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cover of episode SOLAR ECLIPSES AND THE MOTHMAN CHRONICLES: Bad Omens, An Ancient Curse, and a Famous Cryptid

SOLAR ECLIPSES AND THE MOTHMAN CHRONICLES: Bad Omens, An Ancient Curse, and a Famous Cryptid

2025/6/13
logo of podcast Weird Darkness: Stories of the Paranormal, Supernatural, Legends, Lore, Mysterious, Macabre, Unsolved

Weird Darkness: Stories of the Paranormal, Supernatural, Legends, Lore, Mysterious, Macabre, Unsolved

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Darren Marlar
专业声优和播客主持人,创办并主持《Weird Darkness》播客,获得多项播客和广播奖项。
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Darren Marlar: 在过去,日食和超新星被认为是宗教的象征,人们对日食感到恐惧,因为他们不了解其背后的基本原理。古代人认为日食是黑暗力量在宇宙中的作用,并编造故事来解释日食,例如北欧神话中的巨狼吞噬太阳。即使在今天,我们对日食的本质有了更多的了解,但我们仍然可以理解我们的祖先在黑暗降临时所感受到的恐惧。我了解到,古代的日食甚至可以改写历史,例如公元前584年5月28日的日食结束了吕底亚和米底之间的战争,双方都将其视为结束战争的标志。此外,基督教福音书中记载,耶稣被钉在十字架上时,天空黑暗了三个小时,天文学家认为这与当时的日食有关。

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My dad worked in the mines of Kentucky in the steel mill in Gary, where I eventually joined him. Through him, I learned what hard work was and saw that the men and women like him were the backbone of our community. Through my law practice, I've been fortunate enough to give back to those in need with food programs, clothing and toys for children, and educational support. Every day through the Allen Law Group, I want to make my community and my father proud.

Welcome, Weirdos! I'm Darren Marlar and this is Weird Darkness. Here you'll find stories of the paranormal, supernatural, legends, lore, the strange and bizarre, crime, conspiracy, mysterious, macabre, unsolved and unexplained.

If you're new here, welcome to the show! While you're listening, be sure to check out WeirdDarkness.com for merchandise, to visit sponsors you hear about during the show, sign up for my newsletter, enter contests, connect with me on social media, hear other podcasts that I host, listen to free audiobooks I've narrated. Plus, you can visit the Hope in the Darkness page if you're struggling with depression, dark thoughts, or addiction. You can find all of that and more at WeirdDarkness.com.

Now, bolt your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights, and come with me into the Weird Darkness! Here in the 21st century, we look at it as a fascinating event, one of wonder and excitement. But in years past, the solar eclipse and supernova were often hailed as religious signs.

Throughout history, lunar eclipses have been held to be responsible for lost battles and many other tragic events on Earth. Lunar eclipses are rare events, although not as rare as solar eclipses, because unlike solar eclipses, they can be viewed from anywhere on the dark side of the Earth. Solar eclipses, known as Chaya Balkin or "to eat the sun," were a particular cause for distress among the Maya people.

Eclipses can be terrifying events for those who do not understand the basic reasoning behind the occurrence, and so being prepared for them was important. Later in this episode, I'll tell you about some of the theories people had to explain the solar eclipse, such as blaming a giant wolf or dragon, and how people pleaded with the religious leaders of their day to save them and asked what they should do.

In fact, when the skies went black, our ancestors were so impressed that some ancient solar eclipses rewrote history. There were also moments when the darkness of the skies were seen as an omen or sign from God. Some ancient solar eclipses have stayed in the memory of people for generations. On August 2nd, 1133 AD, a remarkable total solar eclipse lasted for more than four minutes.

Normally, the moment when the moon completely covers the sun, the event lasts about two and a half minutes, so this was a special astronomical occasion. The total solar eclipse of 1133 has gone into the history books as one of the most famous ones. This is mainly because the event coincided with the death of King Henry I of England. According to historian William of Walmsbury, the hideous darkness agitated the hearts of men.

William turned out to be right, in a way. Shortly after King Henry's death, the country was thrown into chaos and a civil war brewed. Of course, it is only coincidence that the total solar eclipse occurred around the same time as the king's death, as solar eclipses themselves are a natural phenomenon and not responsible for any negative occurrences.

In ancient times, it was very common to consider astronomical events like eclipses as religious signs. The darkening of the sun or moon was believed to be the work of dark forces in the universe that were always present. Just as eclipses could cause fear among ancient people, there were also cases which have gone to the history books as positive events,

The total solar eclipse on May 28, 584 BC ended the war between Lydians and the Medes. The war had lasted for five years, but everything was brought to a halt by a sign from the skies. The solar eclipse was predicted by the Greek philosopher and scientist Thales of Miletus , and it did occur within the period he specified.

The earliest extant account of the eclipse comes from Herodotus, who writes about this astronomical event as follows: "This change from daylight to darkness has been foretold to the Ionians by Thales of Miletus, who fixed the date for it within the limits of the year in which it did in fact take place." During the battle, both sides interpreted this astronomical event as a sign to end the war.

An agreement was sealed, and Arjenas, daughter of the king of Lydia, was married to the son of the king of Medes. What the Lydians and Medes failed to realize was this sign from the skies was a total solar eclipse. According to the Christian Gospels, the sky went dark for three hours while Jesus was on the cross.

Most likely, the darkness did not last that long, but astronomers say there were eclipses in the area at about the right time, and each of them would have lasted a few minutes. According to two astronomers from the Astronomic Observatory Institute in Cluj, Romania, Christ died at 3 p.m. on a Friday and rose again at 4 a.m. on a Sunday.

The astronomers say they were able to pinpoint the date using a computer software to check biblical references against historical astronomical data. From the New Testament, we learn that Jesus died the day after the first night with a full moon, after the vernal equinox. Using data gathered on the stars between 26 and 35 AD, they established that in those nine years, the first full moon after the vernal equinox was registered twice.

on Friday, April 7, 30 AD, and on Friday, April 3, 33 AD. The two astronomers became convinced the date of the crucifixion was 33 AD and not 30 AD because records showed a solar eclipse, as depicted in the Bible, at the time of Jesus' crucifixion occurred in Jerusalem that year. The founder of Islam, the Prophet Muhammad, was born in Mecca sometime between 569 and 570 AD.

