Episode 76: Flatwoods Monster

In the evening hours of September 12th, 1952, three young boys were hanging out when they

witnessed something that would change their lives as well as the history of their little

town.

Join us today as we discuss the mystery of the Flatwoods Monster.

All right everyone, welcome back to Unknown Unsolved Unseen Triple U.

I don't know, I think so, that sounds right, that sounds right, you want to introduce

yourself?

I'm your out of this world host, Frank, I know I've used this one before, and I am your

amateur UFOologist, sage, is it UFO, just or uphologist, whichever is fine, I don't

know.

IE, I'm an amateur, so say amateur hour out here guys, just remember, oh yeah, you got

sage, do you know what episode this is?

Well, the MILF episode, man, I love Flatwoods Monster, I liked it as the monster, I'd like

to fuck.

Bruce, no, let's know what's in store for today, because I got no announcements.

Okay, well I don't really have any announcements going into this episode, I really don't think

that there's any trigger warnings, there is stories of a dog encountering this being,

but the dog is fine, just a little scared on its way back out, so I mean pretty much

other than that.

So September 12th of 1952, brothers Edward and Fred May, and their good friend Tommy

Hire were playing on the playground of Flatwoods Elementary School, when they witnessed a bright

lit object that flew across the evening sky.

The boys reported that they watched the object come to rest on land belonging to a local

farmer, G Bailey Fisher, so just as I immediately called my mother, instead of 911,

when we witnessed a car going the wrong way on the freeway, the boys ran home to the

farmer.

I remember that.

Yeah, a car was driving on the wrong side of the highway on Christmas Eve, and flew

right past us on the highway, maybe on 55.

They had to be going faster than that.

Probably, yeah, it's hard to tell whenever it's so brief, but oh my god, oh my god, what

do we do?

I'm going to call my mom and I'm like, no, you call the cops.

You call your mom and you're like, you should call the cops first, not me.

Yeah.

So the boys ran home to their, like the mother of the brothers, Fred and Edward, and her name

was Kathleen May.

She was a former teacher and now a beauty shop operator, so they did that, you know, instead

of calling the authorities.

Well, it's harder to call the authorities in 1952, you know, cell phone on you.

No, but they could have went home and called the authorities, but instead they grabbed

their mom.

Did they have a phone on their property?

I don't know.

Okay.

The boys reported to Kathleen that they had seen a UFO crash land in the hills and doing

what any brave mother would do, Kathleen joined her children in their friend, as well

as a few other local children, Neil, Nunley, and Ronnie Shaver, and then Kathleen's cousin,

17 year old West Virginia National Guardsman, Eugene or Gene Lemon.

I did see both of those and they went to the fish or five, and then they just shortened

it from some things.

That's what I thought too.

They went to the Fisher Farm and their goal was to locate whatever it was that Edward

Fred and Tommy had seen fly through the sky and land in the farm or on the farm.

One of the local residents, dogs, Richie, ran out ahead of the group out of sight and

then started barking furiously.

Just moments later, the dog ran back to the group with its tail between its legs.

So that is the only mention of the dog, but the dog is fine, the dog just got scared.

To traveling about a quarter mile, the group finally reached the top of the hill where

the dog had just been.

The group reportedly saw a large, pulsating, quote, ball of fire, or some described a pulsing

red light, about 50 feet away.

They also saw and smelled a mist that made their eyes and noses burn.

Eugene Lemon then noticed two small lights located over to the left side of the pulsing

red object and directed his flashlight toward those two lights.

In his flashlight, light, he revealed the creature which was reported to have admitted

a shrill hissing noise before gliding towards them, changing direction, and then heading

off towards the red pulsating light.

Lemon reported that he momentarily saw a tall, quote, man-like figure with a round red

face surrounded by pointed hood-like shape. Descriptions of the creature did vary, however,

between witnesses, but not necessarily too much. In an article written for Fate Magazine,

based on tape recorded interviews by UFO writer Greg Barker, who I will talk a lot more about

a little bit later, the figure was described as approximately 10 feet or three meters tall,

with a round blood red face, a large pointed hood-like shape around the face,

eye-like shapes which emitted greenish orange light, and a dark black or green body.

Kathleen may describe the figure as having, quote, small claw-like hands,

clothing-like folds, and a head that resembled an ace of spades.

According to JW Ocker, in his book The United States of cryptids,

Kathleen also stated that it, quote, looked worse than Frankenstein. It couldn't have been human.

I mean, Frankenstein was human.

Yeah, Frankenstein's monster.

Actually, Frankenstein's monster, or actually, as I pushed my glasses up.

The thought what's monster did end up later being nicknamed the Frankenstein with BO.

Where did this name come from?

From her description of it, looking worse than Frankenstein, then the BO was the pungent smell

that was surrounding it.

Damn, dude.

Yeah.

Practice.

Why would monster catch and strays out here?

Indeed.

So, again, witnesses reported a pungent mist, and some later said that they were nauseated and sick

for days. Some of the members of the group suffered from throat irritation and vomiting, as well,

which persisted for many days after. These symptoms were effectively passed off as side effects

of hysteria. But it is also worth noting that these are also tell-tell signs of exposure to

mustard gas. So, lemon, he's the one who shined his flashlight at the creature. And reportedly,

he dropped his flashlight and ran away screaming when the creature was seen. And then I wrote,

just thought you ought to know. Do we know the Harry Potter reference?

No.

When Professor Quirl runs into the great hall, and he goes,

Oh, yeah.

