The account
On September 12, 1952, young people near Flatwoods saw a fireball cross the sky and went to investigate with Kathleen May. On the hillside, the group reported another light and a towering figure revealed by a flashlight. Its remembered features were unusually graphic: a red face, a head shaped like a spade, and green folds below the waist. They also described a sickening metallic odor before fleeing. Those details became the enduring image of the Flatwoods Monster.
Following the trail
Documented group report; extraordinary identity unverified
The West Virginia Encyclopedia preserves the named group and the reported sequence. Its account says later investigation found odor, disturbed grass and marks on the ground, rather than the creature itself. The apparent connection between the light in the sky and the figure on the hill remains part of the witnesses’ interpretation. Neither the distinctive outline nor those reported traces establish an extraterrestrial visitor or an unknown animal.
Why it stays with us
This story has the compressed quality of a flashlight beam. Only a few features are visible, but they are remembered with startling color and shape. Everything outside that small illuminated arrangement stays unresolved, which is precisely where the creature seems to continue standing.
Follow the sources 1
- Flatwoods Monster ↗e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia / West Virginia Humanities Council