies

Episode Transcript

(00:46):
Hello, everyone, and welcome toScary Stories we Tell. I am still
your host, Christashio, and I'mjoined by a couple people who you have
heard here before. One of themis one of the hosts of Surreal to
Dustin. Hello, and this isan episode of a thing I've been wanting
to do for a very long time, and there will be a couple of
things that I need to address beforewe get to what we're talking about.

(01:07):
But we are also joined by goodfriend of the show. You've heard him
here before. He is now apodcast host in his own right. That
would be fair you technically was onRankin and Bass to begin with, but
this is the first time he's goingout into his own on his own,
into the wilds of podcasting. Thehost of Richard Adam's paranormal Bookshelf. Richard
Adam, Hey man, how areyou also the writer of the Mothman prophecy?

(01:32):
That's purely secondary, right, That'snot why I think you do tonight?
Right? Yeah, yeah, tellso, Richard, this is the
first time we talked about it onthe show. Before we get into Mothman,
tell the audience a little bit aboutyour show. You're You're soon,
You're soon to come out show.Yeah, So it's called Richard Adam's Paranormal

(01:53):
Bookshelf. It's sort of a personalmemoir slash paranormal podcas cast. The premise
is every episode, I take abook off my shelf, one of my
many, many classic paranormal books,the nonfiction ones. I'm not talking about
Stephen King. I'm talking about ColinWilson, Whitley Streeber, you know,

(02:14):
John Cael, John Keel. Yeah, real life people writing about purportedly real
life events. And I talk aboutthe book. I'll sort of do a
deep dive into the book or deepish depending on the week, and then
and then definitely segue into what washappening in my life when I read the
book, what the book brings up, you know, what it refers to.

(02:38):
There's always a personal story in theretoo, so it's sometimes it's way
more personal stories. Sometimes it's justthe book and my opinions and thoughts about
the book. Usually it's somewhere inbetween. So, but it's really fun.
It's all it's very autobiographical. It'sall personal memoir and personal opinion and
personal remembrances. I think it's funand funny and sad and I've enjoyed writing

(03:02):
it more than I've enjoyed writing anythingfor decades. So I'm having a good
time and I've never done anything likeit, So this is totally new.
So check it out. Richard Adamsproin normal bookshelf on your favorite podcast platform.
That's not why you're here, Richard. That's not why I'm here,
and that's not why Dustin's here.The three of us are here to do

(03:25):
and this will come as a surpriseto the audience because I have not talked
about it yet, but I willsay this is the opportunity to do so.
This will be the penultimate episode ofscary stories we tell for the foreseeable
future. Unfortunately, due to justrearrangements in life and time and scheduling and
all the other things that come intoand go out of making a creative endeavor.

(03:46):
It's not that I don't like thisone anymore, and it's not like
I don't want to keep doing it, but there are other things that are
taking my time away from this,and it is taking the time away in
a way that what I would beproviding to the audience would not be something
of the level and quality that Iam. Okay, putting out, and
so I am making the decision,along with Dustin and Emma and Jess,

(04:08):
to take a step back from theshow for the foreseeable future. That doesn't
mean it won't come back in someform in the future. There will still
be episodes and things that still needto get run that were side projects that
we were working on while doing theshow. But I just wanted to let
you the audience know kind of what'sgoing on here with the show, why
there's been a gap and everything goingon, and all the other unfortunate things
that come with reassessing and readdressing timeand how one uses time for creative and

(04:32):
personal endeavors, but in this respectcreative. So yeah, I just wanted
to make you the audience aware,because I don't want you to feel like,
oh, and then one day theshow just stopped posting, and nobody
understood why. I respect you asan audience member way too much as someone
who listens to this show to justdisappear off the face of the earth.
So yeah, so this is thepossible, more than likely the penultimate episode

(04:56):
of the show. We'll do onemore episode just to kind of bring everything
to a close, as it were, But I mentioned all of this because
this is something that I've been wantingto do for a very long time.
Richard. You and I have talkedabout Under Siege Too a lot, two
times at least I think in recordedform, once on on Sagull and once
in the Culture Cast, but wehave yet to talk about The Mothman like

(05:18):
at all. Like we've mentioned itwhen we talk, but I've never just
asked you, not even not none. That's going to be this like gonna
be a grill fest twenty twenty four. But there will be questions that I've
been right. There will be questionsthat I think Dustin and I will have
for you. But at the sametime, I do want to talk broadly
about kind of the Mothman, andyou know, the the Mothman himself less

(05:41):
specifically the movies version of the Mothman, I think is a good way of
putting it. But when Dustin andI were talking about kind of where the
show was going to go, hewas like, what was one of the
what is one of the things youalways wanted to do on the show,
And it was talked to you aboutthis movie. Because as much as I
like Under Siege Too, Uh,if you go and listen to the episodes
that we've done about it. Youthe listener will know that Under Siege Too

(06:05):
ain't exactly Richard's project all the waythrough. Now this, on the other
hand, this, this is rightRichard, Like this is your this is
your thing. Still Like to thisnow, I would say, yeah,
it's you know, I mean definitely. You have to understand when when you
talk about a writer's work being representedin a future film. Sometimes Okay,

(06:28):
so you had a question, Ohoh, okay, so I remember it,
and I'll begin Yeah, just gofor it, go for it.
Yah. In terms of answering,well you had asked before, you know,
how does the movie represent my work? I think it does in a
big way, more so than UnderSage Too does, Right. I mean,
I know we've talked about that before, and like you always say the
thing of like there's only one linethat I wrote left in the movie,
and like I never know if you'rebeing hyperbolic, like cause like it's like

(06:51):
me saying I didn't do anything lastyear, and it's like, I mean,
I did plenty of shit, butlike I you know what I mean,
Like, are you being hyperbolic whenyou've said that in the past,
or is that actually the case,Like, I don't know, Richard,
because I've as much part of theindustry as I am, Like, I'm
not, You're right, I meanI and it's weird. I mean,
it's it's hard to understand. EvenI have trouble understanding sometimes. There's there's

(07:13):
so many answers to look. Answernumber one is when your name is on
something and someone comes up to youand says, hey, I saw your
movie. I really liked it.You say thank you, even if you
didn't write a word of it.Okay, now, right, that hasn't
been said. That's just that's justthe way you behave in Hollywood. That's,
you know, the correct way tomake common courtesy that you're giving to
someone who doesn't more than likely understandthe industry, even less so than I

(07:38):
do or Dustin does. Yeah.Well, you know, there's a story
about Jerry Lewis. I think it'sabout Cherry Lewis. It should be about
Cherry Lewis where someone came up tohim and complimented one of his films and
he's like, what are you talkingabout that piece of crap? I hated
that movie. You should have seenwe wanted it to be this, and
it turned out to be that.You know, my god, that's a
piece of crap. Go see theother nutty professor or whatever. Right,

(07:59):
and the walks away, and Iforget who the person was standing next to
them wasn't Dean Martin. But they'relike, what the hell are you doing?
That person liked a movie of yours. They don't need to know your
story and your disappointments. You saythank you and let them have a good
interaction with you know what. Youthink you're correcting them, but you've talked
to them out of liking your movie. Good work, right, And now

(08:20):
the next time they talk to anybodyelse, they're gonna say, you know,
I used to like this thing,but then I met my hero.
I mean hero is what people alwayssay a like. But then I met
the person. I was like,ah shit, Well you become afraid to
say anything nice to anyone. Nownow you meet someone else and you want
to say, I want to sayI like that movie, but maybe they
don't, so all right, orjust not say anything. Okay. I

(08:41):
don't know why I'm saying all this. I'm thrilled with underseege too. I'm
even more thrilled with Mothman. Thesituation with Underseage too is that Matt and
I wrote a movie that if theyhad made the script that we had written,
it would be a beautiful, wonderful, perfectly crafted at venture film.

(09:01):
We leaned heavily into planting and payoffbuilding moments. I mean, we really
tried to make it as good asdie Hard, you know, and it
was a die Hard ripoff. Itwas die Hard on a train, but
we did not do it cynically.We were like, can we do something
that's just as good? And wetried as hard as we could, and
of course our vision was Harrison Fordbeing the hero of our movie. Once

(09:24):
it became a Stephen Sagall movie,a development process kicked into gear, which
it had to because Steven Sagall isnot Harrison Ford. And it was like,
okay, well, now that it'sa Steven Sagall movie, it has
to be a particular thing. It'sa sequels under Siege, and it's got
a big budget, so it's gotto have like a big, sprawling action.
It can't just be him doing youknow, martial arts against other martial

(09:48):
arts guys in an alley. Butthere's got to be some of that too,
and it's got to be written ina way where the Stephen Sagall persona
makes sense and the character we wrotewas not Steven Sagall. So a process
kicked into place. Brian Helglan dida rewrite. Jonathan Lemkin did a rewrite,
Mitchell Kaepner did a rewrite. Abunch of people came in. Some

(10:09):
of them took the took the moviebackwards in terms of, you know,
making it a just a machine thatdelivers action joy, which is what we
wrote. Some of the rewrites tookaway backwards, some of them took its
side, some of it took ita little four. But mostly what they
all did was somehow try to figureout how to make it a Stephen Sagall
movie, which is what you neededto do. And ultimately what you see

(10:33):
structurally in terms of the things thathappen in the order that they happen,
according to the story and the plot, that's me and Matt. The tone
changed, a lot of the actualphysicalization of action scenes were just like,
okay, this is no longer aclever action sequence. This is now two
guys fighting in a room. Okay. Those were those changes. That was

(10:56):
my experience on that movie. Thirtyyears on people of that movie. I
enjoy watching it. It's gained thisweird sort of cult kind of like oddity
respect sort of thing. And that'sgreat. That aside. Now you got
Monthmann prophecies, manthmat prophecies. Isthis movie tonally and word wise? My

(11:18):
lines? This is ninety five percentmy first draft when it was made late
nineties, early two thousands. That'sunheard of. I was not a known
screenwriter. I was not on set. I was not a director, no
claim. There was no reason togive my script any respect whatsoever except that

(11:39):
the director liked it. He wasthe one who read ten drafts, ten
rewrites by who knows what different writers. I've never read them, read all
of them, and then scraped offthe top nine, went back to my
original draft and said this is theone I like. This is the movie
I'll make. Now. Was Ion set, No, never never got
anywhere near the set. I hadone phone call with Mark Pellington before he

(12:03):
went into pre production where he basicallysaid what I just told you and said,
love your script, need you totrust me. I'm going to go
make your movie. And I waslike, all right, what am I
going to say? No? Youknow, so you went and did it.
And during the time the movie wasbeing made every day I'm like,
I don't know what's going on.It's probably being destroyed. In I would
say early two thousand and one,I was invited down to the Lakeshore offices

(12:31):
because they had some footage and they'relike, you should see some scenes from
the movie, or at least somedailies. So I went down there and
I was terrified. I was like, okay, I'm going to see stuff
I don't recognize at all. AndI went and what I saw were for
maybe twenty minutes, half an hourof material, my lines, my scenes,
my tone, and I remember lookingat them and going, okay,

(12:52):
well, if they did that scene, then that means that these other four
scenes have to have also been shotbecause that scene wouldn't exist, so those
other ones must be safe. It'sliterally like counting hostages. Okay, Okay,
now that line okay, So ifthey use that line, that means
that they've got the one that setsit up and then the one that pays
it off later okay, so thatstuff is safe. By the time I

(13:13):
left that day, I'm like,Okay, if this is for real,
I'm going to get eighty percent ofmy movie, and then when they finally
showed it to me, I waslike, oh, I got a lot
more than eighty percent. I gotalmost one hundred percent. And again that's
unheard of. Most movies go througha really crazy development cycle that you really
don't know what's going to happen whenthat movie comes out the other side.