The Quran describes an eclipse that preceded the birth of the last prophet, and modern researchers have been able to identify it as one that lasted 3 minutes and 17 seconds in the year 569. Another eclipse coincided with the death of his son in 632. However, Islamic theology does not accept that the eclipse was sent by God as an omen of the prophet's birth.

According to Prophet Muhammad, the sun and moon are signs of God and do not eclipse for the death or birth of any man. Today we know more about the nature of solar eclipses and we could admire the event without fear. We know it's not a sign of God but a natural phenomenon. But one can easily understand our ancestors who became terrified when everything turned into darkness for several minutes.

The darkening of the sun or moon was believed to be the work of dark forces in the universe that were always present. To lessen their fears, they made up stories to explain an eclipse. According to Norse legend, a giant sky wolf named Skull chased the moon. His brother named Hati chased the sun. If either caught its prey, an eclipse resulted.

Also, the Vikings saw a pair of sky wolves chasing the sun or moon, according to legend. In Chinese myth, a dragon was trying to eat the moon. The Chinese word for eclipse means "to eat." To frighten away the dragon, people shouted and beat drums. Also in China, Emperor Zhang Kang is said to have beheaded two astronomers who failed to correctly predict an eclipse 4,000 years ago.

In Vietnamese folklore, we read that a frog ate the moon during an eclipse. In Korean mythology, fire dogs constantly tried to steal the sun or the moon. When the fearsome dogs took a bite, an eclipse resulted. This eclipse happened during Second Battle of Syracuse in 414 B.C.,

Just as the Athenians were preparing to sail home, there was a lunar eclipse, and Nicias, described by Thucydides as a particularly superstitious man, asked the priests what he should do. The priests suggested the Athenians wait for another 27 days, and Nicias agreed. The Syracusans took advantage of this, and 76 of their ships attacked 86 Athenian ships in the harbor.

The Athenians were defeated, and Euromedion was killed. Many of the ships were pushed up onto the shore where Gellipus was waiting. He killed some of the crews and captured 18 beached ships. But a force of Athenians and Astrukans forced Gilepius back. Plutarch described this eclipse and the superstitious response:

And when all were in readiness, and none of the enemy had observed them not expecting such a thing, the moon was eclipsed in the night, to the great fright of Nicias and others, who, for want of experience or out of superstition, felt alarm at such appearances. The other common recourse was to turn to the wisest person in the village for an answer.

Through incantations, herbs, sacrifice, whatever it took, this wise person would fight the forces of darkness. Then, when the eclipse passed and the sun or moon returned to its rightful place, this wise person's prestige and power grew. Both the Babylonians and the Assyrians were able to predict lunar eclipses. They used a simple method which made future predictions based on past observations.

Several cuneiform tablets list series of lunar eclipses and mark time between successive events. That power increased when a person could predict this horror and appear to fight it off. Thus, knowledge of the eclipse schedule became very valuable. If the viewer knows the date of one solar eclipse, it's possible to predict others.

An eclipse period lasts 6,583 days, a little over 18 years. After this period, a practically identical eclipse series will occur. Possessing this knowledge, a person could appear to have the power to control the events playing out in the heavens, to conquer chaos itself. In 1504, Christopher Columbus used this information to his advantage when his ship ran aground off Jamaica.

The local Taino people fed him and his crew for months while the Spaniards tried to repair the ship, but after a while the locals grew tired of the endless provisioning. Columbus threatened to take away the moon if the locals didn't keep feeding his crew. When the eclipse occurred, the natives were astounded and, of course, fed the great man who could control the light of the moon.

The weird events connected to the Mothman began on November 12, 1966, near Clendenden, West Virginia. Five men were in the local cemetery that day preparing a grave for a burial when something that looked like a brown human being lifted off from some nearby trees and flew over their heads. The men were baffled. It did not appear to be a bird but more like a man with wings

A few days later, more sightings would take place, electrifying the entire region. Late in the evening of November 15, two young married couples had a very strange encounter as they drove past an abandoned TNT plant near Point Pleasant, West Virginia.

The couples spotted two large eyes that were attached to something that was shaped like a man but bigger, maybe six or seven feet tall, and it had big wings folded against its back. When the creature moved toward the plant door, the couples panicked and sped away. Moments later, they saw the same creature on a hillside near the road. It spread its wings and rose into the air, following with their car.

which, by now, was traveling at over 100 miles per hour. "That bird kept right up with us," said one of the group. They told Deputy Sheriff Millard Halstead that it followed them down Highway 62 and right to the Point Pleasant city limits, and they would not be the only ones to report the creature that night. Another group of four witnesses claimed to see the "bird" three different times.

Another sighting had more bizarre results. At about 10.30 on that same evening, Newell Partridge, a local building contractor who lived in Salem, about 90 miles from Point Pleasant, was watching television when the screen suddenly went dark. He stated that a weird pattern filled the screen, and then he heard a loud whining sound from outside that raised in pitch and then ceased.

"It sounded like a generator winding up," he later stated. Partridge's dog, Bandit, began to howl on the front porch, and Newell went out to see what was going on. When he walked outside, he saw Bandit facing the hay barn, about 150 yards from the house. Puzzled, Partridge turned a flashlight in that direction and spotted two red circles that looked like eyes or bicycle reflectors.

The moving red orbs were certainly not animals' eyes, he believed, and the sight of them frightened him. Bandit, an experienced hunting dog and protective of his territory, shot off across the yard in pursuit of the glowing eyes. Partridge called for him to stop, but the animal paid no attention. His owner turned and went back into the house for his gun, but then was too scared to go back outside again.

He slept that night with his gun propped up next to the bed. The next morning, he realized that Bandit had disappeared. The dog had still not shown up two days later when Partridge read in the newspaper about the sightings in Point Pleasant that night. One statement that he read in the newspaper chilled him to the bone.

Roger Scarberry, one member of the group who spotted the strange bird at the TNT plant, said that as they entered the city limits of Point Pleasant, they saw the body of a large dog lying on the side of the road. A few minutes later, on the way back out of town, the dog was gone. They even stopped to look for the body, knowing they had passed it just a few minutes before. Newell Partridge immediately thought of Bandit, who was never seen again.

