Posted On: August 28, 2022

The Flatwoods Monster has not hissed at boys in the little village of Flatwoods, West Virginia, since Sept. 12, 1952. People grin about it now—and take Monster souvenir money, from hundreds of Monster tourists every week. But it scared people plenty back then, including the eyewitnesses: six boys aged 10 to 17, a dog, and a Mom. “One of the boys pissed his pants,” said John Gibson, a high-school freshman at the time, who knew them all. “Their dog ran with his tail between his legs.”

The encounter made the local and national news, scaring a wider swath of people. Then it prompted a U.S. Air Force UFO inquiry, part of a project called Project Blue Book that dispatched a handful of investigators around the country to look into such claims.

The Flatwoods monster (also known as the Braxton County monster, Braxie, or the Phantom of Flatwoods), in West Virginia folklore, is an entity reported to have been sighted in the town of Flatwoods in Braxton County, West Virginia, United States, on September 12, 1952, after a bright object crossed the night sky. Over 50 years later, some investigators have stated that they believe the light was a meteor and the creature was a barn owl perched in a tree, with shadows making it appear to be a large humanoid.

At 7:15 p.m., on September 12, 1952, two brothers, Edward and Fred May, and their friend Tommy Hyer said that they saw a bright object cross the sky and land on the property of local farmer G. Bailey Fisher. The boys went to the home of Kathleen May, where they told their story. May, accompanied by the three boys, local children Neil Nunley and Ronnie Shaver, and West Virginia National Guardsman Eugene Lemon, went to the Fisher farm in an effort to locate whatever it was that the boys had said they had seen.

The group reached the top of a hill, where Nunley said they saw a pulsing red light. Lemon said he aimed a flashlight in that direction and momentarily saw a tall "man-like figure with a round, red face surrounded by a pointed, hood-like shape". Lemon screamed and fell backward, the news account said, “when he saw a 10-foot monster with a blood-red body and a green face that seemed to glow.” It may have had claws for hands. It was hard to tell because of the dense mist.

Descriptions varied. In an article for Fate Magazine based on his tape-recorded interviews, UFO writer Gray Barker described the figure as approximately 10 feet (3 m) tall, with a round blood-red face, a large pointed "hood-like shape" around the face, eye-like shapes which emitted greenish-orange light, and a dark black or green body. May described the figure as having "small, claw-like hands", clothing-like folds, and "a head that resembled the ace of spades". According to the story, when the figure made a hissing sound and "glided toward the group", Lemon screamed and dropped his flashlight, causing the group to run away.

The local sheriff and a deputy had been investigating reports of a crashed aircraft in the area. They searched the site of the reported monster but "saw, heard and smelled nothing". According to Barker's account, the next day, A. Lee Stewart Jr. of the Braxton Democrat claimed to have discovered "skid marks" in the field and an "odd, gummy deposit" which were subsequently attributed by UFO enthusiast groups as evidence of a "saucer" landing.

Eyewitnesses weren’t the only reason the story took off. Americans were truly frightened in 1952, made anxious by atomic bombs and what seemed like a new world made by mad scientists. Even LIFE magazine, probably the most popular publication in the nation at the time, had, just a few months earlier, published a seemingly credible trend story about flying saucers. Spook stories sprout best when the seed lands in a bed fertile with anxiety, and that was 1952 Cold War America—a hothouse of anger, disillusionment, and anxieties, made to order for conspiracy theorists, political demagogues, and tellers of suspenseful tales. The May brothers’ monster story hit just three years after the Soviet Union successfully tested an atomic bomb in 1949. The Air Force was scanning for bombers over our skies.

To this day, locals still wonder. “The universe is a mighty big place,” says Joan Bias, news editor at The Braxton Democrat, a local newspaper. “I can’t imagine we might be alone in it—though I’m a Baptist, so maybe I shouldn’t say that!” There were fewer than 300 people in Flatwoods in 1952, and a few less than that now. “You could say that local embrace of the Monster was a little slow going,” Smith says.

The U.S. Air Force doubted too. They later revealed that they’d done UFO research and investigations since 1947, collecting thousands of stories, and investigating some with a skeleton staff. About this one, they concluded that bright but common meteors had streaked across the eastern U.S. at dusk that night, seen by many in Baltimore, among other places. And the monster with the claw-like arms? Likely an owl, they said.

Even if it’s just unproven folklore, the tourists seem to keep coming, so locals did that most Earthling of things: They made bumper stickers, shot glasses, and giant monster-shaped chairs that whole families could get into and have their pictures taken while sitting in the Monster’s scary, embracing arms. They created the Monster museum. They put up signs on highways: “Home of the Green Monster.” And they learned, to their surprise, that people wanted to hand them money.

And so the Flatwoods Monster, also known as the Green Monster, also known as the Phantom of Flatwoods, who was reportedly seven feet tall, or 10 feet tall, or 13 feet tall, or 17 feet tall, became that most peculiar American invention—a legend emblazoned on T-shirts. Either it was an elaborate piece of fiction to bring attention to their tiny town, or a legitimate alien encounter, I’m not so sure. Given the evidence, it could easily be one or the other.