(13:35):
So I got really lucky, andI was happy with the movie then and
I'm even happier with it now.So how does that feel having had the
under siege experience? And I'm sureit's just kind of just the way the
industry works. You create something,you push it out of the nest and
let it go fly off and seewhat it becomes. How does that feel
when you see your creation kind ofbe what you intended it to be.

(13:58):
It was the most important thing thatmight still be the most important thing that's
ever happened in my career, notonly for my career but for me as
a human being. And I didn'trealize it fully at the time, although
I mostly realized and I realize iteven more now that when you as a
writer write something that is then representedon the screen, you are being validated

(14:22):
as an artist in such a powerfulway that that it it I want to
say, it sort of buys backyour soul. I know a lot of
writers who have written things that havebeen made that are not what they wrote,
and it took to weigh at you. And I know other people who
have just never had the opportunity atall. They've written other things for other

(14:43):
people, but their work has neverreally seen the light of day, which
means their voice and their soul andtheir you know, their blood has not
found its way to the audience forwhich it was intended. And that is
such a powerful thing when that weapons. There's a lot of talk about this
today, and I think people getit wrong about representation and voices that were

(15:05):
not heard because it feels like it'sall political. It feels like, well,
oh, okay, so you justbanging a political drum so that you
know, whatever group you're with getsrepresentation. It's totally personal. It's personal
when your story and your truth isallowed to exist side by side with other

(15:26):
voices that, for the past hundredyears have been overwhelmingly those of white men.
Not only does it validate you asan individual human being. And yes,
maybe there's a group of people,a class of people of a country
and ethnicity, an orientation of peoplethat go also that's also my story.
But for the artists themselves, thisis what allows you to get up off

(15:50):
the ground and say it's worth it. I can do this. There's light
at the end of the tunnel andthese it supercharges you to tell more story.
Yeahs. And as most writers knowand most artists know, and you
guys know, if you want totell a universal story, tell an intensely
personal story. It feels counterintuitive.It's like, well, yeah, but

(16:11):
my specific experience can't possibly but itis. It is the experience of other
people. And the more personal andidiosyncratic it is. When people recognize that
stuff, a bond is made.And again, not only is it powerful
for the person doing it, butthen for the audience you're reaching. They
feel that you have seen them andnow their story and their life has been

(16:33):
validated and is worth something. Andif they decide to then turn around maybe
and become an artist, a writer, a director, a musician, an
actor, then they continue the cycle. And it's a cycle that brings people
together and connects us as human beings. And that's why all of these mediums
are so powerful. So it's somethinglike the Mothman prophecies and you kind of

(16:56):
mention, you know, going onon to make something deeply person and all
that allows it to connect directly morebroadly, I mean in your approximation,
in your opinion, did you succeedin that terms with Mothman? And in
your words, what is what arethose moments in Mothman that you wanted to
stand out or that you were usingpersonal experiences to mind? Because I mean,

(17:18):
obviously the film is quote based onthe book by John Keel, but
the book by John Keel. Toadapt that book is like it's like adapting
Naked Lunch. It's like, Idon't know how You're like, it's not
necessarily narratively set up. The sourcematerials not to tell a through line has
a narrative in character's story any morethan Naked Lunches, which I think you

(17:42):
know that's what drives this question.But where do you kind of where did
you place your own personal stuff andhow much of that was just also when
you were looking at the source materialnoticing that it might have also been there.
Okay, so the story that I'vetold in the past is part of
the answer. Now to be veryvery clear, I have never had a

(18:03):
supernatural experience. So in a particularway, I was not saying, hey,
I want to I want to sharewith you a supernatural experience that I've
had. What I have had isa lifetime of reading, studying, thinking,
wondering about these experiences that people dohave, and wondering what that feels
like and what it would really belike. And for a long time in

(18:27):
my youth, I thought, well, that'd be the greatest thing in the
world to have a supernatural experience ofany kind. Would tell you that the
four walls of rationalist, reductionist materialistphilosophy is it crumbles, and once you
once you bring down, once youeven have a crack in one of those

(18:48):
walls, now you've got a wayout, and now you've got room to
speculate on a range of things.So I thought that would be so great
if I could just see a ghost, I could make to see something a
UFO, then I would know thisis not all there is, and suddenly
disky's the limit and everything and anythingis possible. Well, that event never

(19:11):
happened, and that's okay. Butat the time when I was thinking a
lot of this stuff for the firsttime and really trying to figure out what
do people when they have these experiences, what does it do to them?
And that was the story I wantedto tell because I'm like, well,
there's many movies about audit houses andall kinds of things, but they tend
to be at a certain point theyhave to fulfill a plot. It's like,

(19:34):
well, there's a body in thebasement, there's bones, there's a
murder. We're going to catch themurder. You know, you know,
the person who's possessed will now beunpossessed. It becomes the concerns become quite
material. And I'm like, youknow, in real life, when you
read about people who have supernatural experiences, none of that happens. They have

(19:56):
a very strange experience and they neverfigure it out. And I thought,
is it possible to do a hauntedhouse movie where a guy moves into a
house it's haunted, and then hedoes every smart thing you've ever hoped a
character would do. He sets upcameras, he brings over people, he
records all the phenomenon. He bringsa priest in and has the place exercised.

(20:18):
But he brings a scientist in andhas all the gases measured? You
know, is he hallucinating every singlesmart thing you can do, and none
of it solves what's going on andit never gets resolved. And that's it,
because that's what really happens. Thesethings do not get resolved no matter
how hard you try. Right,So I thought, is there a way
to do that? And I,you know, I've played around with it.

(20:41):
I didn't write a word. Ijust was always thinking about it.
But in the year before I foundthe book, this was really boiling around
in my head. And then oneday I found the book and I read
the back of the book, theIlluminat Press copy, and the back of
the book basically said, here's allthese things that happen. It would make
a great movie, right, youknow. And they were like, you

(21:03):
know, they're trying to sell theirbook, but they're like this, you
know, this paranormal classic, youknow, written twenty years ago, you
know, you know, is theweirdest thing you're ever gonna read, and
and it culminates in a shocking conclusion. I'm like, what the fuck is
this? So I bought the bookand I read it, and of course
anyone who's read the book, yourfirst reaction is John Keel. His voice

(21:26):
unlike any voice writing in the inthe field of true paranormal. It is
so engaging, so entertaining, sofunny, so propulsive, so scary,
and his mind just jumps from thingto thing to thing, which is why
you say it's like naked lunch.I mean, there's there's a progression of
events, but there's just so muchcrazy shit going on, right, It's
that line. It's just like thestream of consciousness continuing and it's like he's

(21:49):
just going and but that's good,Like you said, like there's very few
voices like well, you know Burrowsas well, similarly, because like I
mean maybe I think that way,but I definitely write that way, and
writing that way, being able toexternalize the internal is it like the internalized
thing is very hard. But thosewho could do it, it's like holy
shit, like a John Keel ora Burrows. Yeah. Yeah, And

(22:11):
I thought, well, there's somuch here. The job isn't going to
be really inventing phenomenon. It's goingto be basically just clearing stuff away so
that one one sort of through lineremains what's happening in point pleasant and just
getting enough to bring him through.And then and then the next thing was
making it emotional giving. So thestuff I invented was the personal stuff,

(22:33):
the relationship, the wife he wasnever married, you know, the the
you know, reflection on sort ofthe existential questions that are posed by death
and the death of a loved one. So all of that stuff was like
again, you know, I mean, that's any Stephen King novel does that,
you know, in the first fiftypages. So it's like it was
these were craft decisions that would allowme to deliver this story. But at

(22:59):
the same time, because it wasa non fiction book, my entire desire
was to convince the reader that Ihave found a book that you've never heard
of, where things happened in reallife that you're not going to fucking believe.
And when I wrote the screenplay,I actually wrote an author's note that
was the first page that preceded thetitle page even I think, and it

(23:25):
basically said, the events in thisscreenplay are true. The timeframe has been
updated some there's been a compression ofyou know, the span of the narrative,
and some names have been changed,but the phenomena took place, It's
happened all over the world for thousandsof years and the events have never been
explained, and I wanted people toknow that when they started to read the

(23:45):
screenplay, so they go in withthat feeling of really and then I wanted
the first twenty or thirty pages ofthe screenplay to not have anything really that's
scary at all, just really feellike, Oh, these are just real
people buying a house, going towork, doing their thing, and John
Klin slowly becomes more and more enmeshedin the paranormal and tries to figure it

(24:11):
out. So anyway, that wasmy whole thrust with getting this done.
The personal questions I wanted to addresswere can you answer these questions conclusively?
Are these questions things you can answer? And my feeling was that they are
not questions you can answer, andthat in trying to pin them down you

