bunjywunjy:

at least one cryptid definitely does exist in the sense that it was an actual creature who encountered and really freaked out a couple of humans- Mothman!

<art src- Tim Bertelink>

it was a barred owl.

see, owls have a really bright eyeshine at night, and in a really unusual color- blood red. 

and barred owls have the brightest eyeshine of them all- so bright you could swear you were looking at the oncoming headlights of the Hellfire Express! 

at close range, the eyeshine of a barred owl would be almost blinding- like shining a bright flashlight directly into those bicycle spoke reflector things. like this:

and wouldn’t you know it, barred owls are found in the areas where Mothman was first sighted.

so what presumably happened was that several people had very close encounters with one or several barred owls, and the red hellfire glare of the owl was so bright that it made the owl’s eyes look the size of fucking softballs!

and since it was night and the owl was moving the shape of it was too indistinct to make out, so the humans’ brains extrapolated a body outline for this unknown creature that was MUCH bigger than the owl actually was! it’s also stupid difficult to judge distances in the sky at night so they may have thought the owl was further away when it was almost on top of them. and HEY PRESTO, A LEGEND WAS BORN.

but this doesn’t mean that Mothman was never real, quite the contrary! Mothman is real in the only place that matters,,,, in our hearts 

support owl conservation efforts in your local area though, and you may someday see a Mothman of your own!