At about 7:15 p.m. on September 12, 1952, several boys in Flatwoods said they saw a bright object cross the sky and come down on a farm on a nearby hill. They fetched Kathleen May, the mother of two of the boys, and a group of seven, including West Virginia National Guardsman Eugene Lemon, climbed the hill to look. Near the top they reported a pulsating red light. When Lemon pointed his flashlight toward it, the group said it lit up a tall, man-like figure with a round red face inside a pointed hood.
In interviews recorded by writer Gray Barker, the witnesses said the figure was about 10 feet tall, made a hissing sound and glided toward them. Lemon dropped his flashlight and everyone ran. Several said they smelled a stinging mist; some later felt sick, and a doctor was called to examine the boys, but no cause was found. The local sheriff and a deputy searched the site that night and reported they saw, heard and smelled nothing. The next day a local newspaperman said he found skid marks and a gummy residue in the field, which UFO groups later cited as landing traces.
The US Air Force's Project Blue Book record card for Flatwoods concludes that the object was the well-known meteor that crossed Maryland, Pennsylvania and West Virginia that evening, calling the case "the West Virginia monster so called". In 2000 skeptic Joe Nickell visited the area and argued that the red light was an aircraft beacon and the "monster" a startled barn owl on a tree limb, with foliage below it forming the "skirt" and its talons the claw-like hands. A local teenager later said he had driven his truck around the site, which may explain the tracks.
The case was national news in 1952. Today Flatwoods calls itself home of the Green Monster, the Flatwoods Monster Museum operates in nearby Sutton, Braxton County has placed giant monster-shaped chairs around the area, and the town has held a Flatwoods Monster convention since 2019. The 2019 TV drama Project Blue Book dramatised the story.