On November 16, a press conference was held in the county courthouse, and the couples from the TNT plant sighting repeated their story. Deputy Halstead, who had known the couples all their lives, took them very seriously. "They've never been in any trouble," he told investigators, "and had no reason to doubt their stories." Many of the reporters who were present for the weird recounting felt the same way. The news of the strange sightings spread around the world,

The press dubbed the odd flying creature Mothman, after a character from the popular Batman television series of the day. The remote and abandoned TNT plant became the lair of the Mothman in the months ahead, and it could not have picked a better place to hide in. The area was made up of several hundred acres of woods and large concrete domes where high explosives were stored during World War II.

A network of tunnels honeycombed the area and made it possible for the creature to move about without being seen. In addition to the man-made labyrinth, the area was also comprised of the McClintic Wildlife Station, a heavily forested animal preserve filled with woods, artificial ponds, and steep ridges and hills.

Much of the property was almost inaccessible and, without a doubt, Mothman could have hid for weeks or months and remained totally unseen. The only people who ever wandered there were hunters and fishermen, and the local teenagers, who used the rutted dirt roads of the preserve as lovers' lanes. Very few homes could be found in the region, but one dwelling belonged to the Ralph Thomas family.

On November 16, they spotted a funny red light in the sky that moved and hovered about the TNT plant. "It wasn't an airplane," Mrs. Marcella Bennett, a friend of the Thomas family, said, "but we couldn't figure out what it was." Mrs. Bennett drove to the Thomas house a few minutes later and got out of the car with her baby. Suddenly, a figure stirred near the automobile.

"It seemed as though it had been lying down," she later recalled. "It rose up slowly from the ground, a big gray thing, bigger than a man, with terrible glowing eyes." Mrs. Bennet was so horrified that she dropped her little girl. She quickly recovered, picked up her child, and ran to the house. The family locked everyone inside, but hysteria gripped them as the creature shuffled onto the porch and peered into the windows.

The police were summoned, but the Mothman had vanished by the time the authorities had arrived. Mrs. Bennett would not recover from the incident for months and was in fact so distraught that she sought medical attention to deal with her anxieties. She was tormented by frightening dreams and later told investigators that she believed the creature had visited her own home as well.

She said that she could often hear a keying sound, like a woman screaming near her isolated home on the edge of Point Pleasant. Many would come to believe that the sightings of Mothman, as well as UFO sightings and encounters with men in black in the area, were all related. For nearly a year, strange happenings continued in the area.

Researchers, investigators, and monster hunters descended on the area, but none so famous as author John Keel, who has written extensively about Mothman and other unexplained anomalies. He has written for many years about UFOs, but dismisses the standard extraterrestrial theories of the mainstream UFO movement. For this reason, he has been a controversial figure for decades.

According to Keel, the man has had a long history of interaction with the supernatural. He believes that the intervention of mysterious strangers in the lives of historic personages like Thomas Jefferson and Malcolm X provides evidence of the continuing presence of the gods of old. The manifestation of these elder gods comes in the form of UFOs and aliens, monsters, demons, angels, and even ghosts.

He has remained a colorful character to many, and yet remains respected in the field for his research and fascinating writings. Kiel became the major chronicler of the Mothman case and wrote that at least 100 people personally witnessed the creature between November 1966 and November 1967.

According to their reports, the creature stood between 5 and 7 feet tall, was wider than a man, and shuffled on human-like legs. Its eyes were set near the top of the shoulders and had bat-like wings that glided rather than flapped when it flew. Strangely, though, it was able to ascend straight up like a helicopter.

Witnesses also described its murky skin as being either gray or brown, and it emitted a humming sound when it flew. The Mothman was apparently incapable of speech and gave off a screeching sound. Mrs. Bennett stated that it sounded like a woman screaming.

John Keel arrived in Point Pleasant in December 1966 and immediately began collecting reports of Mothman sightings and even UFO reports from before the creature was seen. He also compiled evidence that suggested a problem with televisions and phones that began in the fall of 1966.

Lights had been seen in the skies, particularly around the TNT plant, and cars that passed along the nearby road sometimes stalled without explanation. He and his fellow researchers also uncovered a number of short-lived poltergeist cases in the Ohio Valley area. Locked doors opened and closed by themselves. Strange thumps were heard inside and outside of homes, and often inexplicable voices were heard.

The James Lilly family, who lived just south of the TNT plant, were so bothered by the bizarre events that they finally sold their home and moved to another neighborhood. Keel was convinced that the intense period of activity was all connected, and stranger things still took place. A reporter named Mary Heyer, who was the Point Pleasant correspondent for the Athens, Ohio newspaper The Messenger, also wrote extensively about the local sightings,

In fact, after one very active weekend, she was deluged with over 500 phone calls from people who saw strange lights in the skies. One night, in January 1967, she was working late in her office in the county courthouse, and a man walked in the door. He was very short and had strange eyes that were covered with thick glasses.

He also had long black hair that was cut squarely, like a bowl haircut. Heyer said that he spoke in a low, halting voice, and he asked for directions to Welsh West Virginia. She thought that he had some sort of speech impediment, and for some reason, he terrified her. "He kept getting closer and closer to me," she said, "and his funny eyes were staring at me almost hypnotically."

Alarmed, she summoned the newspaper's circulation manager to her office, and together they spoke to the strange little man. She said that at one point in the discussion, she answered the telephone when it rang, and she noticed the little man pick up a pen from her desk. He looked at it in amazement, as if he had never seen a pen before. Then he grabbed the pen, laughed loudly, and ran out of the building.

Several weeks later, Heyer was crossing the street near her office and saw the same man on the street. He appeared to be startled when he realized that she was watching him, turned away quickly, and ran for a large black car that suddenly came around the corner. The little man climbed in, and it quickly drove away. By this time, most of the sightings had come to an end, and Mothman had faded away into the strange twilight zone from which he had come.

But the story of Point Pleasant had not yet ended. At around 5 in the evening on December 15, 1967, the 700-foot bridge linking Point Pleasant to Ohio suddenly collapsed while filled with rush-hour traffic. Dozens of vehicles plunged into the dark waters of the Ohio River, and 46 people were killed. Two of those were never found,

and the other 44 are buried together in the town cemetery of Gallopolis, Ohio. On that same tragic night, the James Lilly family, who still lived near the TNT plant at that time, counted more than 12 eerie lights that flashed above their home and vanished into the forest.

