The Anniversary of the “Flatwoods Monster”

Saturday will mark the 63rd anniversary of one of the most famous and published alleged close encounter incidents from the 1950’s. It occurred in the town of Flatwoods, Braxton County West Virginia. On September 12th 1952, Fred and Eddie May were playing with a neighbor in a wooded hilltop near G.B. Fisher’s property when they saw a bright object moving in the sky and noticed that it appeared to land. The three boys went back to the May’s house and told Mrs. May what they saw. She then led the three boys towards where they thought the object in the sky may have landed. A few other boys also joined the group and when they got to the landing site, they observed a mist and noticed an overpowering burning smell and some began to feel very sick while observing a burning sensation in their nostrils.

Gene Lemon, a teenage member of the West Virginia National Guard entered the forested area and upon noticing what looked like lights in a tree, shown his flashlight in the tree and was suddenly confronted with what was described as a “ten foot monster” with a green body and a pure red face. As the group took off in a frenzy, Mrs. May fell to the ground and once they returned, some began to vomit and feel very ill. Mrs. May ended up contacting Sherriff Robert Carr and a local newspaper owner. Later that night, police investigators returned to the site and only observed the strange smell, but nothing else. Sometime later, the story came out in the “Braxton Democrat” paper.

During this same night there were numerous reports of “fireballs” over the Baltimore Maryland area and the objects were thought to have been moving over West Virginia as well. However, a nearby farmer where the Flatwoods incident occurred also claimed to have noticed a brightly-lit spot which seemed to have been coming from the ground near G.B. Fisher’s property. As the days and months progressed, differing theories continued to surface as to what the monster could have really been. One theory even suggested that the group may have been a part of the early 1950’s CIA experiments called “MK Ultra” in which people were subjected to altered mental states by various means, including mind control and LSD.

In 2003, a Author on the Magnolia Magazine blog site revisited the story and posted it here.

Inevitably, we may never know what was really observed that night in Braxton County.