In a small town in West Virginia, a terrible creature is said to stalk and even hunt innocent humans. Known as the Flatwoods Monster, anyone who goes into the woods at night alone is inviting her fury. But not all believe it to be a living creature. Some say the Flatwoods monster is really a UFO, or the result of a secret world war two era weapons program.
Welcome to Flatwoods
The legend began one evening in 1952, when a group of young boys witnessed a strange bright light fly across the sky. As they watched, it began to hover low, and landed on a nearby farm. Along with one of their mothers and a local national guardsman, they soon entered the farm themselves, and approached the mysterious thing they had observed flying. The group had no idea what it was, and as they got closer, each of them began to feel physically sick. But as they had zero survival instinct, they kept going, following it’s strong pulsating light. In time they were greeted by a mysterious fog of gas with a sulphur like smell, but again they kept going, because of course they did. Mechanical noises were heard, and some in the group assumed it might be a crashed aircraft. What they found instead was much more terrible.
Standing ten feet tall, it was unlike anything natural. It’s head was like a giant spade, with a blood red face and two glowing eyes. Two arms with sharp claws poked out of it’s dark green body. It was like something out of a ridiculous scifi movie! But real… somehow. The Flatwoods monster did not stand on the ground, but float above it, levitating in place. For a moment they considered if it was a statue, or some kind of strange art project, which only had the appearance of floating. But soon it was moving towards them. At this point, the group finally began to act normally. As the monster floated towards them, it began to make a hissing noise, causing them to run for their lives.
A Strange Story
Each of them escaped with minor injuries – the worst of it being painful convulsions from the gas cloud. Trouble is though, nobody knew what to make of their story. Naturally, it was not believed. But with two adults among them, large searches of the area were organized. Nothing was found, though. If the monster had been there, it had since disappeared. Yet there was clearly something to the story. Others had witnessed the bright light moving through the sky that night, and all in the group were still visibly affected by the toxic gas.
Despite Flatwoods being a tiny and remote town, word of the Flatwoods monster encounter soon reached the coasts. National new reporters descented on Flatwoods, along with all kinds of UFO experts and paranormal investigators. What was found was a mysterious set of tracks, covered in oil, leading to where the encounter took place. Some locals claim that strange fragments of metal were also found. That they were sent to US air force for testing, but no info on them was ever released. In short, there is no evidence, other than a handful of eye witness accounts For most people, that does not count as conclusive proof – they are not as gullible as I am, but they’re also less fun.
The children who witnessed the Flatwoods Monster stood by their story, each drawing it for possible identification. Ever since, cryptozoologists have been searching for any creature anything like this. Nothing has been found.
The Flatwoods Monster: A UFO?
To many, it was not a living creature at all, but an alien spacecraft. Going into the 1950s, North America was swept up by the sheer number of UFO reports. Whether it be Cold War paranoia, something to do with all the nuclear weapons testing, or genuine alien activity, they were coming in so often that the American government set up a major scientific study to analyse them. Known as Project Blue Book, it was launched in July of 1952 – just a few months before the incident in Flatwoods. So maybe this was a real case of a UFO. It would explain the levitation – and the oil, and mysterious gas. In time, this came to be the favoured explanation among conspiracy theorists.
On the other hand, UFO debunkers blame psychology. According to them, it was a simple meteor that was seen that night, shooting across the sky. It was just a light illusion which led the boys to see it land on the farm, and the terrible creature they met was just a large owl. With the context of UFO frenzy and paranoia going on at the time, it’s easy to see how an owl could be mistaken for a monster. A similar thing happened in the small English village of Mawnan, where since the 1970s, a humanoid owl monster has been said to haunt a cemetery.
Yet there are locals who still believe in, and still fear the Flatwoods Monster. After all, how else can we explain the witnessed being scarred for life by their experience?