The Flatwoods Monster

On the evening of September 12, 1952, a group of local boys in Flatwoods, Braxton County, West Virginia, saw a bright object streak across the sky and appear to come down on a hilltop farm. They went to look, joined by a local mother and a teenage National Guardsman, about seven people in all.

Near the top of the hill they reported a pulsing red light and, beside it, a tall figure with a glowing face and a large, pointed hood. Several said it moved toward them with a hissing sound, and that a sharp, metallic-smelling mist hung in the air. The group ran back down the hill. Some later said the mist left them nauseated, with irritated throats.

The county sheriff and a deputy searched the hill that night and reported finding nothing but a lingering odor. A local newspaper editor visited soon after. Within days the story had gone out over the wire services, and the witnesses were being interviewed by reporters from outside the state.

The same evening, a bright meteor was widely reported across several neighboring states.

• Roughly ten feet tall.
• A round, reddish face with two large eye-like openings.
• A tall, pointed hood or collar behind the head, often compared to the ace of spades.
• A dark, pleated lower body, described by some as a skirt.
• Moved by gliding rather than walking, with a hissing sound.
• A pungent, metallic odor and a mist that irritated eyes and throats.

Investigator Joe Nickell proposed that three ordinary things lined up that night: the meteor (the light in the sky), a flashing red aircraft-warning beacon on a nearby hill (the pulsing light), and a startled barred owl on a branch (the face, the hood, the talons, the hiss).

The witnesses described physical symptoms afterward, and kept their accounts consistent for decades. That is a great deal of owl.