Troll! Troll in the dungeon!

Just thought you ought to know.

And then he falls over.

According to J.W. Ocker, again, Flatwood's monster is an alien robot in a dress.

He writes to the creature was, again, 10 feet tall, with long thin claws, round glowing eyes,

sat into a round face, cowled in a spade-shaped hood, and its body was covered in a green,

metallic material that ended in a pleated skirt.

Someone this did argue that the skirt itself was not actually green,

but was rather reflecting the color from the foliage around it. So, it was more of like a shiny

metal. And like, in the dusk, it was reflecting the green from the forest.

The reason that we have an idea of how others were describing this creature is because the group,

again, had the entire group then, including Lemon, and run away in a panic and return to their

homes. Upon getting to her home, Kathleen Mae contacted the local sheriff in a news reporter.

The reporter conducted a number of interviews and returned to the site with the farmer later

that same night, which is a quick turnaround time. Ask me.

The reporter stated that there was, quote, a sickening, burnt, metallic odor still prevailing.

Early the next morning, the reporter again visited the site of the encounter for the second time

this time in the daylight. The reporter discovered two tracks or, quote, skid marks in the mud.

Damn, five-woods monster even skid marks. That's what I thought, too.

Poor girl, she needs some like, okay, are we going five-woods monster here or she?

I wasn't going with either.

Okay. Damn, it can't just, can't rest.

I was always all the flatwoods monster as a she, but I could be wrong. I could just be in sexist.

You're imposing the gender norms of wearing a skirt.

I'm a pleated skirt on to a flatwood monster here.

Damn. We're not those type of people.

Okay, okay, okay.

Okay.

Hey, them.

Sure.

And he also saw traces of a thick black liquid that was described as a cold,

odd gummy deposit.

What?

I don't know. This is 1952, man. It was of the times.

So you immediately reported them as being possible signs of a saucer landing

based on the premise that this area had not been subjected to traffic

and that no wagon had been in this part for many years in the weeds were like several feet high.

The grass in this area was freshly depressed and a closer search disclosed a piece of black

plastic material which did not burn when tested by the reporter. So what was it? I don't know.

That was monster goo.

So the locals like the sheriff and his deputy went with this reporter to the scene.

Um, and they were there investigating the report as well of the crashed aircraft. But they

quote, they said that they saw her and smelled nothing and found no other traces of the mysterious

creature encounter. The killer. That's sus. It's always sus. The monster sus. Everything about sus

among us. Yeah. After the event, investigators William Smith and his wife Donna Smith

associated with the civilian saucer investigation group arrived and obtained a number of accounts

from witnesses who alleged that they too have experienced similar or related phenomena to that

of the creature in the woods. These accounts included a claim by a mother and her 21-year-old

daughter who reported that they encountered a creature with the same appearance and similar

odor, not more than a week prior to the September 12th incident. The mother shared that the

encounter affected her daughter so much that she was confined to a hospital for three weeks.

That's so sad. I mean, that's how they did it back in the day whenever women were hysterical.

Yep. They also gathered a statement from the mother of a local farmer in which she said that at

the approximate time of the crash, her house had been violently shaken and her radio had cut out for

45 minutes. There was also a report from the director of the local board of education in which

he claimed to have seen a flying saucer taking off at 6.30 in the morning of September 13th.

The morning after the creature was sighted. Oh, probably repaired that flat tire. Finally,

that kept her here for them here. The flat tire? Yeah, the flat woods on our flat earth.

Wow, what a connection. What a way to do that. We're flattening up out here lately. Flat earth

last week. Flat woods this week with a flat tire. I never even thought about that.

Well, I was actually editing the posts from last week, like the templates, so I could make our post

for the next episode upload. I'm like, oh man, I only have to delete the word earth and then write

woods, monster. What monster? I was dumb when I said that. Yeah, I do put in woods monster on this

and bam, done. Speaking of flat tires, my tire came on on my way home from the concert last night

and really hoping I don't have a flat tire when I go out there to get the groceries.

You need to just bite the bullet and actually go to the place. I probably should. That's a problem

for another stage. Another stage. Another stage. Another stage. One stage here.

There was this name is not sage and neither is mine unless there's a sage in the walls. Are they

in the walls? That'd be an episode. There could be a doppelganger version of me. What if I am

episode eventually? I would love to do an episode on that and then get like Reddit stories.

Oh, there's a bunch of Reddit stories on that stuff. Do you think that would be like an interesting

episode concept? That would, I think. Tell us what you think, everybody.

So another sighting of a creature similar in description to the flatwoods monster was reported

by Mrs. Audra Harper not long before the infamous sighting on Fisher's farm. Harper claims to have

seen the monster while walking through the woods near her home near the town of heaters,

which is about five miles north of flatwoods. Harper and her friend were walking to a nearby store

and the road leading out of their property was like rutted and they weren't able to like get through

it with a car. So they had to take a shortcut through the forest instead of walking the road,

which would have increased their trip super significantly. About a half mile into their trip,

they noticed a ball of fire on one of the hills that they were passing. Harper dismissed it,

assuming that one of her neighbors was quote box chasing, which I don't know what that means.

But I'm sure it was something in the 1950s. When she glanced back, she saw something unbelievable.

The fire had vanished and in its place stood a tall dark silhouette of a man-shaped figure.

