Speaker 1: The flat Woods Monster its early September nineteen fifty two,
Speaker 1: and in the quiet hills of West Virginia, the end
Speaker 1: of summer has settled like a heavy quilt over the
Speaker 1: Appalachian countryside. The days are warm, the night's crisp, and
Speaker 1: for the most part, the rhythms of life here are simple.
Speaker 1: School is back in session, harvest season is around the corner.
Speaker 1: People keep to their routines. That is until one evening.
Speaker 1: In the small town of Flatwoods, something cuts through the calm,
Speaker 1: an object in the sky, streaking fast and low, trailing
Speaker 1: light and fire behind it. What began as an unusual
Speaker 1: flash in the heavens quickly turned into one of the
Speaker 1: strangest encounters in UFO history. Not just a sighting of
Speaker 1: lights or a report of something distant and hard to see,
Speaker 1: but a face to face confrontation with a being that,
Speaker 1: according to witnesses, stood taller than a man, wore something
Speaker 1: like armor, and seemed to glide instead of walk. This
Speaker 1: wasn't the kind of story that stayed locked in a
Speaker 1: single home. It spread fast. It involved kids, neighbors, a mother,
Speaker 1: a reporter, and eventually the United States military, and the
Speaker 1: story hasn't faded If anything, it's grown more famous, more curious,
Speaker 1: and more baffling as the years have passed. This is
Speaker 1: Brief Encounters. I'm Nick, and tonight we're headed to Braxton County,
Speaker 1: West Virginia to follow the trail of the so called
Speaker 1: Phantom of Flatwoods, also known as the Flatwoods Monster. The
Speaker 1: date was September twelfth, nineteen fifty two. Just after seven pm.
Speaker 1: Two young brothers, Edward and Fred May, were playing outside
Speaker 1: their home in the small community of Flatwoods. With them
Speaker 1: was their friend Tommy Higher. Suddenly, the three boys saw
Speaker 1: something bright streak across the sky, trailing what looked like
Speaker 1: fire or glowing smoke behind it. It appeared to descend
Speaker 1: behind a nearby hill, specifically near a property owned by
Speaker 1: a local farmer named g. Bailey Fisher. The boys, like
Speaker 1: any curious kids might, decided to check it out. They
Speaker 1: ran home and told Kathleen May, the boy's mother, what
Speaker 1: they'd seen. She didn't dismiss it as imagination. Instead, she
Speaker 1: grabbed a flashlight and agreed to walk with them to investigate.
Speaker 1: Along the way, they were joined by two more neighborhood kids,
Speaker 1: plus a National Guardsman named Eugene Lemon, who happened to
Speaker 1: be visiting. So now there were seven people walking up
Speaker 1: that hillside. The sky had darkened, but they could still
Speaker 1: see the glow near the top. The group made their
Speaker 1: way toward it, climbing through brush and scattered trees, their
Speaker 1: flashlights sweeping a head, and that's when the night turned
Speaker 1: from strange to terrifying. As they neared the top of
Speaker 1: the hill, the group reported seeing a pulsing red light
Speaker 1: coming from the ground. A strange mist hung in the air,
Speaker 1: and it sulfur like smell filled their noses. Some of
Speaker 1: them began to cough. One person later described the mist
Speaker 1: as irritating to the throat and eyes. Then they saw it.
Speaker 1: Standing near the red light, partially obscured by the trees,
Speaker 1: was a tall figure. According to later testimony, it was
Speaker 1: at least ten feet tall. Its body appeared to be mechanical,
Speaker 1: or at least covered in a kind of metallic casing.
Speaker 1: The shape was vaguely humanoid, long arms, a round head,
Speaker 1: glowing eyes, but it didn't move like a person. Some
Speaker 1: said it hovered, others said it turned with an eerie,
Speaker 1: unnatural Its head was shaped like an ace of spades
Speaker 1: with what looked like a cowl or hood flaring out
Speaker 1: from the sides. As the flashlight beam swept across the figure,
Speaker 1: it let out a hissing noise. Lemons screamed and fell backward.
Speaker 1: The others turned and ran, racing down the hill toward home.
Speaker 1: The entire encounter had lasted just a few moments, but
Speaker 1: those few moments would ripple through the community for years
Speaker 1: to come. That night, the group was shaken. Several of
Speaker 1: them were physically ill, reporting nausea, froat, irritation, and eye discomfort.
Speaker 1: The next day, a local reporter named A. Lee Stewart
Speaker 1: interviewed the witnesses and climbed the hill himself. He reported
Speaker 1: seeing skid marks and disturbed grass where the group claimed
Speaker 1: the object had landed or come to rest. Words spread quickly.
Speaker 1: Within twenty four hours, national media had picked up the story.
Speaker 1: Papers ran headlines like brackst monster seen by seven and
Speaker 1: UFO Lands in West Virginia. The accounts were vivid, the
Speaker 1: witnesses were credible, at least on paper. They were children
Speaker 1: and adults, locals with no history of hoaxes or tall tales.
