Fallout 76 Mothman: How and where to find it

Seeing, let alone catching a Fallout 76 mothman can be a pain. They don't appear often and can be easy to miss. Which makes life hard if you want any of the missions or rewards involving them. There are some guaranteed ways to summon them but nothing fast. Whatever happens if you want to find a Fallout 76 mothman you're going to have to be patient.

There are also multiple types of mothman in Fallout 76. Starting with the basic Fallout 76 mothman, and working through variants like stalking, wise, vengeful, glowing and scorched variants. Each one generally more dangerous and harder to find.

As we mentioned a few can be found via missions and events, but finding the rest basically boils down to searching areas where they might appear and hoping you get lucky. You can at least improve the odds by knowing what to look for and understanding how they behave. Here's how to find a Fallout 76 mothman.

Fallout 76 Mothman variants

There are six mothman variants in Fallout 76, only two of which you can definitely meet on purpose via triggerable missions. Although the base version can be found randomly if you explore a certain area. Here are your options:

Mothman - The basic Mothman can be found around Point Pleasant if you're lucky.
Stalking mothman - Another random encounter, as the name suggests, it likes to watch.
Wise mothman - Can be summoned via the The Path to Enlightenment mission found at the Landview Lighthouse in the forrest region, and grants a 5% XP boost for an hour.
Vengeful mothman - Can be found as part of the Queen of the Hunt daily mission.
Scorched mothman - A mothman infected with the Scorched Plague that can attack during the Scorched Earth Event.
Glowing mothman - A highly irradiated, glowing variant

Coming up we'll cover the methods needed to find the three mothman types you can find easily or summon - the mothman, wise mothman and vengeful mothman.

Fallout 76 Mothman: Where to find the basic version

If you want to find a basic Mothman head to Point Pleasant, which can be found on the map thanks to its rather large Mothman museum sign. Encounters with the Fallout 76 Mothman are random, so you’ll want to keep exploring the area - especially in the wooded area east of the river - until you come across it. Don’t worry if you do see it, though, as it doesn’t guarantee that you’ll be in for a fight: the Mothman won’t attack you unless you start firing at it. So try to be nice at first, ok?

Its eyes have three colours which’ll tell you how the Mothman is going to act: red means it’s aggressive, yellow is wary, and purple is passive, so it won’t attack you. Chances are that if you run into it in the wilds it’ll teleport away without trying to fight, but here’s a couple of things you need to know if you do fire a few pot shots at it.

The Mothman has just two attacks, and they’re surprisingly easy to avoid. When it’s hovering a few feet off the ground it’ll fire spit projectiles (ew), and be warned: it’s able to dodge to the side pretty very quickly, so if you’re trying to attack it up close with melee you’re going to want to time your swings carefully. The second attack is easy to spot, as it’ll let loose a massive blue energy shockwave when it wraps its wings around its body. Just get out of the way by running away and attack from afar. Simple, right?

The basic Fallout 76 Mothman has around 1000 HP, and has 150 energy, damage, and radiation resistance, which goes up to 250 when it’s level 45+. Speaking of levelling up, the Mothman comes in three other flavours that you can fight: the Dread Mothman (level 45), the Albino Mothman (level 55 - you’ll definitely want to get a photo with this beauty), and the presumably green Glowing Mothman (level 65).

How to find the Wise Mothman

Sometimes the Mothman doesn’t want to fight at all, and if you’re in the mood for a more peaceful encounter you’ll want to find the Wise Mothman. Head to the Landview Lighthouse in the Forest region, which you’ll find by the river - there’s even a drawing of it on the map for you to head to. Handy! Complete the event at the Lighthouse, one collecting bioluminescent fluid from fireflies but beware, as the fluid is perishable and will spoil if you wait too long to hand it in. Once you’ve done the event, the happy Wise Mothman will appear and give you 5% XP boost for the next hour if you go up to it and interact with it. You’ll know it’s friendly thanks to its purple eyes - which indicate it’s calm - so don’t be afraid to approach it and say hi.

How to find Fallout 76’s Vengeful Mothman

If you’re after a flat-out fight with the cryptid, you’ll want to head over to The Mire once you’re roughly level 30 - 34. Make your way to the Hunter’s Shack in the north of the region, which you can find south of the bend in the road and north of Ella Ames’ bunker. Explore the shack and the daily quest Queen of the Hunt will trigger, which will set you on a mission to find the Vengeful Mothman. Just follow my combat tips that I’ve written above to take the Vengeful Mothman down, then enjoy snapping pictures of you with its still-warm corpse in photo mode.