The Tape Library - Archive of the Paranormal & the Unexplained - The Terrifying True Story of The Flatwoods Monster | Real or Hoax?

Episode Date: September 6, 2024

In 1952, a small town in West Virginia was thrust into the spotlight when locals encountered what would become known as The Flatwoods Monster. Was it an alien visitor, a cryptid, or something else entirely? This video delves into the terrifying events that led to one of America's most famous UFO sightings. With eyewitness accounts and historical analysis, we unravel the mystery of the Flatwoods Monster. Watch now and decide for yourself! Support the channel with Patreon - www.patreon.com/thetapelibrary Do you have a supernatural story to share? Drop me an email at [e-mail] You can check out The Tape Library in audio form on all of your favourite podcast providers. Tiktok - https://www.tiktok.com/@thetapelibrary Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/people/The-Tape-Library/100094332411836/ Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/thetapelibrary Archive of the Paranormal, the strange and the unexplained. The Tape Library brings you the creepiest stories, to keep you horror junkies up all night. True scary stories of ghosts, cryptids, UFOs and true crime. Additional footage and audio from Evanto, Singularity, Midjourney and Pexels. Music by Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio and the youtube audio library.  All other footage used under fair use. CHAPTERS 00:00 Sam The Sandown Clown 03:17 Welcome to The Tape Library 04:19 The Audrey Harper Incident 08:21 The Fisher Farm Incident 19:13 One Final Visit 21:11 Aftermath 24:25 What Really Happened? 27:31 Wrapping Up Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's a story of the Braxton County Monster. When this story broke, it stretched the imagination of many people the world over. And the story has been told and retold in the past 16 years in just about every country in the world. There's a story I covered a few months back now. One of my favourite paranormal stories of all time, I think. If you watched that episode, I'm going to do a very brief recap here. But I think it's important for tonight's case, so please indulge me. On a May afternoon of 1973, two children were playing together in a field when they heard a strange sound that caught their attention.

A sort of wailing, almost like an ambulance, but as though it was being pushed through a large speaker system. Intrigued the two children travelled through multiple fields to find the source of the sound. It stopped when they arrived in an area that had a small bridge with a brook flowing underneath. The pair went across the bridge when something appeared from underneath. A strange man of sorts. He was nearly seven feet tall and had no neck for his head appeared to be wedged straight onto his shoulders. He wore a yellow pointed hat which interlocked with the red collar of a green tunic. A round black knob was affixed to the top of his hat and wooden antennae were attached either side.

the side. The face had triangular markings for eyes, a brown square of a nose and motionless yellow lips. Other round markings were on his paper white cheeks and a fringe of red hair fell onto his forehead. Wooden slats protruded from his sleeves and from below his white trousers. He had three fingers in his blue gloves and had bare white feet that also had three toes. This being retreated to a small metallic hut with no windows, before returning with a microphone. The children began attempting to communicate with this being, which he was able to do in a stilted manner, communicating the phrase, hello, and I am all colours sound. The children would ask him if he was a man, which he said no to. Although the children described his speech as odd, his lips wouldn't move and his

voice was muffled, as though his mouth wasn't fully opening or it was obstructed in some way. Almost as though his appearance were some sort of outfit being worn on top of something else. Although no reference to seeing the appearance of a mouth beyond the mask, if it were one, was ever made. When the children asked if he was a ghost, he said, well, not really, but I am in an odd sort of way. the children pressed further to ask what he was. Sam simply replied that the children knew what he was. Then he went on to say something that I only briefly mentioned in that episode. But is the important point I wanted to make it. The children asked Sam if he was alone. To which Sam said, quite matter-of-factly,

No. There are others like me. It's easy to dismiss the case of the Sand Downclay. clown as just the work of either imaginative children or even an over-imaginative father, if you know where that story went next. But I can't shake the small amount of similarities I keep noticing between a lot of cases where people claim to meet a strange being. Sam, the Haif Mothman and another case we have spoken about here, and of course the subject of tonight's story, the Flatwoods Monster.

Join me tonight as we discussed a creature from Braxton County. A visitor from outer space? West Virginia's pre-Mothman crypted? Or is he something else? Maybe, just like Sam, we should know exactly what he is. So get yourself a warm drink, dim the lights and get comfortable. It's time to meet Braxie, or as most of us know him, the Flatwoods monster. As is often the case with stories such as this, the exact details tend to differ depending on who is telling the story.