(24:33):
drive yourself crazy. This is notthe sort of thing that might ever be
fully pinned down. And can webe okay with that and at the same
time not dismiss it completely? Canwe accept ambiguity in our lives? Can
we accept living with the question.That's what I wanted to do, that
it's not a Friday night at themovies let's go get a tub of popcorn

(24:55):
and a pizza and then go homeand make out in the car. You
know, It's like people want amonster or and they want to fight,
and they want to see the monsterkilled. So I was shooting at a
very narrow target and that was andI knew it when I wrote it.
I knew it. So that's whenDustin and I watched it last night,
that was something that we were bothkind of commenting on and want I wanted
to ask you about it. AndI think this ties directly into the idea

(25:19):
of the Mothman as both obviously acharacter in the film, being represented by
your script and John Keele's book,but also like again Mothman broadly right,
like just the Mothman and the phenomenonsurrounding it. How important was it to
have a Mothman in the movie orwas that a thing that had to be

(25:41):
added at some point, because becauseI think, for Dustin and I one
of the things that I think,and I think not that we're you know,
sitting here and going, well,we know how to do it better,
but I think what would have workedin the I think one of the
things that may have actually helped themovie in the long run, but I
think it would have hurt the moviefor the audiences at the time, just
based on what you're saying. Sayingis it could have stood to have been

(26:02):
a lot vaguer, but the audiences, the audiences would have fucking hated that
at the time. But like nowit's somewhat okay. You can make movies
that are even more ambiguous and vague, and I think people embrace that more.
In twenty twenty four, I mean, people's filmmaking film viewing tastes have
changed so drastically, and I meannot really maybe not even drastically, but

(26:23):
they've definitely caught up with things thatare asking them to ask more of themselves
than the things that they're watching.Because that's the thing about your movie.
It's asking a lot of the audience, which, like you said, a
movie and we watched the trailer forit. They don't even know how to
advertise the movie because like, it'snot a horror movie, but it is,
and it's not a thriller but itis. It's like more of a

(26:44):
lot of things kind of all atonce. So like, how I guess
my question to you is how importantwas it to hw to the real story
of the Mothman, but also bringyour own spin to the story via you
and John keel Well. I wasn'tworried about representing the events in Point Pleasant
in nineteen sixty five, sixty six, sixty seven. That was not my

(27:06):
interest at all, and I purposelychanged the facts of the case so that
it was sort of made overtly clearto anyone. You know, the very
first thing you would ask is,well, how many people died on that
bridge? And it's very easy toknow the number, and I gave the
wrong number because I wanted to makeit clear that, on no level was

(27:29):
I trying to tell the real story, because real people died, and you
know, you're dealing with the livesof relatives who are still alive, and
I wanted to make it clear I'mnot just getting it wrong or you know,
if I tried a little more,it would have been worse because they
would have said, well, youhad a character named this, and you
had that character named that. SoI changed everyone's names, and I you

(27:51):
know, anyway, my goal withthe script was to was to answer a
question, but not answer the question. And this was part of the movie
that I think could have possibly workeda little better. By the way,
the bridge collapse is amazing. Ithink it's one of the most incredible things
I've ever seen on film because itfeels real, does not feel like,

(28:14):
oh, okay, so this wasdesigned in a computer and we're watching computerized
images. It really feels physical andit is. Much of it is that
having been said in the screenplay.What is made very evident is that many
of the things that happened in themovie that were just weird and kind of
odd and mysterious get answered. Solike there's sound effects, it's like,

(28:36):
oh, every time there's this weird, you know, shrieking sound on the
phone, and you realize later,oh, that's the sound of the cables
twisting, and oh there's other theweird visuals of the red and green light
sort of tumbling through the sky thatpeople think are UFOs, And then it's
like, oh, no, that'sthat's the police car tumbling through the air
and then sinking through the water.And the impression you're supposed to get is

(29:00):
that there was a voice in theuniverse that was trying to issue a warning
but could not speak our language,and so it was using sounds and images
and weird reference points to say something'sgoing to happen. It was trying to
warn us. It just didn't havethe words, and then the thing happens
and it could never have been stopped. That to me would have sort of

(29:26):
said, oh okay, so thatthe things that we saw that didn't make
sense ultimately sort of made sense.But it's only when John Klein gives up.
It's only when he's like, I'mdone, I'm done with this.
I'm not going to answer the phone. I'm just gonna I've made my decision.
I'm no longer going to try tofigure out the answer to any of
this. I'm going to go backto point pleasant, go to Connie's house

(29:48):
and have Christmas Eve. The minutehe makes that decision, the entire universe
just tilts and opens up every singledoorway in front of him, every doorway
that's been shut. He's been inhis head against every doorway. None of
the door is open. The minutehe incites to stop looking at the thing,
but look over here, everything coalescesinto he and again this is in
the script, not in the movie. He goes, there's no you know,

(30:11):
there's no flights. Oh wait,there is a flight. Yeah,
there's one seat left. Great,I'll take it. He lands, you
know, in Ohio. He's like, I need a rental car. I'm
driving to Point Pleasant. I'm sorry, it's Christmas Eve. If there's no
rental cars. Wait, there isa rental car. Someone comes up.
Oh, oh, there's one,you can have one. Every single thing
opens up, allowing him to beon the bridge when the disaster happens so

(30:33):
that he can save Connie. That'sit, that's what the universe wanted.
Once he took his eye off theball, he was able to achieve his
actual goal, which is re enterthe human race, step out of the
fog of grief, reapproach actual life. And that's the answer. The answer
is Connie. And once he understoodthat, he was able to effectively at

(30:55):
every other question for the bulk ofthe movie that he was trying to answer
and figure out our questions. Nohuman being is ever going to figure out.
And so at a certain point yougot to set those aside. And
that's you know what's funny, Richard, when you talk about it that way.
The idea of the Mothman in themovie right and again, like the
character of Indrid Cole has given avoice, and we see them at one

(31:17):
point ostensibly, and I like theidea that we get to see them,
and I like, you know,you kind of going further as to exactly
say what the purpose of the characteris. I think it's interesting because again,
like for for me as an audiencemember watching the movie for the fifteenth
time or whatever it is at thispoint, because that's the I mean,
that's the weird thing in a lotof ways, like you and I are

(31:37):
friends because of something that has nothingto do with the Mothman. You reaching
out to Mike and I and sayingyou like something that we worked on.
So I've never blown smoke up yourass about the Mothman. Like it's something
that I've enjoyed despite despite all theissues I'm sure you think it has or
that it does have or whatever.I enjoy it. And even though it's
it's probably my favorite Richard gear movie. And I don't like Richard Gear all

(32:00):
like he I find him to bejust for me. He's his acting style
and the things that I've seen himand don't resonate with me. But I
understand that he resonates with a lotof other people. That being said,
you mentioned this idea, and likeit comes back to you know what I
was thinking about when I watched thismovie every time, which is if he
didn't leave immediately when the phone rang, she would have died the end.

(32:21):
That's the way I mean, right, like you said, like the idea
of and I think it would havebeen really great to have those scenes of
like, oh my god, likeit's just that one. There is one,
and it's just you got the one, and that's the universe telling you
like you needed to be there,you had to be there. But like
at the end of the day,if he sat and talked on the phone
to his wife quote unquote for anyamount of time, the way the movie

(32:43):
chronologically sets it up, she wouldhave died, right And you know,
and look, there was a lotgoing on in Point Pleasant. There were
UFOs, there was the Mothman,there were men in black, there were
there were there were there was poltergeistphenomenon in people's homes. There were these
strange phone calls, people were havingprecognitive dreams. I mean, there was

(33:04):
the whole range of supernatural phenomenon goingon that that you know, you try
to fit all the puzzle pieces andyou can't. There's just as well.
There was you know, John Keiolahad a big imagination he was making some
of that stuff up. He mayhave been, but at a certain point
it's like, well he wasn't makingit all up. I mean, there
was a lot going on. Therewere people who were witnessing things and it's

(33:27):
funny the Mothman, and I'm like, well, I'm not going to show
the moth Man. I mean,that's just not really ever going to happen.
And what is the role of theMothman? And the people who saw
it emotionally were it was terrifying.They they had an emotional reaction to what
they were seeing that had nothing todo with what they were seeing. There's

(33:47):
all kinds of scary things you cansee, but people when this thing got
near, they experienced a feeling ofdread. But in a weird way,
that character the Mothman was the leastinteresting. But I thought, okay,
once I started telling the story,and because the Mofman is sort of unknowable,
I'm like, well, maybe there'sa way to do this where if

(34:07):
you see the Mofman you're going todie. That can be a thing I
can do that people who see themoff man will later die. You won't
know it until after you see themovie. You see it a second time,
maybe a third time, it's like, oh, anyone who saw it
died and in various ways. SoI'm like, okay, well that's a
use and and thematically that fits becausethat is how the town felt once this

(34:30):
stuff really started happening. It's veryhard for human beings to go, well,
okay, does a lot of weirdstuff actually is happening? The very
next question always is what does itmean? What are we supposed to do
about it? Why is it happeningto us? Why are we chosen?
What's happening? So, and itusually feels bad because you see something and
it's scary. You're like, Ithink something bad is going to happen.
There was a lot of fear anda lot of paranoia in the city at

(34:52):
the time, and Keel reports aboutthat and talks about that, and then
when the bridge collapses, Yeah,could be a coincidence, but there really
was. That was the end ofthe reports of strange phenomenon in Point Pleasant
From then until now, it justreally has not continued to be a hotbed.
So who knows. You know,the people in the people in the

(35:15):
town, don't. Their reaction tothe book isn't well drawn. Keel's a
big city slicker who came down hereand made fools of us. Honest town
folk, They're like, no,he reported what we told him, and
he did his best to be accurate. You know, they stand by their
stories. So to that degree,the mofman showed up, other stuff happened,

(35:36):
A bad thing happened. That wasthe end of that. I never
really took the Mothman very seriously untilI don't know, about six or seven
years ago, when stuff started happeningin Chicago, and those sightings have convinced
me that there is a supernatural phenomenoncalled seeing a large winged humanoid because the

(35:58):
people reacted to it with fear.People are seeing it. There's many more
reports around Chicago than there ever werein Point Pleasant. Mothman is not something
I associate with Chicago and the O'HareAirport environs much more than Point Pleasant.
It's been seen dozens of times,described in the same way, and people
stand by their stories. So let'slet's take that tangent for a second.

