October 26, 2020 • 45 mins
Tonight we’ll share the tale of some high strangeness that landed on a hilltop in 1950s West Virginia, terrifying local residents and living on in local lore.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm Jen Sullivan and I'm Jen Lee.
And we'd like to welcome you tobeneath your bed, a podcast
where we drag out all thosefears that lurk beneath our beds
from the paranormal to truecrime, to the simply strange
along the way, we'll be drinkingcocktails and sharing stories
from our Appalachianupbringings.
Tonight, we'll share a tale ofsome high strangeness that
(00:21):
landed on a Hilltop in 1950s,West Virginia, terrifying local
residents and living on in locallore.
We want to give a special thanksto Colby white AKA captain
catfish for letting us use hissong.
Phantom of flatwoods during anultra tonight.
Thank you, Colby.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Jen, how are you?
I'm doing great.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Great.
How are you?
I'm doing well.
It's been a good day.
What have you been up to?
It's been a really good day today.
Got together with my family andhad some local cuisine.
And unless you're from thisarea, be completely disgusted by
it.
As popular in the Delaware,Maryland, Virginia area.
I had some steam crabs with lotsof old Bay.
I love old Bay, but you don'tlike the crabs.
(01:07):
I know you think it's barbaric.
Remember when we went out forcrabs together and you said it
looked like I was going to cry.
Yeah.
I thought you were just a littletoo.
I don't know hands-on for whereare you going to cry or you just
look that way?
I think I probably just lookedthat way.
I think you're a drunk thatnight.
It was just my glassy high drunklook.
I was drunk.
And remember, like, there wasthis really bad storm that came
(01:29):
through too.
And there were these tornadowarning.
There were some spouts that wewere seeing on the water, but we
didn't want to say anything toyou because I was so fragile.
I'm a delicate flower.
You would have been too drunk toget out of there.
Anyway, I wouldn't have knownwhat hit me.
Oh my gosh.
I had a good day too.
I, mine was not as, um,culinarily pleasant as yours,
but I sat out on my balcony thisafternoon and listened to the
(01:53):
Sundays with Dracula.
I don't know if you'd call it apodcast.
It's more of a, a web broadcastand it comes every Sunday.
We discussed a different chapteror they, they discuss a
different chapter of Dracula.
So this week it was chapter 16,which is where Lucy Western rock
.
She gets staked through theheart.
So it's like super graphic andkind of sexual in a certain way.
So they were all over that.
(02:14):
And there was this scholar.
Um, his name is David skull.
He's this film historian whospecializes in writing about
monster movies.
And he does a lot of horrorstuff.
So he was there.
He was really interesting.
It was interesting to hear fromhim.
So it was cool.
It was just like a mellow day.
So those people aren't likesuper intense.
No, in fact, on, on the, um,cause it was just the host and
(02:34):
then the two special guests whowere chatting.
So everybody else uses the, likethey were actually talking, but
the rest of us were just usingthe chat box on cause it's over
zoom.
And uh, you know, some peopleare really serious and have
these really intellectualcomments and other people were
like, Oh, he said the wordvoluptuous again.
Let's drink.
So cause Stoker uses the wordvoluptuous over and over to talk
about the female vampires.
(02:56):
I think I might laugh.
You know how I get, I nervous
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Laugh.
I think you probably would laughat some of it.
And honestly, some of it islaughable.
I mean, you know, and a lot ofthese scholars, they like to
sexualize everything.
So then a hundred percent Iwould laugh at it.
And when people take themselvestoo seriously, that makes me
crack up.
Sometimes I just can't stop.
It is funny.
Sometimes I worry.
Like I'm totally having anexpectation like that and it
(03:22):
worries me, but yeah, you're nota jackass about it.
There's this one guy on there.
And I really like him.
He actually teaches the Draculaclass, but he smokes a pipe.
And recently I was like, damn, Iwant to smoke.
Just like, why should men be theonly ones who get to like act
all scholarly and smoke a damnpipe.
I want to do it to you would beso sick.
I think I probably would.
(03:43):
I'd feel cool as hell.
If I smoked a pipe, smoke abowl.
Well, that's what we're doing onmy 50th birthday.
I'm not waiting until your 50thbirthday.
God damn it so well withoutfurther ado, I guess we should
get into our story.
So what are you having to drinktonight?
What are we drinking?
God, we are just, you're soobsessed with the substances I'm
(04:05):
having.
Um, I th there's not a title forit, but I did look at it.
It wasn't something where I justdumped a bunch of stuff on my
drink.
Like I do sometimes and getcarried away.
I saw it in a magazine.
I can't remember which one, butI picked up some little split
bottles of champagne tonight.
I love those.
Those are great.
And I spent$150 tonight on booze.
(04:27):
Did you really, what did you buybought some Quantro Lou carousel
.
I bought some more vodka causeI've been going through that and
then I bought some gasolines,um, rum, and then I bought, Oh
my God.
And then I bought the splitscause I'm like, you know,
there's so many times I want totry have a certain drink and
then I don't have this.
I don't have, it is veryfrustrating.
(04:48):
So then I'm having tosubstitute.
That is frustrating when you, Imean, it can be, you can lead to
interesting inventions too, butit's just fun watching your
booze accumulate.
We totally sound like drunks,but I went to the liquor store
on was that Friday, Friday, lateafternoon.
And I got some sham board andsome also some splits, those
things are so handy.
(05:09):
And then I got something else.
What was the other thing I can'tremember, but just, Oh, lemon
cello.
I've got some lemon cello, sothat's the best I'm running out
of room and most of it is stillstashed in my car.
So I think I'll bring it inlater on tonight when my wife is
in bed, because I don't want herto see me carrying the wonder to
(05:29):
know how much you bought.
I bought this whole box of, ofalcohol.
I don't think she's going tostart to think that I have a
problem.
Yeah, you don't.
I mean, as we were discussing, Ithink last night, I think you
said you grow into drinking.
Like we're not doing it to getdrunk where we enjoy the flavor.
Again.
I'm also drinking from adepression glass that the two of
(05:50):
us, we went antiquing and Ibought it and it's green and it
looks like it's glowing.
Well, that makes me think.
And I think I remember
Speaker 1 (05:58):
This glass.
I, I wonder if it's what theycall uranium glass.
That if you put it under a blacklight, it actually glows.
It looks, um, it's the word forit?
Like it Lorez fluorescent.
Yeah.
So you should get a littleblacklight and see, it might
actually be that uranium stuff.
It's cool.
Cause when you said that it'sgoing well, that actually that
like feeds into the story thatI'm about to tell perfectly.
(06:19):
You didn't tell me what you'rehaving.
Well, mine is not as exciting asyours, but it's a French 75.
You had mentioned that earlier.
I think a couple of weeks ago.
And I was like, God, that soundsreally good.
So yeah, it's great.
I love that taste of the gincombined with the champagne.
And then of course the freshlemon juice it is when I was
looking up the recipe in there,a bunch of different ways you
can make a French 75, I thinklike different variations.
(06:41):
But somebody had said, is this agirly drink?
And I'm thinking, well, that's arude thing to ask, but it's
actually named after a kind ofartillery from world war one.
And that's why it's calledFrench 75.
So because it'll knock you onyour ass.
That's right.
So hopefully I will not be on myass, but by the end of this
episode, we'll really,
Speaker 3 (06:58):
That's what they said about it.
I mean, that's why they namedit.
What they named it.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Did they really, I didn't know that.
I thought they were just tryingto, like, they had a love of
world war one or something.
I didn't realize it was thepower, the drink.
There's a lot of booze.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
I read.
That's what it said.
Whether or not that's true.
I'm not sure, but it'll get youthere.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Well good.
I, I don't want my secondactually, my husband is so
sweet.
We have these French doors andthey were closed and I held up
my glass and he came in and gotit and filled it up.
It's like, I wish I had thatkind of marriage.
I didn't have to sneak my boozein from my car.
It's a strong one.
I'm pretty, pretty lucky.
(07:39):
He's like a God, there's mydrunk wife on her podcast.
Again, let me fill up her glassso well with that being said,
um, we are going to jump intothe story of the flatwoods
monster.
And I think I've mentionedbefore in this podcast that I
grew up in West Virginia.
I went to college there too upin Bethany college, way up in
the mountains.
Yeah.
So anytime I come across a storyfrom West Virginia, it's kind of
(08:00):
near and dear to me.
I think if you think about likethe big cryptid stories in West
Virginia, most people thinkabout moth man.
And that's a really cool story.
So we'll talk about that.
I imagine in a later episode,but I came across this other
one, which I think I'd heard ofit's the flatwoods monster, but
I didn't really know anythingabout it.
So I thought, let me just dothis and find out some, some
(08:21):
more about it.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
I've heard about it too.
I've heard of it, but I've neverread anything about it.
So I'm excited for you to talkabout what it is that you've
learned.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
So I'll just get started.
So it's also known the flatwoodsmonster is also known as the
Braxton County monster in thePhantom of flatwoods.
And it's kind of cool becauseone of my mom's best friends
actually is from Braxton County.
So I asked my mom to ask her ifshe heard about this.
And she did say that growing up,you know, she heard stories like
she didn't know any of thepeople involved, but she'd heard
(08:51):
about it.
So anyway, flatwoods is thislittle teeny town in Braxton
County, which was in centralWest Virginia.
And if you can kind of go backin time, this is going to unfold
in the 1950s.
So we're going to go to theevening of September 12th, 1952,
it's around seven o'clock in theevening.
So it's getting dusky, but it'snot dark yet.
(09:11):
And you know, it's the, theweather is still really mild.
It's the first frost hasn't hityet.
So the kids are out playing andthey're these two brothers and
their, their buddy who are outplaying football and their names
are Edward and Fred may.
I think he went by Eddie.
So Eddie and Fred may and thentheir friend whose name is
Tommy.
So they're out playing footballand they see something bright
(09:33):
fly above them.
And it appears to fall on thisHilltop off in the distance,
which happened to belong.
This Hilltop was part of this,this farm they're kind of
freaked out.
So they run home to the, the twobrothers to their house and they
get their mom whose name isKathleen.
And then of course, as therewould be there more kids around.
(09:54):
So they had a couple more kidscome with them.
Um, one of their names is NeilNunley and I just mentioned his
name because he's going to comeup later in the story.
And then there's also a 17 yearold boy named Jean lemon.
And the reports I read said hewas a West Virginia national
guardsman, which seemed a littleodd to me.
Like, can you really be aguardsman at 17?
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Get married in West Virginia at like 13 or 12?
I mean, yeah, I don't know whatthe law, that's not a joke.
I mean, years ago you could dothat kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Sure.
When I was growing up that likewith parental permission, you
could get married at 14.
I mean, I hadn't even heldanybody's hand at the age of
Speaker 3 (10:32):
My aunt got married when she was 13.
Uh, when they lived in WestVirginia.
That's crazy.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Now, was that your aunt that wasn't your aunt who
later became a physician?
Was it?
Speaker 3 (10:43):
No, no.
This was my aunt.
That was not that my other auntwas in a lot of fun, but this
aunt was, uh, it was crazy kindof fun.