The collapse of the Silver Bridge made headlines all over the country, and Mary Hyre went days without sleep as reporters and television crews from everywhere descended on the town. The local citizens were stunned with horror and disbelief, and the tragedy is still being felt today. During Christmas week, a short, dark-skinned man entered the office of Mary Hyre.

He was dressed in a black suit with a black tie, and she said that he looked vaguely oriental. He had high cheekbones, narrow eyes, and an unidentified accent. He was not interested in the bridge disaster, she said, but wanted to know about local UFO sightings. Heyer was too busy to talk with him, and she handed him a file of related press clippings instead. He was not interested in them and insisted on speaking with her.

She finally dismissed him from her office. That same night, an identically described man visited the homes of several witnesses in the area who had reported seeing the lights in the sky. He made all of them very uneasy and uncomfortable, and while he claimed to be a reporter from Cambridge, Ohio, he inadvertently admitted that he did not know where Columbus, Ohio was, even though the two towns are only a few miles apart. So who was Mothman?

and what was behind the strange events in Point Pleasant. Whatever the creature may have been, it seems clear that Mothman was no hoax. There were simply too many credible witnesses who saw something. It was suggested at the time that the creature may have been a sandhill crane, which, while they are not native to the area, could have migrated south from Canada.

That was one explanation anyway, although it was one that was rejected by Mothman witnesses, who stated that what they saw looked nothing like a crane. But there could have been a logical explanation for some of the sightings. Even John Keel, who believed the creature was genuine, suspected that a few of the cases involved people who were spooked by recent reports and saw owls flying along deserted roads at night.

Even so, Mothman remains hard to easily dismiss. The case is filled with an impressive number of multiple witness sightings by individuals that were deemed reliable, even by law enforcement officials. But if Mothman was real, and he truly was some unidentified creature that could not be explained, what was behind the UFO sightings?

The Poltergeist Reports, The Strange Lights, Sounds, The Men in Black, and, most horrifying, The Collapse of the Silver Bridge. John Keel believes that Point Pleasant was a window area, a place that was marked by long periods of strange sightings, monster reports, and the coming and going of unusual persons. He states that it may be wrong to blame the collapse of the bridge on the local UFO sightings,

but the intense activity in the area at the time does suggest some sort of connection. And if such things can happen in West Virginia, why not elsewhere in the country? Can these window areas explain other phantom attackers, mysterious creatures, mad gassers and more that have been reported all over America? Perhaps they can. But to consider this, we have to consider an even more chilling question.

where will the next "window area" be? It might be a benefit to study your local sightings and weird events a little more carefully in the future. Others have pointed to another supernatural link to the strange happenings, blaming the events on the legendary "Cornstalk Curse" that was placed on Point Pleasant in the 1770s and will return with that story.

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Almost two centuries before the shadow of the Mothman reared its head in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, the land around the Ohio River ran red with blood. As the inhabitants of the American colonies began to push their way to the west and later fought for their independence from Britain, they entered into deadly combat with the Native American inhabitants of the land.

Perhaps their greatest foe in these early Indian wars was Chief Cornstalk, who later became a friend to the Americans. But treachery, deception, and murder would bring an end to the chief's life, and a curse that he placed on Point Pleasant would linger for 200 years, bringing tragedy, death, and disaster.

There is no denying that the southeastern corner of Ohio and the surrounding area of West Virginia is considered by many to be one of the most haunted areas of the country. West Virginia has long been thought of as one of the strangest parts of the country in regards to ghosts, legends, and strange happenings.

This part of the country, which was originally a part of Virginia, was regarded by the Native Americans as a haunted spot, plagued with ghost lights, phantoms, and strange creatures. The town of Parkersburg, just north on the river from Point Pleasant, has more than its share of ghosts, and nearby is Athens County, Ohio, home to the most haunted city in the entire state. But how did this region gain such a reputation?

Why are many people not surprised to find stories of the Mothman, phantom inhabitants, and mysterious creatures roaming this part of the country? There have been a number of theories to explain the large number of haunted happenings here, including that this area may be some sort of window between dimensions, as mentioned previously.

This would, according to the theories, allow paranormal phenomenon to come and go and vanish at will, just as the Mothman did after 13 months of appearing around Point Pleasant. Those researchers with a historical bent have offered their own solutions, though. They have traced the supernatural roots of the region back to a bloody event from the days of the American Revolution and a great curse.

As the American frontiersmen began to move west in the 1770s, seven nations of Indians – the Shawnee, Delaware, Wyandotte, Mingo, Miami, Ottawa, and Illinois – formed a powerful confederacy to keep the white men from infringing on their territory. The Shawnee were the most powerful of the tribes and were led by a feared and respected chieftain called Kaitagoa, which translates to mean "cornstalk."

In 1774, when the white settlers were moving down into the Kanawha and Ohio River valleys, the Indian Confederacy prepared to protect their lands by any means necessary. The nations began to mass in a rough line across the Point from the Ohio River to the Kanawha River, numbering about 1,200 warriors. They began to make preparations to attack the white settlers near an area called Point Pleasant on the Virginia side of the Ohio River.

As word reached the colonial military leaders of the impending attack, troops were sent in and faced off against the Indians. While the number of fighters were fairly even on both sides, the Native Americans were no match for the muskets of the white soldiers. The battle ended with about 140 colonials killed and more than twice that number of Indians.

The tribes retreated westward into the wilds of what is now Ohio, and in order to keep them from returning, a fort was constructed at the junction of the Kanawha and Ohio rivers. As time passed, the Shawnee leader, Cornstalk, made peace with the white men. He would carry word to his new friends in 1777 when the British began coaxing the Indians into attacking the rebellious colonies.

Soon, the tribes again began massing along the Ohio River, intent on attacking the fort. Cornstalk and Redhawk, a Delaware chief, had no taste for war with the Americans, and they went to the fort on November 7 to try and negotiate a peace before fighting began.

Cornstalk told Captain Arbuckle, who commanded the garrison, that he was opposed to war with the colonists, but that only he and his tribe were holding back from joining on the side of the British. He was afraid he would be forced to go along by the rest of the Confederacy. When he admitted to Arbuckle that he would allow his men to fight if the other tribes did, Cornstalk, Redhawk, and another Indian were taken as hostages.