(36:21):
We'll come back to mothman prophecies,but to talk about the Mothman broadly here.
Dustin and I were actually talking aboutthat last night when we were watching
the movie. Dustin mentioned to methe Chicago sightings. But I mean again,
and and you know, I've askedyou this privately, but I feel
like this is a question that Ican get away with asking you on podcasts,
which is, you're now the Mothman, right like it was. If

(36:44):
John Keel was still around, whichhe's not, it would be him on
Twitter. But I think when peopleinteract with you on Twitter, they're like,
hey, it's Richard HadAM, It'sthe Mothman. He's the Mothman guy,
and like that. But like thatis that a bad thing? I
personally don't think so. I mean, look, you mate, I like
I was telling Dustin last night,there were how many movies about aliens and

(37:04):
other things? There's how many moviesabout all polter guys and everything else.
How many movies are there about theMothman? Yours are? Nobody will touch
it except Richard had Him. Idon't think people think I'm the moth Man.
I think people think I'm the Mofman. Prophecies, movie man there are
wow, you know. I mean, in terms of if you're interested in

(37:24):
the in the phenomenon. There's LaurenColeman, there's sure, I mean,
I mean, I can go getthe books all. To be fair,
I think of Lauren Coleman more asa bigfoot guy than as a mothman guy
me personally. Well yeah, Butthen there's uh Tobias Wayland Island. I
always get his name wrong, buthe's written, He's written several books.

(37:45):
And to be fair, you Imean like, I also say that because
Richard, you have kept up withthe information about the Mothman, like,
don't sell yourself short, like youknow about the Mothman too, you know
what I mean? Like, butonly because people ask I to go read
the books of the expert, sothat I have I can go, well,
go read this Tobias's book, Goread a Laurence book, go to

(38:06):
Lawn Strickler's you know, uh website, and and keep up with with the
reports as they get reported. Butpeople have come to me and said,
so what do you think? Sowhat is the Mothman? And I'm well,
A, I don't know that I'mthe wrong guy to ask. I've
I've got you know, theories andideas about ghosts and UFOs and stuff,
But mothman is a tough one.I mean, I can read books about

(38:30):
near death experiences and alien abduction andthere's all kinds of things that can be
talked about and people can form theoriesabout. Really, the Mothman seems to
be a thing that shows up,scares the hell out of people, and
then leaves the end. So whatis going on in Chicago? Richard?
That that was the That was theother part of the question. So what

(38:51):
now? So I mean, Iknow, so uh god, I feel
like I should grab the book TobiasWays book, The Lake Michigan Mothman.
I'm showing it to you. There, it is, there, it is.
Okay, Tobias is a guy who'sthought about this way more than I
have. I've talked to him alittle bit, you know, we're sort

(39:13):
of Twitter friends. But here's oneof the more interesting parts of the book,
and it's you know, it's writtenin a very clear eyed sort of
Okay, here are the reports.Here what the people are saying. Let
me tell you a little bit aboutthe area. So here's the funny thing.
In the years before these sightings happened, but just you know, just
previous to it, the sort ofclimate topography around O'Hare Airport changed and became

(39:40):
much more swampy, and it becamea place that large, for want of
a better phrase, sand hill cranesand other large winged egrets started to live.
We know a thing every about sandhill cranes. That's those are native
to Nebraska. Western Nebraska has ahuge sand till crane migration thing. Rights,

(40:04):
yeah, yeah, yeah, Andyou know there are there are large
birds, and there are and whenyou see a large bird or an owl
and you're not expecting it, itcan be shocking. And and if it's
if it's out of place, ifit's not something that's seen all the time,
then people react and well, whatdid I just see? So the
strange thing is that these birds beganto live in the area of the sidings

(40:29):
just before a lot of the sightingswere reported. Okay, and Tobias talks
about it doesn't hide from that,but he but it's that thing of Okay,
it is very odd these large birdsmove in. But now people are
reporting things, some of which soundlike the birds, but some of which
sound like they are distinctly some otherthing. Now, why is that and

(40:51):
why is it happening in that oneplace. Now, are is it just
that some people are completely misrepresenting whatthey're saying, and it literally would be
all along the lines of instead ofthinking you saw a deer, you thought
you saw a ten foot tall,four legged, red eyed beast. You
know. With it's like, well, wait a second, you can't misinterpret

(41:12):
it that hard. You can't misinterpretit that hard. But it's so frustrating
and yet so classically fortyan that thatthere's always the oh, except for that
one thing that makes it very difficultto say, this is definitely a supernatural
thing and it happens. It's almostlike there's a trickster figure on the one

(41:34):
hand, going, oh, thiswill be hilarious. Let's make sure the
mothman sidings take place in a placewhere large birds have recently taken up residents,
and it's got a fuck with everyone, okay, Or the phenomenon itself
is like, oh, we cango here now because we can move about
undisturbed, there's already large birds.Maybe we won't be as noticed, but

(41:57):
the fact remains. Some people reportseeing the large birds, and other people
report seeing a human figure that lookslike it's been punched out of a hole
in the universe with glowing red eyes, giant wings, and when it takes
off, it makes it sound like, you know, a bus slamming on
the brakes, a loud, screechingnoise that these birds don't make, just

(42:21):
enough for debunkers to go, well, you have your answer, but not
enough for the people who had theexperience, who say, well, no,
that simply isn't what I saw.So I guess in your mind,
and you mentioned it in terms ofcomparisons to the Mothman sightings that drive the
narrative in the movie that you wroteChicago is now where the Mothman has taken
up Ruce for a while, idlyas the friends for the foreseeable future.

(42:45):
Well, I don't think there's oneof anything. I don't think there is
a big Foot. I think thereare many, you know, and I
don't men. Moth men. Ithink they are. I think they are
sometimes physical, but they are notalways as I mean. I know.
Look, and now we're not reallytalking about the movie. We're talking about

(43:05):
people having supernatural experiences. If youlook at the entirety of witness reports and
you're just you know, physical evidencesometimes and eyewitness reports what you would be
left with is in terms of mostBigfoot sidings, and certainly all Mothman sidings
and many UFO sidings. Is somethingis seen, it becomes gradually more physical.

(43:30):
It can interact with the environment,it can interact with people in ways
that we don't understand, and thenit can disappear very quickly, sometimes in
a way that makes it seem likethe thing is becoming less physical in our
reality. So are these things thatyou know are Do they move in and
out of dimensions? Do they haveways to get in and ways to get

(43:52):
out? That's what it feels like. That's what people seem to report,
and maybe one day we'll understand whatthat mechanism is and if that is indeed
what's happening. Well, that's whenDustin and I were watching last night.
That was one of the things thatwe were kind of talking about. Is
the idea of the Mothman being likea I guess if you were to put
a term to it would be likeultra terrestrial, like able to walk around

(44:15):
like in less about traveling space,but more traveling time in between. The
space is in between time and space. I guess it's not we don't I
mean if we don't even understand theconcept of how these things are being,
there's no way that we could explainit to ourselves unless we happened upon it
by pure accident. Well, Iwas just going to say, there was

(44:36):
something I watched the uh on theTrail of the Mothman Lake Michigan documentary,
which you ended up being on itwhen I was watching it. It was
the Breedlove documentary. Oh yeah,yeah, yes, yeah, yeah,
oh great, that's a great one. Yeah. And somebody on there was
talking about a sighting of the Mothmanand it was almost like it was in

(44:58):
a strobe light as it was moving, And I thought that was an interesting
way to describe it and kind ofwhat you guys are saying, like how
it can move about like it's notit's not like us. It's moving through
our type in space much differently.That's so I love that description, by
the way, like it's flickering yea little bit, and it's you know,
it's it's not quite holding it's itsphysical form, uh, but it's

(45:22):
trying and then it and then itrecedes. There's a there's a kind of
sense that this makes, you know. I think in talking about these subjects
from the seventies, from the daysof in Search of to tonight, there's
been a movement of breaking down thewalls between them, between ghosts, UFOs,

(45:43):
cryptids, all these things. Andonce you do that, you realize,
oh, these things overlap all thetime, but they're often left out
of stories because the people collecting themare focused in a particular field. So
people collecting UFO stories will tend toleave out details. When a person tells
their UFO story and says, butright before we saw the UFO, we
saw this bigfoot creature. Because they'relike, well, look, I have

(46:06):
enough trouble getting people to take myUFO reports seriously. Now if I add
in that you saw bigfoot, they'renot going to listen to any of this.
So I'm going to cut out thebigfoot part, but I'm going to
talk about the UFO part, andwe're going to compile it with other UFO
reports and try to put forth acase that these things. You know,
there's similarities in the reports and sothere may be something to study. But

(46:29):
if we start throwing in bigfoot,no one's going to listen to a fucking
word. We say again, theybarely listen now, Whitley Strieber and his
wife Anne when they were getting lettersfrom people after hero Communion. They're going
to letters from people, and somany of them said, oh, on
the spaceship with the aliens, whenI was abducted, I saw my dead
relatives. Well, now that's reallyweird, and that's still really weird.

(46:50):
But they're absolutely convinced that the UFOphenomenon is directly connected to what happens to
us after we die. All ofthese things suddenly when you listen to entire
reports and they become mora alike andsuddenly like, oh, it's ghosts and
it's UFOs that act like ghosts.They're here, then they're gone. Bigfoot

(47:13):
is there? Then gone tracks leadout. I mean there's you know,
maybe that's the reason we've ever founda Bigfoot body, because Bigfoot isn't an
actual animal. It is more associatedwith ghosts or UFOs. So this has
become a something that people can talkabout in a way I don't think they
could even twenty years ago. Well, I was just to say I mentioned
to Chris last night much in theway that like I can think of,

(47:37):
like when Carl Sagan was explaining ina two D world. How a three
D object would be perceived in atwo D world. They wouldn't see it
as three D. It would justbe seen as this intersection, this line
in their two D world, youknow, as it moves through the two
D world. They would they hadno concept of three D. So bring
that into what we're talking about,like a four D world, let's say,

(48:00):
intersecting with our three D world.Just as an analogy to what we're
talking about, you know, thesethese uh beings, Mothman, Bigfoot,
UFOs, ghosts, is just thatwhat people are experiencing, these little glimpses
of something intersecting with the three Dworld, our world and then moving out
of it. That's then the otherquestion that I always have in all of

(48:22):
this, including with the Mothman,And I mean this comes back to something
that's talked about in your movie Richardit Uh you know, the book I
think approaches it a little differently.But the character of Richard Gears character John
Klein in the movie, he's meantto be John Keel from the book.
He talks to the Mothman on thephone, he interacts with him directly.

