The Flatwoods Monster: West Virginia Royalty

Key facts

• Date of sighting: September 12, 1952

• Location: Flatwoods, Braxton County, West Virginia, USA

• Aliases: Braxton County Monster, “Braxie,” Phantom of Flatwoods

• Appearance: 7–10 ft tall, glowing red face, spade-shaped hood, metallic “skirt”

• Modern legacy: Subject of festivals, a museum, and pop-culture portrayals in the Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia lurks one of the strangest cryptids ever reported: the Flatwoods Monster.

The legend began on September 12, 1952, when several witnesses near the small town of Flatwoods reported seeing a fiery object streak across the sky and crash on a nearby hillside. When they went to investigate, they claimed to encounter a towering creature with glowing eyes, a spade-shaped head, and a metallic-looking body surrounded by a strange mist and sulfur-like odor.

Descriptions vary, but most accounts portray the creature as 7–10 feet tall, with a red face, glowing orange or green eyes, and a dark skirt-like lower body unlike anything witnesses had ever seen before.

Skeptics have suggested the sighting may have been a combination of a meteor, an owl, shadows, and frightened imaginations. Yet more than 70 years later, the mystery remains one of Appalachia's most famous encounters with the unknown.

Today, the Flatwoods Monster, affectionately nicknamed "Braxxie" by locals, has become a beloved part of Appalachian folklore, inspiring museums, festivals, artwork, and countless paranormal investigations.