Terrified, Harper and her friend ran, escaping among the rocks and boulders,

strong or strewn around the hillside. The day after the flatwoods incident, a couple named

George and Edith Snittowski, and their 18-month-old son were taking a leisurely drive through the

mountains of Frantown, West Virginia, which is somewhere between Clay and Braxton County,

on Route 4. Braxton County is where flatwoods is. So not too far. And at dusk, when they were met with

a similar horrific experience, their car came to a sudden stop and refused to start again.

Shortly thereafter, a putrid sulfuric odor filled the air and the envy began to cry.

The infant's fine, but it did cry. The couple circling the vehicle in hopes of spotting the culprit,

um, you know, or figuring out what was going on with their car. Why did it stall? Is there something wrong

with the engine? Instead though, they spotted something lurking in front of their car.

From the waist down, it was similar to the flatwoods monster, but from the waist up, it was a

reptilian humanoid. The creature dragged its lizard-like hand across the hood of the car before

drifting away into the woods. This creature thought to be the same creature that was sighted in

the flatwoods, but without the top half of its suit is known as the Frantown monster.

But basically, they're just saying, bros was undressed from the waist up.

Whoa, scandalous. Man, I do love flatwood monster though.

Uh, um, the nicknames for the flatwoods monster were a little bit confusing, so I wrote them out

here. So flatwoods monster is referred to as the flatwoods monster, Braxton County monster.

Again, because that's the county this took place in.

Braxy, which is a recent nickname that's only probably in the last couple of years, 10 years maybe.

Probably something like that. I've seen that put- I've seen some people say Braxy, Braxy,

Braxy. Oh, I like Braxy. I think I think it pronounced Braxy.

Yeah. And if you ask me, that's really fucking adorable. I would love an alien robotic

front name, Braxy. Uh, and Phantom of the flatwoods. I also saw it referred to a lot as the green

monster, which if you ask me is incorrect, because that is actually Aaron Frankl of the Boston

fleet, PWHL team. Hell yeah. The only one I recognize. Yeah, so, um, if you know anything about

Frank and I, you know, we love hockey. We've talked about that on here. The women's professional

league. Our favorite team is Boston and they're Goli. Her name is Aaron Frankl and they call her

the green monster because she's basically a brick wall. Uh, like she, she has a very, very high

save percentage. Um, she's the reason it's pretty much exclusively that the women, um, won the Olympics

this year. Yeah, she's a big part. So I think in the entire Olympic run, USA only let in

three goals, or two, uh, two or three. And Aaron Frankl, yeah, she's the only one who on

goal through the US team, but she shut, she had the longest shut out in Olympic hockey history,

I think, for both men and women. Yep, insane. But anyway, you know, small plug, go check them out.

It's awesome. They stream it on YouTube for free. Uh, Framedown Monster is a similar creature

seeing again in Framedown, not far from flatwoods. It's described the same as our friend here,

Braxi, but again, without the top half of its suit. According to former news editor, Holt Bern,

quote, newspaper stories were carried throughout the country. Radio broadcasts were carried on

large networks and hundreds of phone calls were received from all parts of the country. Needless to

say, the flatwoods monster had taken the nation by storm. As it should. Um,

according, or dare, Gray Barker, who I mentioned briefly earlier, I believe, um, it was a UFO

writer and Ivan T. Sanderson, who was a founding father of cryptozoology, reportedly came to the

town to investigate the supposed sighting. Attracts in the mud and the black liquid on the ground

at the top of the hill were immediately attributed to evidence of a saucer landing in that area.

Yeah. The story of the Green Monster has been very well reported by Gray Barker in the December

issue of Fate magazine. So it was the, um, a couple months later after like following this event.

And was confirmed in every aspect by William Smith and his wife Donna, um, who were from Downey,

California, which I did not mention earlier, but they came the whole way from California, um,

who made a personal investigation of the rumors while they were on their way home to California,

shortly after the incident occurred. Uh, like these were the investigators I mentioned earlier

that were from the civilian saucer investigation group. According to David Hauchin, the special

collections librarian at the Clarksburg Library, who maintains the Gray Barker UFO collection,

Barker was reportedly from rural Braxton County. Again, the county in which this took place

and was born on a farm in Riffle. He was one of the only, one of only two kids in his family to

get a high school diploma and the only one to go to college where you had ambitions to be a writer.

And while that doesn't work out for everyone, um, and it didn't work out with him,

that was until he became a writer courtesy of writing about UFOs, space brothers and the men in black

that his career started to really take off. While living in Clarksburg at the time, Barker must have

heard of the sighting from the newspapers, maybe through the grapevine or any of the other broadcast,

but this ended up with him going to Braxton County to interview people who knew about the flatwoods

monster incident. In the following year, he began his own publication called The Sossarian.

The first issue was devoted to the flatwoods monster. In 1956, he wrote up the story again in his book,

they knew too much about flying saucers, which arguably introduced the idea of the men in black

to alien conspiracy theories and became popular amongst UFO conspiracy theorists across the nation.

I didn't realize that men in black was something that was just like,

created in a book. I mean, that's where we came popularize. Yeah, like,

Greg Barker is credited with creating it. That's how I read it.

I thought he was credited with like, popularizing it, like, letting people know it existed.

Oh, I don't know. I mean, it could be that, but I read it as like, he introduced it.

Oh, okay.

Possible that I could be wrong. Jason Burns, a storyteller who specializes in paranormal

stories in West Virginia. So he was somebody who was quoted in one of the articles, I believe,

about the museum. Told the story of what happened the night of the sighting, stating, quote,

when they saw the monster alien, Mrs. Maine, the children all ran off to their home,

and they reported it to the authorities. Apparently, the US government sent some men,

men in black to their house who investigated the sighting, took down their witness reports,

which apparently all of them were the same. Mrs. Maine got some of the oil on her dress that night

from the ship, and so they took the dress. They said that they would return it, and they never did.

