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
in his 1956 book “The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects,” in Air Force parlance, a flap was a state of confusion just below panic that could be brought on by any number of things. This week, we’ll look at a 1965 flap in the Virginia area that involved reported EM effects, creatures, and armed citizens ready to defend the planet.
Burns described the object as shaped like a beehive, 125 ft in diameter, and 80 ft tall. He observed it as it rested for 60 to 90 seconds and then rose up and flew away to the northeast. He was able to restart his car and drive home.
The April 24, 1964 sighting by Socorro, NM, Police Sergeant Lonnie Zamora of a landed UFO with two beings standing next to it has been written about extensively and remains a fascinating mystery to this day. What’s noteworthy about this case is the large number of people who investigated it. Representatives from the Socorro Police, the New Mexico State Police, the F.B.I., and the Army were first on the scene. They were followed by the Lorenzens from the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization, members of the Air Force and J. Allen Hynek as part of Project Blue Book, and Ray Stanford for the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena. Besides the testimony of Zamora, there was trace evidence to examine, there were witnesses to interview who’d reported a similar craft, and there were reputed witnesses to the very craft Zamora reported who were searched for but never found. Despite the thoroughness of the inquiries and analyses by so many experienced investigators, no one was able to come up with an agreeable earthly explanation.
As he drove, he saw a funnel shaped, narrower at the top, blue and “sort of orange” flame slowly descend behind the hill. He turned onto a dirt road, made it up a hill after three tries, and after looking around for 15-20 seconds, saw what he thought was a car standing on end in a gully. As he got closer he noted two figures in what looked like white coveralls standing next to the “car.” As he drove quickly towards them to help, one of the figures turned towards him and seemed startled.