And she, I think I know whoyou're talking about.
Your dad's dad's sister, mydad's sister and she was
married.
She was married at least threetimes.
So the first one didn't workout.
When you get married at 13,
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Can you imagine getting married that young?
I just can't
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Even, I cannot imagine either.
I just, I don't even know.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Yeah, but it did happen.
My aunt Carolyn, she snuck awayand got married at 16 and she
was also married three times.
So I guess you get startedearly.
You just worked your way untilyou find that perfect person.
And I don't remember maybe, Hey,maybe they knew something that
we don't learn the ropesexactly.
Until you can eventually findsomebody who will bring you
another drink.
When you, when you wave yourclass in the air,
Speaker 3 (11:29):
You ever see that movie coal miner's daughter.
Of course.
It's one of my favorites, notme.
I'm Cici with sissy spaces,plain Loretta Lynn.
And she gets married.
How old was she?
She was really young.
She was 13.
And she on their wedding night,she didn't know what the heck
was was going on.
That was disturbing to me.
(11:49):
She's like, he's up on top of mesweating, like an old pig.
Do you remember that?
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Yeah.
Yeah.
That scene was actually, I dolove that movie, but that scene
is awful.
It's like a rape scene really?
Cause he's going and she's notliking it.
And I don't like that movie.
Well, you also don't like themovie now that might've
Speaker 3 (12:12):
Been the worst movie in history, although
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Jody was in it, I usually like
Speaker 3 (12:17):
Good Jody porn, but that was not the movie for that.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Well, I guess it's because Jodi came across as like
a special sort of like she wassort of off limits in that
movie.
Yeah.
Enough about that.
So anyway, going back to ourstory, cause we digress this
bunch of people.
Well, not a bunch, I guessthere's about seven or eight.
So they're the three boys, twomore boys, the national guards
guardsman.
Who's also a boy he's only 17.
And then Kathleen, who's themother of the two brothers.
(12:43):
So they all get together.
They form this little posse andthey say, you know, we're going
to go up on top of this Hill andsee what the heck is going on
over here.
So they climbed at the top ofthe Hill and as they get up
there, they see this pulsatingred light in lemon being like
the prepared boy scout that heis, he has this flashlight and
he aims it and he sees, and I'mquoting here, quote, a man like
(13:05):
figure with a round red face,surrounded by a pointed
headlight shape.
I read a few differentdescriptions of the creature and
whatever it was that they saw.
Um, another article I cameacross, which was really good,
it was called the flatwoodsmonster, a tale of the atomic
age.
And this was by someone named BJesse.
And it was published inmedium.com in 2019, according to
(13:28):
their report from their sources,the figure was about 15 feet
tall and had like a humanoidshape.
So it was kind of human, humanlooking, but it had this round
blood red face and there was novisible mouth in the eyes didn't
look like fully formed eyes,kind of like these I like
openings.
Um, the author said, they alsosaid that some witness described
(13:51):
a greenish orange lightemanating from the eyes, which
really sounds creepy.
Doesn't it?
It sounds like an alien Yetidoes.
And if you think about it, causethe Yeti is actually really
popular in West Virginia LOR toI'd say like the big four of the
West Virginia monsters is Yeti,big foot moth man, of course.
And then the flatwoods monsteranyway, also around the
(14:14):
creature's head was whatappeared to be appointed hood.
And the mother Kathleen, um,said that the figure look like
it was shining as if lit fromwithin.
So it was kind of a glowingthing happening.
She also described, and I'mgoing to quote here, cloth, like
folds on the body and quote, andthen she said it had clawed
hands.
So the cloth like folds, that'sstrange.
(14:35):
That's like a, is what a reallyunusual description is and
unusual description.
It struck me that way too.
And I'll talk more becauseskeptics grabbed on different
details and they debunk it indifferent ways or try to debunk
it.
And they, so they mentioned thatdetail later, we'll talk more
about it.
One member of the group, thekid, Neil Nunley, who I
mentioned, um, said that thefigure moved towards them and he
(14:57):
said, it didn't, it just moved.
It didn't walk.
So it didn't seem like it wastouching the ground.
It was more like it just glidedtowards them.
And then they, they alsoreported that the creature made
a hissing shrieking sound as itmoved towards them.
And at this point, lemon, youknow, the brave national
guardsman screamed and drops hisflashlight.
Like I totally feel the sky.
(15:18):
I would have been doing the samething and the group ran away and
they're pushing each other downall along the way.
They're throwing their friendskind of like I did when we went
in the haunted house right nowyou were frozen stiff.
And the people were, I feel likepeople were pushing me.
Well, the people, the peoplebehind us were getting pissed
(15:38):
off because you wouldn't move.
So I had to, and you know, theother group, people of the group
that were with us, they werekind of backing up too.
So you were getting pushed alittle bit, but I had to grab
you and drag you through therest of the haunted house.
Were you scared?
No, not really.
I think I just, I had to get youthrough it.
That helped a little bit.
Cause you were, you were morescared than I was, but they're
(16:00):
pretty realistic when they jumpout at you and stuff that's that
always gets you are, you cantotally imagine, you know, you
just put yourself in thesepeople's shoes and you see this
thing and you're like, what thehell is that?
You know, I can completelyimagine why they would've ran
back down the Hill.
They also, um, said that theysmelled this really funky smell.
They described it as, and thisis a quote, a pungent mist.
(16:23):
And they said it almost smelledsulfuric in, in that they
became, was so nasty that theybecame nauseated and their eyes
were burning from this, whateverit was that they were smelling.
There's something in, I thinkit's Florida and it's called the
skunk ape and it's similar, likea Yeti Bigfoot type thing.
And one of the descriptions isthat it smells like sulfur or it
(16:45):
might be, it could be anArkansas, but I've heard of
that.
And someone or multiple people,you know, in the course of my
reading saying that I've neverheard of that.
Wouldn't that be awful to besomething that was called a
skunky kid?
My French 75 is hitting me to bea skunk ape.
And like you stink, like thatwould just be awful, but maybe
(17:07):
they think it's nice to smelllike that.
I'm sure they think that theyspell it just fine.
Oh God.
All right.
So moving on, I had more to sayabout that, but I'll just be
quiet.
Um, I'll say real quick, I'vebeen watching the show called
pioneer quest.
It actually came out in 2000,but these two couples live as
(17:27):
pioneers in the old CanadianWest for a year.
And like they can't usedeodorant, brush their teeth,
take Babs.
It's crazy.
I can only imagine.
And apparently they have sexwith each other.
I mean, not like the twocouples, like not together, but
like the couples have sex andI'm like, I just don't know how
they do it.
I mean, I think couples would, Imean, if you have nothing to do,
like I would just be somortified getting back to the
(17:50):
story.
Other people had seen this weirdlight go across the sky and um,
a local sheriff and the deputyhad also, um, they had been
investigating reports ofpossibly a down to aircraft.
And so they were looking around,I think in the same vicinity,
but they said they didn't hearanything and they didn't smell
anything weird that these otherwitnesses reported, but news of
(18:10):
the incident traveled fast andbefore long, this tiny little
town was filling up withinvestigators and reporters.
And it's, it's interesting.
Cause the national pressservices rated this story of the
flatwoods monster.
It turned out to be the 11thmost, I guess, reported on and
read, read about story for theentire year.
It's about wild.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
Yeah.
I mean, you said that it was, ithappened in what, 1950,
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Right?
Yeah.
1952.
And so, you know, even sincethen, so at the time there was a
ton of interest about it.
And even since then, there'sbeen, you know, a lot of people
have been trying to figure outwhat really happened and
there've been skeptics who havetried to debunk it.
But anyway, in the aftermath ofthis incident, um, within a few
days, like I said, you know, thetown was just overrun with
(18:55):
reporters and investigators andit even attracted the attention
of the us air forces, projectblue book.
Now I haven't heard of thatbefore I was doing this
research.
Have you heard of it?
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Yeah.
I read quite a bit about ityears ago.
I was really interested in it,but I haven't read anything
recently.
So I'd have to refresh my memory.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
The little bit that I learned about it is that of
course it was part of the airforce and they investigate a UFO
sightings.
And the program ran from 1947 to1969.
And at the time it was secret,but declassified documents have
since revealed that theflatwoods incident was
investigated.
However, um, they determinedthat nothing, I guess, nothing
(19:36):
extra terrestrial was takingplace, that it was actually a
meteorite, you know, fallen fromthe sky
Speaker 3 (19:43):
With people that are the debunkers.
They really get on my nervessometimes because they can be
such dicks and you know, alwaysrunning around.
Yeah.
Always running around, trying todebunk everything.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
I wonder what the urge is to do that.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
I just, I think sometimes it's just arrogance.
I'm not sure.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Cause at the time there was this guy named grey
Barker.
He was an author and an UFOenthusiast.
So he wrote about UFO's.
So he came to the town and hestarted interviewing the
witnesses about a week after allof this went down and he later
published an article and hebased it largely on Neil Nunley,
who was one of the boys on hisaccount because he felt that he
(20:21):
was the most credible of thewitnesses.
A lot of people are, there are alot of reports that after this
happened, when they weretalking, you know, in the, in
the immediate aftermath of theciting that the, the group of
people were just completelybeside themselves, like they
couldn't speak in coherentsentences.
They weren't making any sense.
They were just, I mean, as youcan imagine, they were
(20:43):
completely freaked out.
So anyway, he, he wrote anarticle about this, which in
fate magazine and then in 1956,he also wrote about it in a book
among other topics in a bookthat was called, they knew too
much about flying saucers.
So I haven't been able to lay myhands on either of those things,
but I'd like to read them, youknow, just to get some of those
accounts as well,
Speaker 3 (21:04):
Because you just really have to jump through
hoops to even get access.
If you can get access to do someof these articles at all.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
And I think when you're under kind of a time
constraint trying to get thisstuff out so you can make a show
about it, it limits yousometimes to what you can get,
but people listening may want totry to find those things.
And at some point we may try tofind them too.
It's nice that there's moreresearch to be done.
But anyway, so about going backand telling him a little bit
about a half hour after thesighting on September 12th,
(21:32):
there was a newspaper guy, hisname was Aly Stewart.
I saw another source that calledhim steward, but I'm just going
to call them Stewart and hope.
That's right.
Um, he was the co editor of thelocal paper called the Braxton
Democrat.
He arrives on the scene and he'sone of the people who said, you
know, people are so terrified.
They're not even making sense,but Stewart and Eugene lemon,
(21:52):
who's the national guards guywho dropped this flashlight and
got the hell out of there.
They together.
And they're being really brave.
They returned to the site, butwhen they get there, there's
nothing.
Stuart goes back again thefollowing morning.
And he says that he D hediscovered some skid marks,
which were spaced about 10 feetapart.
And it looked like the grass hadbeen flattened.
(22:14):
So I'm just trying to think,like, what could that have been?
I mean, I don't think there wasa vehicle.
Sure.
There's the vehicle now?
That would be 10 feet
Speaker 3 (22:22):
Part.
Well, if it's like a UFO, Imean, isn't that something
that's kind of common for thatto the flattening of things,
right?