The Americans believed that they could use him to keep the other tribes from attacking. They forced the Native Americans into a standoff, for none of them wanted to risk the life of their leader. Cornstalk's name not only stuck fear into the hearts of the white settlers up and down the frontier, but it also garnered respect from the other Indian tribes. He was gifted with great oratory skills, fighting ability, and military genius.

In fact, it was said that when his fighting tactics were adopted by the Americans, they were able to defeat the British in a number of battles where they had been both outnumbered and outgunned. Although taken as hostage, Cornstalk and the other Indians were treated well and were given comfortable quarters, leading many to wonder if the chief's hostage status may have been voluntary in the beginning.

Kornstock even assisted his captors in plotting maps of the Ohio River Valley during his imprisonment. On November 9, Kornstock's son, Ellen Episco, came to the fort to see his father, and he was also detained. The following day, gunfire was heard from outside the walls of the fort, coming from the direction of the Kanawha River. When men went out to investigate, they discovered that the two soldiers who had left the stockade to hunt deer had been ambushed by Indians.

One of them had escaped, but the other man had been killed. When his bloody corpse was returned to the fort, the soldiers in the garrison were enraged. Acting against orders, they broke into the quarters where Cornstalk and other Indians were being held. Even though the men had nothing to do with the crime, they decided to execute the prisoners as revenge.

As the soldiers burst through the doorway, Cornstalk rose to meet them. It was said he stood facing the soldiers with such bravery that they paused momentarily in their attack. It wasn't enough, though, and the soldiers opened fire with their muskets. Redhawk tried to escape up through the chimney, but he was pulled back down and slaughtered. Ellen Apisico was shot where he had been sitting on a stool, and the other unknown Indian was strangled to death. As for Cornstalk...

He was shot eight times before he fell to the floor, and as he lay there dying in the smoke-filled room, he was said to have pronounced his now legendary curse.

The stories say he looked up upon his assassins and spoke to them: "I was the border man's friend. Many times I have saved him and his people from harm. I never warred with you, but only to protect our wigwams and lands. I refused to join your pale-faced enemies with the Redcoats. I came to the fort as your friend, and you murdered me. You have murdered by my side my young son,

"For this, may the curse of the Great Spirit rest upon this land. May it be blighted by nature, may it even be blighted in its hopes. May the strength of its peoples be paralyzed by the stain of our blood." He spoke these words, so says the legend, and then he died. The bodies of the other Indians were then taken and dumped into the Kanawha River.

But Cornstalk's corpse was buried near the fort on Point Pleasant, overlooking the junction of the Kanawha and Ohio rivers. Here he remained in many years, but he would not rest in peace. In 1794, the town of Point Pleasant was established near the site of the old fort. For many years after, the Indian's grave lay undisturbed

But in 1840, his bones were removed to the grounds of the Mason County Courthouse where, in 1899, a monument was erected in Cornstalk's memory. In the late 1950s, a new courthouse was built in Point Pleasant, and the chief's remains, which now consisted of three teeth and about 15 pieces of bone, were placed in an aluminum box and reinterred in a corner of the town's Tuendiway Park

next to the grave of a Virginia frontiersman that Cornstalk once fought and later befriended. A 12-foot monument was then erected in his honor. And this is not the only monument dedicated to the period in Point Pleasant. Another stands 86 feet tall and was dedicated in August 1909, one month behind schedule.

Originally, the dedication ceremony had been set for July 22, but on the night before the event, the clear overhead sky erupted with lightning and struck the upper part of a crane that was supposed to put the monument in place. The machine was badly damaged, and it took nearly a month to repair it. The monument was finally dedicated and stood for years, until July 4, 1921,

On that day, another bolt of lightning struck the monument, damaging the capstone and some granite blocks. They were replaced and the monument still stands today. But what is this bedeviled obelisk that seems to attract inexplicable lightning on otherwise clear evenings? It is a monument to the men who died in the 1774 Battle of Point Pleasant, when Cornstalk and his allies were defeated.

Could the freak lightning strikes have been acts of vengeance tied to Cornstalk's fabled curse? Many believed so, and for years, residents of the triangular area made up of western West Virginia, southwest Pennsylvania, and southeastern Ohio spoke of strange happenings, river tragedies, and fires as part of the curse.

Of course, many laughed and said that the curse was nothing more than overactive imaginations, ignoring the death toll and eerie coincidences that seemed to plague the region for 200 years after the death of Chief Cornstalk. Many tragedies and disasters were blamed on the curse.

In 1907, the worst coal mine disaster in American history took place in Malinga, West Virginia, on December 6th, when 310 miners were killed. In 1944, in June, 150 people were killed when a tornado ripped through the Tri-State Triangular Area.

In 1967, the devastating Silver Bridge disaster, as we detailed previously, sent 46 people hurtling to their death in the Ohio River on December 15th. And many have also connected this tragedy to the eerie sightings of the Mothman, strange lights in the sky, and odd paranormal happenings, which we will get back to in a moment.

In 1968, a Piedmont Airlines plane crashed in August near the Kanawha Airport, killing 35 people on board. In 1970, on November 14, a Southern Airways DC-10 crashed into a mountain near Huntington, West Virginia, killing 75 people on board. In 1976, in March, the town of Point Pleasant was rocked in the middle of the night by an explosion at the Mason County Jail,

Housed in the jail was a woman named Harriet Sisk, who'd been arrested for the murder of her infant daughter. On March 2, her husband came to the jail with a suitcase full of explosives to kill himself and his wife and to destroy the building. Both of the Sisks were killed, along with three law enforcement officers. In 1978, in January, a freight train derailed at Point Pleasant and dumped thousands of gallons of toxic chemicals

The chemicals contaminated the town's water supply, and the wells had to be abandoned. 1978, in April of the same year, the town of St. Mary's, north of Point Pleasant, was struck with tragedy when 51 men who were working on the Willow Island power plant were killed when their construction scaffolding collapsed. And there have been many other strange occurrences, fires and floods.

Most would say, however, that floods are a natural part of living on the river, although Point Pleasant was almost obliterated in 1913 and 1937. It might be hard to tie such natural occurrences to a curse, but what about the barge explosion that killed six men from town just before Christmas in 1953? Or the fire that destroyed an entire downtown city block in the late 1880s?