We will get into some of the apparent discrepancies later, but I will attempt to lay out what apparently happened in West Virginia in 1952, as best as I can. The beginning of our story actually takes place decades after it all ended. Ashley Teets was in her grandmother's home. They were going through old boxes, packing away many of her grandmother's belongings, and throwing away what she no longer needed. When Ashley found something, three pieces of paper with typewritten words on them. She may not have given it a second thought if it were not for the title. Unexplained experiences.

Ashley asked her grandmother, Audrey Harper, what this was all about. Audrey told Ashley that she wouldn't believe her, but she should read it for herself, which she did. Audrey started the account by explaining that she had moved to heaters in West Virginia in 1950, just a few years after getting married. The roads at the time could be treacherous, and so often the only way to make it to the local store was to take a five-mile trek, cutting through fields to make the journey quicker.

And one day, late one summer afternoon, in 1952. Audrey was doing just that, walking for a field with a friend of hers. The sun was beginning to get low in the sky, but it wasn't fully dark yet. They still had time to get home before the darkness fully engulfed the countryside.

When all of a sudden, they spotted something in the hill next to the field they were walking in. A small orange glow. The two girls quickly identified it as a campfire and didn't really think too much of it as they continued on their journey. The closer they got, however, the more they saw that this apparent campfire had a sort of defined shape to it. It was like a ball, a ball of fire, just on the ground.

They can't be seeing it right, they thought. Their eyes must be playing tricks on them. But then, the ball began to move, rising up from the ground and floating. in the air. By this time the girls were close enough to see it clearly. They still couldn't understand what exactly they were witnessing, but they knew this was no campfire. They began to get nervous, debating if they should go back in the other direction. When out of nowhere, the ball just sort of extinguished itself. Before suddenly taking on a totally different shape, the formerly glowing ball of light quickly morphed into a larger black object, before it seemed to almost

take on the form of a person. Taller than any person could be, but shaped like a person nonetheless. But it had no features. It was just a black shape. Understandably, the two girls freaked out, running as fast as they could to get out of the field. They reached a nearby barbed wire fence and didn't hesitate to throw themselves over it, not looking back. The next fence they reached, her gate, as they stopped to open it. Audrey's friend looked back and screamed. Oh my God, Audrey, it's right behind us. Audrey turned to see the black shape, just feet away from them.

The two women ran like their lives depended on it. They never did see anything like that again. And Audrey told her granddaughter that she never dared to venture for it. that field again. But an incident took place just a few weeks later, just a few miles from that encounter, that convinced Audrey that it must be connected. In the 1950s, pop culture was awash with tales of flying sources and monsters from outer space, but it wasn't just on cinema screens. Reports of unidentified flying objects were rife at this time, not just in America, but all around the world. A lot of this could be seen as an increasingly paranoid world, still dealing

with the trauma of World War II and the constant threat of another even more deadly war breaking out at any time. But a lot of these reports were treated very seriously by the government at that time. 1952, the year of Audrey's account in particular, had many major UFO sightings. And although her experience wouldn't necessarily fit that, the incident that took place just weeks later, certainly would. Just months before, the country had seen the Washington UFO flap take place, which saw hundreds of reports being made of identified flying objects, including objects being spotted on radar by air traffic controllers, flying over the White House. I feel this context is important to put you in the mindset of the kids that were playing football late one afternoon.

on September 12, 1952, in Flatwoods, West Virginia, a small town in the centre of the state, with a population of less than 300 people, surrounded by hills with dense forests growing, and miles of darkened back roads, the sort of place you would almost expect to see a monster. The exact number of kids that were playing that day appears to be up for debate, but there seemingly was around 11 of them playing football, including brothers Ed and Fred May. When one of the youngest suddenly stopped playing and stared up in the sky, the others, noticing something was wrong, all began to stop. When the young boy said, Hey, look at that. The kids all looked up to see something moving through the sky above their heads. They described it as shape somewhere between a pair or the ace.