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So it could be that in aninterview with, with Barker, who
was the guy who wrote about the,the UFO's Kathleen, you know,
the mom, she told him that shehad also gone back to the site
the next day.
And I'm like, this lady is bravebecause I would not have been
doing that.
But she got there and she findsa gooey greasy substance on the
grass.
(22:50):
And some of it, I imagine it'sthe fifties she's wearing a
skirt, I'm guessing, or howstress on her clothes.
And, um,
Speaker 3 (23:02):
I'm just like what he , I mean, you're thinking of a
house dress or it never wouldhave even crossed my mind.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Well, she says she gets it on her clothes.
So I'm imagining like, you know,those little fifties, like
Shirtwaist dresses that theywore,
Speaker 3 (23:16):
Maybe it was some, I would say overalls.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
Hmm.
I think she was vacuuming in herhigh heels, in her shirt, waist
dress.
And then, and then she hopes itup the Hill.
Okay.
We'll go with that.
Maybe not the high heels though.
Maybe she puts on her nicelittle flats.
Yeah.
Maybe she puts on her husband'sboots or something.
So anyway, she goes up the Hilland she gets this goo like on
(23:41):
her dress and she tries to washit out and it won't come out.
Like she washes it several timesand she can't get the stain out.
So it seems like it's somethingfrom another world.
So she also told Barker.
And to me, this is veryinteresting.
She says that she was warned bygovernment officials not to give
out any information to anybodywhich kind of that, that creeps
me out.
Like what, what were they tryingto hide?
(24:02):
Why didn't they want her totalk?
Speaker 3 (24:04):
It seems to be a common theme, anything that is
other worldly or ITI or UFOrelated, you always hear that
people are, you know, we're worn.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
Yeah.
And I think there are, so thereare probably so many stories and
local legends around the countryabout very similar things, you
know, that happened.
It'd be interesting to put themall side by side and see what
are some of the overlaps commonthemes.
Um, but as I mentioned over theyears, you know, the skeptics
who you hate, they have saidthat the occurrence was most
likely due to a meteor that fellfrom the sky.
(24:36):
And in fact, on September 12thof 1952 immediate, or had been
observed across three States, soMaryland, PA, Pennsylvania, and
West Virginia, but that doesn'taccount for everything.
Right.
I mean, I've seen a actuallyI've seen a meteor driving back
from West Virginia to Maryland.
Really?
Actually this is a, I won't tellthe whole story, but I saw it
driving back a few days after mydad died and I was coming back
(24:58):
from the funeral and I was like,Oh my God, it's assigned from my
dad.
And then later maybe it was, youknow, he's done a lot.
Actually.
I feel like he sent a lot ofsigns around that time later, I
looked it up and apparentlypeople all along, I think the
East coast had seen it.
So I could look up and probablytell you what day that was.
It was in 2016.
So it was like January or earlyFebruary when I saw it.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
And it was probably a song for your dad.
I believe that.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
And I was alone, Brian and I were driving
separately.
Cause we, he had gone down afterme.
And so, you know, I was alone inthe car and I called him on my
phone.
I'm like, did you just see that?
And he's like, yeah, what wasthat?
It was really weird.
So I mean, they do look, I mean,they're very impressive things
to see, but it doesn't accountfor like this figure, this
hooded figure with the red eyes.
(25:43):
But other skeptics skeptics havesaid that the figure they saw
was probably a bar now that wasin a tree.
So they say the glowing eyes,the hissing, the clawed hands
and the cloth, like folds, theyexplain the cloth, like folds as
the foliage.
So like the foliage looked likethat.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
I don't buy that.
I mean, yeah.
I know that I get frustratedwith skeptics.
I'm a skeptic, but you can'tdismiss everything.
And to say that the folds werefoiling is that, I don't know.
I mean, if you think aboutBigfoot or Yeti, they have that
hair that's hanging down.
It's kind of drapes from theirarms.
(26:23):
And that's what it kind ofsounds like to me.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
Somebody, this was like a really hairy alien or
something.
Um, or, you know, in the way Ithink it was Kathleen who had,
had described it that way andshe didn't make it sound like it
was wearing clothes.
It wasn't like it was wearing a,a 1950s house dress.
It was more like, it was like,it was his body.
Right.
It's folded in and kind of saggyfolds and stuff.
So she didn't say it had hair oranything?
(26:47):
No.
Nobody described hair.
Okay.
So then Jen, it's not Yeti.
I know you want it to be, I knowyou are just longing male, Yeti
or Bigfoot
Speaker 3 (26:56):
For a good, yeah.
For a good Yeti.
You want to hear Yeti a hairyYeti woman?
No, I don't want that.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
So yeah.
So that's what they said.
And then in 2000, um, JoeNickell, who was part of the
committee for skeptical inquiryand other asshole, according to
him, he determined that it wassome combination of a meteor and
aircraft in and out.
All three
Speaker 3 (27:19):
Of those rolled into one.
I mean, that's,
Speaker 1 (27:22):
That's ridiculous.
Like there was a meteor and thenthere was an owl.
And then I think it's morelikely it's more likely to be an
alien.
All three of those thingsoccurring at once.
Yes.
Yes.
I think that your theory makesway more sense.
There was this other guy namedRyan helped to, um, he talks
about the nausea that thewitnesses reported.
(27:44):
And he said that this wasconsistent with hysteria and
overexertion.
So that got me thinking, like,I'm trying to think of a thing
the times when I've been reallyscared and I don't remember
being nauseous, you know, meeither.
And
Speaker 3 (27:56):
Whereas being nauseous, that is a symptom I
believe of radiation poisoning.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
Ooh, that's creepy.
And if this thing is kind ofglowing, you know, maybe it
maybe there is some, and thenyou think about that gooey
substance grass, just veryweird.
And I didn't come acrossanything that even addressed the
pungent smell.
So I don't know what that wasanyway.
So five days after the incident,Kathleen May who again, is the
mom of the boys just to keepeverybody straight here.
(28:22):
And then Stewart, who is theco-editor of the Braxton
Democrat, the two of them get ona plane and fly to New York.
That was probably a really bigdeal for them at the time,
especially.
And they appear on this show onCBS called we, the people.
Now I don't, I wonder if I askedmy mom or something, if she
would remember that show, I'venever heard of it.
But anyway, they're on the show.
(28:42):
And part of what they're doingon the show is they're having
Kathleen describe what she saw.
And then there's an artist who'smaking a sketch kind of like
they do with crime sketches.
And the result looked sooutlandish to people that they,
they started to say that thewhole thing was a hoax that this
couldn't possibly, this couldn'tpossibly be true.
So I went and looked up theimage, which you can do if you
(29:03):
just type in, um, could havebeen, uh, it could, it could
have been a really bad artist.
Well, it could've been, youknow, and if you look at the
picture, it looks stylized in away that like, it looks
mid-century modern, it lookslike it has a fifties aesthetic
to it.
So that's kind of interesting,but it looks almost like a
candle.
Like its head looks like there'sthis big flame around its head.
(29:25):
It's kind of cool looking, butyou know, it does look strange,
but I mean, what picture of analien doesn't look strange?
Strange people started kind ofgiving them hell about that.
And I didn't, I wasn't able tofind out any information about
this, but maybe wonder whathappened to Kathleen and some of
these other, I mean, probablythe kids were okay.
Cause they were, they were justkids, but I'm thinking like
(29:45):
Kathleen and maybe Eugene, thenational guardsman, like, did
people talk about them?
Did they, you know, did they actlike they were looking for
attention?
Um, I just wondered what theirlives were like in the aftermath
of that.
Speaker 3 (29:59):
Yeah.
Whether or not they wereostracized or if it conflicted
with Christian belief, if it's a, it's kind of the Bible.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
Oh, totally.
So it very well may have.
And I think that would be, thatwould be a fascinating angle,
you know, either to write aboutor to do some more research
into, but whatever happened withthem, um, over the years, the
little town of flatwoods hasreally done its best to
capitalize on this story.
So they now have a museumdedicated to the flatwoods
(30:30):
monster it's in Sutton, which isreally close to flatwoods.
Also tiny little town
Speaker 3 (30:36):
It's in the Piggly wiggly.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
It is.
Yeah.
It's actually in an old pharmacyof all things, which maybe,
maybe it was a Piggly wiggly.
Speaker 3 (30:43):
I don't know the pig is what we called it.
The pig.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
Pig.
That's what he's saying.
I didn't have a Piggly wiggly.
We had a trade.
Well, I went there every weekwith my mom and dad.
It was like this big outing.
And I was so proud when like ourshopping cart would be like
filled to overflowing withgroceries.
Like I felt like we were so welloff, even though we weren't, but
it was just exciting.
Like get all these groups.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
I kind of feel like maybe my family was more
Backwoods than your family.
Yeah.
My, my brother was telling metonight an interesting story
that I didn't know our uncle,um, no, our great uncle had a
moonshine still behind hishouse.
I mean up the, you know, in thewoods, back in the holler and he
would take my brother and mybrother.
(31:27):
Yeah.
And my brother's like, he wouldput me to work cause I would
have to lift like these heavybags of mash and put it in and
it was a copper still.
And he said that our great unclewould send him back home when he
was getting ready to fire it upbecause you can have all the
ingredients or what you need formoonshine.
But once you light it, that'swhen it becomes illegal.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
I never knew that.
That's fascinating.
I wonder if it was dangerous tolight it too.
Did they ever catch on fire?
Speaker 3 (31:54):
I think not that I ever heard because my
grandfather had one too, butI've never heard that before,
but yeah, it was just kind ofinteresting.
Anyway, that's a, another deepwoods Bible belt, coal mining
town.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
I do think that it sounds like your family.
Um, and these, a lot of thesewere like your extended family.
Right?
Um, they were a little moreBackwoods than my family,
Speaker 3 (32:16):
Family and extended family actually.
I mean, there were a lot ofpeople in my family, believe it
or not are very educated, butthey still held certain beliefs,
especially with Christianity andSatan and Lucifer, it being an
actual physical, tangible thing.
But yeah.
Other than that, most of myfamily, except for the older
(32:37):
generations were prettyeducated.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
Yeah.
In my family, my brother was thefirst to go to college.
I mean, you know, my parentswere certainly very smart
people, but they hadn't, theyhadn't gone beyond high school
or anything like that.
So Huntington where I grew up,it was a, it was a town, you
know, like a city, small city.
So it was a little different,but it's still, still definitely
the Bible belt for sure.
(33:00):
But I love that story from yourbrother.
That's awesome.
Speaker 3 (33:02):
Yeah.
I never heard that before.
So I was really interested inhearing what he had to say.
That's really cool.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
And for once, yeah, maybe, maybe that time will
never come again.
So Frederick,
Speaker 3 (33:13):
Oh my God.
I'm get to savor the moment.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
And yes, I also read, and I'm not a video gamer, so
this doesn't mean a lot to me,but apparently the flatwoods
monster appears in several videogames, including the legend of
Zelda.
I have heard of that one andthen called fallout 76, which I
feel like I've heard about inseveral others.
So I thought that was kind ofcool.