Some have even gone as far as to blame the curse for the death of Point Pleasant's local economy, an event linked to the passing of river travel and commerce. So how real is the curse? Is it simply a string of bloody and tragic coincidences, culled from two centuries of sadness in the region? Can it be used to explain why the area seems to attract strange happenings and eerie tales

Or is the area somehow blighted, separate from any curse, and attractive to the strangeness that seems to lurk in the shadowy corners of America? You'll need to judge the validity of such curses for yourself. For the most part, the deaths and tragedies seem to have waned over the years, perhaps dying out at the bicentennial of Chief Cornstalk's death. Largely, the curse has been forgotten over time.

And today, Point Pleasant is better known for its connection to otherworldly visitors like Mothman than for Indian curses and bloody frontier battles. Fact or coincidence? Who can say? But I know that I hope, for the sake of the people of the Ohio River Valley, that Chief Cornstalk is resting in peace. Mothman seems to be connected to tragic events.

Across the world, witnesses claim to have seen a creature of his description, with sightings becoming more frequent in the days leading up to horrific events. Two bridge collapses, the Chernobyl disaster, and even the 9/11 terrorist attacks were all allegedly preceded by Mothman sightings. What is the Mothman? Could it be a cryptid like Bigfoot or something otherworldly, perhaps extraterrestrial in origin?

Reports of strange lights in the sky, an unnerving humming sound, and electrical interference have all been tied to the Mothman's sightings. Many have asked about this creature's possible motives. Could it be causing these disasters, or should its presence be considered a warning of what's to come?

Like any good harbinger of doom, the Mothman possesses a blood-curdling shriek that has been known to make those who hear it experience nausea and vertigo. The following stories are of real people who claim to have seen the Mothman and what disasters they experienced, or narrowly averted.

The first of a series of strange sightings took place about 85 miles away from Point Pleasant in Clendon and West Virginia, as we have already discussed. Five gravediggers heard a rustling in the trees overhead and looked up to find what they claimed was a flying man directly above them. And over the next few days, more reports started trickling in.

Two volunteer firemen described a large bird with red eyes. At least 100 reports from people of all ages circulated throughout Point Pleasant between November 1966 and December 1967, describing a monster that was able to ascend straight up into the air like a helicopter. All of the witnesses described the same birdman with glowing, hypnotic red eyes and the wings of a bat.

The combination of hundreds of Mothman sightings in the area that year, claims of red lights dancing over the TNT plant, and electrical interference during these sightings has led to speculation that the Mothman might have extraterrestrial origins. But what about outside of 1966 and 1967?

On September 10, 1978, a group of miners in Freiburg, Germany, came face to face with a seemingly headless creature with glowing red eyes on its chest blocking the mine's entrance. At first, they thought it was a man in a trench coat, but they quickly realized it was not a coat, but unfurled, large, black wings.

The man remained in the mine entrance, stunned and staring at the creature, until it let out a blood-curdling screech that sent the miners scrambling out. About an hour later, the man felt a seismic rumble and witnessed a plume of dust shoot from the mine as it collapsed. If the men had gone to their stations in the mine as usual, the majority of them would have died.

It appeared as though what they dubbed the "Freeburg Shrieker" saved their lives. Marcus Pules, an American visiting Japan, was out with a friend near the Fukushima plant when suddenly they heard a loud whooshing sound and a terrible screeching. As they looked back towards the plant, they saw a figure Pules described as large and black, and from a distance it looked to be sitting on top of one of the squared-shaped buildings

It sat there for about five seconds. Then it unfurled a large set of what could only be described as large black wings. The creature took flight, circling the plant a few times before coming closer to them.

Marcus Pules said, "That's when I noticed the two large red eyes. They seemed to glow from within and with a blood-red hue. They were unblinking in the three to four seconds we saw them. We knew they were looking straight at us. We knew this creature knew we could see it, and it made no attempt to disguise itself." Pules describes an immense feeling of dread that washed over him, and the creature vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

It wasn't until Pules was back home in America, hearing the news on CNN about the devastation of the Japanese earthquake and the explosions at the very same nuclear power plant where he had witnessed the creature, that he realized he may have seen the infamous harbinger of disaster known as the Mothman.

During the days leading up to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, several people reported sightings of a black winged creature flying near the Twin Towers. During the attack, as the second plane hit, eyewitnesses reported a creature flying parallel to the plane, and in the days that followed, those reporting the creature were allegedly approached by "men in black" and warned to stop talking about what they saw.

The Mothman is believed to have been around for the worst nuclear accident in history. Throughout 1985, many scientists and other workers at the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine, claimed to see a huge, black, bird-like creature with the body of a man flying around the plant.

Those who saw the red-eyed beast also reported a series of strange, harassing phone calls and a string of nightmares leading up to the disastrous explosion in April 1986. On April 26, 1986, the day of the accident, several people saw the huge black bird actually flying around the smoke after the explosion.

Even those in the nearby town of Pripyat claimed to have seen the strange creature that became known as the Black Bird of Chernobyl in the days leading up to the disaster. Pripyat was also affected and later evacuated because of the harmful radiation. The Mothman was spotted at yet another bridge collapse in 2007.

Eerily enough, the I-35 West Bridge in Minneapolis, Minnesota, was opened for traffic in 1967, the same year the Silver Bridge collapsed. Then, on August 1, 2007, after a month of Mothman sightings, the I-35 West Bridge collapsed during rush hour, taking the lives of 13 people with it and injuring 145 more.

Reports of the Mothman began trickling in on June 27, 2007, preceding the collapse by a mere month. Many claimed to see the humanoid creature flapping its massive wings in the surrounding area and at the bridge itself. An Illinois woman witnessed the creepy cryptid while driving just outside of Stewardville, Minnesota, on June 27, 2007.

She called Paranormal Radio show host George Noory on Coast to Coast AM and described the creature as having "a huge wing about the width of a Ford." On September 2006, in La Crosse, Wisconsin, Awahalli, a Cherokee man, and his son were driving down an isolated stretch of road at night when the Mothman attacked them. In an interview on MonsterQuest, he shared his encounter:

Awahalli told how the creature flew alongside and then directly in front of their windshield, close enough to touch. They got a really good look at it, describing it as bat-like and fleshy, with sparse hair and red eyes the size of road reflectors. He described the monster's high-pitched screech that gave them vertigo and made them sick to their stomachs. The man's son pulled over and threw up on the side of the road.

