The Flatwoods Monster
September 12, 1952
The Flatwoods Monster is one of America's most famous 'creature' encounters, and it began with a game of football. As dusk fell on 12 September 1952, a group of local boys in the small town of Flatwoods, in Braxton County, West Virginia, saw a fiery object streak across the sky and come down beyond a hill.
What people reported
According to e-WV, the West Virginia Encyclopedia, the boys went to investigate and were joined by Kathleen May, a local beautician. Braxton County's official visitor site, retelling UFO writer Gray Barker's account from interviews with the witnesses, says the group climbed the hill on a farm and saw a pulsing red light. When one of them shone a flashlight at a pair of glowing eyes, they saw a towering, man-like figure with a red face inside a pointed, hood-like shape.
Accounts differ on the details, as both sources acknowledge. e-WV describes a creature nearly 12 feet tall in bright green clothing hanging in folds, with a head shaped like the ace of spades; the Braxton account says the body was dark and that colour was added in later retellings. Both mention a sickening odour or mist. When the figure hissed and seemed to glide toward them, the group fled. Some felt sick afterwards.
What investigators found
The physical evidence was thin. e-WV says a later investigation found only a lingering odour, two large skid marks and trampled grass. The Braxton account adds that the sheriff and a deputy searched and found nothing, and that a local newspaperman found 'skid marks' and a gummy deposit the next day.
In 2000 the sceptical investigator Joe Nickell offered a conventional explanation, summarised on Wikipedia: the fireball was a meteor, the pulsing red light came from aircraft warning beacons visible from the area, and the 'monster' was a barn owl perched in a tree, its outline enlarged by shadows and fear. That remains the leading explanation, though it cannot be proven either.
Legacy
The creature never returned, but the legend grew. e-WV notes an annual convention in Flatwoods and a museum devoted to the monster on Main Street in nearby Sutton.