(48:43):
Well, he talks to Indred Coleright Andred Cold. Who again, I
guess the question becomes Cole Well,who is Indrid Cold? Right Like,
if Indred Cold is not the Mothman, how is Indured Cold something else?
Right? Well, they talk aboutthat different frequency too in the movie.
Yeah, Andred Cold is Mothman's manager. It's his front man. He comes

(49:04):
in make sure the hotel room isright, man, the green eminems have
all been taken out right, youknow, he checks in, he works.
He sort of is the layers onbetween Mothman and the labels. I
mean, but that's the thing likeIndrid. So that's That's one of the
things about the movie that I've alwayswondered about and I've never asked you about.
And again, John Keel's book isone thing, but having you as
a source of knowledge is another.The relationship between Indred Cold has been talked

(49:29):
about, the relationship between Indrid Coldand Mothman has been talked about plenty.
I Mean, one of the things, Richard, that I know you've watched
and I watched as well, wasHellier. And they talk about Indrid Cold
a lot in Hellier, Like,if not Indrid Cold being the focus of
that show, he kind of endsup being the focus for like a swath
of episodes in that show. Buthow important was it for you to represent

(49:51):
Indrid Cold and the Mothman as againlike separate entities but of a same possible
path. Yeah, like they're like, you know, off Bank kicked the
door open and then Indrid Cold slippedthrough, and you know the UFOs and
some ghosts. Well, Indured Coldto me was so interesting because it was
there was a it was more ofa character. You know, it was

(50:13):
like talks is dialogue, talks dialoguea person. See, It's like,
oh, this is you know,this is really interesting. And what was
really interesting to me about Indred Coldwas this sense that it was a thing
that was taking a human form butit was having trouble getting all the details
right. To me, that's thescariest thing in the world. And one

(50:35):
of the things that I wanted toput across in the movie was not that
really any of these things were evil. They're not evil. You know,
A great white shark isn't evil.A black widow spider is not evil.
We're afraid of it. It canhurt us, but it has no moral
motive insect politics. Yeah, it'sjust it is what it is it does

(50:57):
what it does? Yeah, yeah, I'm a rattlesnake. Sorry, Yeah,
what did you expel me? Notto staying you? Yeah? And
I love the notion that that that'swhat we were dealing with here, that
Indrid Cold, these aren't demons.This is something that you know. And
really the only thing in the moviethat I don't like is when Indrid Cold
on the phone says, I knowwhat scares you? Because I'm like,

(51:19):
no, that's that's not he's tryingnot to scare you. That's a demon
thing. Yeah, I know whatscares you is sort of like, oh,
so these are like evil demons thatare coming. It's like, no,
they're scary because they're different. It'sthat uncanny valley. It's the thing
that's trying to be human that's comingup and going, ah, how are
you don't be a fire to me? And you're like what the fuck?
You know, I like, it'sthe scariest thing in the world. And

(51:42):
it's wearing a Richard suit. Yeah, it's like and it's you know,
trying to walk and you know,it's like brenning constantly and you're like,
you know, what the fuck.So to me, that was really scary,
and I was like, that's betterbecause I don't want it. The
minute it's evil, then the narrativebecomes, well, we're good, therefore
battle, therefore we win. AndI'm like, I it was so hard

(52:02):
to try to maintain a narrative andthematic through line that did not do anything
to trigger those feelings in the audienceof Oh, now I understand. Now
I know who the bad guy is. The good guy is. The bad
guy is the world in Mothman prophecies. The bad guy is things happen that
we don't understand. Sometimes it's abrain tumor, sometimes it's a moth Man.

(52:25):
Good night, everybody, another funnight at the movies thanks to Richard
had them well. And that's thething that you mentioned about, you know,
the injured cold character in the movienot being perceived as evil. And
I think that is important obviously,because again, like I've mentioned kind of
at the top here, I thinkyour movie was ahead of its time in

(52:45):
a lot of ways, because again, like the Mothman now is no is
is no, I don't know,it's like it's not something that's unknown,
Like it's not an unknown I'm notsaying in two thousand and two it was
an unknown but Mothman is more knownnow than it ever has been, right,
And that's the thing I mean whenI think of Mothman Prophecies, I
really think about your movie as likeit was made at a time and a

(53:06):
place for an audience that was nevergoing to appreciate it anyways. In a
lot of ways, like the realquestions at the center of the movie are
finally more acceptable to be talked aboutpublicly in the present, more than it
has been before. I mean,like you said, I mean, this
is a this is mainstream now,Like this is a mainstream way of doing
things, which is making a movieabout it, Like this is the mainstream

(53:29):
way of approaching the topic. Theyjust did it twenty years too early,
or ten probably fifteen years too early. Honestly, you know, I and
I made the mistake of thinking,well, there will be critics that will
understand this. They'll go, Okay, the movie is called the Mothmann Prophecies,
but what the movie is really aboutin then they would then they would
explain my thesis and they would gogood job. None of them did.

(53:52):
Every last one of them was like, this is garbage, this is stupid,
this is is a you know,a movie that doesn't know what it
is. It it ends, ittakes the easy way out by answering your
question and never asked. It's it'sit's boring, it tries it. It's
foolish. It wants us to takesomething seriously that is absurd. It's that

(54:15):
this is you know, there's somenice performances and boy Mark Pellington does everything
he can with a shitty screenplay,but blah blah blah, and it was
sort of like, oh, sothe part they got right was it's atmospheric.
Mark Pellington does a beautiful job.Acting is great, but in retrospect,
I don't know why I expected anythingdifferent, because these are the kinds
of questions that movies just don't dealwith. That most fiction doesn't deal with

(54:39):
the uncanny, the sort of like, oh, we're something strange happened and
we're not going to get an answer. It's just it's weirdly taboo because these
experiences have been so thoroughly ridiculed bycertain voices in our culture, mostly self
appointed skeptics, and then and thenotherwise, you know, sort of righteous

(55:04):
spokespeople for science like Carl Sagan sortof feel it's their duty to say,
well, all of this other stuffis just stupid bullshit, and you should
not no one should even be thinkingabout it. You just just just go
take a science class and learn whatreality is. And yet the people who
have had the experience is not me. They're the ones saying I'm not banging

(55:28):
in a drum for any cause somethinghappened to me. I'm telling you what
happened. And I'm going to sciencewith my arms wide and saying what happened,
and they're kicking me in the nuts. Well, guess I shouldn't be
talking about that anymore. I wrotewith my left hand and the teacher slapped
me with a ruler. Guess Ibetter not right with my left hand anymore.

(55:50):
And it's sort of like, wait, hold on a second, is
this really our best approach to literallythousands of years of people having experience?
And you know what, if youwant to come up and tell me exactly,
it's like, oh, you knowwhat, it turns out it's this
disease. It's like bipolar. Oh, it's this thing. It's like schizophrena.
It's like we figured it out.It's a brain imbalance with this chemical

(56:12):
and that chemical. And you reallywant to do it and prove it and
give medicine to the people who arealien abductees and suddenly they're fine again,
or you want to explain it someother way, that there's some sort of
natural phenomenon that provokes hallucinations of avery particular kind. By all means,
bring it on. I don't careif there's an explanation and we can get

(56:35):
to it and it makes sense.But anything other than the lazy, lazy
ridicule that serves no one but abunch of guys hanging out at the Magic
Castle, you know, feeling superiorto everyone else for absolutely no reason at
all, I think, And wetalked about it a little bit ago,
and I guess, tell me ifthis is kind of what your formula for

(56:59):
the movie was, but we kindof talked about it where going through the
movie, it kind of presents itpresents the moth mean as it is this
thing that exists. But then there'slittle parts of the movie that make you
question that, like or is itor is it just this thing that's happening?
And like we saw when we werewatching the movies, there's all these
introductions of dual red lights everywhere,everywhere like throughout the whole movie, which

(57:23):
I thought was really fun to kindof spot. Yeah. Yeah, that
was one of the things Mark dida great job of. And also that
there's this sort of a it's almostlike a y it's like a line with
another line off it that sort ofis a visual motif that gets sort of
a woven in and out mark ofthe moth mean, yeah, kind of
the mark of the moth Man.So yeah, I mean it's constantly sort

(57:45):
of tipping its hat to you know, oh wait, what did I just
see? Wait? What did Ijust see? I don't think it was
in there to say, oh,this is what they're seeing. I think
the movie is trying to train youto look for stuff, get primed and
then go oh my god, whatoh no, that's just tail lights?
Was that kind of the concept ofwhat you're going for, where like the

(58:06):
movie's presenting it as like the Maffianis this thing that everybody's experiencing or is
it? Well I wanted to be. I mean, look, I you
know, you if Mark Pellington wason with us, we could get his
sort of approach to the visuals andkind of what he was saying. And
it's funny because I never got anopportunity to sit down and have these discussions

(58:27):
with him that that it was justsort of like, yeah, I think,
you know, I'm sort of doingmy thing and then he's doing his
thing and they tend to match up, and Okay, that's cool. And
in the time since the movie's beenmade, I still haven't had a conversation
with him, So I don't Idon't really I can't answer for him in
terms of those visual flourishes, butwhat I what I can say is that
I respect it personally for what itdoes, because that's what I think it

(58:51):
does. But but on the onthe page, my intention was there was
another moment in the script that thatdoesn't really play out in the movie,
but there's it's on the bridge asit's you know, starting to collapse,
and a guy you know, likerolls down his window and he's looking up
and the you know, bridge iskind of swaying, and he looks up

(59:12):
and he sees the mofman. It'sit's one of our clearest views in the
script, and he sees it,and then we were back on his face,
and then we're back where he's lookingand whatever the mofman was is actually
just sort of one of the cables. It's like it sort of resolves into
the cable having been pulled out,and it comes down and basically like slices