After returning to the location a few days later in the daytime, all they found left behind was a deer carcass they later blamed on a poacher. Some believe the large, hairy, red-eyed creature the people of La Junta, Mexico began to see stalking the area in 2009 was the legendary Mothman. The sightings occurred around the time leading up to the 2009 swine flu outbreak in Mexico.

Two witnesses, Angela Mendez and Viviana Ledizma, experienced pure terror as they heard the creature's screeches emanating out from an apple orchard near Minyaka Cemetery. A student who requested to remain anonymous reported the Mothman chasing him for 15 minutes on the night of March 6, 2009. Despite the best efforts of local authorities to hunt down the entity, no traces of it were found.

a region in southeastern China was plagued with sightings of a figure that resembled the Mothman in early January 1926. Dubbed by locals as "The Man Dragon," the shadowy, ominous figure was seen hovering above the Xiaotei Dam. Then disaster hit the surrounding farming villages in the form of 40 billion gallons of water.

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Today, the sleepy town of Point Pleasant is small in size, with only a population of 4,350 people as of their 2010 census, but it is still huge in infamy.

Ever since November 12, 1966, when those five men reported the first official sighting of a man-sized moth flying over their heads as they worked to dig a grave in a cemetery near Clendon in West Virginia, this particular neck of the woods will forever be associated with the Mothman. The town of Point Pleasant even has a 12-foot statue of the creature, created by artist and sculptor Bob Roach in 2003.

prominently secured in case anyone should forget to keep an eye out for Mothman's return. The sightings, however, still have not stopped. As recently as August 9th, 2017, the Chicago Reader published an article titled "There's been a record number of flying humanoid sightings over Chicago this year," which points to the possibility that the Point Pleasant Mothman is now lurking in the Windy City. And he brought a friend

According to the article, at the time of its posting, there had been 29 sightings in the air, and they had even been spotted leaping off the Sears Tower and zooming around the Adler Planetarium. But what about before the infamous sightings that began in 1966? Yes, there are reports even before Point Pleasant. It's quite possible that an earlier sighting may have been in 1963.

the same mothman description, but this time in the United Kingdom. Neil Arnold, a well-known Kent-based cryptozoologist, researcher, and author of many acclaimed books on mystery animals, has dug into the now-renowned event, which took place at Sandling Park, Hythe, Kent, on November 16, 1963.

Neel's book, "The Mystery Animals of the British Isles: Kent," includes the story of the Hithe Mothman. The area known as Sandeling Park was certainly shrouded in overwhelming darkness at the time of the beastly event, but it was hardly the sort of place where one would expect to encounter nothing less than a fully-fledged monster. Amazingly, however, that's what apparently happened.

John Flaxton, aged 17 on the night that all hell broke loose, was accompanied by three friends, including 18-year-old Mervyn Hutchinson, as they walked along a lane running by the park. After returning from a local Friday night dance, the group of friends became aware of a bright object moving overhead, which they at first took to be nothing stranger than a star how wrong they were.

The teenagers were amazed and more than a bit scared by the object's presence as they watched it hover and then drop out of sight behind a group of trees. The boys decided to leave the area with haste, but the light soon loomed into view again. It hovered around 10 feet from the ground and at an approximate distance of 200 feet, then once again went out of sight.

"It was a bright and gold oval," one of the boys reported. "And when we moved, it moved. When we stopped, it stopped. That was not necessarily a good sign." Suddenly, the boys heard the snapping of twigs from a nearby thicket and out from the wooded area shuffled a creature of horrendous appearance. "It was the size of a human," reported Mervyn Hutchinson. "But it didn't seem to have any head. There were wings on its back, like bat wings."

The group fled, perhaps understandably, not wanting to hang around and see what developed next. Matters didn't end there, however. Five nights later, one Keith Croucher saw an unusual object float across a nearby football field.

48 hours after that, a John McGoldrick, accompanied by a friend, checked out the location and stumbled upon unusual impressions in the ground, which gave every indication that something solid and significant had landed there. Neil Arnold has this to say about the matter: "Local UFO expert believed that the case was nothing more than a misinterpretation of natural phenomena, but Flaxton recalled, 'I felt cold all over.' Sounds familiar?

Mothman fans may very well be nodding their heads in agreement by now. And, as Neil Arnold also notes, three giant footprints were also found in the vicinity, which were said to have measured two feet long and nine inches across. On 11 December, various newspaper reporters accompanied McGoldrick to the area and found that the woods were illuminated by an eerie glowing light. No one investigated any further, and the case faded as mysteriously as it had emerged.

To this date, the saga of the Mothman of Hithe, Kent, remains precisely that, a mystery. And that's basically the story. Or so everyone thought. It seems now that this is not the case after all. Thanks to the excellent research of Alison Jornlund, there is more of this story to report.

At the time of the 1963 encounter, the story was briefly covered by the local press. It even made it into the pages of John Keel's 1975 book, The Mothman Prophecies. Allison, however, had uncovered a newspaper clipping that researchers had not seen before and which adds new material to the story.

Interestingly, the material was not contained in a local newspaper but in the pages of an Australian paper, the Sydney Morning Herald, on December 1, 1963. The article is titled "Ghost Haunts Lover's Lane." Interestingly, sightings of strange creatures at "lover's lanes" absolutely abound. Goatmen, Bigfoot, Mothman, and MIB have all been seen at such locations.

Interestingly, the article in the Sydney Mountain Herald states that with regard to the sighting at Sandling Park on November 16th, a local rector is tracking down a reported black magic circle that has been blamed for the terror. Of course, the terror was the Mothman-type beast. As for the rector, his official title was the Reverend E. Stanton of Saltwood. The media recorded, "...the ghost is said to be of William Turney Turney."

Yes, there should be two Tournes. A rich, eccentric landowner who was buried 60 years ago on an island in the middle of a lake at Saltwood, near Hithe Village in Kent. William Tourne Tourne was the last lord of Brockhill Manor. The manor house is now a school. William's last years were spent living in a cottage in the valley below Brockhill Manor, known as Forty Steps Cottage, which was demolished during the 1960s.

William Tornetornet died on 20 August 1903, and he requested that he be buried with his faithful dog and horse on an island in the lake below the cottage. The island and lake now form part of Brock Hill Country Park. William and his dog, Daisy, lie on the island. The gravestones are no longer in existence. The talkative reverend had more to say: "Several young people in the village have come to see me, saying they have seen the ghost.

