It looked worse than Frankenstein. It couldn’t have been human. Kathleen May.

The smell was like oil on hot metal. You know, that greasy, sweet, slippery odor, slightly burnt and perhaps even appealing. But then more and more of it seemed to be saturating the molecules all around. It filled your nose. It permeated your pores. It made you sick to your stomach. It wouldn’t go away. The creepy feeling was close, something beyond the knowing, beyond understanding.

The dog was sick; the boys ran down the hill. In two days, the dog was dead, and no one thereabouts would ever be the same.

It all began innocently enough. The autumn air clued in the kids to what they might want to do that day. How about a friendly pickup game of football, they asked each other? The date was September 12, 1952. The place, Flatwoods, West Virginia.

The above paragraphs are the beginning to Chapter 1, “Flatwoods,” in my 2002 book, Mothman and Other Curious Encounters.

On that crisp fall day in Flatwoods, Kathleen May (pictured), Eugene Lemon, 17, Neal Nunley, 14, Eddie May, 13, Teddie May, 14, Ronald Shaver, 10, Teddie Neal, 10, Tommy Hyer, 10, and Lemon’s big old dog, climbed to the top of a hill and saw a “monster.”

The huge dark figure with glowing eyes and a head “like the ace of spades” blocked their path. About 12 feet high (4 meters), the figure had a reddish face and seemed to “glide” (as cryptozoologist Ivan T. Sanderson wrote) toward the eyewitnesses, who fled in terror.

Sanderson traveled to Flatwoods, investigated the case and came back with details not found in media reports. He found the thing was said to be over six feet tall to the monster’s waist, and as opposed to “red” or “orange” eyes as noted in news stories, the witnesses all agreed the eyes’ illumination seemed to be pale blue in color.

As I quote John Keel in my book, “Eugene Lemon did the rational thing. He fainted dead away…Lemon’s dog was stretched out at the foot of the hill, vomiting.”

Grabbing Lemon’s limp body, the group instantly started doing what the dog had done moments earlier. They all turned tail and started running down the hill as fast as they could. Little Tommy Hyer would later tell Ivan T. Sanderson that he crawled under the fence to get away, but that Kathleen May cleared the six foot gate without opening it.

There are many theories for what the thing may have been, and I go into those in my book, from cryptozoological to zoological, from alien to the skeptical. The reason I am interested in the sighting is because too often stories like it get filed too quickly in some folder as “ufological,” are left there forgetfully, and are never re-reviewed to see if there are any cryptozoological elements to them.

Sanderson went to West Virginia to see if the sighting had any zoological basis, and I thought there’s no reason, on this anniversary date, that you, the readers of Cryptomundo, might not wish to re-visit the essence of this event.

As illustrated here, souvenirs in recent years have begun to become available in West Virginia that depict the Flatwoods Monster.

The old Bailey Fisher property still exists largely untouched, just as it did back over 50 years ago in the little town of Flatwoods, off the big interstate next to Sutton. You will pass a huge signpost that acknowledges the event today at the town limits, reading: “Flatwoods, Home of the Green Monster.” The hill where Kathleen May and the young men saw the Monster is easy to find behind a used car lot, but respect that this is private land, posted with no trespassing signs. You can see it from a distance, from the public road, through the trees.

In 2002, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary, Flatwoods had a celebration of the sighting with a local “festival,” but I don’t believe they are having one this year.

Instead, I highly recommend you journey down the road, to Point Pleasant on the weekend of September 16-17, 2006, and attend the 5th Annual Mothman Festival .