a spades. It appeared it was on fire, as it was glowing a sort of red that kept pulsing to orange, and then back to red, as it passed by the slowly setting sun. The object appeared to be about the size of a small house, and they said they were sure it wasn't a shooting star or anything. It was too close and looked like a ball of flames. The boys all watched, transfixed on the object, as it headed towards a nearby hill. same hill that the May Brothers family home was located by. The object seemed to reach the top of the hill before suddenly pausing, then slowly descending down towards the ground and behind the peak of the hill. Despite the view of the object now being obscured, the pulsing light could still be seen

peeking out through the top of the hill. The strange way that it seemed to come into contact with ground didn't seem to factor in with their idea of what they had just witnessed. The boys all seemingly thought they had seen some sort of meteor, and one of the older boys said that in school they had been told that the geological society would be super interested in any meteors or other objects that fell from the sky. So a plan was formed to head over to the site that the meteor had crashed and see if they could discover anything. As they were going past their home anyway, the May brothers suggested they should get their mother involved. they rushed into the house telling Kathleen May what they had seen. A distant cousin of the boys was in the house that day, an 18-year-old National Guardsman named Eugene Lemon,

and with them and a pet dog named Richie joining the group. They set out further up the hill towards the site they believed the impact had happened. The Bailey Fisher Farm. It was easy enough to find. While it wasn't dark yet, the sun was setting, and the pulsating light was flashing against the tree line, growing brighter and brighter the closer they got. It was the sound they noticed first, a sort of hissing. Kathleen would later describe it almost like bacon frying, and then they saw it, the object that had flown over their heads.

It was indeed shaped a little like a pear, with the blunt end placed down on the ground. The entire object was pulsing an orange light, but at least one of the kids would later describe it as a black object that was just about visible underneath the bright lights. They then realised it seemed to be surrounded by a low fog close to the ground. The dog instantly became defensive when it saw the object and ran right up to it barking. The closer it got, the more the low fog engulfed the poor animal. who suddenly began to howl, then turned on the spot and ran as fast as it could away from the object, apparently running out of the farm and all the way back home, leaving the group behind. There are many accounts of this story that claimed the dog was later found back at the May home,

dead on the porch with vomit all around. But the May brothers have said in recent interview that this was just the fabrication that others added later. so the dog apparently lived a full life after this encounter. Don't worry. It was after the dog left, however, that they began to realize. The hissing sound they were hearing wasn't coming from the object.

One of the kids said they saw something in the tree and Eugene moved his flashlight over to a tree not too far from where the group was standing. There, they saw it. Kathleen Clayton. that Eugene's flashlight lit it up like a Christmas tree. There was a figure by one of the lower branches of a large tree. It was kind of human-like in shape, but they estimated it as being somewhere between 10 to 12 feet tall. And even more disturbing, it was floating in the air next to the tree branch.

It had large eyes that generated light, almost like a dim flashlight, but it was a dim flashlight, but it was floating in the air next to the tree branch. It had large eyes that generated light. almost like a dim flashlight, but it was moving its head from side to side, almost as though it was scanning the area below the hill, using these beams from where its eyes should be. They were all terrified, but none more so than Eugene, who screamed as he saw the being, dropped his flashlight, tripped over one of the children, and then ran away from the others, much like the dog had done.

The others remained for a short while longer, almost frozen to the spot with fear. They claim their memory of the incident is a little fuzzy. If this was the result of the intense adrenaline or something else, they couldn't say, but despite it being referred to as a monster after the incident. The boys did not believe it was a creature at all, while the group described it as having claw-like hands. Its head had a shape on the back of it like a spade,

not too dissimilar from the glowing object. The way it moved was kind of mechanical, awkward and robotic. The eyes, as so many have described them, were more like portholes, that allowed it to beam out light. It didn't have legs and instead it was just solid on its lower half. One of the boys even going as far to describe it as more like a missile than a creature. But there certainly was some kind of intelligence to it. because once Eugene had run away screaming,

the being turned its attention to the group, pointing those beams from its eyes on them. Then the hissing sound started up again, and the flatwoods monster began floating down from the tree and towards the group. Understandably, they all knew this was the point to get the hell out of there, and luckily the being didn't seem to follow them. The group rushed back to the May home and phoned the sheriff, but he was a few miles away at the time,

dealing with another report of someone claiming they had seen a small airplane, crash into another set of hills, and the sheriff had headed out that way but found no trace of any plane. He then headed over to the May home, but by the time he had gotten there, there was no sign of any glowing object, or the floating being. Interviews that were conducted after the event revealed that numerous reports had been made across West Virginia, and even further afield, of up to six different unidentified objects, being seen spotted in the skies that day. Numerous of them were reported as either looking like they crashed or landed, while the six were apparently made as far as Alabama, before vanishing.

