Flatwoods Monster
1952 sighting of a tall, glowing entity in West Virginia
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| Date | September 12, 1952 |
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| Location | Flatwoods, West Virginia, U.S. |
| Type | Sighting / Entity encounter |
| Status | Likely misidentification |
A group of local boys and adults reported seeing a fireball land on a nearby hilltop, then encountering a tall, glowing, faceless entity with clawed hands amid a pulsing red light and an acrid, metallic odor that reportedly caused several witnesses to feel ill.
Assessment
Investigative folklorist and skeptic Joe Nickell argued in a detailed later analysis that the entity’s described features closely match a barn owl perched in a tree combined with the witnesses’ fright-amplified perception in darkness, and that the fireball was likely a meteor, coincidentally observed the same evening across several states. This remains the most widely accepted explanation, though some local researchers dispute it.
[1]See also
References
- ^ Nickell, J. (2000). “The Flatwoods UFO Monster.” Skeptical Inquirer.