(59:34):
his head off. The idea ofbeing, of course, that once again
you see the offman, then youdie. So it's like, yes,
he saw the Mofman, but Imean, and it's funny because we did
have a lot of conversations with theproducers and even with Richard gear I had
conversations about how people experience this stuff. And one of the ideas, and
it gets talked about in one ofKeel's books, is that is that when

(59:57):
people see a UFO or mothman orwhatever they're seeing, they're seeing an energy
form from another dimension, something thatis not typical to our physical world,
and the brain doesn't know what it'sseeing, and so it's flipping through and
flipping through and flipping through, andit's almost like like a roar shock test.
You're trying to figure it out reallyquick and figure it out, and
you sort of like land on somethingand then that's what it is for a

(01:00:19):
second, but that's not what itis. And even the aliens, the
gray aliens with the big eyes andthe big heads in various abduction scenarios.
They tell people this is not howwe look. We look this way for
you, but this is not whatwe are. And that's always strange because
I'm like, oh, because theway you look is creepy. This double
scary for me. Again, it'slike, if you're doing this to make

(01:00:42):
me feel better, it's not working. Honestly, what do you look like?
Oh imagine, right, like cosmicterror, Like you see it and
you go insane like well yeah,because because you don't, you don't know
what you're looking. I mean,look, brain can't process it at all.
It drives itself crazy trying to processwhat it is. It's so hard
to imagine and it's really scary.But people who have had these experiences say

(01:01:07):
there is a level of terror whollyunique that occurs when you are interacting with
something that is not human. Right, it is an intelligence that is greater
than ours. It's not human,there are no emotions. It is another
species, but it's above us,and you share then you're like, oh,
yeah, that is scary. Butit's almost impossible to imagine what that

(01:01:30):
feels like because there's nothing, reallynothing like it. There's nothing comparable until
that thing happens and the people thathappens to it changes them. They're very
convinced they know what they experienced,and typically they don't want to talk about
it. Often they don't talk aboutit for years. This is not a
situation where people are like, Ooh, all I got to do is tell

(01:01:52):
my UFO story and I'm going tomake some money. People want making money.
No one's making money with these streamersnot making money. He destroyed his
career as a novel who was makingfar more money before he wrote Communion than
after. If he had just continuedwriting horror novels, he would be Dean
Koon's, he'd be Stephen King,he would be living in a mansion.
He's living in an apartment. It'sAntamonica. He is not a wealthy man

(01:02:15):
writing Communion. Made money off thatbook, and then it destroyed his career
for the last forty years. AndI hate that people think that, you
know, that's the easy path.Is I am an author or I am
a participant in this thing, andtherefore someone will write a book about it,
or I will and I will makea lot of money. It's like,
well, it's also I mean it'sa completely fascile argument that could apply

(01:02:35):
to anything. Well, that's whyMichael Shermer writes his Well, you're only
opposing as a skeptic. You aren'treally a skeptic. You're just doing it
to cash in and make money offskepticism and off the which is an absurd
statement. But what the hell.As long as we're throwing around absurd statements,
why not throw some back over thefence, right? Well, yeah,
and that's the other thing. Soyou mentioned John Keel a couple times.

(01:02:58):
Obviously, John Keele wrote the bookon which the movie is based.
You spent some time with John Keele, I'm sure more than just some,
given that you adapted his novel.What was it like to get to work
with him? And you know,what did he think of the film after
the dusted settled ones that had comeout? Like what was kind of what
was it just like to be inthe presence of someone who again you,

(01:03:21):
like you mentioned you picked the bookup and read it and realized that like
this was a thing, and thenat some point you're in a room meeting
with this person like what what?What was that like? Well? I
got lucky because by approaching him theway we did. So my agent reached
out to him and said, hey, you know, I've got this writer
who wants to do an adaptation ofyour book, and we would like to

(01:03:42):
discuss terms for an option. Andmy agent went to a guy named Knox
Berger, who was a big NewYork literary agent represented a lot of very
famous people, including John Keele.And what's really funny is if you watch
Annie Hall, I forget this scene, but there's a scene. I think
it's the one is like Cheryl isit Cheryl Ladd or Cheryl Pink. Sure
a Ladd has a cameo in AnnieHall. But in any case, in

(01:04:06):
the scene prominent in the scene onthe street of New York on the street
you can see a big sign thatsays Knox Burger and Associates. And I'm
like, oh my god, there'sJohn Keel's manager, agent, lawyer.
Anyway, get in touch with that. I mean, that guy's inn irascible
old New Yorker. These guys arevery different generation. John keel Is,

(01:04:27):
He's the Kurt Vomia generation. He'sa guy writing, you know, short
pieces around the world in the fiftiesand short stories and trying to get published
in any way he can. He'swriting fiction, but he's also writing nonfiction
because that's an interest of his also. But these are writers, these are
proto, These are these are guyswho feel that they are journalists. And
Keel was a journalist. There wereso many what we call men's magazines Argacy

(01:04:49):
and you know, literally dozens ofthem where you could sell articles about your
adventure crossing a mountain or you know, crossing a desert, something that would
appeal to male readers who would thengo buy these magazines off the newsstand.
And that's what Kiel was doing.He was writing for those people. So
he was a different generation. WhenI approached him and said I want to

(01:05:12):
pay you some money to option yourbook, he was blown away because he's
like, well, this is theonly time Hollywood's ever come to me through
the front door. He's like,you got to understand. When the book
came out in the seventies, Igot a phone call one day telling me
that they were making the movie inCalifornia. They were already sun Classic International
was just making the movie. Theyhadn't approached me, hadn't paid me.

(01:05:33):
I didn't know about it. Theywere making the movie. I found out
about it. I told Knox Burger. He shut it down. So the
very fact that I came to himand said, Hi, I'm a fan
of your book. I would liketo pay you money and write out a
contract where you'll get credit and alsomore money if it ever gets made,
it was like I bought some credibility, right because I had no idea he'd

(01:05:54):
had such a bad experience, soI thought, I think, right there,
I got lucky. I got ledin the door to a guy who
was very cynical and very alone andnot very wealthy, and suddenly he was
like, oh okay, someone catAnd I went all of my conversations with
him, and all of my communicationswith him were just like, your book
is so great, and your otherbooks are so great, and you're so

(01:06:15):
great, and let me ask youquestions and you get to a certain aging
in your life. And he wasnot getting that reaction. By that time
in his life, he realized hewas never going to figure out the secrets
of the universe. I think fora while he thought he would, but
by then he realized he wouldn't.And once you cross that border, your
sense of humor kicks in, andhe would go to these UFO conferences where

(01:06:39):
people are just grinding their teeth.They're so damn serious about disclosure and alien
bodies and whatever. And he wouldget up there and they would be waiting
to hear answers, and he'd startmaking jokes and they aided that, but
he was just like, I mean, talk about no fucks left to give.
He was just sort of like,guys, if you can't laugh at
this, then you're missing the wholefucking point. It's fair. And his

(01:07:02):
knowledge was so wide ranging that hewould start talking about UFOs and then he'd
start talking about devil cults, andthen he'd start talking about the Himalayas,
and then he'd start talking about Poltergeistand everyone's like, no, no,
there's a UFO conference, where arethe bodies And he's just like, that's
not my gig. I didn't careless where the bodies were, even if
I did know it. I triedit that way, you know, and
I realized that that every trail you'resniffing down leads to nothing. And I

(01:07:27):
cause I sniffed those same trails twentyyears ago. So sorry, I just
I cannot take this stuff seriously.I believe it. I believe people have
experiences. I think things happen,but I no longer think we're within spitting
distance of figuring it out. Andso when I met him, you know,
again, my national level was veryhigh and his was fairly low.

(01:07:48):
Again, I think it gratified himthat one of his titles was going to
be a major motion picture. Andhe joked all the time that, you
know, Richard Gear was cast becauseof their resemblance. And he got some
you know, and look, weall like money, and certainly at his
age and his generation, you know, literally getting paid, you know,

(01:08:08):
pennies or word to finally see somereal decent money. I think it helped
him, and I think it validatedhim in a way, and I'm glad,
I'm so I'm so glad the moviewas good that you know, a
rational human being could look at thatmovie and go, this is respectable,
this isn't garbage. And he gotnothing but good stuff out of it.
So and it sold more of hisbooks, it sold more copies of the

(01:08:30):
mothmat Prophecies. It suddenly was onthe charts again. So so good for
him. And we remained friends andwrote letters, actual handwritten sometimes typed letters
to each other and we talked onthe phone and were friends, and he
liked being a funny, irascible,cynical guy and was he was a character

(01:08:50):
and he knew it and he didnot disappoint and so we were friends as
much as you could be friends forthe last handful of years of his life.
I like the kind of chain ofevents of how you mentioned earlier Pellington
kind of taking your screenplay and usingpretty much its entirety, and how validating

(01:09:13):
that was, and how great thatfelt. And it was a moment in
your life that, you know,the finest moment in your life you'll never
forget. And you kind of didthe same thing, you know, for
him when you said, I wantto turn your book into a movie.
Pay you money, and like allof a sudden, he's part of this
process too, And like you said, how validating it was for him,
Like I just think that's cool.Like it was almost like it was meant

(01:09:35):
to be. In true Mothman prophecyform, there is this unstoppable force that
was set to happen, and ithappened. Well, you know all of
these things, you know, andnot to bring everything full circle back to
my new podcast, Richard Hadam's paranormalbookshelf. But the reason that podcasts like

(01:09:56):
scary stories we tell exist and allthe other ones where people just gather like
we're gathering now and talking about allthe things we don't understand, it's because
there's a gift in the not understanding, and there's a gift in recognizing that
these things are right now beyond ourfull grasp to explain, because it allows
us to react emotionally with fear andwonder and excitement, and it allows us

(01:10:24):
to find a connection with each otherbecause we're interested in the same things.
But the fact that these things aren'tconclusively answered opens the door for emotional storytelling,
and people do connect these things withtheir lives, and it finds its
way into the fabric of your life. There are people who make ghost investigation
clubs and they travel around their areaor they go far flung and they investigate

(01:10:47):
places. They go places they neverwould have been, meet people they never
would have met, see things inthe world they never would have seen because
they're on the trail of ghosts.I mean, it's it's supernatural. Anthony
Bourdain. So whatever the thing isyou love that gets you out of the
house and gets you meeting people andgives you a common place to start a
conversation. That's amazing, and that'sthat's what this is. And so I

(01:11:12):
didn't feel bad. I didn't feellike, oh, I'm not respecting the
truth of you know, the theevery word he wrote. I told him,
I'm like, I'm gonna I wantto tell the truth of what some
of your theories are. But Ican't do it if I just transcribe your
book, because no one will seeit. It'll be too clouded with fun
details. I want to take allthe fun details out and allow my themes

(01:11:36):
to sort of. I guess it'sa movie. It's only going to be
two hours tops. So and he'slike, I totally get it. And
I sent him the script. I'mlike, look, take a look at
the script. And he had everywrite and reason to say, this is
not my story, take my nameoff it, do something else, you
know, and just call it fiction. But he didn't. He got it.
He's like, no, that's thatis my story. My story was

(01:11:58):
about me trying to figure something outand never quite doing it, and that's
what your story is. So samestory, So go with god. Well,
I think also, it's it's it'san admirable thing to make a movie
where you know how it's going toend, and the ending is going to
unsatisfy the audience, right, Likein a lot of ways, it's like
there's the movie Zodiac by David Fincher, like there's no good way to end

(01:12:19):
the movie. Just like Mothman,there's like there's I mean, you end
the events of the movie, butthe Mothman persists, the Mothman will be
back and die another day. Imean, I mean, you're right,
because but I mean, that's that'smore what I'm getting at. It's like
the Mothman doesn't go away right,and neither does what happens that day.
But like again, like that's thething I like that about your movie.

