Beyond the Veil Magazine

The Flatwoods Monster

Issue #21: September 1980

On the evening of 12 September 1952, a group of children and adults in Flatwoods, West Virginia, saw something that would haunt them for the rest of their lives. They had gone to investigate a light that fell from the sky onto a nearby hillside. What they found there defied explanation.

The Sighting

It began shortly after 7 p.m. At least four boys (Eddie and Freddie May, Neil Nunley, and Tommy Hyer) saw a bright object cross the sky and appear to land on a hill belonging to farmer G. Bailey Fisher. The boys ran to the May home, where they collected Mrs. Kathleen May and Eugene Lemon, a seventeen-year-old National Guardsman. Armed with a flashlight, they climbed the hill to investigate.

Near the top, they encountered a pulsing ball of fire, described as “about the size of a house,” that emitted a sickening mist. A hissing sound filled the air. Then Eugene Lemon shone his flashlight to the left.

There, hovering above the ground, was the creature.

The Description

The witnesses described a figure approximately ten feet tall, with a blood-red face and a dark, hood-like shape (later likened to an ace of spades) surrounding its head. Two small, non-human eyes glowed from within the face. The body appeared to be dark green, with claw-like hands visible at the ends of short arms.

The creature did not walk. It seemed to float, drifting toward the group as they stood paralysed with terror.

The mist surrounding the scene burned their eyes and throats. The smell was acrid, metallic. Eugene Lemon dropped his flashlight and the group fled down the hill, several falling and scraping themselves in their panic.

The Aftermath

Kathleen May contacted the local sheriff and newspaper editor A. Lee Stewart, who returned to the site with them that night. The fire was gone, but a strange, lingering smell remained. The next morning, skid marks were found on the grass where the fireball had rested.

Several of the witnesses became ill in the following days, experiencing nausea, vomiting, and throat irritation. A doctor who examined them attributed the symptoms to hysteria, but some have suggested exposure to an unknown substance.

The Investigation

Stewart interviewed the witnesses extensively and found their accounts consistent. He was convinced they had seen something, though he could not say what. The U.S. Air Force investigated as part of Project Blue Book, eventually attributing the sighting to a meteor and the creature to a barn owl perched in a tree.

Few found this explanation satisfactory. Witnesses insisted the creature was far larger than any owl and that it had approached them deliberately. The physical symptoms were never adequately explained.

Similar Sightings

The Flatwoods Monster was not an isolated incident. In the days surrounding 12 September 1952, numerous UFO sightings were reported across West Virginia, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. Some witnesses described creatures similar to the one at Flatwoods.

On the same night, a couple in Frametown, West Virginia (just twenty miles away) reported seeing a similar figure. They described it as ten feet tall, with a large head and emitting a foul smell.

Two weeks later, witnesses in Sutton, West Virginia, reported a smaller but similar creature approaching their home. It fled when they shone a flashlight at it.

These additional sightings suggest that whatever visited Braxton County was not a single isolated incident but part of a broader phenomenon.

Theories

Several explanations have been proposed:

Misidentification: The Air Force theory suggests that excited witnesses, having seen a meteor, misidentified a barn owl perched in a tree. Barn owls have heart-shaped faces and can appear quite large in poor light. However, this fails to explain the size, the hovering motion, or the physical symptoms.

Extraterrestrial Visitor: Some researchers suggest the creature was an occupant of the crashed craft, possibly wearing a protective suit. The hood-like structure may have been a helmet, the hovering explained by anti-gravity technology.

Government Experiment: Others propose that the creature was connected to military testing. The area contains several government facilities, and 1952 was a period of intense Cold War experimentation.

Mass Hysteria: Sceptics argue that the combination of a meteor, darkness, and fear produced a collective hallucination. The witnesses saw what they expected to see, not what was actually there.

The Witnesses Today

Nearly thirty years later, the survivors of that September evening maintain their accounts. Kathleen May, in particular, has spoken about the experience repeatedly, and her story has never changed. She has consistently rejected the owl explanation, insisting that what she saw was unlike any animal she had ever encountered.

Whether the Flatwoods Monster was extraterrestrial, terrestrial, or psychological, it left a lasting impression on those who encountered it, and on the study of unexplained phenomena.

Readers with information about the Flatwoods incident or similar creature sightings are invited to contact our research department.