Who is Jimmy Angel

Jimmy Angel didn't last long in the barnstorming business, even though he was one of the more popular showmen at the time. He had a certain dislike for rules and standards, and even if stunt flying was risky and carefree, there were schedules to keep. Schedules were apparently too many rules for him. Jimmy Angel did not like being lashed to anything.

This is probably the reason he became a bush pilot. He visited Venezuela in 1921 and became engulfed by the legendary "River Of Gold". This trip set up dramatic events that would take place over a decade later, but it also set him on a path of travel that only legends can be told about him.

His obsession for gold is reported to have kicked in before his first trip to Venezuela. Legend has it that after he was shot down during WWI that he was in Capetown, South Africa trying to hire on to a detached mission for T.E. Lawrence, when he met an agent for a legendary Chinese Warlord who operated in the Gobi Desert region. He took the job of flying for the Warlord Feng against rogue bandits.

Whether or not Angel actually built an airforce for Feng has never been proven or disproven, but what is known is he did fly at least once against bandits as well as fell in love with a Russian countess.

Jimmy's first trip to Venezuela actually began in Panama. Angel met a gold prospector named McCracken. Legend has it that McCracken paid Jimmy $5000 to fly him on an expedition into Southeastern Venezuela. The duo landed on a remote tabletop mountain, and loaded vast amounts of gold onto the plane.

That's the legend.

What is known is that Jimmy loved Venezuela, and most especially the southeastern region. To narrow it down even further, he was obsessed with a 435 square mile table mountain known as Auyan-tepui.

He sought work there as often as he could get it, and because of his efforts he became very well known and was hired, as an aviation guide in that area, by the Santa Anna Mining Company out of Tulsa Oklahoma. On November 14 1933, Jimmy made a solo flight into Devil's Canyon. When he got back to camp he excitedly told a tale of a mile high waterfall, but before anyone could back with him to see it, the incessant rains drove everyone from the area. The rest of the party refused to believe Angel's story.

Angel made several trips back to Venezuela. Finally, in October 1937, with his wife a co-pilot and their friend as witness, he was able to land his plane on the mountain near the falls. The landing went fine, but the plane's nose sunk in the mud on the tabletop mountain. Taking what food and supplies they could carry, the trio began an eleven day trek through the wilderness. Finally coming upon a local tribe, they were nourished and helped down river to civilization.

The Falls were named Angel Falls shortly after his death from injuries sustained in an air crash in 1956. To this day they remain the highest Waterfalls on record.

In 1970, the Venezuelan government airlifted Jimmy's plane from the top of the mountain and turned it into a National Monument.

Four years ago I discovered the Mothman. If you recall, the Mothman was the subject of a Richard Gere movie, the Mothman Prophecies. The movie centered around the collapse of the Silver Bridge in 1967. The bridge catastrophe, that left 46 people dead, happened at Point Pleasant West Virginia, roughly 2-1/2 hours from where I grew up.

I remember the news accounts, but that was about all I remembered about it. It wasn't until four years ago I had run into the Mothman while riding. The story is, there was a mysterious figure and strange occurrences around town at the time of the bridge collapse. Many folks believe the creature known as the Mothman was responsible for the collapse.

Another legend in that town was founded in a very true story. The story of Chief Cornstalk. The short of it is that Cornstalk was taken prisoner in the 1770's at the garrison that stood at Point Pleasant. A group of White settlers charged his quarters and killed him. Before he died, he put a 200 hundred year curse on the area.

What has all this to do with Jimmy Angel? It doesn't. This is about legends and how we believe.

The state paid workers at the Cornstalk memorial were quick to dismiss the whole Mothman legend. To the point I was nearly annoyed. I say shame on them, because the ever so slightly educate visitors on the 200 year Cornstalk curse.

I believe in the Mothman. There is an annual festival that is quite a draw. The diner where Gere filmed a few scenes is getting traffic on that alone. Monuments to the Mothman can be found in several places, and a conversation about the creature and the strange events can be found at just about any park bench, if you ask.

Point Pleasant is a river town that gets most of its commerce as a rest stop along U.S.35. But, then there's the Mothman.

I believe.

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