In the town of Flatwoods, West Virginia on September 12th 1952 there was a sighting of a creature that has sparked the people of Braxton County into a debate.
At 7:15PM, Edward (13) and Fred May (12) along with their friend Tomy Hyer (10), saw a bright object shoot across the sky and land on a nearby farm owned by G. Bailey Fisher. So when the boys saw this they immediately lost their minds and ran home to tell Kathleen May, Edward and Fred’s mom. I imagine she just rolls her eyes and humors the boys and heads out with them. Somewhere in their trek to the farm they picked up a few more people, Neil Nunley(14), Ronnie Shaver(10), and West Virginia National Guardsman Eugene Lemon(17).
Eugene Lemon also had a dog, which I mention only because as they were about to go over this hill into the farm property, the dog ran up ahead of them and immediately ran back to the group. When the rest of them finally got to the top they saw something truly bizarre.
The descriptions are slightly varied but here's what I found. There was apparently this pulsating red light and when a flashlight was shined in that direction they saw a 10ft tall creature. It had a round blood-red face with this large pointed hood shape around it, similar to a spade on a playing card. Its eye emitted this greenish-orange color and its body was either dark black or green. It also supposedly had small claw-like hands, and was wearing either just green clothing or armor.
Eugene Lemon and Kathleen May via Flatwoods Monster Museum
It was generally pretty hard for the group to see because as they got closer they smelt this rotten egg sulfur-y smell and there was this mist everywhere that made their eyes and noses burn. Also because as soon as the flashlight hit the monster, it made this shrieking hissing sound and glided straight at the group. To which they responded to by running the fuck away. There were later reported to be very nauseous and sick, and it may or may not be related, but some later developed cancer.
When Kathleen got back into town she contacted the local Sheriff Robert Carr, and Mr. A. Lee Stewert, co-owner of the Braxton Democrat, a local newspaper. Mr. Steward had done several interviews and even went back to the site with Lemon and he reported saying that “there was a sickening, burnt, metallic odor still prevailing” He also wrote later that he had discovered these"skid marks" in the field and an "odd, gummy deposit" . However, when the Sheriff returned he said that there wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.
The skid marks are actually believed to belong to a Chevy pickup truck belonging to Max Lockard, who had actually gone to look for the creature hours before Stewert had gotten there. Eugene Lemon’s mother said that her house shook and the radio had cut out for about 45 minutes that night. There was also a report from the local director of the Board of Education and he said that at 6:30 that following morning he saw a flying saucer take off. And I should take a minute to mention that the reason there were just so many people at the site is because Kathleen was mainly worried that it was a crashed airplane at first because again, this is the early 1950s and not even a handful of years earlier the Soviet Union had just tested the atomic bomb. So everyone is already on edge. Also?? Folks LOVED aliens at this time.
About a week later on a highway near the original site a woman and her daughter were driving when a bright blinding light hit their car. When they stopped they saw the original creature wearing this metallic skirt through this sulfur-y smoke and light. It was floating on some sort of device and when it touched their car it created a V shaped burn onto it.
So this story just sort of blows up, its in dozens of newspapers and on the radio and eventually it gets to the U.S. Air Force and because they had been doing research on UFO’s under Project Blue Book and they had an explanation. It was just an owl. By the way in 1952 they counted 1,501 UFO sightings, 303 if which were unexplained. The highest amount between 1947-1969, the second highest being only 46 unexplained sightings.
Project Blue Book is a whole ass thing the US Military did to investigate UFO sightings which is pretty dope, but we’re talkin Flatwoods Monster.
There was another sighting on September 12th, the original sighting time, where George and Edith Snitowsky were driving between Gassaway and Frametown, West Virginia. Their car, which had gotten a new battery, suddenly stalled, and as they were stopped on the road they began to smell this rank whatever smell. So George got out of the car to check it out and further down the road there was this hovering globe moving back and forth glowing this soft violet light. When he mover closer to investigate he felt the "sensation of thousands of needle-like vibrations" on his skin, he started to feel sick and stumbled to head back to the car. As he turned around his wife screamed that there was something behind him and when he glanced to look he saw “a figure about eight or nine feet tall with a big head, bloated body and long spindly arms gliding rapidly”
So if you go to Flatwoods, West Virginia now the place is littered with museums dedicated to their monster. Sutton, West Virginia has a Flatwoods Monster Museum, and the Braxton County Visitor’s Center had also slowly turned into a monster museum! There’s even a local-ish band named Captain Catfeesh based in Morgantown, and they’re this folk-punk band that sings about cryptids and stuff. There’s specifically a song called the “Phantom of Flatwoods”!
Captain Catfeesh album artwork
Sources: Cryptozoology, History, Wikipedia, WV Public, and Last Podcast on the Left Ep.109