Sasquatch Chronicles Blog

The Flatwoods monster 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.

The eyewitnesses included six boys aged 10 to 17, a dog and a Mom.

“One of the boys peed his pants,” said John Gibson, a high-school freshman at the time, who knew them all. “Their dog (Rickie) ran with his tail between his legs.”

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.”

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 group said they had smelled a “pungent mist” and some later said they were nauseated. 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.