The Flatwoods UFO Monster

In modern police parlance a long-unsolved homicide or other crime may be known as a "cold case," a term we might borrow for such paranormal mysteries as that of the Flatwoods Monster, which was launched on September 12, 1952, and never completely explained.

About 7:15 P.M. on that day, at Flatwoods, a little village in the hills of West Virginia, some youngsters were playing football on the school playground. Suddenly they saw a fiery UFO streak across the sky and, apparently, land on a hilltop of the nearby Bailey Fisher farm. The youths ran to the home of Mrs. Kathleen May, who provided a flashlight and accompanied them up the hill. In addition to Mrs. May, a local beautician, the group included her two sons, Eddie 13, and Freddie 14, Neil Nunley 14, Gene Lemon 17, and Tommy Hyer and Ronnie Shaver, both 10, along with Lemon's dog.

There are myriad, often contradictory versions of what happened next, but UFO writer Gray Barker was soon on the scene and wrote an account for Fate magazine based on tape-recorded interviews. He found that the least emotional account was provided by Neil Nunley, one of two youths who were in the lead as the group hastened to the crest of the hill. Some distance ahead was a pulsing red light. Then, suddenly, Gene Lemon saw a pair of shining, animal-like eyes, and aimed the flashlight in their direction.

The light revealed a towering "manlike" figure with a round, red "face" surrounded by a "pointed, hood-like shape." The body was dark and seemingly colorless, but some would later say it was green, and Mrs. May reported drape-like folds. The monster was observed only momentarily, as suddenly it emitted a hissing sound and glided toward the group. Lemon responded by screaming and dropping his flashlight, whereupon everyone fled.

The group had noticed a pungent mist at the scene and afterward some were nauseated. A few locals, then later the sheriff and a deputy (who came from investigating a reported airplane crash), searched the site but "saw, heard and smelled nothing." The following day A. Lee Stewart, Jr., from the Braxton Democrat discovered "skid marks" in the roadside field, along with an "odd, gummy deposit"--traces attributed to the landed "saucer" (Barker 1953).

In his article Barker (1953) noted that "numerous people in a 20-mile radius saw the illuminated objects in the sky at the same time," evidently seeing different objects or a single one "making a circuit of the area." Barker believed the Flatwoods incident was consistent with other reports of "flying saucers or similar craft" and that "such a vehicle landed on the hillside, either from necessity or to make observations." (At this time in UFOlogical history, the developing mythology had not yet involved alien "abductions.")

In addition to Barker's article and later his book (1956), accounts of the Flatwoods incident were related by another on-site investigator, paranormal writer Ivan T. Sanderson (1952, 1967), as well as the early UFOlogist Major Donald E. Keyhoe (1953). More recent accounts have garbled details, with Brookesmith (1995), for example, incorrectly reporting five of the children as belonging to Mrs. May, and Ritchie (1994) referring to the monster's hoodlike feature as a "halo," which he compared with those in Japanese Buddhist art. However, Jerome Clark's The UFO Encyclopedia (1998) has a generally factual, sensible account of the affair, appropriately termed "one of the most bizarre UFO encounters of all time."

The UFO

On June 1, 2000, while on a trip that took me through Flatwoods, I was able to stop off for an afternoon of on-site investigating. I was amused to be greeted by a sign announcing, "Welcome to/Flatwoods/Home of/the Green Monster." Although the village has no local library, I found something even better: a real-estate business, Country Properties, whose co-owners Betty Hallman and Laura Green generously photocopied articles for me and telephoned residents to set up interviews.

Johnny Lockard, 95, told me that virtually everyone who had seen the alleged flying saucer in 1952 recognized it for what it was: a meteor. He, his daughter Betty Jean, and her husband Bill Sumpter said that the fireball had been seen on a relatively horizontal trajectory in various states. In fact, according to a former local newspaper editor, "There is no doubt that a meteor of considerable proportion flashed across the heavens that Friday night since it was visible in at least three states--Maryland, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia" (Byrne 1966). The meteor explanation contrasts with the fanciful notions of Sanderson (1967). He cites several persons who each saw a single glowing object. Although observing that "All of the objects were traveling in the same direction and apparently at the same speed and at exactly the same time," he fails to draw the obvious conclusion: that there was one object, albeit variously described. (For example, one report said the object landed on a nearby knoll, while another de scribed it as "disintegrating in the air with a rain of ashes.") Instead of suspecting that people were mistaken or that they saw a meteor that broke apart, Sanderson asserts that "to be logical" we should believe that "a flight of aerial machines" were maneuvering in formation." For some reason the craft went out of control, with one landing, rather than crashing, at Flatwoods, and its pilot emerged in a space suit." Observed, it headed back to the spaceship which--like two others that "crashed"--soon "vaporized" (Sanderson 1967).