Speaker 1: The US Air Force got involved. Investigators from Project Blue
Speaker 1: Book arrived shortly after the story broke, hoping to collect
Speaker 1: details and offer a rational explanation. What they found was
Speaker 1: a town buzzing with confusion, fear, and excitement. The Air
Speaker 1: Force didn't confirm the event as a UFO encounter. Instead,
Speaker 1: they downplayed the sighting, suggesting the bright object in the
Speaker 1: sky had likely been a meteor. As for the creature,
Speaker 1: they proposed that the group had seen an owl perched
Speaker 1: in a tree, distorted by shadows, fog, and fear. According
Speaker 1: to this theory, the spade shaped head was just the
Speaker 1: shape of the owl's face, and its glowing eyes were
Speaker 1: a reflection of the flashlight beam. It was a tidy explanation,
Speaker 1: maybe a little too tidy. Let's go back to that
Speaker 1: figure for a moment, the one that left such a
Speaker 1: lasting impression on the witnesses. Multiple people described the creature
Speaker 1: as tall, robotic, or armored, with an unusual head shape
Speaker 1: and no visible legs. Its lower body seemed to be
Speaker 1: a tapering shape like a skirt or column, possibly floating
Speaker 1: or gliding. Some said its hands were clawlike. Others noticed
Speaker 1: a face shaped like a lizard or a reptile, though
Speaker 1: not everyone agreed. These are oddly specific details for an owl.
Speaker 1: Misidentified in a moment of panic. The physical symptoms experienced
Speaker 1: by the witnesses also raised eyebrows, the burning eyes, nausea,
Speaker 1: and coffin were attributed to hysteria or exposure to natural irritants,
Speaker 1: but some research which has suggested a chemical presence, possibly
Speaker 1: linked to a malfunctioning piece of machinery or an exhaust
Speaker 1: like substance from whatever had landed. To this day, no
Speaker 1: one knows exactly what the group encountered, but the consistency
Speaker 1: of their descriptions, their evident fear, and the physical effects
Speaker 1: that followed give the story weight. It wasn't just one
Speaker 1: person seeing a strained shape in the sky. It was
Speaker 1: a small group, including an adult, reacting to something that
Speaker 1: frightened all of them enough to flee. Over the years,
Speaker 1: the Flatwoods Monster has become one of the most iconic
Speaker 1: figures in uf O law. Its bizarre appearance and single
Speaker 1: night fame earned it a permanent place in the Annals
Speaker 1: of High Strangeness. Unlike Roswell or other sightings that involve
Speaker 1: wreckage or radar data, this was a close encounter of
Speaker 1: the third kind, a direct sighting of an unknown being.
Speaker 1: Skeptics still argue that mass, hysteria, fear, and misinterpretation explain everything.
Speaker 1: A meteor falls and owl spooks a group of people
Speaker 1: already on edge, the mind fills in the rest. It's
Speaker 1: a clean, rational theory, but others aren't so sure. The
Speaker 1: sharp rise in UFO sightings during the early nineteen fifties,
Speaker 1: combined with the physical symptoms and shared witness accounts in Flatwoods,
Speaker 1: point to a more mysterious origin. Could it have been
Speaker 1: a probe, a drone, a biologically clad being, something unconnected
Speaker 1: to weather, balloons and wildlife. No one has answered that definitively,
Speaker 1: and that's part of what makes this case so lasting.
Speaker 1: It's not easily dismissed, and it's never been repeated. The
Speaker 1: Flatwood's monster was seen once in a moment of surprise,
Speaker 1: and then never again. There are a few theories that
Speaker 1: go beyond the standard explanations. One suggests the being was
Speaker 1: not extraterrestrial but extra dimensional, a brief manifestation from somewhere
Speaker 1: parallel to our own reality, only able to hold form
Speaker 1: for a short time. Another theory posits that the creature
Speaker 1: was mechanical in nature, possibly a scout or survey device
Speaker 1: Center Earth. Its odd appearance and behavior fit more with
Speaker 1: a program machine than an organic entity. There are even
Speaker 1: suggestions that the encounter was a test, whether psychological, environmental,
Speaker 1: or something more elusive, That the location, time, and witnesses
Speaker 1: were part of something orchestrated beyond our comprehension. These ideas
Speaker 1: are speculative, they don't rely on evidence so much as possibility,
Speaker 1: but they reflect the curiosity that still clings to this case.
Speaker 1: It's not just the appearance of the creature that lingers.
Speaker 1: It's the way it acted, the way it affected people,
Speaker 1: and the way it vanished, leaving only questions behind What
Speaker 1: happened in Flatwoods that September night, Immetea streaked through the
Speaker 1: sky and seven people went to investigate. That much is certain.
Speaker 1: What they found is up for debate. Some saw an
Speaker 1: owl in a tree, others saw a being from another world.
Speaker 1: The truth may lie somewhere in between or just beyond reach.
Speaker 1: The Flatwoods Monster is one of those encounters that defies resolution.
Speaker 1: It's not about what was proven, it's about what was felt.
Speaker 1: It's about standing on a dark hillside, looking into the
Speaker 1: shadows and seeing something that doesn't fit into any category
Speaker 1: we know. And maybe that's the real power of stories
Speaker 1: like this, they remind us that the world still has edges,
Speaker 1: that not everything fits neatly into the boxes we try
Speaker 1: to put it in that once in a while, a
Speaker 1: flash of light can tear across the sky and nothing
Speaker 1: is ever quite the same again. Next time on Brief Encounters,
Speaker 1: we traveled to Texas in nineteen fifty seven, where dozens
Speaker 1: of drivers reported their engines dying in unison as glowing
Speaker 1: orbs danced across the dark sky. Some said they were surrounded,
Speaker 1: others said they were followed, but all of them were
Speaker 1: changed by what they saw. That's the level and sightings
Speaker 1: coming up in episode twenty six