Many of the locals in Flatwoods saw the glowing object in the sky, but believed it to be a meteor. While the incident was taking place on Fisher Farm, another farmer had seen the glowing light landing on the hill through his binoculars from around three miles away. He told others and a small group was formed to go and investigate, concerned that it may have been an aircraft crash. But of course they found nothing,

except for a strange burning smell. The farmer claimed he watched a pulsing light for around 15 minutes, minutes. It was a flashing red ball but strangely with each pulse it seemed to get smaller, before becoming nothing more than a pinpoint and then disappearing completely. The following day the National Guard were apparently deployed to the area, with a group of 50 men searching the Fisher Farm, while the second group searched the Elk River to find any trace of the mysterious object. Captain Levitt, the man in charge of the operations that day, said in a later interview they didn't find much. There was an indentation in the grass that was around 20 feet wide.

And they found a sort of black oil-like substance over the grass that Levitt described as smelling like sulphur. But seemingly, the Braxton monster wasn't completely gone. Or at least if you believe the story of George and Edith, Snitowski. A young married couple who were driving with their young son along a darkened country road. Later that night on the 13th, around 20 miles from flatwards. As they were driving, with no warning, their engine just seemed to slowly lose power before it totally stopped. Pull in the car to the side of the road, George reported that he noticed the smell of sulphur. Concerned that something very serious was wrong with the car, he got out to take a look.

But he couldn't find any obvious issue. Now, there are two slightly different versions of what happened next. One version of the story claims that George saw a bright light in the tree line next to the car, and he stepped into the woods to investigate. As he moved in, the smell of sulphur increased, and he increasingly began to feel sick. He then saw a strange, large, glowing object in the forest, before turning and rushing back to the car.

The other version has him remaining at the car, but that a sudden beam of light lit up the area where he was standing. Either way, the end result is the same. George saw on the road, just a few feet away, a giant humanoid-shaped being, gliding towards him. The description of this creature is a little different. It apparently didn't have the ace of space, shaped head attire to it, instead having her reptilian face. George panicked, jumped into the car and grabbed his wife and child, as all three huddled on the floor in terror. Apparently the creature ran one of its clawed fingers along the side of the car as it floated past, before disappearing off into the darkness. Moments later, the Snitowski family's car sprang back into life.

The media quickly jumped on the story of the Flatwoods Monster, and numerous reports were made about what the May family and their friends had seen. Eugene Lemon and Kathleen May were even invited to New York to appear on a television show segment to talk about their experience. And famed UFO author and investigator, Gray Barker, came to write about the incident, as well as cryptozoologist expert Ivan Sanderson. the main claim to interview the witnesses at length, noting that despite interviewing them for days on end, in groups and individually, their stories all seem to match up perfectly, albeit with them filling in little details that they noticed here and there,

which gave the men the impression that this wasn't made up. They weren't following any sort of script. The accounts came across as very genuine, along with the numerous reports of others seeing the glowing objects in the sky and other strange encounters. Although, the May brothers, the last remaining witnesses that we know of that are still alive, gave an interview to small-town monsters back in 2018, and stated that much of the details that have been added about the Flatwoods monster have been made up, including many details that the likes of Barker and Sanderson claimed that the children

told them. The police officially declared the incident as mass hysteria. and several sceptics claimed that what the group saw on the 12th was, as is often the favourite go-to in these incidents, simply an owl illuminated by Lemon's torch. The May brothers claimed that while the National Guard took samples of the black oil substance, they never said anything about what they discovered after running tests on it. Kathleen May apparently claimed to receive a letter from the government some weeks after the incident. It said that what the family had wished,