Those thieves, the US government, Thief, and what a shocker. I'm surprised they didn't clear

their memory. I don't think they can do that. Isn't that in the movie? What movie? Man in black.

Oh, man in black. Yeah, yeah. That's how you're talking like fireworks. Yeah, and those movies,

yeah. That's, that was the joke. So I honestly could not find much on the investigations into the

UFO incident and how like the actual investigations were done other than by like the witness accounts

from the civilians, including like the reporter, the sheriff, the original witnesses. So I don't

know if you off the top, like I have some information. Do you want me to read that? Then you can tell

me if I'm missing something. Yeah. Reportedly the creature was investigated by the government's

project Blue Book, which was the codename for the systematic study of unidentified flying objects

by the United States Air Force from March 1952 to its termination on December 17th of 1969.

The project headquartered at the Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio was initially directed by

Captain Edward J. Ruppelt and followed projects of a similar nature such as Project Sign that was

established in 1947 and Project Grudge that was established in 1949.

Project Blue Book had two goals namely to determine if UFOs were a threat to national security

and to scientifically analyze UFO related data. My intention is to have one of us do an episode

on Project Blue Book because it is reportedly involved in a lot more of the well-known UFO sightings

kind of like how Ed and Lorraine were involved in so many of the famous hauntings. So I think

that would be an interesting option. Yeah, I mean we've talked about a few times here and here

here and there. I believe we mentioned it in the Lubbock Blights. I think the UFO case

that we do that's been around the time. It was mentioned in Joe Simon's in UFO cases as well

and I think in Kecksburg too. Yeah. I think Kecksburg might have been after.

I think what other ones were there? Yeah, Kecksburg was the 60s, wasn't it? Yeah, but I don't know

if Lubbock had been... Lubbock was until 1969, so it was possible. Does the point before it even

ended that they started like time wrapping it up and changing hands on who did it?

Yeah. It was kind of kneecap by the US military and the government near the end.

I was able to find that according to Wikipedia, Project Blue Book never identified any UFOs that

were threat to national security. Oh, you know what they did figure out though? What? So

through looking at everything they said there were a bunch of things that couldn't be explained.

So you know what they determined with them? Well, they can't be explained. They must be

unknown weather phenomenon we've never experienced before.

Mark, that's what they were all classified as. That's crazy. Yeah, I don't know. I agree with

that whatsoever. Yeah. I was, however, able to find information on what the sighting was deemed to be

if not an alien robot wearing a dress from average base. For starters, it was later discovered

that the tracks left on the alleged landing area that were found by the reporter the morning after

the sighting. We're actually that of a local boy named Max Lockard who had admitted that he had

driven his Chevy truck around the sights in the hopes of seeing something, which I just think

is hilarious. One that it was a Chevy.

Throw my Chevy to the flowers monster, something something.

Throw my Chevy to the levy, but the levy was dry. And the flowers monster was there waiting to see me.

With its red eyes. I want to say to suck me dry. Oh, my God. You can keep that if you think. I'm trying

to get levy. That's terrible. I'm like dry. It's up dry. I'm like now. I don't think I'm not wrong.

According to skeptic Ryan, how paranormal investigators had concluded that the tracks, the thick

black liquid and the rubber substance must have been left by the creature and not the truck. But in

reality, the symptoms were that were reported by some of the witnesses after experiences with

this evidence. Really was that of hysteria or over exertion from their trek up the hill.

So it was easy for them to just assume that it was actually from an alien.

The most common consensus on the flatwoods monster is the same as that of Mothman,

that this was just a giant owl chilling in the woods who happened to smell like sulfur.

The US Air Force, the project blue book, reportedly concluded that the bright light in the sky

was most likely a meteor. As on the night of September 12th, a meteor had been observed

going across three states, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.

Additionally, as suggested by the Air Force, as well as Joe Nichol of the committee for skeptical inquiry,

three flashing red aircraft beacons were also visible from the area of the sightings,

which could account for the witnesses' descriptions of seeing a pulsating red light and the red tint

on the face of the creature. Additionally, the creature described by witness closely resembled

an owl. Think of the head of an owl with its ears up, but very easily resembled out of a spade.

As well as the witness's inability to agree on whether the creature had arms.

Mrs. May's report states that it had small claw-like hands that extended out in front of it,

and this would match how an owl would sit on a branch with their talons wrapped around the

branch, and from an angle looking upwards, that could be thought to have been extending downwards,

or extending outward. Also, owls obviously don't have arms. They have wings, and so that could

account for the no-arms witness descriptions. It is possible that the shape, movement, and sounds

reported by the witnesses were consistent again with the evening silhouette play pattern in the

call of a startled barn owl that was sitting out on a limb. Researchers in the case concluded that

the foliage beneath the owl may have created the illusion of the lower portions of the monster,

as it was described as having a pleated green skirt. Interesting. None of this, however, accounts

for the frame-town monster's lack of head covering, where the top was reportedly reptilian

humanoid in shape. I did not find much on this, so I was curious, Frank, if you had any thoughts on that.

I think I'll get to my thoughts. After we take a little message here from our friends.

