Prophet and Loss

Image credit: The Mothman Prophesies: Melissa Moseley

In addition to depicting elements not present in Keel's book, Pellington's movie also leaves a great deal out, including unidentified flying objects. Keel spends pages and pages of ''Mothman Prophecies'' detailing the UFO sightings he says went hand-in-hand with the alleged Mothman appearances in Point Pleasant. He also refers repeatedly to mysterious ''men in black'' lurking in the town -- figures similar to those often cited in UFO lore and made famous in the Will Smith comedy.

But the ''Mothman'' movie omits all references to UFOs (except for vague mentions of lights in the sky) and men in black are nowhere to be found. Pellington shot a scene where townsfolk gathered on a hill and watched those lights, but he removed it from the final cut. ''The lights-in-the-sky scene didn't feel right when I watched the first cut of the movie -- it felt like it was aping 'Close Encounters,''' Pellington says. ''I wanted to strip it of UFOs -- anything I perceived as wacky, or kooky, or with aliens.''

The movie also split Keel's role in the book -- the stranger in town who investigates the ongoing mystery and ultimately becomes involved in it -- into two fictionalized characters: Gere's political reporter, Klein, and Alexander Leek (Alan Bates), an elderly writer of supernatural books whom Gere consults. Klein encounters some of what Keel claims to have gone through, but unlike Keel, he's far from a supernatural expert. (He also has a completely fictional wife, played by Debra Messing.) The movie derives much of its drama from the spectacle of a rational man struggling with events he believes to be impossible -- which wouldn't have worked with a more direct representation of Keel. ''In the 1950s,'' the author says, ''I traveled around the world and I investigated poltergeist cases, all kinds of crazy things — so it was part of my life.''

The movie nods more directly to Keel with the character of Leek. In fact, Keel says he was delighted by the tribute, which he considers to be respectful. He says he wasn't fazed by Leek's mention of spending time in a psychiatric hospital (something Keel says never happened to him).

Despite the many outré aspects of Keel's tale, Pellington is inclined to believe that there's some truth to it. ''I think all things are possible,'' he says. ''We've all had strange experiences -- some more than others. If Keel wrote it, I believe him when he says he experienced it.'' Pellington didn't say whether he's ready to take on ''The Jimi Hendrix Prophecies'' next.