(01:12:41):
My theory is always that the finalminute of the movie is is the way
to figure out the movie. Soyou just take the thing that happens at
the very end and go, well, if it ended there, then just
walk backward through the movie and you'llit's like doing a maze backwards. You'll
you'll find the path and go,oh, okay, I get it right
because it ended there. If itended over there, then the story is
slightly different. It's off a coupledegrees, right, And I figured if

(01:13:04):
I end the story with John andConnie together and it's like, yeah,
well we found you know, weyou know, we pulled thirty six bodies
out of the lake and or outof the river, and you know,
Connie, you would have been numberthirty seven. And she's like, wake
up, number thirty seven. Andthey look at each other with the feeling
of that's what this was about forus as human beings who have to make

(01:13:26):
sense of our lives and come upwith our own meaning. That's what it
means for us, and this isthe story we'll tell our grandchildren. Well,
like you mentioned earlier, like allthe trying to figure out the Mothman
and the plan and saving people likethat's driving that the people that are involved
as driving them crazy. But likeearly in the movie, Connie Till talks
about her dream surrounded by presence inthe water, Basically we're told the end

(01:13:49):
of the movie at that point,but we don't know it. And so
no matter like everything that happened,like like you mentioned, there's these choices
that could have been made that wouldchange the one degree and completely change the
ending. But I don't think likeI said before, like it was this
unstoppable force that maybe the mothmade wasjust trying to communicate this is going to

(01:14:12):
happen. He could have answered thephone, but he never was going to,
you know, to talk to hisdead wife, because Connie already talked
about what was going to happen.She already said she was going to be
number thirty seven. Well, youknow, and we're given information earlier in
the film that the voice that callsitself injured cold can also imitate other people
because people say, oh, youcalled me the other night, or or

(01:14:34):
you know, someone else's like,oh that's right, what do you you
know? You know, Will Patten'son the phone and he says that indured
cold is with him. He's standing. Yeah, whatever that energy is is
imitating his voice. So it's like, well, how maybe it's going to
imitate your dead wife. It's goingto come on and imitate Deborah Messing.

(01:14:54):
Yeah, And Connie is the onlyThat's what's so great about Connie, She's
she's always very clear eye about this. She's like, you know, you
don't have to do this. Andthat voice on the phone, what answer
is it going to give you?You know, And that's the that's the
other because we know, like Iknow of people who go to psychic mediums
all the time hoping to continually,continually, continually communicate and talk to a

(01:15:18):
dead relative. And I get thatimpulse, and yet at the same time
it seems sad and ultimately, why, you know, what is it going
to do? What? What isone more supposed conversation going to give you
beyond I'm in a different place now, I'm cool, It's all good,
and I'll see you. I'll seeyou in August thirteenth this year, you

(01:15:40):
know whatever. But it's like,Okay, got it, I don't need
I'm going to talk to a deadperson every single day? Am I really
talking to that? How much amI talking to that dead person? How
much is he going to be talkingto his wife? What answer is he
going to get? Go on it? Yeah? Well, I like the
line Connie had you can miss yourwife here, you know, and it's
like, yeah, and you knowyou're talking about this is the story of

(01:16:01):
grief. It's like it kind oflifts the veil of that. It's like,
yeah, take a breath, exhaleand well yeah, and that was
that was the real, the realgift over time was people writing to me
or you know, communicating to methat the movie spoke to them on a
level of a sort of a reflectionon grief. My mother died, my

(01:16:26):
sister died. I was going througha bad time. I watched this movie
and it it touched on those thingsand helped me, which is amazing because
I wrote the movie and it wasabout grief, but I was not in
a process of grieving. I wasnot coming from a place of you know,
someone close to me died and thenI wrote them offmad prophecies. Grief
is a part of everyone's life.Yeah, it's universal. It's universal,

(01:16:48):
and it has nothing to do withpeople, you know, dying. It
has to do with things going onin your own psyche right, parts of
yourself dying, your vision of theworld dying, your vision of your parents
dyings of your childhood dying. Asyou grow. It's almost like a snake
letting its skin go. You gothrough these processes, and grief was the

(01:17:11):
theme, and people reached out andsaid, yeah, you nailed it,
and that movie meant something to me. And I understand every and I've talked
to people who come out of nowhereand tell me the theme of the movie.
They're just like, you know,I love your movie because ABC dn
E. And I'm like, well, you win the prize. If it
worked for you, then my workis done well. And that's the thing

(01:17:34):
for me. That's what's really funny, Richard, is you know, we've
talked about plenty of times on theCulture Cast and other shows the idea of
x as y in horror movies.And I think in a lot of ways,
the Mothman is grief in your movie. I mean you just said it,
right, I mean that that iswhat it is. But I love
I love the idea also of againlike that, in my opinion, is

(01:17:57):
why this movie kind of came outtoo early, because if it had come
out in the last like three orfour years, like people would be like
holy shit, like and I meanagain, like it has a cult following
or whatever it's being claimed on IMDbor Wikipedia. But the thing is,
like, the message of the moviestays the same. The message of the
movie is universal. And when Ikind of put dustin on the spot last

(01:18:17):
night when we were talking about themovie, uh, but I'm glad we've
both gotten there, which is exactlywhat you said. Richard, which is
the grief. And you know,grief doesn't mean losing someone, doesn't have
to mean that, it can ituniversally in a lot of ways for a
lot of people. That is thatfeeling when those things happen. But I
mean, grief is just it's justanother human emotion. I mean I have

(01:18:40):
I mean, as someone who isgoing through things right now, including this
show going off the air, Ihave a level of grief about that,
about something that I have loved thatis a creative endeavor having to take a
step back from it. And ifyou the listener can understand that or that
seems silly that I feel that wayabout a podcast, remember that anything that

(01:19:00):
you've listened to has been an hourand a half of the amount of time
spent doing all these things. Sowhen you're in it making it, you're
in it, and like with Mothman, you were in it making it like
you had to throw yourself into itto get out of it what you wanted,
which is a movie that talks abouthey, you need to like look
around for a second and realize that, like this is not okay, and
you're making it not okay. It'sthe thing grief makes it harder to make

(01:19:26):
things easier for yourself, because youultimately make things harder for yourself unintentional,
and you know, and people whoare going through grief, you know,
it works differently for everybody. Youknow. Recently, there's been a lot
of sort of pushback on the fiveStages of grief because people are like,
you know, the five stages,Yeah, those are common feelings that people
have during a grieving process. They'renot always felt in that order. They're

(01:19:49):
not all felt. Sometimes it's justone or two or none or whatever.
But ultimately, people grieve differently andit and it follows its own path.
And there are people who, whilethey're experiencing grief also experience self judgment and
exterior judgment about how they're experiencing grief. And there's some people who are like,

(01:20:11):
I feel guilty because my mom diedand it was three months ago,
but I feel okay, and sonow I feel like that makes me bad?
Did I not love my mom?Am I a bad person? Do
I not have feelings? Am Iassociate path? And then you know,
people are like, no, it'sokay, it's okay to feel okay.
And guess what a year from now, something might happen. You'll hear a
song or find a letter and youyou'll cry, and that's okay too,

(01:20:35):
that's all part of grief. Andthen there are other people who are like,
well everyone else has moved on,but I haven't. So does that
make me a broken person? Isthere something wrong with me? Am I
going to feel this way forever?And then you're questioning and questioning it.
And so the message now, andI think it's a healthy message, is
grief is real, It happens,It is experienced differently by all kinds of

(01:20:56):
people, and don't judge yourselves.And if and then in a lot of
cases, if your grieving process involvesgoing to a medium and seeing if you
can talk to the dead, havead it. If that helps you,
great, that could be very therapeutic. And for a lot of people it
is a lot of people are miredin grief and they have one session with
a medium and they hear what theyneed to hear. They hear enough whatever

(01:21:17):
it is they hear, whether it'sfacts or whether it's just you know,
hey, they're in a better placenow. And the people walk away and
are like, I actually, yeah, I feel better. I can get
through my days a lot easier now. Well, and that's that is the
other thing about you know, theMothman prophecies and the idea like you mentioned
of grief, Like I think itfor me is more important to move through

(01:21:40):
the grief, not be stuck inthe grief, because being stuck in the
grief, I think, at leastfor me, implies no movement being made
at all. And like and stuckdoesn't necessarily imply complacency, I'm saying our
complacency or being complicit in one's ownyou know, inability to move Like some
people just take grief way harder thanother people. And I mean again,

(01:22:02):
like having to learn coping mechanisms howto deal with those kinds of things in
a healthier way is important. AndI mean again, I think your movie
at its core strikes to the ideaof what does it look like for someone
to have that grief and the wayto handle it forced upon them effectively?
Right well, I mean he makeschoices obviously, like I'm not taking away

(01:22:23):
the autonomy of the Richard gear characterin the movie. But at the same
time, I'm an agree, I'mI personally, I am grieving right now
for things that have happened in mypersonal life. I don't expect the Mothman
to show up and help fix it. And I also, I mean,
the other thing is like I don'texpect that to happen because they know it's
not going to. But similarly toRichard gear in this movie, he knows
he has to do better, andhe does by not picking up the phone.