Not all paths are straight. Some twists deep into the end now. Hey, I'm Amanda Joy,

and every Thursday, a new episode of Down the Crooked Path back in. Paranormal stories,

strange counters, and folklore that lingers long after dark. So take a deep breath,

grab your flashlight, or let the mysteries guide your steps. Down the Crooked Path,

available wherever you listen to podcasts. All right, thank you to our friends for that wonderful

message. And Sage, I believe you're asking me my thoughts on this.

Well, yeah, mostly that the frame-town monsters didn't have the head covering,

and how the owl explanation didn't cover that. So I think the frame-town monster,

because it still has like the bottom portion that's similar, right? Yeah.

I'm thinking it's like the same type of sighting. I don't know. I kind of grew them together after

like, look here and about this many times. I put them in the same category as one another.

Well, yeah, that's what I'm saying. But the owl explanation doesn't explain how the top was

a reptilian humanoid. I think the owl explanation is a weak explanation, my opinion.

Really? I do air a bit on the alien side. Okay. I think it's a good explanation, but I think

there's other factors to it that help out the alien explanation. Interesting. Okay,

I'll have to talk about that then. Why are you a big owl fan? Well, I'm a big owl city fan.

But who? No, I don't, I lie somewhere between the owl explanation and the alien, but

the owl explanation is like a pretty good explanation. It's good for sure, but I think with the

frame-town sighting as well, how does it help smell like sulfur and the falling object from the sky?

I don't know. There was a meteor that night that was witnessed across three different states,

including West Virginia. Quote unquote, meteor. I read everywhere. It was an actual meteor.

What if that meteor hit his ship? And that's what happened. I mean, let's look back at

Kexberg where there was something flying through his guy in the furfect. The satellite did go out

down that day, but it did not have a trajectory to have hit Kexberg. And the initial story we

were told was it was a meteor. Then we were told it was, no, and the clear total was nothing,

then it was a meteor. Then it was actually that satellite, despite the fact that Sally based on

your trajectory couldn't land there. Okay. I mean, you're not wrong. Checkmate atheists.

Okay. Any other thoughts before I continue on? Now you can go on. All right. You might be asking

yourself as I was asking myself, why was it so easy to believe that an unknown alien robot creature

had somehow made its way to the forests of West Virginia? I suppose the answer to that rhetorical

for you to answer. That was rhetorical. That was for me to answer. But do you have an answer?

Your foes and aliens was a big craze back then. That's true. So Joe Nichol, I mentioned him earlier,

he's our skeptic. Suggest that the witnesses perceptions of the creature were distorted

by heightened states of anxiety from not knowing what they were going to walking into.

Also, Americans at this time were facing a truly frightening future. The invention of the atomic

bombs in the 40s and what seemed as a new world made by scientists with the worst intentions.

Just a few years prior to this sighting in 1949, the Soviet Union had successfully tested their

own atomic bomb, making the fear of America being a target of genuine reality. In 1952, America was

facing the Cold War, a country fueled by anger, disillusionment, and anxiety. This was the perfect

setting for conspiracy theorists, political demagogues, and those interested in the paranormal.

Allegedly, life magazine, one of the most popular publications in the nation at the time, and arguably,

I would say still is, had only a few months earlier from this sighting published a seemingly

credible story about flying saucers being seen in the United States. So it's no wonder that the

conclusion that back up jumped to was like you said, it was a big thing at the time.

Yep, I ever since, was it Kenneth Arnold's flying saucers?

Jason Burns, our paranormal storyteller, mentioned earlier in this episode, is quoted as saying this.

Well, they tied it in with other stories around the country about the same time. This was the age

of the space race. So there was a lot of interest in interstellar crafts. This was the time of

Roswell. This was the time of Sputnik and things like that that were getting ready to take off.

So it was at the very forefront in people's minds. So people were thinking maybe it was just

mass hysteria. Maybe it was fake. So people were thinking maybe it was just mass hysteria. Maybe it

was fake. Maybe it was just made up. But I actually have met the maze at one point years ago. A long

time ago, in Flatwoods, at one event, and they were very adamant that they saw what they saw.

And I believe that they believed, you know, I believe them. What they say they saw,

not what it was. I don't know, which honestly is exactly how I feel about it too.

Okay. So before I get into the legacy pop cultures of this, did you want to

share a little bit of your thoughts? There's a lot of sightings in the 50s. These are truly just

incredible that I want to believe, but it's sometimes hard. This is one I just feel like it's so

incredible. I do sit a bit on the fence, but I don't like the outside personally. I think they

definitely saw something. But we also have to look into things such as what the US military was

doing at the time of this. They had a lot of things that were being seen by the mass populace.

You know what they did at this time? What did they do? They kind of kept, like,

put fuel into the fire of alien stories. Why? Because it would be easier to discredit

if a secret spy plane crashed and somebody said it was a UFO. So the idea was to have our adversaries

like Soviet Union not really think much of these stories. When some like dude in the middle of

nowhere, some rural hillbilly saw one of them dang flying saucers and it's supposed to not be

believable rather than it being secret US here. I mean that does make sense. There's one I learned

of recently where there was a case where it was claimed that UFOs disabled some of our nuclear

missiles. Like what? At one of our nuclear missile sites, there was a thing of lights

up outside and then everything in the missile silo shut down. And this is one that's talked about a

lot. Apparently it's come out through declassified papers that this was actually a secret test

for an electronic magnetic pulse, an EMP that shut down that area. And what does that do again?

Shuts out all electronics when you use an EMP. Okay. So it wasn't a UFO that shut it down. It was

the military testing secret technology. But it was safer to say that it was a UFO.

