Three witnesses, one bridge, one large drip coffee from a shop that won’t open for another forty-five minutes — and nowhere near Point Pleasant.

At 7:15 on Tuesday morning, three commuters crossing the Silver Memorial Bridge independently reported a large winged figure perched on the east railing, facing upriver, holding what all three described as a large drip coffee in a paper cup. The cup had a sleeve. The sleeve had a logo. The logo belongs to a regional chain called Perch & Pour, which does not open until 8am and does not have a location in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, or within a documented forty-mile radius of it.

The witnesses — a contractor, a school aide, and a retired postal worker who asked to be identified only as someone who has crossed that bridge six thousand times and knows what belongs on it — each pulled over independently. None of them knew the others. All three noted the same detail unprompted: the figure was not drinking the coffee. It was holding it. Carefully, witnesses said, in a way that suggested awareness of the cup’s contents and a preference that those contents not spill.

Community Notice

The Coffee Is The Part That Requires Explanation

Mothman sightings in the Point Pleasant area are catalogued, cross-referenced, and, at this point, not especially surprising to anyone who covers this beat. What is surprising — what is, I want to be direct about this, genuinely difficult to account for — is the coffee. Perch & Pour confirmed to WTC by phone that their earliest opening location, a kiosk in Huntington, begins service at 8am. They do not have a mobile unit. They do not do early pre-orders. Their loyalty app does not log any transaction under any account in the Point Pleasant zip code for the past thirty days. The nearest active location is forty-three miles away. I have driven that stretch. At 7:15am it takes approximately one hour with no traffic.

It wasn’t threatening. It was just sitting there. One leg up on the railing like it was waiting for a bus. I thought, whatever, I’ve seen weirder. And then I thought, no — where did it get that cup.

— Donna Ferrell, school aide, eastbound lane, 7:15am

WTC reached the retired postal worker by phone Wednesday afternoon. He spent four minutes describing the figure’s posture — upright, relaxed, both wings partially folded, red eyes oriented toward the river — before returning, without prompting, to the cup. ‘I kept thinking about the sleeve,’ he said. ‘It takes a second to get that on. You do it at the counter. Someone handed that to it.’ He paused. ‘Or it handed it to itself. I don’t know which one is worse.’

We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves here. The presence of the figure is being assessed. The coffee is a separate matter and is being assessed separately. Those are two assessments.

— Lt. Marcus Hale, Mason County Sheriff’s Office, public statement Wednesday

I have been doing this since 2009. I have covered bridge sightings, reservoir sightings, parking structure sightings, and one sighting in an IKEA that we ultimately could not verify to our editorial standards but that three editors agreed felt accurate. The coffee is new. I do not have a framework for the coffee. I have made a note of that and I have written it down, which is how I handle things I do not yet have a framework for. The radio on my desk has been running about four pitches higher than its Tuesday average since I started writing this script. I am noting that as well. WTC will update this report as the assessment — either assessment — develops.