Circus
Meanwhile, Woodward Derenberger pursued his own story. UFOlogists Gray Barker and John Keel were among Derenberger’s supporters, and in 1971, he collaborated with Harold W. Hubbard on a book, Visitors from Lanulos.
Derenberger’s account inspired The Mothman Prophecies, a 1975 book by Keel, a popular writer who regarded UFOs as manifestations of ancient gods, rather than as craft piloted by present-day extraterrestrials. Aliens, according to Keel, are also manifestations of elder gods. Keel described the Mid-Ohio Valley as a UFO/supernatural hot spot—“window” is his term—that, for reasons unknown, attracts an inordinate number of UFO sightings and reports of aliens and peculiar, animal-like humanoids.
This provocative line of thought heightened buff and general-public interest in Mothman, but Derenberger’s adventure came with a price. The flurry of television and newspaper coverage turned the salesman into a regional celebrity, and after people digested his story, many decided they wanted to see aliens themselves. In a 2011 interview with the Parkersburg News and Sentinel, Derenberger’s daughter, Taunia Bowman, recalled that armed strangers planted themselves in trees outside the family’s house, ready to deal with extraterrestrials. Other locals didn’t like anything about Derenberger’s claim.
The entire family was harassed, and non-stop abuse prompted them to change their home phone number many times. After five or six moves to new addresses, Derenberger’s wife finally wilted beneath the strain and left him in 1968, taking their daughter and two sons to new lives in Cleveland. She shortly married a Cleveland UFOlogist who had investigated her husband’s story.
Woodward Derenberger suffered permanent estrangement from his sons. He passed away in 1990.