Yeah, because you're going to you don't want to buy into it like people know that you're

testing secrets. So it's easier to discredit a UFO than to say no, we were doing something secret

because then other people will start prying into the legitimacy. We're law skeptics and people,

you know, there's a lot of people in these positions of intelligence are skeptics. So they would

never explore it whenever the prevailing story is a UFO. That's true. I did breed somewhere too

at that at this time. There was two men who were who were being executed for giving nuclear secrets

to the Soviet Union. I think it was a husband and wife. Okay. I just remember seeing that like two

people. Yeah, it was a husband and wife. They really I think set things pretty far back by giving

so it's earlier easier access weapons or granted nuclear weapons are not good in general. But

we've been on a stalemate ever since. That's why we have shit like Ukraine going on where we can't

do any direct immigration intervention without the Fair of News. Okay, that's that's a lot of my

things on this is it also could have easily been a secret US government test that we might never

know about or know about like 50 years later. I mean, it's been seven years at this point,

how many four? Yeah, they keep shit secret for a while. More than 50 years. The early area 51

stuff is still secret. What kind of government test do you think this would have been?

Possibly an early probe or really like drone? Who knows? Early alien robot.

Kind of pleated dress. Yeah. Do you know what it means to have a pleated? Yeah. Okay. I was just

curious if you'd like understand the way that that looked. I think picture of a flatwood monster

like folds. Yeah. Interesting. Well, I believe you have some pop culture to talk about on this

because this one has quite a bit of pop culture to it, right? Yeah. I think this is probably

West Virginia's second most famous cryptid. I would argue that moth man's definitely first.

You know, you got them cheeks to prove it. Whatever the file with the monster just wants to keep

him in behind that skirt. How shy. How awmish of it. Wow. That's a little offensive. What?

Are you telling me that I'm sure go and listen and give me shit? No. Exactly. No. You know, I'm not

advocating for it, but you could say whatever you want about the awmish air and they won't hear it.

That's so mean. Also, there's awmish who go on Roomspringah and like they would get to hear it

at that time. Oh, yeah. The awmish and how long is that? A month? Six weeks. I don't know, actually.

Yeah. In those few weeks, they're going to come across frankensage unknown unsolved unseen.

It is an indefinite voluntary period for awmish youth that usually begins around age 16 and

lasts until they make a personal decision to either become baptized into the awmish church

or leave the community generally between the ages of 18 and 30. So they could have plenty of time

during the Roomspringah to listen to us and hear you make in front of them. Based on the

the average is a few months to several years. Based on our demographics, I see in our breakdown,

the awmish do not look like the within our audience yet. You know, maybe this is a room for growth.

Hey, awmish people. Give us a love. Despite the freedom of this period, roughly 85 to 90% of

awmish youth choose to return and be baptized. Wow. That's pretty incredible. Anywho, outside

the awmish, officials in flatwoods, rectated and welcomed sign, which designated the town as

the home of the green monster, which again, not the home of Aaron Frankl, so confused.

Does the flatwoods monster even review salads regularly?

I guess not. The real green monster does. Yeah. Located in the town of Sutton is the flatwoods

monster museum, which Frank and I did get to visit on our way back from Kentucky's trip a few

summers ago. Did you want to share about it? First off, this is, I'm assuming next week you're

probably going to do an episode or next episode for you has to be about Bigfoot, right?

No. Well, seems like you're going on our road trip there, because if you think about it,

on that road trip, on that trip to Kentucky, we went to Waverly Hills, Sanatorium, your last

episode. Then on the way back, we stopped at the flatwoods monster museum and the Bigfoot museum.

Maybe I should do mammoth caves. Dan, we went to mammoth caves. You can do that for your next

episode. This is our Kentucky road trip. That is true. I'd never put that together, but that is

funny. Yes. So this is actually, we saw this after we left Waverly Hills, Sanatorium and left

Kentucky for that week vacation we had. So yeah, Waverly Hills was still in the mind and we stopped

here. It's a very nice little town, not big at all. Everything's pretty close. We checked out

the Bigfoot museum there, which I have now learned recently, apparently might be run by

racists. What? Like anti LGBTQ far right people. Bigfoot is inclusive. Yeah, fuckers. Jesus.

I was looking for the hell of it recently, because I listen to a podcast that does one star reviews.

I looked at flatwoods monster museum reviews. What's our reviews? They're so funny. They're so stupid.

The Bigfoot ones actually talked about the owner's beliefs, so that I wasn't bit. I wonder,

do you think they have stuff posted or do like maybe in their personal accounts? I don't know, but

yeah, I wasn't too thrilled about that. But Flatwoods Monster Museum, cool. They're a really cool

recreation of monster. They got a whole lot of cool things in there, merch-wise, and just articles,

artifacts. It's a really good thing. We were not there for long because we were actually kind of in

a rush. Didn't they have Beavis and Butthead merch, but it was both. Both.

Moss Man and the Flatwoods Monster. Yeah. We were going to get one for Frank Stad,

and then we didn't because we weren't sure if he was going to wear it. He would not have worn it,

he said. But it's so funny. Now, there's actually one really cool piece of merch there that we

could not get, and they only have, I think, very occasionally, the Flatwoods Monster Museum

a while back was at serious risk of shutting down. You know what they did? They made these lanterns

that are shaped like the Flatwoods Monster, and they sold them, and they sold out so fast.

Wendagoon got one of the first sets. Those look so cool. I would have gotten one if they were

available when we were there. Hey, Wendagoon, you should share it with us. Yeah, he listens.

