What happened
At dusk on 12 September 1952, boys playing in Flatwoods, West Virginia, saw a bright object streak across the sky and seem to come down on a hilltop farm. With local beautician Kathleen May and 17-year-old National Guardsman Eugene Lemon, a group of seven climbed the hill. Near the top they saw a pulsing red light. When Lemon swung his flashlight toward a pair of glowing points, the beam caught a towering figure, perhaps ten feet tall, with a blood-red face, a pointed hood shaped like the ace of spades, glowing eyes and folds of dark green below the waist. It hissed and seemed to glide toward them. They fled. Several complained of a sickening, metallic mist, and some had nausea and swollen throats afterwards. The sheriff found nothing that night, but a local newspaperman reported skid marks and a gummy residue next day. The story ran nationwide, and the 'Braxton County Monster' became an enduring piece of Appalachian folklore.
The official explanation
A bright meteor was seen over Maryland, Pennsylvania and West Virginia that evening. Investigator Joe Nickell concluded in 2000 that the pulsing red light was one of three aircraft beacons visible from the hill, and that the 'monster' was most likely a startled barn owl on a branch, its face, hissing call, claws and swooping glide matching the description, with foliage below suggesting a skirt. He attributes the nausea to fear and exertion. A local man later said he had driven his truck around the site, which could explain the tracks.
The anomalous case
Seven people, including a National Guardsman and an adult, described the same strange figure at close range with a flashlight on it, and fled in real terror. Several reported physical effects that a doctor examined, an oily film on the boys' faces, nausea and swollen throats, which an owl does not obviously explain. Barker's tape-recorded interviews preserved details soon after the event, and A. Lee Stewart Jr. of the Braxton Democrat reported ground traces the next day. The witnesses consistently described something about ten feet tall, far larger than any owl. The episode came during the record 1952 wave, and the West Virginia Encyclopedia notes the witnesses saw a pulsating light beyond the hill before the figure appeared, and that investigators found trampled grass and a lingering odour.
The strongest argument that this was something genuinely unknown or classified, with each claim attributed to the person who made it.
Sources
- Flatwoods Monster (Buddy Griffin) e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia
- Flatwoods monster Wikipedia
Witness reports elsewhere
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