Posted On: August 28, 2022

The Flatwoods Monster has not hissed at boys in the little village of Flatwoods, West Virginia, since Sept. 12, 1952. People grin about it now—and take Monster souvenir money, from hundreds of Monster tourists every week. But it scared people plenty back then, including the eyewitnesses: six boys aged 10 to 17, a dog, and a Mom. “One of the boys pissed his pants,” said John Gibson, a high-school freshman at the time, who knew them all. “Their dog ran with his tail between his legs.”

The encounter made the local and national news, scaring a wider swath of people. Then it prompted a U.S. Air Force UFO inquiry, part of a project called Project Blue Book that dispatched a handful of investigators around the country to look into such claims.

The Flatwoods monster (also known as the Braxton County monster, Braxie, or the Phantom of Flatwoods), in West Virginia folklore, is an entity reported to have been sighted in the town of Flatwoods in Braxton County, West Virginia, United States, on September 12, 1952, after a bright object crossed the night sky. Over 50 years later, some investigators have stated that they believe the light was a meteor and the creature was a barn owl perched in a tree, with shadows making it appear to be a large humanoid.

At 7:15 p.m., on September 12, 1952, two brothers, Edward and Fred May, and their friend Tommy Hyer said that they saw a bright object cross the sky and land on the property of local farmer G. Bailey Fisher. The boys went to the home of Kathleen May, where they told their story. May, accompanied by the three boys, local children Neil Nunley and Ronnie Shaver, and West Virginia National Guardsman Eugene Lemon, went to the Fisher farm in an effort to locate whatever it was that the boys had said they had seen.

The group reached the top of a hill, where Nunley said they saw a pulsing red light. Lemon said he aimed a flashlight in that direction and momentarily saw a tall "man-like figure with a round, red face surrounded by a pointed, hood-like shape". Lemon screamed and fell backward, the news account said, “when he saw a 10-foot monster with a blood-red body and a green face that seemed to glow.” It may have had claws for hands. It was hard to tell because of the dense mist.

Descriptions varied. In an article for Fate Magazine based on his tape-recorded interviews, UFO writer Gray Barker described the figure as approximately 10 feet (3 m) tall, with a round blood-red face, a large pointed "hood-like shape" around the face, eye-like shapes which emitted greenish-orange light, and a dark black or green body. May described the figure as having "small, claw-like hands", clothing-like folds, and "a head that resembled the ace of spades". According to the story, when the figure made a hissing sound and "glided toward the group", Lemon screamed and dropped his flashlight, causing the group to run away.

The local sheriff and a deputy had been investigating reports of a crashed aircraft in the area. They searched the site of the reported monster but "saw, heard and smelled nothing". According to Barker's account, the next day, A. Lee Stewart Jr. of the Braxton Democrat claimed to have discovered "skid marks" in the field and an "odd, gummy deposit" which were subsequently attributed by UFO enthusiast groups as evidence of a "saucer" landing.

Eyewitnesses weren’t the only reason the story took off. Americans were truly frightened in 1952, made anxious by atomic bombs and what seemed like a new world made by mad scientists. Even LIFE magazine, probably the most popular publication in the nation at the time, had, just a few months earlier, published a seemingly credible trend story about flying saucers. Spook stories sprout best when the seed lands in a bed fertile with anxiety, and that was 1952 Cold War America—a hothouse of anger, disillusionment, and anxieties, made to order for conspiracy theorists, political demagogues, and tellers of suspenseful tales. The May brothers’ monster story hit just three years after the Soviet Union successfully tested an atomic bomb in 1949. The Air Force was scanning for bombers over our skies.

To this day, locals still wonder. “The universe is a mighty big place,” says Joan Bias, news editor at The Braxton Democrat, a local newspaper. “I can’t imagine we might be alone in it—though I’m a Baptist, so maybe I shouldn’t say that!” There were fewer than 300 people in Flatwoods in 1952, and a few less than that now. “You could say that local embrace of the Monster was a little slow going,” Smith says.

The U.S. Air Force doubted too. They later revealed that they’d done UFO research and investigations since 1947, collecting thousands of stories, and investigating some with a skeleton staff. About this one, they concluded that bright but common meteors had streaked across the eastern U.S. at dusk that night, seen by many in Baltimore, among other places. And the monster with the claw-like arms? Likely an owl, they said.

Even if it’s just unproven folklore, the tourists seem to keep coming, so locals did that most Earthling of things: They made bumper stickers, shot glasses, and giant monster-shaped chairs that whole families could get into and have their pictures taken while sitting in the Monster’s scary, embracing arms. They created the Monster museum. They put up signs on highways: “Home of the Green Monster.” And they learned, to their surprise, that people wanted to hand them money.

And so the Flatwoods Monster, also known as the Green Monster, also known as the Phantom of Flatwoods, who was reportedly seven feet tall, or 10 feet tall, or 13 feet tall, or 17 feet tall, became that most peculiar American invention—a legend emblazoned on T-shirts. Either it was an elaborate piece of fiction to bring attention to their tiny town, or a legitimate alien encounter, I’m not so sure. Given the evidence, it could easily be one or the other.