We're not even sure if, you know, the omelish listen, I'm not thinking Wendagoon's going to be

listening. That'd be so dope. But the lanterns were so dope. That's so funny. We both just said dope.

Oh, those are cute. It should say you picture. I love them so much.

So if you guys want to visit the Flatwood Monsters Museum, it is open from 9 to 5 p.m.

Tuesday through Friday. It is free to get into. It is free to get into. It's 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

on the weekends. I believe they're closed Monday. And if you have, if you buy anything,

I hope this case, you get a free poster, which we have the poster in our office. I'll know.

Yeah. The Braxton County Convention and Visitors Bureau also built a series of five tall

chairs in the shape of the monster to serve as landmarks and visitor attractions. We

unfortunately didn't get to see any. No, but reportedly the Bureau rewards visitors who

photograph all five chairs with a free Braxi sticker. I would love that. Thank you.

I have quite a bit of actually Flatwood's Monster merch. I have knockoff Legos that make a Flatwood's

monster that I need to make at some point. I have a little print of one from Daft Squatch,

who's a really great artist that you can find on Instagram. We have the poster from the

Flatwood's Monster Museum. And I also have a Flatwood Monster pin that was from a giveaway for

in it. It was a collaboration between the Flatwood's Monster Museum. And I think Crypto Zooey,

which I think is a pin line of cryptids, which interesting is the Flatwood's Monster always

kind of the reds the needle between cryptid and alien. A lot of people want to put in the

group of cryptids, but I think it is solidly an alien story. If it's made of like metallic

and stuff, or it's got I would think that that lands more towards alien, where it's cryptids more

like organic. I do a faux crash. Yeah. I am a hardliner when it comes to cryptozoology. It is

unknown animals. It's not your fantasy and folklore like your Wendigo skin walkers break in

not dear. We don't say we don't say those words in this house. I do. No. But those are trying to

curse us. Those are not cryptids. That is folklore and internet lore. Neither it I don't think

Mothman really fully fits the cryptozoology in my opinion. It might be more paranormal and alien,

but that one I'll digress. It has a little bit of open room, but those other four I just mentioned

are not in the realm of cryptids. Those are folklore and paranormal if anything. Tough shit for anyone

who does disagrees with me. No, I mean, I can get behind that. Where would keep going?

Oh, I do have any other pop culture. I have a lot of pop culture. Okay, good good. Your

goal mentioned Fallout 76. That's literally my next one. Nice, nice. So the legend of the

Flatwood sponsor has also inspired media beyond West Virginia. The video games Fallout 76 and

everybody's golf four contain references to the legend. Everybody calls it. Yeah. Fallout 76 is

set in Appalachia and where there is a cryptid enemy known as the Flatwood sponsor within it.

You know, there's an event going on right now as we speak of Fallout 76. You know what it is.

What? Bigfoot has joined the game. Oh, that's funny. You know, because I know very little about

Fallout so. So Fallout 76 is like open world multiplayer Fallout. I don't know too much about it,

but I do know Mothman's in it. Flatwood's monsters in it. Gray aliens are basically in it.

They're called the Zadans, but that's in all the Fallout's sheep squatches in it. They're

grafted monster, the Jersey devil, a cryptid dog, and I forget what it is. There's these giant

sloths, but that's just more giant sloths in general. And now we have Bigfoot in there as well.

Oh, interesting. It has so many cryptids. I love that. Some of them are like actual cryptids,

and I don't know if they're just mutated creatures that fit the bill of cryptids. But people,

the Flatwood's monster is an alien in the game. That's interesting. And also, oh, what's his name?

I have injured cold, I believe, is in. Who's that? He's associated with Mothman. Really creepy.

He's also known as the grinning man, I believe. That sounds horrifying. Don't look at me like that.

You want me to give you that injured cold look? No. The second episode of the 2019 History

Channel series project blue book was titled the Flatwood's monster, and it is based on the Flatwood's

incident. Since 2019, Flatwood's West Virginia has been hosting a Flatwood's monster convention.

I just showed her entered cold. She does not like him. The Flatwood's design is popular in

Japanese UFO culture. Having been used in numerous video games in media, though that doesn't

apply just to those in Japan. Some notable examples include the Flatwood's monster appearing as

the final boss of the NES video game. Emma Gond. Emma Gondend. Emma Gondend. I'm really sorry,

I don't know how to pronounce that. The stage two boss of the video game Space Harrier 2.

In the anime series, Sergeant Frog and Alien modeled after the Flatwood's monster appears in the

episode, fake it till you make it. The legend of Zelda, Majora's Masked Features creatures

referred to as quote them, invading Romani Ranch in a UFO. They bear a striking resemblance to that

of the Flatwood's monster. In the Wii U game, the wonderful 101, the character Kimi has a striking

resemblance to the Flatwood's monster. In the 3DS game, Tomodachi Life, the Flatwood's monster

makes an appearance along with other cryptids in the mystery interior. When I tell you when I read

this, I was shocked because I haven't heard about the 3DS in so long. I had a pink one,

I had an Nintendo DSI. I was so fancy, I thought I was so fancy because I could like message my

friends on there. I had a whole conversation with myself because I was lonely. I did have

conversations with myself. In the XBLA game Happy Wars, there's a weapon called the Flatwood's monster.

