A UFO and Occupant in Wheeling, West Virginia?

By Charles Lear

On September 12, 1952, a woman and six boys in the town of Flatwoods in Braxton County, West Virginia, reported that they’d had an encounter with a landed UFO and a strange creature. The woman, Mrs. Kathleen May, described the creature to a reporter as “a fire-breathing monster, ten-feet tall with a bright green body and a blood-red face.” She said the creature emitted an odor “like metal” that caused everyone to vomit for hours after the encounter. She added, “It looked worse than Frankenstein.” The witnesses all agreed that the figure had a red face with two openings like eyes that projected beams of greenish-orange light over their heads and that around the face there was a dark hood-like shape that came to a point like the ace of spades. The creature has become known as “The Flatwoods Monster.” By September 15, the case was reported in newspapers all over the country. It is likely that most readers are aware of this case, but many may not be aware of reports from nearby Wheeling, West Virginia, just a couple of days later. Read more

Metal From the UFO

By Charles Lear

From the days of the earliest citizen UFO investigators, metals associated with UFO reports have been held up as evidence for extraterrestrial visitation. Labs have been employed in testing and claims have been made that the results support a non-earthly origin for the material in question. While some of these claims have been dismissed, others continue to be debated.

The first modern UFO era citizen investigator was Kenneth Arnold, who was also the first modern era UFO witness. Arnold had seen a fleet of UFOs while flying near Mt. Rainier on June 24, 1947. Arnold was offered an assignment by publisher, Ray Palmer, who was looking for a good story for the premier issue of his new venture, Fate magazine. Palmer had received a letter describing a sighting near Maury Island, off the coast of Tacoma, Washington. Six donut-shaped craft were reported, one of which seemed to be having difficulties. It discharged hot material that allegedly injured the witness’s son and killed his dog. Palmer asked Arnold to look into the story, and Arnold asked for $200. Palmer wired him the money and Arnold became the world’s first privately funded UFO investigator. Read more