witnessed was an experimental missile test, and that they advised her not to discuss what she saw with anyone else. Although why the government would reveal its experimental missile plans to this woman, or tell her not to tell anyone, just weeks after she had been on TV, I'm not sure. I do wonder whether this might have been a practical joke by someone else. After the initial excitement wore off, the maze found themselves as something of a laughingstock, with many people not believing their story, they soon decided to stop talking about it, hoping the whole incident would blow over, be forgotten about. And as far as I can tell, they did. It wasn't until the much later interview that I mentioned earlier, that Ed and Fred felt

comfortable talking about it once again. As one of them states in the interview, they had no proof that this really happened, and they simply grew tired of trying to convince people of what they saw. But while the witnesses wanted to forget all about it, the Flatwoods monster became something of a local legend. With artwork, merchandise and events all surrounding the story, becoming a permanent part of Flatwoods, the town seemed to embrace its low level of newfound fame as the result of this strange visitor. So what really happened? As I said, the Flatwoods monster has become something of a local legend. Not quite with the same level of fame as the Mothman incident a little over a decade later,

but Braxie, as he has become affectionately called, has become a key figure in those interested in UFO cases and cryptids. As I say, the story of the Flatwoods monster very quickly became muddied by claims of a fire-breathing green-eyed monster, prowling the forests of Praxton County. But Ed and Fred really downplay a lot of these incidents. They stand by the idea that what they saw was something mechanical. Their theory is it was something sent out by the glowing object to investigate the area. They also say that no one got sick from the fog, another commonly misreported incident.

However, this does mean either Barker and Sanderson embellished their interviews that they conducted with witnesses at the time. Or that at the very least some of the children were lying, because the stories they published and spoke about in East, interviews were a little more outlandish. If Ed and Fred were lying though, it would surely make more sense to go along with the published accounts which makes me trust them a little more. But of course, they are the only ones still around to share their side of the story, and many have pointed out that their theory of what they saw is a little too similar to the events of the movie the day the earth stood still. So was this a case of mass hysteria? A plane crash? a missile test, an encounter with a creature from another world, or something else entirely,

I can't help but think back to the encounter with Sam the Sandown clown, how the descriptions of him almost make it sound like something pretending to be human, but not pulling it off. Its behaviour as an appearance just too odd and off-putting. I can't help but think of the hyphen point pleasant mothmen, beings that appear to resemble moths but again not quite these entities all take on a form that is similar to things we see in our world but just a little wrong and twisted and i can't help but wonder about the story of audrey harper from the beginning of this tale how she saw this glowing object

suddenly take on the form of a black featureless human-like figure and just a tiny tiny part of me wonders what if these aren't just the works of the imagination from all these people involved? What if there is some truth to them? And what if, in some way, they are all connected? What if what Audrey saw was these beings before they attempt to take on a form that they believe will be more familiar to us? A ghost? Maybe not.

But maybe, in an odd sort of way. That's all for this entry into the tape library. As always, please do let me know any theories you have on this one. 1952 is an absolute mess of UFO reportings, so I struggled to get any concrete information on the apparent six UFOs outside of Barker's writings. Could this just be a detail he added on later after stumbling upon this hoax? so many people in the area do claim to have seen something. Not a monster, but it does seem certain there was at least something in the sky over Flatwoods on that September afternoon. Do you believe

the accounts of the May family and their friends? What about the other encounters that were reported? Let me know in the comments below, or if you're listening to the podcast, then feel free to drop me an email. My main sources for this episode have come from the Small Town Monsters documentary on the Flatwood's Monster, an interview with Ivan Sanderson, and Gray Barker's book, They knew too much about flying saucers. If you've enjoyed this and you want to hear more stories of the creepy and the unexplained, then please do subscribe right now so you don't miss out. And you can really help support this channel in two easy ways. If you're watching the video, then just click that like button. And if you're listening to the podcast, leaving a rating or review is always massively

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Thank you all so much for your continued support, and to all my junior archivists as well, for keeping the tape library going. So until next time, my friends, pleasant dreams, and if you don't mind, I want to leave you with a classic warning. Every one of you listening to my voice, tell the world, tell this to everybody wherever they are. Watch the skies, everywhere. Keep looking. Keep watching the skies.