Really? I guess this is according to Wikipedia. On the show Mountain Monsters on Destination

America, the Ames team goes to Braxton County, West Virginia to investigate a similar cryptid,

the Shadow Creature. This could possibly be a reptilian version of Flatwood's monster only without

the skirt-like structure around its waist. Frank is covering his face. Have you watched Mountain

Monsters? No. I don't want to.

A bunch of guys going as opposed to guns hunting cryptids. Some people will really believe what

happens when I'm pretty sure it's just dramaticizing the entire way. It's reality TV.

No. Okay. I think there's has to see this coming right at us and they're just waving their

shotguns around trying to hunt- Someone's going to die. Two Flatwood's monsters appear on

the cover of the album April Fools by The Scary Jokes, along with what appears to be Mothman

among other unidentifiable creatures. The Flatwood's monster is depicted in a My Singing Monsters

van made island in the form of chain skirt. The Flatwood monster also appears as an alien in the

second chapter of the manga. Manga. Manga, sorry, Dan Da Dan by Yuki Nubu Tatsu and in the second

episode of the manga's anime adaptation. In the last one, which I am interested to know if you

noticed this, the Flatwood's monster appears in the background of the Smiling Friends episode

where Charlie Pym and Bill or episode titled Charlie Pym and Bill versus the alien during the drug

sequence. The Flatwood's monster is in that episode? Reportedly according to the Wikipedia, yes.

Oh, I'm going to have to check that out. So I saved that one for last because I didn't know if you

were new about it or not, but I thought that Frank loves Smiling Friends. That's like his jam.

It's ending. It's over. It's over. Alan, we are so fucked.

But all in all, that is what I have for everybody on the Flatwood's monster.

I'd surprising that I did a cryptid episode. If you saw our pie day.

It is more alien than anything, but you know what I mean. If you saw our pie day post,

which I thought was really cute and funny, I did a pie chart because I'm a nerd of the different

categories of episodes that Frank and I do and you can tell like which ones we really, really like.

I really don't do a lot of cryptids or really aliens either. So this was a new one for all of us.

You know, I love doing this type of shit talking to this and diverging a little out.

I'll be going back to good old hauntings next week. And it's really cool that we can kind of

track what we had and go a bit further. It cryptids. You are right. In fact, the Flatwood's monster

is in that scene right there. Oh my gosh, that's funny. I was looking at that. That's why I wasn't

responding. That's fantastic. I was looking at our pie day chart and cryptids and aliens for me

are actually tied right now at 8.1% of the episodes that I do. And then what are they for me?

Frank's cryptids is 28.9% and his aliens is 26.3%. Yeah, I have one more cryptid episode.

Literally like 55% of Frank's episodes are those two things. And mine's only 16.

And yet you are 37.8 true cry when I'm only 10.5.

Yeah. I did more hauntings and conspiracies than what I actually have done. But I'm slacking

on haunted. You also had less like miscellaneous episodes than I did. You didn't have any.

Because all the ones that I had were like the interviews that we did and stuff like that.

Well, my one interview was an alien interview, basically, which I think I put with aliens because

it was based on that. So, damn, you've done more hauntings than me. I'm slacking. True crime,

I just I'm pretty even on conspiracies though. You're at 15.8%. I'm at 13.5.

Spearsies are just so hard to do because you have to avoid the racism ones. Yeah. And there's

so many racism one. I don't want to do a racism guys. Please don't make me do a racism.

I don't want to do that either. You know, the Wheeling Nailers,

ECHL hockey team should do a flatwoods monster night. Hey Wheeling Nailers, if you want us to

get involved with that, let us know that we dope as hell. We love you. We're big penguins fans.

So. And just big hockey fans. You're penguins adjacent.

The Florida Everblades actually did a skunk ape game. And I bought online assigned Florida

skunk apes hockey puck. It's so cool looking. I also have a carbonyl UFO hockey puck, which

is cool. That's my favorite hockey puck I have is the is the carbonyl one because it has a

like a 3D texture to it. Oh, it's so neat. It's definitely the coolest one. My hockey puck

collection is looking cooler and cooler. The skunk ape one is the only one I didn't go in person

to get all the other ones. I've been in person. I can now have the four signed pucks now.

There's a lot of pucks. Yeah. I don't remember. Yeah. Oh, nice. This is the book I'm reading right now.

It's called Puck Off. But anyhow, so that is what I have for everybody.

All right. Thank you, Sage, for this. I'm trying to think, is there any else you want to go over

in this before we wrap this up? Stand up or what? Am I missing something? Is that why you're asking?

No, I didn't know if you had anything. Oh, no. That was the end of my, I wanted to end on the note

of smiling friends. All right. Well, or a piece of smiling friends. They're the real ones.

Ridiculous. What? You meet. I'm going to miss it. It was a quality show. You know,

there are other cryptids in it like Sasquatch, the Yeti, the brown blur and Mothman.

Interesting. They all make appearances in it.

They do. That the brown blur is? No. It's just a good mark. No, it's the boss's colonoscopy.

Nice. Yeah, but their cryptids in Mothman does die unfortunately. And so does Bigfoot,

but I think that was actually a body double voice act. Body double made out of clay or something

according to the landlord. Oh, nice one. Yeah, you'll know. Eating that thing. No, um,

doing wraps up here though. All right. I think it's time to wrap us up. So thank you guys for

listening today. You like what you're listening to? Go check us out on our socials on our

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for us to do the sign off. Alrighty. Are you ready, Sage? I am. So remember to look for the unknown,

the unknown, and the unseen. Thanks for listening. Bye guys. Watch out for Braxie.