And it's just, it's just areally, you know, it's part of
(33:37):
the folklore of the region atthis point, people seem to enjoy
telling the story.
I, as recently as 2019, I cameacross this article.
It was published in 2019, it'scalled the West Virginia monster
that crept into internationalpop culture.
It's by Katelyn tan.
And she talks about how therewas this local, I guess during
(33:57):
the time that all of thishappened, his name was Don lamb.
And he wrote a story about it,which reminds me of those old
ballads.
Right.
They would write and sing.
And this, this current musician,his name is Colby white and he's
out of Morgantown, WestVirginia.
He's actually set it to music.
And so on the West Virginiapublic radio site, you could
listen to it.
And it's a, it's a folk like afolk type song, which you know,
(34:19):
me and my folk music.
I loved it.
Yeah.
It's awesome.
So go listen to that.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
Put a couple of lesbians and some, some guitars.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
Oh.
And it's like, you got a maid.
It's like, what else do you needon Nirvana?
Not the band, but the spiritualstate of perfection.
So one verse from the song readsPhantom of flatwoods from moon
or from Mars, maybe from God,not from the stars.
Please tell us why you fly overour trees, the end of the world,
(34:49):
or an omen of peace.
I like it.
I can too.
And, and it goes on.
So I'm going to try to get intouch with this guy and see if
he'll let us use part of thesong in the sentence.
That would be amazing.
I might try to find him tomorrowactually.
Um, I'm not sure how I could getin touch with him.
Maybe Facebook.
He probably won't accept myfriend weirdo.
(35:10):
Um, but I'm going to give it myall who's this bitch.
He's like, what does she want?
Um,
Speaker 3 (35:16):
We can always stop Kim.
I'm sure that would make themfeel more comfortable.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
Maybe, you know, maybe he plays in some places
around Morgantown.
I actually have a friend who isfrom the Morgantown area and
she, she used to go clubbing andgo out to a lot of different, I
don't think focusing or hangingout in the clubs.
I don't know.
Maybe she knows something, butshe can get in touch with him
Speaker 3 (35:34):
Or there that I used to go to many years ago.
Oh my God.
This is so funny
Speaker 1 (35:38):
That you mentioned the gay bar.
Because when I was in college, Iwent with my friend.
Her name is Abby and we went toParis together.
So we started abroad the samesemester, but we were friends.
And so she took me home with herone weekend and we went to it,
wasn't a bar.
It was somebody's home.
And it was called the house ofopulence.
Speaker 3 (35:59):
Did it have a sign or that's just what they called it,
Speaker 1 (36:01):
Called it.
And it was like this gay house.
So, and there were a lot of likedrag Queens who stayed there.
It was really cool.
He never told me that before.
I kind of forgot about it, but Iwas like, we're going to the
house of opulence.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
It just seems like West Virginia is not the place
for a gay bar, but yeah, we usedto go a few times.
And do you remember what it wascalled?
I think it was like deer park orthe area was deer park.
Okay.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
A long way to go to a gay bar.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
Yeah.
Well, you'd make the trip.
You make the drive and make thetrip.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
Oh, so, so yeah, I'm going to see if we can maybe get
this song on, use it in ourepisode so people can hear it.
But going back to the articlewritten by Jesse, that article
about the atomic age.
So they wrote something and I'mjust going to quote here.
They said this and other UFOreports.
So the flatwoods monster andother UFO reports fed into some
of the cold war.
America's greatest fears,science run mad and impending
(37:01):
dooms day.
And there was a little bit ofserendipity today, which, you
know, I love those moments whenI was listening to that show
today about, you know, Sundayswith Dracula, the film
historian, the monster filmhistorian, David skull was
talking about how he got intomonsters as a boy, I think
probably back in the fifties.
And this was during, you know,the kind of the, I guess the
(37:22):
beginning or beginning of thecold war.
Does that sound right?
When did the cold war start?
I don't know.
Kind of like probably earlyfifties, but he said, you know,
I loved the monsters.
I loved Frankenstein and Draculaand Wolf man, but what I wasn't
afraid of them, like what I wasreally afraid of was nuclear
annihilation.
Like I was afraid of the bomb.
(37:42):
And so he said, and this is hisquote monster is we're a kind of
nuclear security blanket.
Like in other words, you couldsort of think about monsters and
be scared about not that he wasscared, but think about them.
And like they functioned as akind of metaphor for everything
that was scary in this cold war,America, the idea of the bomb
(38:02):
and the fragility of life onearth and everything.
So I thought that was superinteresting, especially because
it seemed like the other articleI mentioned was talking about
exactly the same thing.
And you know, if you think aboutlike, if you remember from the
eighties, you know, they'd havethe midnight movie.
I was always so excited aboutthose, like the horror movies
and the scifi movies.
(38:23):
Like every week we got the TVguide and I would look up to see
what would be,
Speaker 3 (38:26):
I would do that too.
And I would stay up with my dadand I would like scoot up close
to him cause I would be scaredand close my eyes, but I'm sure
a lot of those movies, exceptfor night of the living dead, I
would probably watch and thinkthey were history,
Speaker 1 (38:41):
But he's always looked really goofy.
I mean, it looked like somebodyhad built this like a styrofoam
ball and cut it in half and madea flying saucer.
But you know, it made me thinkabout a lot of these movies made
in the fifties.
They kind of were about thosecold war anxieties.
I think.
So.
I just, I just think that'sreally interesting.
Something I'd like to think moreabout.
(39:01):
It's just, yeah.
It's interesting stuff.
And you know, it makes you thinkabout the stuff that we think
about or that we find scary,whether it's vampires or Yeti,
which I'm not sure you find thatscary.
So which is something
Speaker 3 (39:16):
I'm fascinated by Yeti, but
Speaker 1 (39:17):
Like, what is that about?
Is it, is it about more thanjust the fact that like that's a
creepy thing?
Like, does it, is it a metaphorfor other things that we're
scared about in our lives
Speaker 3 (39:27):
Or underlying deep psychological disturbance?
Speaker 1 (39:30):
Exactly.
Yes.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (39:34):
Speak volumes about me.
I'm going,
Speaker 1 (39:37):
I think we both have appointments with our therapist
tomorrow.
Maybe you should bring that upin your session.
Speaker 3 (39:43):
Yeah.
And then I'll be committed.
Speaker 1 (39:44):
I'm going to bring up the fact that I've been like
shopping, like crazy onlinetoday.
I bought mid century modern deerfigurine on eBay that I did not
need.
Yeah.
What are you going to do withthat?
I'm going to put it on mymantle.
I have a new theme going.
It's like blue.
Green.
Okay.
Yeah, the deer's blue, green,the deer's kind of greenish, but
I've got like, I've got kind oflike a fifties ish vibe going.
(40:07):
I have a few new pieces that arelike from that, not time.
And the deer kind of fit in withit.
Speaker 3 (40:11):
Well, you can talk to your therapist about your Amazon
purchases and I can talk to mineabout buying boxes of alcohol
and having to leave it until myleave at my car and sneakers.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
Well, I don't think my husband knows about all of
the, all of the stuff I've beenbuying either.
So actually I'm wearing a shirtthat I bought that says you
gotta be kidding me.
Like come to, I now have thiswardrobe, like 10 gray t-shirts
that have various like cats andcat sayings on them.
And that's what
Speaker 3 (40:45):
You're going to be.
The crazy cat lady, my friend.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
I definitely am.
So I'm trying to think ifthere's anything else about the
story.
I think that's pretty much it,but yeah.
Great story.
Speaker 3 (40:55):
I never, yeah, I had heard of it, but I didn't know
anything about it.
So now I'm going to look up theillustration of what it looked
like.
I'm curious.
Tell me what you think about itagain.
I'm going to also check out andsee like when the whole UFO
craze began and to see what theearly descriptions were.
Speaker 1 (41:15):
That would be so interesting.
I'll try to look up some of thattoo.
And I hope we do more showsabout extra terrestrial type
stuff.
Cause it's, it's so scary.
I mean, at least to me, are youthe kind of person that gets
more excited about it?
Because I get more scared aboutit.
Like if, if people are cominghere from outer space, like I'm
going to die, like I'm soscared.
(41:36):
I get scared about it more sowhen I was younger, but now it's
just this burning curiosity thatI have.
And then it's like, if you wereto somehow get answers, you
might not, you know, wish youmight wish that you'd never
gotten those.
I remember being a kid and forsome reason I was really scared
of aliens.
And we had this dining roomtable with this, like
(41:59):
see-through lace tablecloth.
And I would, cause I spent a lotof time thinking, what am I
going to do if they come, wheream I going to hide?
So I was like that table, I'mgoing to get the tablecloth will
be the perfect camouflage.
You are a smart one.
I was smarter.
You couldn't get anything pastme.
Where are you going to hide nowunder, beneath, beneath my gosh.
(42:20):
No, that's too frightening.
Cause there could be somebodyunder there.
So I don't have anything undermy bed.
It's just space.
Yeah.
But someone could, that meanssomebody can fit underneath it
though.
That's the thing that's creepy.
Yeah.
Well this has been great.
I've had a really good time andI look forward to our next
episode and everybody else hashad time to, and I look forward
(42:45):
to the day where we can actuallypodcast to the same room where
there rather than having to doit remotely because there are
some issues, a little bit withsome drift, but it's really hard
to, to correct that when you're,when you're remote.
Yeah.
We can't see each other.
So you know how to talk overeach other.
It's it's because we wereliterally just going by what
(43:06):
we're hearing in our headphones.
So it's a challenge, but I thinkit's definitely helping to get
us through this quarantine andsocial distancing period.
And it's a fun way to spend timetogether and do something
creative.
So it's something to keep ourminds off of.
COVID exactly.
And that makes me wonder whatkind of stories are going to
come out of this COVID pandemic.
I mean, are people being moredrawn to the supernatural now
(43:27):
because of what we're goingthrough?
Because you know, there are likea lot of fears about mortality
right now.
I think people are just, youknow, they can't get out of bed.
That's how I think it's embodiedor they're they're compulsively
shopping or they're bringingalcohol in under the cover of
darkness.
Oh well.
(43:48):
And we will see you on our nextepisode
Speaker 4 (43:52):
One evening and flatwoods a mother and boys saw
a gray light and heard a greatnoise.
They ran to the Hilltop.
Didn't know what they feared.
It was there in the dark thatthe Phantom appeared.
Oh, Phantom of flatwoods fromMoonah from Mars, maybe from God
(44:17):
and not from the stars.
Please tell us why you fly auratrees, the end of the world or
no man of peace.
The size of the Phantom was asight to behold green eyes and a
red face to the story.
(44:38):
It was towed.
It floated in air with fingers.
Flame, it's gone with a hissjust as quick as it came fan I'm
a flag woods from moon or from aus maybe from God and not from
the stars.
(44:58):
Please tell us why the end ofthe world on no man of peace or
frightened, they started topray.
They were living in hopes ofanother new day.
There's no end to this story,except just to say, the spoiled
(45:22):
will go on for it's written thatWayne then on the flatwoods from
moon, from Mars, maybe from Godand not from the stars, at least
tell us why fly or the end ofthe world on old man of peace.
