Overview
Flatwoods is a small town in Braxton County, in the hills of central West Virginia, just off Interstate 79. On September 12, 1952, at about 7:15 in the evening, brothers Edward and Fred May and their friend Tommy Hyer saw a bright object streak across the sky and seem to come down on a farm owned by G. Bailey Fisher.
The boys gathered a small group, including the Mays' mother Kathleen, a young National Guardsman named Eugene Lemon, and two other local boys, Neil Nunley and Ronnie Shaver, and went up the hill. According to later interviews, they found a figure about ten feet tall with a round red face framed by a pointed hood, glowing eyes and small claw-like hands. A pungent mist hung in the air and the group ran.
Several of the group said they felt sick afterward. A local newspaperman, A. Lee Stewart Jr., went up the hill and later reported marks on the ground and an odd, gummy residue. The sheriff and a deputy searched and found nothing. The story went national through wire services and radio.
Braxton County now treats the 'Braxxie' as a mascot. A small museum in nearby Sutton tells the story, five giant monster chairs are spread around the county, and a convention has been held since 2019. It is a friendly, low-key stop for travelers on I-79.
Visiting
Where: Flatwoods and Sutton, Braxton County, WV, just off I-79 (exit 67 area). The Flatwoods Monster Museum is in the Braxton County visitors center at 208 Main Street, Sutton.
Access: The museum is free and open daily (weekday and shorter weekend hours). The five 'monster chairs' are in public places: the Flatwoods Municipal Building, Holly Gray Park, Cafe Cimino and the Elk Hotel in Sutton, and Elk River Camp and RV in Gassaway; visit all five to earn a sticker. The 1952 hilltop is on private land and has no public access.
Events: Flatwoods Monster Convention (begun 2019), hosted by Visit Braxton.
Timeline
- Sep 12, 1952The May boys see a bright object land on the Fisher farm and lead a group up the hill, where they report the creature.
- Sep 13, 1952A. Lee Stewart Jr. visits the site and reports ground marks and a gummy deposit. The sheriff and a deputy, already checking a report of a crashed aircraft, find nothing.
- 1952The story spreads nationally by wire and radio; UFO writer Gray Barker interviews the witnesses.
- 1955A men's magazine prints a story of a similar creature at nearby Frametown, set in September 1952.
- 2000Investigator Joe Nickell publishes his meteor, aircraft beacon and barn owl explanation.
- 2019The first Flatwoods Monster Convention is held.
Reported sightings
Fisher farm hilltop, Flatwoods, Braxton County
Sep 12, 1952, ~7:15 p.m. On the record
Edward and Fred May and Tommy Hyer saw a bright object cross the sky and seem to land on G. Bailey Fisher's farm. With Kathleen May, Eugene Lemon and two other boys they climbed up to look. In Gray Barker's interviews they described a figure about ten feet tall with a round, blood-red face inside a pointed, hood-like shape, greenish-orange glowing eyes and small claw-like hands. Atlas Obscura's retelling adds that it hissed at them. The group fled.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgFlatwoods
Sep 12, 1952 (night) On the record
Witnesses described a pungent, metallic mist on the hill. Afterward, by their accounts, several felt nauseated, and Kathleen May noticed an oily film on the boys' faces. Some reported swollen throats and were seen by a doctor. Believers treat these symptoms as a sign of real contact; skeptics suggest fear and exertion.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgFisher farm
Sep 13, 1952 On the record
Newspaperman A. Lee Stewart Jr. returned to the site and later said he found skid-like marks in the grass and a strange, gummy deposit. The local sheriff and a deputy, who had been chasing reports of a crashed aircraft, searched the spot and said they saw, heard and smelled nothing.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgNear Frametown, Braxton County
Sep 13, 1952 (reported 1955) Told story
A 1955 magazine story said George and Edith Snitowski's car died on a back road near Frametown, that they saw a violet-glowing sphere and a bloated, gliding figure eight or nine feet tall, and smelled something like ether and burnt sulfur. French UFO researcher Patrick Gross notes the account surfaced three years later in a pulp magazine and judges it likely a journalistic invention.
Source: ufologie.patrickgross.orgEvidence
Ground marks and residue Disputed
Reported by A. Lee Stewart Jr. the next day. No samples are known to have been tested.
Witness illness Disputed
Nausea and throat swelling were reported by several witnesses after the encounter.
Official search Unexplained
The sheriff and a deputy found nothing at the scene.
What each side says
What witnesses and researchers report
The witnesses were a mother, her sons, neighborhood boys and a National Guardsman, and they told broadly the same story to reporters right away. The case drew national attention partly because so many people saw the same thing at once.
Researchers who favor a real encounter point to the bright object in the sky earlier that evening, the shared sickness afterward, and the marks Stewart found. Some UFO writers tie the night to other reports of fireballs over the region in 1952.
What skeptics and scientists suggest
Joe Nickell, writing in 2000, suggested a chain of ordinary things: a meteor for the falling light, a red aircraft warning beacon for the pulsing glow, and a startled barn owl in a tree for the 'face'. A barn owl's heart-shaped face, hiss and hunched posture can match parts of the description, and the 'hood' may have been branches.
Skeptics also note that the most dramatic details, including height and clothing, came from later interviews by UFO writer Gray Barker, and that fear in the dark can magnify what people see.
Open questions
- What was the bright object several witnesses saw before the encounter?
- Did anyone test the residue Stewart reported?
Did you know?
- National wire services ranked the story among the year's top stories in 1952.
- The county's tourism campaign calls the creature 'Braxxie' and invites visitors to 'Free Braxxie' by finding all the chairs.