The Lights Over Flatwoods: The Flatwoods Monster

In September 1952, a strange light crossed the sky above Flatwoods, West Virginia, sending a group of local children and adults searching for whatever had come down in the nearby hills. What they claimed to encounter would become one of the strangest stories in UFO history: the Flatwoods Monster.

In this episode of The House of Strange, we explore the 1952 Flatwoods incident, the mysterious object seen in the sky, and the towering figure witnesses reported encountering on a West Virginia hillside. Also known as the Braxton County Monster, the creature became an enduring part of American UFO lore and West Virginia folklore.

From eyewitness accounts and possible explanations to the cultural afterlife of the Flatwoods Monster, we examine how one frightening encounter transformed a small Appalachian town into the home of one of America’s most recognizable unexplained creatures.