I'm Jen Sullivan and I'm Jen Lee.
And we'd like to welcome you tobeneath your bed, a podcast
where we drag out all thosefears that lurk beneath our beds
from the paranormal to truecrime, to the simply strange
along the way, we'll be drinkingcocktails and sharing stories
from our Appalachianupbringings.
Tonight, we'll share a tale ofsome high strangeness that
(00:21):
landed on a Hilltop in 1950s,West Virginia, terrifying local
residents and living on in locallore.
We want to give a special thanksto Colby white AKA captain
catfish for letting us use hissong.
Phantom of flatwoods during anultra tonight.
Thank you, Colby.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Jen, how are you?
I'm doing great.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Great.
How are you?
I'm doing well.
It's been a good day.
What have you been up to?
It's been a really good day today.
Got together with my family andhad some local cuisine.
And unless you're from thisarea, be completely disgusted by
it.
As popular in the Delaware,Maryland, Virginia area.
I had some steam crabs with lotsof old Bay.
I love old Bay, but you don'tlike the crabs.
(01:07):
I know you think it's barbaric.
Remember when we went out forcrabs together and you said it
looked like I was going to cry.
Yeah.
I thought you were just a littletoo.
I don't know hands-on for whereare you going to cry or you just
look that way?
I think I probably just lookedthat way.
I think you're a drunk thatnight.
It was just my glassy high drunklook.
I was drunk.
And remember, like, there wasthis really bad storm that came
(01:29):
through too.
And there were these tornadowarning.
There were some spouts that wewere seeing on the water, but we
didn't want to say anything toyou because I was so fragile.
I'm a delicate flower.
You would have been too drunk toget out of there.
Anyway, I wouldn't have knownwhat hit me.
Oh my gosh.
I had a good day too.
I, mine was not as, um,culinarily pleasant as yours,
but I sat out on my balcony thisafternoon and listened to the
(01:53):
Sundays with Dracula.
I don't know if you'd call it apodcast.
It's more of a, a web broadcastand it comes every Sunday.
We discussed a different chapteror they, they discuss a
different chapter of Dracula.
So this week it was chapter 16,which is where Lucy Western rock
.
She gets staked through theheart.
So it's like super graphic andkind of sexual in a certain way.
So they were all over that.
(02:14):
And there was this scholar.
Um, his name is David skull.
He's this film historian whospecializes in writing about
monster movies.
And he does a lot of horrorstuff.
So he was there.
He was really interesting.
It was interesting to hear fromhim.
So it was cool.
It was just like a mellow day.
So those people aren't likesuper intense.
No, in fact, on, on the, um,cause it was just the host and
(02:34):
then the two special guests whowere chatting.
So everybody else uses the, likethey were actually talking, but
the rest of us were just usingthe chat box on cause it's over
zoom.
And uh, you know, some peopleare really serious and have
these really intellectualcomments and other people were
like, Oh, he said the wordvoluptuous again.
Let's drink.
So cause Stoker uses the wordvoluptuous over and over to talk
about the female vampires.
(02:56):
I think I might laugh.
You know how I get, I nervous
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Laugh.
I think you probably would laughat some of it.
And honestly, some of it islaughable.
I mean, you know, and a lot ofthese scholars, they like to
sexualize everything.
So then a hundred percent Iwould laugh at it.
And when people take themselvestoo seriously, that makes me
crack up.
Sometimes I just can't stop.
It is funny.
Sometimes I worry.
Like I'm totally having anexpectation like that and it
(03:22):
worries me, but yeah, you're nota jackass about it.
There's this one guy on there.
And I really like him.
He actually teaches the Draculaclass, but he smokes a pipe.
And recently I was like, damn, Iwant to smoke.
Just like, why should men be theonly ones who get to like act
all scholarly and smoke a damnpipe.
I want to do it to you would beso sick.
I think I probably would.
(03:43):
I'd feel cool as hell.
If I smoked a pipe, smoke abowl.
Well, that's what we're doing onmy 50th birthday.
I'm not waiting until your 50thbirthday.
God damn it so well withoutfurther ado, I guess we should
get into our story.
So what are you having to drinktonight?
What are we drinking?
God, we are just, you're soobsessed with the substances I'm
(04:05):
having.
Um, I th there's not a title forit, but I did look at it.
It wasn't something where I justdumped a bunch of stuff on my
drink.
Like I do sometimes and getcarried away.
I saw it in a magazine.
I can't remember which one, butI picked up some little split
bottles of champagne tonight.
I love those.
Those are great.
And I spent$150 tonight on booze.
(04:27):
Did you really, what did you buybought some Quantro Lou carousel
.
I bought some more vodka causeI've been going through that and
then I bought some gasolines,um, rum, and then I bought, Oh
my God.
And then I bought the splitscause I'm like, you know,
there's so many times I want totry have a certain drink and
then I don't have this.
I don't have, it is veryfrustrating.
(04:48):
So then I'm having tosubstitute.
That is frustrating when you, Imean, it can be, you can lead to
interesting inventions too, butit's just fun watching your
booze accumulate.
We totally sound like drunks,but I went to the liquor store
on was that Friday, Friday, lateafternoon.
And I got some sham board andsome also some splits, those
things are so handy.
(05:09):
And then I got something else.
What was the other thing I can'tremember, but just, Oh, lemon
cello.
I've got some lemon cello, sothat's the best I'm running out
of room and most of it is stillstashed in my car.
So I think I'll bring it inlater on tonight when my wife is
in bed, because I don't want herto see me carrying the wonder to
(05:29):
know how much you bought.
I bought this whole box of, ofalcohol.
I don't think she's going tostart to think that I have a
problem.
Yeah, you don't.
I mean, as we were discussing, Ithink last night, I think you
said you grow into drinking.
Like we're not doing it to getdrunk where we enjoy the flavor.
Again.
I'm also drinking from adepression glass that the two of
(05:50):
us, we went antiquing and Ibought it and it's green and it
looks like it's glowing.
Well, that makes me think.
And I think I remember
Speaker 1 (05:58):
This glass.
I, I wonder if it's what theycall uranium glass.
That if you put it under a blacklight, it actually glows.
It looks, um, it's the word forit?
Like it Lorez fluorescent.
Yeah.
So you should get a littleblacklight and see, it might
actually be that uranium stuff.
It's cool.
Cause when you said that it'sgoing well, that actually that
like feeds into the story thatI'm about to tell perfectly.
(06:19):
You didn't tell me what you'rehaving.
Well, mine is not as exciting asyours, but it's a French 75.
You had mentioned that earlier.
I think a couple of weeks ago.
And I was like, God, that soundsreally good.
So yeah, it's great.
I love that taste of the gincombined with the champagne.
And then of course the freshlemon juice it is when I was
looking up the recipe in there,a bunch of different ways you
can make a French 75, I thinklike different variations.
(06:41):
But somebody had said, is this agirly drink?
And I'm thinking, well, that's arude thing to ask, but it's
actually named after a kind ofartillery from world war one.
And that's why it's calledFrench 75.
So because it'll knock you onyour ass.
That's right.
So hopefully I will not be on myass, but by the end of this
episode, we'll really,
Speaker 3 (06:58):
That's what they said about it.
I mean, that's why they namedit.
What they named it.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Did they really, I didn't know that.
I thought they were just tryingto, like, they had a love of
world war one or something.
I didn't realize it was thepower, the drink.
There's a lot of booze.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
I read.
That's what it said.
Whether or not that's true.
I'm not sure, but it'll get youthere.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Well good.
I, I don't want my secondactually, my husband is so
sweet.
We have these French doors andthey were closed and I held up
my glass and he came in and gotit and filled it up.
It's like, I wish I had thatkind of marriage.
I didn't have to sneak my boozein from my car.
It's a strong one.
I'm pretty, pretty lucky.
(07:39):
He's like a God, there's mydrunk wife on her podcast.
Again, let me fill up her glassso well with that being said,
um, we are going to jump intothe story of the flatwoods
monster.
And I think I've mentionedbefore in this podcast that I
grew up in West Virginia.
I went to college there too upin Bethany college, way up in
the mountains.
Yeah.
So anytime I come across a storyfrom West Virginia, it's kind of
(08:00):
near and dear to me.
I think if you think about likethe big cryptid stories in West
Virginia, most people thinkabout moth man.
And that's a really cool story.
So we'll talk about that.
I imagine in a later episode,but I came across this other
one, which I think I'd heard ofit's the flatwoods monster, but
I didn't really know anythingabout it.
So I thought, let me just dothis and find out some, some
(08:21):
more about it.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
I've heard about it too.
I've heard of it, but I've neverread anything about it.
So I'm excited for you to talkabout what it is that you've
learned.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
So I'll just get started.
So it's also known the flatwoodsmonster is also known as the
Braxton County monster in thePhantom of flatwoods.
And it's kind of cool becauseone of my mom's best friends
actually is from Braxton County.
So I asked my mom to ask her ifshe heard about this.
And she did say that growing up,you know, she heard stories like
she didn't know any of thepeople involved, but she'd heard
(08:51):
about it.
So anyway, flatwoods is thislittle teeny town in Braxton
County, which was in centralWest Virginia.
And if you can kind of go backin time, this is going to unfold
in the 1950s.
So we're going to go to theevening of September 12th, 1952,
it's around seven o'clock in theevening.
So it's getting dusky, but it'snot dark yet.
(09:11):
And you know, it's the, theweather is still really mild.
It's the first frost hasn't hityet.
So the kids are out playing andthey're these two brothers and
their, their buddy who are outplaying football and their names
are Edward and Fred may.
I think he went by Eddie.
So Eddie and Fred may and thentheir friend whose name is
Tommy.
So they're out playing footballand they see something bright
(09:33):
fly above them.
And it appears to fall on thisHilltop off in the distance,
which happened to belong.
This Hilltop was part of this,this farm they're kind of
freaked out.
So they run home to the, the twobrothers to their house and they
get their mom whose name isKathleen.
And then of course, as therewould be there more kids around.
(09:54):
So they had a couple more kidscome with them.
Um, one of their names is NeilNunley and I just mentioned his
name because he's going to comeup later in the story.
And then there's also a 17 yearold boy named Jean lemon.
And the reports I read said hewas a West Virginia national
guardsman, which seemed a littleodd to me.
Like, can you really be aguardsman at 17?
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Get married in West Virginia at like 13 or 12?
I mean, yeah, I don't know whatthe law, that's not a joke.
I mean, years ago you could dothat kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Sure.
When I was growing up that likewith parental permission, you
could get married at 14.
I mean, I hadn't even heldanybody's hand at the age of
Speaker 3 (10:32):
My aunt got married when she was 13.
Uh, when they lived in WestVirginia.
That's crazy.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Now, was that your aunt that wasn't your aunt who
later became a physician?
Was it?
Speaker 3 (10:43):
No, no.
This was my aunt.
That was not that my other auntwas in a lot of fun, but this
aunt was, uh, it was crazy kindof fun.
And she, I think I know whoyou're talking about.
