I saw the movie a few years ago and thought it was good, but mostly just another weird story made into a movie. They said it was based on true events, but it was hard to figure out what was going on, so I didn't really think about it much. It didn't fit into any other conspiracy paradigm, as portrayed in the movie. I did note at the time that there was an obvious 33 in it, at the climactic bridge scene.
I only realized "The Mothman Prophecies" was based on a book this past year, when I was reading
"The Real Men in Black", about the strange men that often accompany paranormal and UFO events and act to cover up the truth.
"The Mothman Prophecies" by John Keel was said to have extensive descriptions of Men in Black (MIB), so I got that book and read it.
"The Real Men in Black" by Nick Redfern is somewhat cheesy and tabloidy in style, whereas Keel's "The Mothman Propechies" is well written and serious.
Overall, "The Mothman Prophecies" is one of the creepiest books I've ever read, and a lot of weird things happened when I was reading it.
First off, not surprisingly, the book is quite different from the movie, and deals extensively in UFOs and out of this world visitors and MIB. The movie never touches on these aspects. It really only deals with the mothman, and some creepy predictions by a character named Indrid Cold. The mothman appears to be a paranormal creature, possibly an alien or time traveler or inter-dimensional traveler, it's not really clear. Apparently many people have seen these creatures around the world throughout history. The movie never actually shows the Indrid Cold character, but just makes him as some sort of strange spiritual or even god-like creature. In the book, Indrid Cold is a humanoid visitor from space, from a distant planet/galaxy, also possibly a time traveler or inter-dimensional traveler, who lands in West Virginia on a space ship and makes contact with a man named
Woodrow Derenberger (who wrote his own book about his experiences). Mr. Derenberger is even abducted an taken to the planet of Indrid Cold, apparently.
"The Mothman Prophecies" is full of UFO incidents that are "close encounters of the 3rd kind"-- where spacecrafts land and extra-terrestrials get out and interact with earth people. These incidents all occur in the area of Point Pleasant, West Virginia. And it's supposed to be true. John Keel is a well known writer and was thought to be legitimate and serious UFO researcher (he passed away about 10 years ago).
Oddly to me, in the "The Mothman Prophecies", Keel is not a fan of the idea that UFOs and their occupants and the mothman and MIB are not really extra-terrestrials from other planets. He seems to favor some paranormal or extra-dimensional or time-travel explanation for them. He even tries to tie MIB and other such creatures as semi-rational explanations for religious experiences, postulating that MIB were manifestations of the devil, and that certain ETs and even forms of the mothman could be angels.
Whatever is the explanation, something very very strange happened around Point Pleasant in the period of 1966-1967, with an extensive wave of UFO sightings, MIB sightings, mothman sightings, paranormal phenomena, psychic predictions, synchronicities, all culminating in
the collapse of the Silver bridge, which killed 46 people.
So there were three very weird things that happened to me while I was reading "The Mothman Propechies":
1) I was reading it at night, and kept falling asleep while reading it -- really deeply asleep-- and then I would lose my place. What would happen is I kept losing my place. I would fall asleep for a few minutes, then wake up, and put the book aside, but I never seemed to mark my place. So what kept happening is I read the middle of the book totally out of sequence, Certainly I tend to fall asleep reading in bed, but this thing with losing my place never happened to me so badly before. It was very disorienting. The other thing that kept happening when I read it at night is I would sleep poorly-- trouble falling asleep after waking up and that sort of thing. I finally decided to read the book during the day time and that's how I had to finish it.
2) Synchronicity 1-- the book mentioned a historical (urban legend?) crime figure named "Springheeled Jack", who terrorized London in the 1800's. I had never heard of this guy in my life before. Then about 2 hours after reading this, I was watching a British crime show where the perpetrator styled himself after "Springheeled Jack".
3) Synchronicity 2-- the book mentioned how John Keel was having weird problems with his phone calls and even his mail was getting intercepted and not delivered. The same day as I read this, I got a phone call from my power company saying they got the bill they had sent me, sent back to me as "undeliverable", even though it had my proper address. THIS IS SUPER BIZARRE.
So, there is something odd going on, and I must say throughout my life I have had various odd coincidences and synchronicities... it really makes you wonder....
(post edited to fix a few grammatical mistakes and to clarify a few sentences on Dec. 29th, 2015)
UPDATE: 1/1/2016-- I finished Redfern's book
"The Real Men in Black", and the ending was better than the beginning. There are some really interesting ideas in there about what the MIB really are. The time traveler explanation is particularly interesting... but also the
"tulpa" concept is really neat as well.