(01:22:45):
And that is his decision to makethat he does make outside of everything
else happening. That decision that hemakes allows him to save Laura Lenny right.
And it's excruciatingly difficult for him tomake that decision right, But it's
the hardest decision he's ever made,probably right. But he's only able to
make it because he is rational enoughto go no, wait a second,

(01:23:05):
I saw what happened to Will Patten. I don't want that. You know.
That guy went over the edge,and I am I'm coming right up
to it. And that guy wentso far he ate a gun, you
know. And I can call myselfmore sophisticated than him, but I'm I'm
on the brain. I'm pretty muchtanking my career now and my credibility.

(01:23:26):
And now I'm sitting in a roomwaiting for a ghost to call on the
phone, like, what what amI really doing here? He thinks he's
going to alleviate his grief by solvingthis metaphysical question, because when you're grieving,
it is kind of your your brainis trying to grapple with the big
unknown death. And he thinks,if I can answer this, I'm can
figure this out, it'll it'll giveme closure and then I can move on

(01:23:50):
from my wife. But it's theexact opposite, and that's what he you
know, that's what he figures out. So yeah, you know, you
were saying a little earlier, Ijust wanted to say how fortunate I feel
for so many aspects of this movie, but also because you were saying,
well, you know, the movieit was made today rather than then,
and it's like, yeah, youknow, maybe it would be accepted differently.

(01:24:10):
But I will say, the greatthing about writing a movie that comes
out in two thousand and two isthat there's a home video market right in
two thousand and two that didn't existin nineteen eighty two. And then there's
a cable market, and there's youknow, there's DVDs, and and then
just as that was sort of youknow, coming, you know, getting

(01:24:30):
to a saturation pointed at falling off. Here come the podcasts where suddenly it's
almost like just fan groups getting togetherand it's like, let's talk about the
things we care about. And thensuddenly I hadn't I talked about the mothmat
Prophecies three times in probably fifteen years, and then starting it around twenty seventeen,
I've talked about it five thousand times, and I've loved it every single

(01:24:54):
time. But I've been able totalk about it because suddenly there's there's this
show, There's astonishing legends, There'syou know, Rob Christofferson's are Strange Skies,
There's and millions of others where peoplewant to talk about this stuff and
they want to talk about the movie, and they want to talk about the
the phenomenon, and then they wantto talk about other things too that are
that are laterally connected. And nowwe can and we can and people can

(01:25:18):
find the stuff that's interesting, andthank god the movie was Again I'll go
ahead and say personally, I thinkit's well written, but it's beautifully directed,
wonderfully acted. People still get somethingfrom it. And we live in
a world now where I feel solucky that I can hear about it,
because people don't reach out to meand say, hey, I saw your
movie. It sucks. Thank godit wasn't successful enough for people to feel

(01:25:40):
the need to take me down anotch. I never got up a notch.
So all I hear are the peoplewho are like, oh, I
saw it, well I liked it, you know, and that's great.
And so I get all the goodstuff on Twitter and social media, and
so I feel like, well,you know, I did I got what
I wanted. I wanted to breaka chord with people, and I did

(01:26:01):
it. And I did it duringa time in our human history when the
normal fan can reach out any waythey want and say I saw your movie.
Awesome, good job. So didthat kind of come out of nowhere?
You said, around twenty seventeen ish, there's like this mothmane resurgence did
all of a sudden, like yourinbox, your DMS, like it's like,

(01:26:23):
WHOA, what's going on? Itwas at the time the movie came
out, in the earliest days ofthe internet. I got some uh,
I got some attention. You're justfrom fans reaching out to my email account,
you know. They they found itsomehow and they wrote me an email.
Then they're a big blank spot.But yeah, my first time on
Astonishing Legends was talking about the mothbandprophecies. And then and then that sort

(01:26:47):
of started the ball rolling again forother podcasters and then just other people in
general. And so then then yougo to fan meetups and monster Fest,
you know, and various things,and people know it and they walk up
like, oh, I really youknow, and then other things obviously this,
oh you wrote for Grim you knowor whatever. You know. I
love that show which is of EastEnd. And that's great too, because

(01:27:08):
I think about that all the time. You'll hear so many writers of my
generation. I'm fifty seven now,okay, guys my age maybe a little
older. They talk about Coleshak TheNightstalker, a podcast that brought Chris and
Mike White and I together, andthe people who wrote on that show thought
they were doing garbage work. There'slike, we're working on a show the

(01:27:30):
critics hate, the ratings are terriblethe end, you know, And there
was no Twitter. There there wasthere were no there was no Comic Con,
there was there was nothing to propthese people up. Decades later,
they've influenced everyone. Everyone who's doingthe cool shit that we're loving started because
they were a little kid watching collshakif only all of those And it's funny

(01:27:53):
because I'm sure you know David Chaseknows, but David Chase has moved on.
He's got the sopranos, so hedoes I need that. But there
are a lot of people who areinvolved in that show who I think probably
went to their graves thinking, yeah, whatever, Cole shack mine, and
there was no way for them toknow that they were influencing a generation of

(01:28:13):
people who are coming up and theywere going to make their mark. And
so it's nice. It's nice nowthat you can do work and hear back
from people, and it's overwhelmingly kindand people just saying, hey, I
love that show. You worked andI loved it, and again, to
bring a full circle, the correctresponse is thank you. I'm so glad
you enjoyed that. It's cool thatstreaming services and just the Internet in general

(01:28:36):
almost have allowed like creative works likethis to always be on exhibit, like
always be attainable. Well that's whatyou hope. I mean, that's why
it's so scary now for these platformsare just like, yeah, we're scrubbing
everything. We've got like twelve shows. Now you're like, what, I'm
paying fourteen ninety nine a month andall I get to see is like,

(01:28:56):
I don't know what my theory isthere should be and they'll never do this
because because they would have to payresiduals. But I think I think there's
a way to do it. Ithink there's a way where, you know,
I should be able to have ParamountPlatinum, Warner Brothers Platinum, and
if I pay a monthly fee oftwenty two bucks a month, I get
access to everything Warner Brothers has evermade every TV show, every everything,

(01:29:18):
and the only and fine only payresiduals on my viewership, Okay, don't.
It doesn't have to be oh well, you ordered it up and therefore
we have to open up a residualalgorithm where suddenly we're paying all these people
and we're losing all this money.Just let it be a view, a
single view. Okay. But thereare people who would do that, people

(01:29:40):
who yeah, I want to gowatch I'd like to see every episode of
Riptide. It's like it would haveto be on Universal Platinum. Nine to
five, The TV show nine tofive the TV show. Just have the
stuff out there for the people whowant to pay. I will like pay
per view. Just have it,and people will want to monetize the stuff
you have. They just they havenot figured it out. It's like people

(01:30:01):
who had a Laddin's lamp and startedthrowing it around and it fell over the
side of the ship, and nowthey're all like, wait, welcome,
We're not making money anymore. Don'task us. You figured out. You're
the Wall Street geniuses. We'll seeif they do so, Richard, I'll
give you the final thoughts on theMothmand Prophecies, a thing that, like

(01:30:23):
I said, is very near anddear to my heart, which is why
I wanted to have you here totalk. Well, it feels like it
has covered the span of my life, and yet it hasn't. I found
the book when I was I don'tknow, thirty one, but it answered
something. When I read that book, I was like, Oh, things
are falling into place here, specificallyfor the kind of story I wanted to

(01:30:44):
tell in that moment, but itwas also the culmination of so many things
and anything I did not address inwriting the Mothmand Prophecies. I got to
address with the TV show Miracles,where we made thirteen episodes that thematically were
very much like the mofmant Propit.So it was very much It wasn't like,
Oh, is it happening or isit not? It was all about,
yes, it's happening. What doesit mean to the people it's happening

(01:31:05):
to? And once I got todo those two things as an artist,
I was deeply satisfied. These thingswere not big hits. Mothman was not
a hit. It never has beena hit. Miracles is an unknown show
that is also unattainable, like youcan maybe get a DVD on Amazon every
once in a while, runny eBay, it's on no streaming systems, but

(01:31:29):
it is thirteen episodes of everything Iever wanted it to be, and the
very fact that it exists allows meto feel like I got heard. I
said my piece. It's out there, someone out there will watch these things,
they will connect with those themes,and I will have done what I
intended to do. So I feelvery lucky, and mostly I feel lucky

(01:31:50):
that I have never seen a Mothmanin real life, and I don't want
to very fair, very fair.Yeah, But according to the point pleasant
mofman statue. He has a rockand set of cheeks. No. I
love how Mothman has sort of becomethis weird like symbol for every kind of

(01:32:12):
you know, uh, every kindof sexual orientation or or or or or
gender. A Mothman exists as this, as this sort of hero to all
who who are undefinable and proud,yeah, and have rock and booties at
the same time a booties. Wellyou know some of it. Some of

(01:32:33):
it is autobiographical. Oh my god, so Richard, until well, until
the next time we do something morethan likely not on this show. Where
can people find the things that you'reworking on. They can find it on
weirding Way Media. That's where Ido stuff with you and Mike, And
you can also find me on RichardAdams's paranormal bookshelf on any podcast survey you've

(01:32:57):
got check it out, rate,review, subscribe, enjoy, And as
for Dustin and I, yeah,like I said, there will probably be
one more episode coming on the pipelinefor scary stories we tell. But as
for us, big thanks always toDustin and Maggie for the album artwork,
and to our good friend Alex forthe intro music, and to you Richard
for joining us and finally getting todo this. Finally, it's been finally

(01:33:20):
we did it. I know what'sfinally, And I'm glad that Dustin was
able to join us because Dustin waslike, is there something you want to
do on your show? And it'slike, oh, this, thank you
for reminding me, because show couldhave just disappeared and never would have gotten
to do it. So, sincethis is the penultimate time of saying this,
we'll let our good friend, thehost of Sightings, mister Tim White,
heat us out. No mystery isclosed to an open mind.