Encounter Atlas

Creature index / Strange visitors

Flatwoods Monster

Also called Braxton County Monster, Phantom of Flatwoods

A towering figure with a spade-shaped hood seen after a fiery object fell from the sky in 1952.

On September 12, 1952, a group of boys in Flatwoods, West Virginia saw a bright object streak across the sky and land on a hillside farm. With their mother and a National Guardsman they climbed up to look and met a 10-foot figure with a glowing face, a spade-shaped hood and a hissing sound, along with a sickening mist.

Investigators later suggested a meteor and a barn owl, but the witnesses held to their story. The town of Sutton now has the Braxton County Monster Museum, and five oversized monster chairs stand around the county.

What witnesses report

  • Bright object landing nearby
  • Pungent, metallic mist
  • Glowing eyes in a spade-shaped hood

Famous cases

  1. 1952Fisher farm encounter
    Flatwoods, West Virginia

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