Flatwoods Monster

The Flatwoods Monster refers to a figure reported near Flatwoods, West Virginia, on September 12, 1952. After a bright object appeared to descend, a group of adults and children went to investigate and described a tall shape with a glowing face, hood-like outline, and dark lower body. Some witnesses later reported nausea and throat irritation. No physical creature was recovered.

The event occurred during a national wave of UFO attention and quickly reached the press. A skeptical explanation combines a meteor, a barn owl seen in shadow, and heightened fear. That reconstruction is plausible but cannot reproduce every remembered detail.

Later art gives the figure a symmetrical mechanical body and bright colors. Those familiar images are interpretations of witness drawings, not photographs of the reported event.

• Braxton County Visitors Center and Flatwoods Monster Museum, “The Flatwoods Monster,” historical account.
• Caitlin Tan, “The W.Va. Monster That Crept Into International Pop Culture,” Associated Press, November 2, 2019.