There are rumors that a black magic circle meets in a secret hideout in the village, and that they are responsible. I have no proof yet that they are working in Saltwood, but I'm determined to get to the bottom of this business because it's disrupting village life. So what we have with the revelations found by Alison Jornlen is a story that originally revolved around a strange light in the sky and the sighting of a Mothman-type entity.

Now, however, it becomes something more. Namely, the actions of a group somewhere nearby that was engaged in black magic and a tale involving the ghost of a man returned in animal form. Allison is still digging deep into all of this, and she would no doubt be interested to hear of anything else on this intriguing saga, which now dates back more than half a century. But the ghost of a man returning in animal form?

Let's take a quick detour and look into that a bit more closely. Eliot O'Donnell was an acclaimed authority on ghosts and life after death, and who penned dozens of books on supernatural phenomena. Born in 1872, he continued writing until his death in 1965 at the age of 93. O'Donnell also had a deep interest in reports of weird creatures, as the following 19th-century account demonstrates:

Henry Spicer, in his book Strange Things Amongst Us, tells the story of a Captain Morgan, an honorable and vivacious gentleman who arrived in London in 1841, puts up for the night in a large old-fashioned hotel. The room in which he slept was full of heavy antique furniture, reminiscent of the days of King George I, one of the worst periods in modern English history for crime.

Despite, however, his grimly suggestive surroundings, Captain Morgan quickly got into bed and was soon asleep. He was abruptly awakened by the sound of flapping and, on looking up, he saw a huge black bird with outstretched wings and fiery red eyes perched on the rail at the foot of the four-poster bed. O'Donnell continued, "The creature flew at him and endeavored to peck his eyes,

Captain Morgan resisted and, after a desperate struggle, succeeded in driving it to a sofa in the corner of the room, where it settled down and regarded him with great fear in its eyes. Determined to destroy it, he flung himself on top of it when, to his surprise and terror, it immediately crumbled into nothingness. He left the house early next morning, convinced that what he had seen was a ghost.

But Mr. Spicer offers no explanation as to how one should classify the phenomenon. He also had the following to say: "It may have been the earth-bound spirit of the criminal or viciously inclined person who had once lived there, or it may have been the phantom of an actual bird. Either alternative is feasible."

I have heard there is an old house near Poole in Dorset and another in Essex, which were formerly haunted by spectral birds, and that as late as 1860, the phantasm of a bird, many times the size of a raven, was so frequently seen by the inmates of a house in Dean Street, Soho, that they eventually grew quite accustomed to it.

But bird hauntings are not confined to houses, and are far more often to be met with outdoors. Indeed, there are very few woods and moors and commons that are not subjected to them. I have constantly seen the spirits of all manner of birds in the parks in Dublin and London. Greenwich Park, in particular, is full of them.

Take note of O'Donnell's aforementioned words, suggesting that the supernatural bird "may have been the earth-bound spirit of the criminal or viciously inclined person who had once lived there." O'Donnell was someone who firmly believed that the human dead returned to our plane of existence in the form of malevolent, monstrous beasts. In 1912, he wrote a book titled "Werewolves,"

In its pages, O'Donnell stated, "It is an old belief that the souls of cataleptic and epileptic people during the body's unconsciousness adjourned temporarily to animals, and it is therefore only in keeping with such a view to suggest that on the deaths of such people their spirits take permanently the form of animals."

This would account for the fact that places where cataleptics and idiots have died are often haunted by semi- and by wholly animal types of phantasms.

of a ghostly bear seen in and around the Tower of London, England in the 19th century, O'Donnell said, "The phenomenon of the big bear, provided again it was really objective, may have been the phantasm of some prehistoric creature whose bones lie interred beneath the tower, for we know the Valley of the Thames was infested with giant reptiles and quadrupeds of all kinds."

or it may have been a vice-elemental or the phantasm of a human being who lived a purely animal life and whose spirit would naturally take the form most closely resembling it. A careful study of many of O'Donnell's books shows that this issue of the human dead returning to our plane of existence as horrific beasts played on his mind a great deal. Whether or not that is the case with the legendary Mothman...

That's up for you to decide!

If you like the show, please, share it with someone you know who loves the paranormal or strange stories, true crime, monsters, or unsolved mysteries like you do. You can email me and follow me on social media through the Weird Darkness website.

WeirdDarkness.com is also where you can find information on sponsors you heard during the show, listen to free audiobooks I've narrated, get the email newsletter, find other podcasts that I host. You can visit the store for creepy and cool Weird Darkness merchandise. Plus, it's where you can find the Hope in the Darkness page if you or someone you know is struggling with depression,

addiction, or thoughts of harming yourself or others. And if you have a true paranormal or creepy tale to tell of your own, you can click on "Tell Your Story." You can find all of that and more at WeirdDarkness.com. Weird Darkness is a registered trademark. I'm Darren Marlar, thanks for joining me in the Weird Darkness!

At Bright Horizons, infants discover first steps, toddlers discover independence, and preschoolers discover bold ideas. Our dedicated teachers and discovery-driven curriculum nurture curiosity, inspire creativity, and build lasting confidence so your child is ready to take on the world.

Come visit one of our Bright Horizons centers in the greater Chicago area and see for yourself how we turn wonder into wisdom. Schedule your visit today at brighthorizons.com.

Do you like my horror-able humor episodes called Mind of Marler? If so, and you'd like more, it now has its very own podcast. Comedic creeps, sarcastic scares, frivolous frights, macabre madness. Every week I dive into strange history, twisted true crime, and paranormal weirdness. All the stuff you'd expect from me on Weird Darkness, but delivered with dark comedy, satire, and just the right amount of absurdity.

Monsters, myths, mysteries, mirth, and more every Monday with Mind of Marler. I like alliteration, can you tell? You can find a list of where you can subscribe to the podcast at WeirdDarkness.com under the menu tab for podcasts.

At Bright Horizons, infants discover first steps, toddlers discover independence, and preschoolers discover bold ideas. Our dedicated teachers and discovery-driven curriculum nurture curiosity, inspire creativity, and build blasting confidence so your child is ready to take on the world.

Come visit one of our Bright Horizons centers in the greater Chicago area and see for yourself how we turn wonder into wisdom. Schedule your visit today at brighthorizons.com.