Winged Human Forms Over Mason County Grave

Before there was Mothman, Mason County, West Virginia was the site of three other winged humans. Some have speculated that the strange creature that would become the state's most famous and beloved cryptid WAS some type of angelic being. Would that mean that these three angelic forms seen in a small graveyard are related in some way to Mothman? Eh, probably not, but it's fun to think about how our personal perceptions and societal norms influence our beliefs and how we try to explain what simply cannot be explained. This story comes from the January 4th, 1905 edition of the Weekly Register, a newspaper based in Point Pleasant, WV. It can be found on the Chronicling America website.  

Without an exact date of the incident, or the name/location of the cemetery in question, or the name of the deceased woman, this is nothing more than just an interesting little story from an area of the state filled with interesting little stories. But, readers to Theresa's Haunted History probably know that I couldn't just leave it at that; I had to do SOME digging. From additional newspaper articles, I found that there was a Reverend JB McKibben who lived in an area of Mason County called Siloam. Siloam doesn't really exist today, but is located close to the Mason/Putnam County line, around Frazier's Bottom. What does still exist is the Siloam Baptist Church on Black Oak Road, located off Route 817 (old route 35). JB (Joseph Benson) McKibben, his wife, and quite a few family members make this church their final resting place. JB lived a long life. According to to the WV Cemetery Preservation site, he was born in 1851 and died on April 12, 1941. 

The distance between Siloam and Pt. Pleasant isn't exactly short, and there were probably numerous small burial yards where the incident took place. What we can rule out is that it didn't happen at Siloam Baptist. Although the church itself was established in 1880, the first burial didn't occur until 1913, when an 8 year old little girl named Gladys Wallace passed away. Her mother was heavily pregnant at the time and the winter weather was especially harsh at the time, making it impossible for her to get up to the burial site at the top of the hill. The father approached the land owner about burying the child on the property, and ever since, the site was used as a graveyard.