Your dad's dad's sister, mydad's sister and she was
married.
She was married at least threetimes.
So the first one didn't workout.
When you get married at 13,
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Can you imagine getting married that young?
I just can't
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Even, I cannot imagine either.
I just, I don't even know.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Yeah, but it did happen.
My aunt Carolyn, she snuck awayand got married at 16 and she
was also married three times.
So I guess you get startedearly.
You just worked your way untilyou find that perfect person.
And I don't remember maybe, Hey,maybe they knew something that
we don't learn the ropesexactly.
Until you can eventually findsomebody who will bring you
another drink.
When you, when you wave yourclass in the air,
Speaker 3 (11:29):
You ever see that movie coal miner's daughter.
Of course.
It's one of my favorites, notme.
I'm Cici with sissy spaces,plain Loretta Lynn.
And she gets married.
How old was she?
She was really young.
She was 13.
And she on their wedding night,she didn't know what the heck
was was going on.
That was disturbing to me.
(11:49):
She's like, he's up on top of mesweating, like an old pig.
Do you remember that?
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Yeah.
Yeah.
That scene was actually, I dolove that movie, but that scene
is awful.
It's like a rape scene really?
Cause he's going and she's notliking it.
And I don't like that movie.
Well, you also don't like themovie now that might've
Speaker 3 (12:12):
Been the worst movie in history, although
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Jody was in it, I usually like
Speaker 3 (12:17):
Good Jody porn, but that was not the movie for that.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Well, I guess it's because Jodi came across as like
a special sort of like she wassort of off limits in that
movie.
Yeah.
Enough about that.
So anyway, going back to ourstory, cause we digress this
bunch of people.
Well, not a bunch, I guessthere's about seven or eight.
So they're the three boys, twomore boys, the national guards
guardsman.
Who's also a boy he's only 17.
And then Kathleen, who's themother of the two brothers.
(12:43):
So they all get together.
They form this little posse andthey say, you know, we're going
to go up on top of this Hill andsee what the heck is going on
over here.
So they climbed at the top ofthe Hill and as they get up
there, they see this pulsatingred light in lemon being like
the prepared boy scout that heis, he has this flashlight and
he aims it and he sees, and I'mquoting here, quote, a man like
(13:05):
figure with a round red face,surrounded by a pointed
headlight shape.
I read a few differentdescriptions of the creature and
whatever it was that they saw.
Um, another article I cameacross, which was really good,
it was called the flatwoodsmonster, a tale of the atomic
age.
And this was by someone named BJesse.
And it was published inmedium.com in 2019, according to
(13:28):
their report from their sources,the figure was about 15 feet
tall and had like a humanoidshape.
So it was kind of human, humanlooking, but it had this round
blood red face and there was novisible mouth in the eyes didn't
look like fully formed eyes,kind of like these I like
openings.
Um, the author said, they alsosaid that some witness described
(13:51):
a greenish orange lightemanating from the eyes, which
really sounds creepy.
Doesn't it?
It sounds like an alien Yetidoes.
And if you think about it, causethe Yeti is actually really
popular in West Virginia LOR toI'd say like the big four of the
West Virginia monsters is Yeti,big foot moth man, of course.
And then the flatwoods monsteranyway, also around the
(14:14):
creature's head was whatappeared to be appointed hood.
And the mother Kathleen, um,said that the figure look like
it was shining as if lit fromwithin.
So it was kind of a glowingthing happening.
She also described, and I'mgoing to quote here, cloth, like
folds on the body and quote, andthen she said it had clawed
hands.
So the cloth like folds, that'sstrange.
(14:35):
That's like a, is what a reallyunusual description is and
unusual description.
It struck me that way too.
And I'll talk more becauseskeptics grabbed on different
details and they debunk it indifferent ways or try to debunk
it.
And they, so they mentioned thatdetail later, we'll talk more
about it.
One member of the group, thekid, Neil Nunley, who I
mentioned, um, said that thefigure moved towards them and he
(14:57):
said, it didn't, it just moved.
It didn't walk.
So it didn't seem like it wastouching the ground.
It was more like it just glidedtowards them.
And then they, they alsoreported that the creature made
a hissing shrieking sound as itmoved towards them.
And at this point, lemon, youknow, the brave national
guardsman screamed and drops hisflashlight.
Like I totally feel the sky.
(15:18):
I would have been doing the samething and the group ran away and
they're pushing each other downall along the way.
They're throwing their friendskind of like I did when we went
in the haunted house right nowyou were frozen stiff.
And the people were, I feel likepeople were pushing me.
Well, the people, the peoplebehind us were getting pissed
(15:38):
off because you wouldn't move.
So I had to, and you know, theother group, people of the group
that were with us, they werekind of backing up too.
So you were getting pushed alittle bit, but I had to grab
you and drag you through therest of the haunted house.
Were you scared?
No, not really.
I think I just, I had to get youthrough it.
That helped a little bit.
Cause you were, you were morescared than I was, but they're
(16:00):
pretty realistic when they jumpout at you and stuff that's that
always gets you are, you cantotally imagine, you know, you
just put yourself in thesepeople's shoes and you see this
thing and you're like, what thehell is that?
You know, I can completelyimagine why they would've ran
back down the Hill.
They also, um, said that theysmelled this really funky smell.
They described it as, and thisis a quote, a pungent mist.
(16:23):
And they said it almost smelledsulfuric in, in that they
became, was so nasty that theybecame nauseated and their eyes
were burning from this, whateverit was that they were smelling.
There's something in, I thinkit's Florida and it's called the
skunk ape and it's similar, likea Yeti Bigfoot type thing.
And one of the descriptions isthat it smells like sulfur or it
(16:45):
might be, it could be anArkansas, but I've heard of
that.
And someone or multiple people,you know, in the course of my
reading saying that I've neverheard of that.
Wouldn't that be awful to besomething that was called a
skunky kid?
My French 75 is hitting me to bea skunk ape.
And like you stink, like thatwould just be awful, but maybe
(17:07):
they think it's nice to smelllike that.
I'm sure they think that theyspell it just fine.
Oh God.
All right.
So moving on, I had more to sayabout that, but I'll just be
quiet.
Um, I'll say real quick, I'vebeen watching the show called
pioneer quest.
It actually came out in 2000,but these two couples live as
(17:27):
pioneers in the old CanadianWest for a year.
And like they can't usedeodorant, brush their teeth,
take Babs.
It's crazy.
I can only imagine.
And apparently they have sexwith each other.
I mean, not like the twocouples, like not together, but
like the couples have sex andI'm like, I just don't know how
they do it.
I mean, I think couples would, Imean, if you have nothing to do,
like I would just be somortified getting back to the
(17:50):
story.
Other people had seen this weirdlight go across the sky and um,
a local sheriff and the deputyhad also, um, they had been
investigating reports ofpossibly a down to aircraft.
And so they were looking around,I think in the same vicinity,
but they said they didn't hearanything and they didn't smell
anything weird that these otherwitnesses reported, but news of
(18:10):
the incident traveled fast andbefore long, this tiny little
town was filling up withinvestigators and reporters.
And it's, it's interesting.
Cause the national pressservices rated this story of the
flatwoods monster.
It turned out to be the 11thmost, I guess, reported on and
read, read about story for theentire year.
It's about wild.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
Yeah.
I mean, you said that it was, ithappened in what, 1950,
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Right?
Yeah.
1952.
And so, you know, even sincethen, so at the time there was a
ton of interest about it.
And even since then, there'sbeen, you know, a lot of people
have been trying to figure outwhat really happened and
there've been skeptics who havetried to debunk it.
But anyway, in the aftermath ofthis incident, um, within a few
days, like I said, you know, thetown was just overrun with
(18:55):
reporters and investigators andit even attracted the attention
of the us air forces, projectblue book.
Now I haven't heard of thatbefore I was doing this
research.
Have you heard of it?
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Yeah.
I read quite a bit about ityears ago.
I was really interested in it,but I haven't read anything
recently.
So I'd have to refresh my memory.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
The little bit that I learned about it is that of
course it was part of the airforce and they investigate a UFO
sightings.
And the program ran from 1947 to1969.
And at the time it was secret,but declassified documents have
since revealed that theflatwoods incident was
investigated.
However, um, they determinedthat nothing, I guess, nothing
(19:36):
extra terrestrial was takingplace, that it was actually a
meteorite, you know, fallen fromthe sky
Speaker 3 (19:43):
With people that are the debunkers.
They really get on my nervessometimes because they can be
such dicks and you know, alwaysrunning around.
Yeah.
Always running around, trying todebunk everything.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
I wonder what the urge is to do that.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
I just, I think sometimes it's just arrogance.
I'm not sure.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Cause at the time there was this guy named grey
Barker.
He was an author and an UFOenthusiast.
So he wrote about UFO's.
So he came to the town and hestarted interviewing the
witnesses about a week after allof this went down and he later
published an article and hebased it largely on Neil Nunley,
who was one of the boys on hisaccount because he felt that he
(20:21):
was the most credible of thewitnesses.
A lot of people are, there are alot of reports that after this
happened, when they weretalking, you know, in the, in
the immediate aftermath of theciting that the, the group of
people were just completelybeside themselves, like they
couldn't speak in coherentsentences.
They weren't making any sense.
They were just, I mean, as youcan imagine, they were
(20:43):
completely freaked out.
So anyway, he, he wrote anarticle about this, which in
fate magazine and then in 1956,he also wrote about it in a book
among other topics in a bookthat was called, they knew too
much about flying saucers.
So I haven't been able to lay myhands on either of those things,
but I'd like to read them, youknow, just to get some of those
accounts as well,
Speaker 3 (21:04):
Because you just really have to jump through
hoops to even get access.
If you can get access to do someof these articles at all.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
And I think when you're under kind of a time
constraint trying to get thisstuff out so you can make a show
about it, it limits yousometimes to what you can get,
but people listening may want totry to find those things.
And at some point we may try tofind them too.
It's nice that there's moreresearch to be done.
But anyway, so about going backand telling him a little bit
about a half hour after thesighting on September 12th,
(21:32):
there was a newspaper guy, hisname was Aly Stewart.
I saw another source that calledhim steward, but I'm just going
to call them Stewart and hope.
That's right.
Um, he was the co editor of thelocal paper called the Braxton
Democrat.
He arrives on the scene and he'sone of the people who said, you
know, people are so terrified.
They're not even making sense,but Stewart and Eugene lemon,
(21:52):
who's the national guards guywho dropped this flashlight and
got the hell out of there.
They together.
And they're being really brave.
They returned to the site, butwhen they get there, there's
nothing.
Stuart goes back again thefollowing morning.
And he says that he D hediscovered some skid marks,
which were spaced about 10 feetapart.
And it looked like the grass hadbeen flattened.
(22:14):
So I'm just trying to think,like, what could that have been?
I mean, I don't think there wasa vehicle.
Sure.
There's the vehicle now?
That would be 10 feet
Speaker 3 (22:22):
Part.
Well, if it's like a UFO, Imean, isn't that something
that's kind of common for thatto the flattening of things,
right?
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So it could be that in aninterview with, with Barker, who
was the guy who wrote about the,the UFO's Kathleen, you know,
the mom, she told him that shehad also gone back to the site
the next day.
And I'm like, this lady is bravebecause I would not have been
doing that.
But she got there and she findsa gooey greasy substance on the
grass.
(22:50):
And some of it, I imagine it'sthe fifties she's wearing a
skirt, I'm guessing, or howstress on her clothes.
And, um,
Speaker 3 (23:02):
I'm just like what he , I mean, you're thinking of a
house dress or it never wouldhave even crossed my mind.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Well, she says she gets it on her clothes.
So I'm imagining like, you know,those little fifties, like
Shirtwaist dresses that theywore,
Speaker 3 (23:16):
Maybe it was some, I would say overalls.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
Hmm.
I think she was vacuuming in herhigh heels, in her shirt, waist
dress.
And then, and then she hopes itup the Hill.
Okay.
We'll go with that.
Maybe not the high heels though.
Maybe she puts on her nicelittle flats.
Yeah.
Maybe she puts on her husband'sboots or something.
So anyway, she goes up the Hilland she gets this goo like on
(23:41):
her dress and she tries to washit out and it won't come out.
Like she washes it several timesand she can't get the stain out.
So it seems like it's somethingfrom another world.
So she also told Barker.
And to me, this is veryinteresting.
She says that she was warned bygovernment officials not to give
out any information to anybodywhich kind of that, that creeps
me out.
Like what, what were they tryingto hide?
(24:02):
Why didn't they want her totalk?
Speaker 3 (24:04):
It seems to be a common theme, anything that is
other worldly or ITI or UFOrelated, you always hear that
people are, you know, we're worn.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
Yeah.
And I think there are, so thereare probably so many stories and
local legends around the countryabout very similar things, you
know, that happened.
It'd be interesting to put themall side by side and see what
are some of the overlaps commonthemes.
Um, but as I mentioned over theyears, you know, the skeptics
who you hate, they have saidthat the occurrence was most
likely due to a meteor that fellfrom the sky.
(24:36):
And in fact, on September 12thof 1952 immediate, or had been
observed across three States, soMaryland, PA, Pennsylvania, and
West Virginia, but that doesn'taccount for everything.
Right.
I mean, I've seen a actuallyI've seen a meteor driving back
from West Virginia to Maryland.
Really?
Actually this is a, I won't tellthe whole story, but I saw it
driving back a few days after mydad died and I was coming back
(24:58):
from the funeral and I was like,Oh my God, it's assigned from my
dad.
And then later maybe it was, youknow, he's done a lot.
Actually.
I feel like he sent a lot ofsigns around that time later, I
looked it up and apparentlypeople all along, I think the
East coast had seen it.
So I could look up and probablytell you what day that was.
It was in 2016.
So it was like January or earlyFebruary when I saw it.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
And it was probably a song for your dad.
I believe that.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
And I was alone, Brian and I were driving
separately.
Cause we, he had gone down afterme.
And so, you know, I was alone inthe car and I called him on my
phone.
I'm like, did you just see that?
And he's like, yeah, what wasthat?
It was really weird.
So I mean, they do look, I mean,they're very impressive things
to see, but it doesn't accountfor like this figure, this
hooded figure with the red eyes.
(25:43):
But other skeptics skeptics havesaid that the figure they saw
was probably a bar now that wasin a tree.
So they say the glowing eyes,the hissing, the clawed hands
and the cloth, like folds, theyexplain the cloth, like folds as
the foliage.
So like the foliage looked likethat.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
I don't buy that.
I mean, yeah.
I know that I get frustratedwith skeptics.
I'm a skeptic, but you can'tdismiss everything.
And to say that the folds werefoiling is that, I don't know.
I mean, if you think aboutBigfoot or Yeti, they have that
hair that's hanging down.
It's kind of drapes from theirarms.
(26:23):
And that's what it kind ofsounds like to me.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
Somebody, this was like a really hairy alien or
something.
Um, or, you know, in the way Ithink it was Kathleen who had,
had described it that way andshe didn't make it sound like it
was wearing clothes.
It wasn't like it was wearing a,a 1950s house dress.
It was more like, it was like,it was his body.
Right.
It's folded in and kind of saggyfolds and stuff.
So she didn't say it had hair oranything?
(26:47):
No.
Nobody described hair.
Okay.
So then Jen, it's not Yeti.
I know you want it to be, I knowyou are just longing male, Yeti
or Bigfoot
Speaker 3 (26:56):
For a good, yeah.
For a good Yeti.
You want to hear Yeti a hairyYeti woman?
No, I don't want that.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
So yeah.
So that's what they said.
And then in 2000, um, JoeNickell, who was part of the
committee for skeptical inquiryand other asshole, according to
him, he determined that it wassome combination of a meteor and
aircraft in and out.
All three
Speaker 3 (27:19):
Of those rolled into one.
I mean, that's,
Speaker 1 (27:22):
That's ridiculous.
Like there was a meteor and thenthere was an owl.
And then I think it's morelikely it's more likely to be an
alien.
All three of those thingsoccurring at once.
Yes.
Yes.
I think that your theory makesway more sense.
There was this other guy namedRyan helped to, um, he talks
about the nausea that thewitnesses reported.
(27:44):
And he said that this wasconsistent with hysteria and
overexertion.
So that got me thinking, like,I'm trying to think of a thing
the times when I've been reallyscared and I don't remember
being nauseous, you know, meeither.
And
Speaker 3 (27:56):
Whereas being nauseous, that is a symptom I
believe of radiation poisoning.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
Ooh, that's creepy.
And if this thing is kind ofglowing, you know, maybe it
maybe there is some, and thenyou think about that gooey
substance grass, just veryweird.
And I didn't come acrossanything that even addressed the
pungent smell.
So I don't know what that wasanyway.
So five days after the incident,Kathleen May who again, is the
mom of the boys just to keepeverybody straight here.
(28:22):
And then Stewart, who is theco-editor of the Braxton
Democrat, the two of them get ona plane and fly to New York.
That was probably a really bigdeal for them at the time,
especially.
And they appear on this show onCBS called we, the people.
Now I don't, I wonder if I askedmy mom or something, if she
would remember that show, I'venever heard of it.
But anyway, they're on the show.
(28:42):
And part of what they're doingon the show is they're having
Kathleen describe what she saw.
And then there's an artist who'smaking a sketch kind of like
they do with crime sketches.
And the result looked sooutlandish to people that they,
they started to say that thewhole thing was a hoax that this
couldn't possibly, this couldn'tpossibly be true.
So I went and looked up theimage, which you can do if you
(29:03):
just type in, um, could havebeen, uh, it could, it could
have been a really bad artist.
Well, it could've been, youknow, and if you look at the
picture, it looks stylized in away that like, it looks
mid-century modern, it lookslike it has a fifties aesthetic
to it.
So that's kind of interesting,but it looks almost like a
candle.
Like its head looks like there'sthis big flame around its head.
(29:25):
It's kind of cool looking, butyou know, it does look strange,
but I mean, what picture of analien doesn't look strange?
Strange people started kind ofgiving them hell about that.
And I didn't, I wasn't able tofind out any information about
this, but maybe wonder whathappened to Kathleen and some of
these other, I mean, probablythe kids were okay.
Cause they were, they were justkids, but I'm thinking like
(29:45):
Kathleen and maybe Eugene, thenational guardsman, like, did
people talk about them?
Did they, you know, did they actlike they were looking for
attention?
Um, I just wondered what theirlives were like in the aftermath
of that.
Speaker 3 (29:59):
Yeah.
Whether or not they wereostracized or if it conflicted
with Christian belief, if it's a, it's kind of the Bible.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
Oh, totally.
So it very well may have.
And I think that would be, thatwould be a fascinating angle,
you know, either to write aboutor to do some more research
into, but whatever happened withthem, um, over the years, the
little town of flatwoods hasreally done its best to
capitalize on this story.
So they now have a museumdedicated to the flatwoods
(30:30):
monster it's in Sutton, which isreally close to flatwoods.
Also tiny little town
Speaker 3 (30:36):
It's in the Piggly wiggly.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
It is.
Yeah.
It's actually in an old pharmacyof all things, which maybe,
maybe it was a Piggly wiggly.
Speaker 3 (30:43):
I don't know the pig is what we called it.
The pig.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
Pig.
That's what he's saying.
I didn't have a Piggly wiggly.
We had a trade.
Well, I went there every weekwith my mom and dad.
It was like this big outing.
And I was so proud when like ourshopping cart would be like
filled to overflowing withgroceries.
Like I felt like we were so welloff, even though we weren't, but
it was just exciting.
Like get all these groups.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
I kind of feel like maybe my family was more
Backwoods than your family.
Yeah.
My, my brother was telling metonight an interesting story
that I didn't know our uncle,um, no, our great uncle had a
moonshine still behind hishouse.
I mean up the, you know, in thewoods, back in the holler and he
would take my brother and mybrother.
(31:27):
Yeah.
And my brother's like, he wouldput me to work cause I would
have to lift like these heavybags of mash and put it in and
it was a copper still.
And he said that our great unclewould send him back home when he
was getting ready to fire it upbecause you can have all the
ingredients or what you need formoonshine.
But once you light it, that'swhen it becomes illegal.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
I never knew that.
That's fascinating.
I wonder if it was dangerous tolight it too.
Did they ever catch on fire?
Speaker 3 (31:54):
I think not that I ever heard because my
grandfather had one too, butI've never heard that before,
but yeah, it was just kind ofinteresting.
Anyway, that's a, another deepwoods Bible belt, coal mining
town.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
I do think that it sounds like your family.
Um, and these, a lot of thesewere like your extended family.
Right?
Um, they were a little moreBackwoods than my family,
Speaker 3 (32:16):
Family and extended family actually.
I mean, there were a lot ofpeople in my family, believe it
or not are very educated, butthey still held certain beliefs,
especially with Christianity andSatan and Lucifer, it being an
actual physical, tangible thing.
But yeah.
Other than that, most of myfamily, except for the older
(32:37):
generations were prettyeducated.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
Yeah.
In my family, my brother was thefirst to go to college.
I mean, you know, my parentswere certainly very smart
people, but they hadn't, theyhadn't gone beyond high school
or anything like that.
So Huntington where I grew up,it was a, it was a town, you
know, like a city, small city.
So it was a little different,but it's still, still definitely
the Bible belt for sure.
(33:00):
But I love that story from yourbrother.
That's awesome.
Speaker 3 (33:02):
Yeah.
I never heard that before.
So I was really interested inhearing what he had to say.
That's really cool.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
And for once, yeah, maybe, maybe that time will
never come again.
So Frederick,
Speaker 3 (33:13):
Oh my God.
I'm get to savor the moment.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
And yes, I also read, and I'm not a video gamer, so
this doesn't mean a lot to me,but apparently the flatwoods
monster appears in several videogames, including the legend of
Zelda.
I have heard of that one andthen called fallout 76, which I
feel like I've heard about inseveral others.
So I thought that was kind ofcool.
And it's just, it's just areally, you know, it's part of
(33:37):
the folklore of the region atthis point, people seem to enjoy
telling the story.
I, as recently as 2019, I cameacross this article.
It was published in 2019, it'scalled the West Virginia monster
that crept into internationalpop culture.
It's by Katelyn tan.
And she talks about how therewas this local, I guess during
(33:57):
the time that all of thishappened, his name was Don lamb.
And he wrote a story about it,which reminds me of those old
ballads.
Right.
They would write and sing.
And this, this current musician,his name is Colby white and he's
out of Morgantown, WestVirginia.
He's actually set it to music.
And so on the West Virginiapublic radio site, you could
listen to it.
And it's a, it's a folk like afolk type song, which you know,
(34:19):
me and my folk music.
I loved it.
Yeah.
It's awesome.
So go listen to that.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
Put a couple of lesbians and some, some guitars.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
Oh.
And it's like, you got a maid.
It's like, what else do you needon Nirvana?
Not the band, but the spiritualstate of perfection.
So one verse from the song readsPhantom of flatwoods from moon
or from Mars, maybe from God,not from the stars.
Please tell us why you fly overour trees, the end of the world,
(34:49):
or an omen of peace.
I like it.
I can too.
And, and it goes on.
So I'm going to try to get intouch with this guy and see if
he'll let us use part of thesong in the sentence.
That would be amazing.
I might try to find him tomorrowactually.
Um, I'm not sure how I could getin touch with him.
Maybe Facebook.
He probably won't accept myfriend weirdo.
(35:10):
Um, but I'm going to give it myall who's this bitch.
He's like, what does she want?
Um,
Speaker 3 (35:16):
We can always stop Kim.
I'm sure that would make themfeel more comfortable.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
Maybe, you know, maybe he plays in some places
around Morgantown.
I actually have a friend who isfrom the Morgantown area and
she, she used to go clubbing andgo out to a lot of different, I
don't think focusing or hangingout in the clubs.
I don't know.
Maybe she knows something, butshe can get in touch with him
Speaker 3 (35:34):
Or there that I used to go to many years ago.
Oh my God.
This is so funny
Speaker 1 (35:38):
That you mentioned the gay bar.
Because when I was in college, Iwent with my friend.
Her name is Abby and we went toParis together.
So we started abroad the samesemester, but we were friends.
And so she took me home with herone weekend and we went to it,
wasn't a bar.
It was somebody's home.
And it was called the house ofopulence.
Speaker 3 (35:59):
Did it have a sign or that's just what they called it,
Speaker 1 (36:01):
Called it.
And it was like this gay house.
So, and there were a lot of likedrag Queens who stayed there.
It was really cool.
He never told me that before.
I kind of forgot about it, but Iwas like, we're going to the
house of opulence.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
It just seems like West Virginia is not the place
for a gay bar, but yeah, we usedto go a few times.
And do you remember what it wascalled?
I think it was like deer park orthe area was deer park.
Okay.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
A long way to go to a gay bar.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
Yeah.
Well, you'd make the trip.
You make the drive and make thetrip.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
Oh, so, so yeah, I'm going to see if we can maybe get
this song on, use it in ourepisode so people can hear it.
But going back to the articlewritten by Jesse, that article
about the atomic age.
So they wrote something and I'mjust going to quote here.
They said this and other UFOreports.
So the flatwoods monster andother UFO reports fed into some
of the cold war.
America's greatest fears,science run mad and impending
(37:01):
dooms day.
And there was a little bit ofserendipity today, which, you
know, I love those moments whenI was listening to that show
today about, you know, Sundayswith Dracula, the film
historian, the monster filmhistorian, David skull was
talking about how he got intomonsters as a boy, I think
probably back in the fifties.
And this was during, you know,the kind of the, I guess the
(37:22):
beginning or beginning of thecold war.
Does that sound right?
When did the cold war start?
I don't know.
Kind of like probably earlyfifties, but he said, you know,
I loved the monsters.
I loved Frankenstein and Draculaand Wolf man, but what I wasn't
afraid of them, like what I wasreally afraid of was nuclear
annihilation.
Like I was afraid of the bomb.
(37:42):
And so he said, and this is hisquote monster is we're a kind of
nuclear security blanket.
Like in other words, you couldsort of think about monsters and
be scared about not that he wasscared, but think about them.
And like they functioned as akind of metaphor for everything
that was scary in this cold war,America, the idea of the bomb
(38:02):
and the fragility of life onearth and everything.
So I thought that was superinteresting, especially because
it seemed like the other articleI mentioned was talking about
exactly the same thing.
And you know, if you think aboutlike, if you remember from the
eighties, you know, they'd havethe midnight movie.
I was always so excited aboutthose, like the horror movies
and the scifi movies.
(38:23):
Like every week we got the TVguide and I would look up to see
what would be,
Speaker 3 (38:26):
I would do that too.
And I would stay up with my dadand I would like scoot up close
to him cause I would be scaredand close my eyes, but I'm sure
a lot of those movies, exceptfor night of the living dead, I
would probably watch and thinkthey were history,
Speaker 1 (38:41):
But he's always looked really goofy.
I mean, it looked like somebodyhad built this like a styrofoam
ball and cut it in half and madea flying saucer.
But you know, it made me thinkabout a lot of these movies made
in the fifties.
They kind of were about thosecold war anxieties.
I think.
So.
I just, I just think that'sreally interesting.
Something I'd like to think moreabout.
(39:01):
It's just, yeah.
It's interesting stuff.
And you know, it makes you thinkabout the stuff that we think
about or that we find scary,whether it's vampires or Yeti,
which I'm not sure you find thatscary.
So which is something
Speaker 3 (39:16):
I'm fascinated by Yeti, but
Speaker 1 (39:17):
Like, what is that about?
Is it, is it about more thanjust the fact that like that's a
creepy thing?
Like, does it, is it a metaphorfor other things that we're
scared about in our lives
Speaker 3 (39:27):
Or underlying deep psychological disturbance?
Speaker 1 (39:30):
Exactly.
Yes.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (39:34):
Speak volumes about me.
I'm going,
Speaker 1 (39:37):
I think we both have appointments with our therapist
tomorrow.
Maybe you should bring that upin your session.
Speaker 3 (39:43):
Yeah.
And then I'll be committed.
Speaker 1 (39:44):
I'm going to bring up the fact that I've been like
shopping, like crazy onlinetoday.
I bought mid century modern deerfigurine on eBay that I did not
need.
Yeah.
What are you going to do withthat?
I'm going to put it on mymantle.
I have a new theme going.
It's like blue.
Green.
Okay.
Yeah, the deer's blue, green,the deer's kind of greenish, but
I've got like, I've got kind oflike a fifties ish vibe going.
(40:07):
I have a few new pieces that arelike from that, not time.
And the deer kind of fit in withit.
Speaker 3 (40:11):
Well, you can talk to your therapist about your Amazon
purchases and I can talk to mineabout buying boxes of alcohol
and having to leave it until myleave at my car and sneakers.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
Well, I don't think my husband knows about all of
the, all of the stuff I've beenbuying either.
So actually I'm wearing a shirtthat I bought that says you
gotta be kidding me.
Like come to, I now have thiswardrobe, like 10 gray t-shirts
that have various like cats andcat sayings on them.
And that's what
Speaker 3 (40:45):
You're going to be.
The crazy cat lady, my friend.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
I definitely am.
So I'm trying to think ifthere's anything else about the
story.
I think that's pretty much it,but yeah.
Great story.
Speaker 3 (40:55):
I never, yeah, I had heard of it, but I didn't know
anything about it.
So now I'm going to look up theillustration of what it looked
like.
I'm curious.
Tell me what you think about itagain.
I'm going to also check out andsee like when the whole UFO
craze began and to see what theearly descriptions were.
Speaker 1 (41:15):
That would be so interesting.
I'll try to look up some of thattoo.
And I hope we do more showsabout extra terrestrial type
stuff.
Cause it's, it's so scary.
I mean, at least to me, are youthe kind of person that gets
more excited about it?
Because I get more scared aboutit.
Like if, if people are cominghere from outer space, like I'm
going to die, like I'm soscared.
(41:36):
I get scared about it more sowhen I was younger, but now it's
just this burning curiosity thatI have.
And then it's like, if you wereto somehow get answers, you
might not, you know, wish youmight wish that you'd never
gotten those.
I remember being a kid and forsome reason I was really scared
of aliens.
And we had this dining roomtable with this, like
(41:59):
see-through lace tablecloth.
And I would, cause I spent a lotof time thinking, what am I
going to do if they come, wheream I going to hide?
So I was like that table, I'mgoing to get the tablecloth will
be the perfect camouflage.
You are a smart one.
I was smarter.
You couldn't get anything pastme.
Where are you going to hide nowunder, beneath, beneath my gosh.
(42:20):
No, that's too frightening.
Cause there could be somebodyunder there.
So I don't have anything undermy bed.
It's just space.
Yeah.
But someone could, that meanssomebody can fit underneath it
though.
That's the thing that's creepy.
Yeah.
Well this has been great.
I've had a really good time andI look forward to our next
episode and everybody else hashad time to, and I look forward
(42:45):
to the day where we can actuallypodcast to the same room where
there rather than having to doit remotely because there are
some issues, a little bit withsome drift, but it's really hard
to, to correct that when you're,when you're remote.
Yeah.
We can't see each other.
So you know how to talk overeach other.
It's it's because we wereliterally just going by what
(43:06):
we're hearing in our headphones.
So it's a challenge, but I thinkit's definitely helping to get
us through this quarantine andsocial distancing period.
And it's a fun way to spend timetogether and do something
creative.
So it's something to keep ourminds off of.
COVID exactly.
And that makes me wonder whatkind of stories are going to
come out of this COVID pandemic.
I mean, are people being moredrawn to the supernatural now
(43:27):
because of what we're goingthrough?
Because you know, there are likea lot of fears about mortality
right now.
I think people are just, youknow, they can't get out of bed.
That's how I think it's embodiedor they're they're compulsively
shopping or they're bringingalcohol in under the cover of
darkness.
Oh well.
(43:48):
And we will see you on our nextepisode
Speaker 4 (43:52):
One evening and flatwoods a mother and boys saw
a gray light and heard a greatnoise.
They ran to the Hilltop.
Didn't know what they feared.
It was there in the dark thatthe Phantom appeared.
Oh, Phantom of flatwoods fromMoonah from Mars, maybe from God
(44:17):
and not from the stars.
Please tell us why you fly auratrees, the end of the world or
no man of peace.
The size of the Phantom was asight to behold green eyes and a
red face to the story.
(44:38):
It was towed.
It floated in air with fingers.
Flame, it's gone with a hissjust as quick as it came fan I'm
a flag woods from moon or from aus maybe from God and not from
the stars.
(44:58):
Please tell us why the end ofthe world on no man of peace or
frightened, they started topray.
They were living in hopes ofanother new day.
There's no end to this story,except just to say, the spoiled
(45:22):
will go on for it's written thatWayne then on the flatwoods from
moon, from Mars, maybe from Godand not from the stars, at least
tell us why fly or the end ofthe world on old man of peace.
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