When A Fearsome Monster Terrified 1950s America, The U.S. Air Force Reached A Startling Conclusion

It’s 1952, and three kids are playing in their schoolyard. Suddenly, a bright light zooms through the evening sky. That gets the boys attention for sure – especially when the “thing” crashes into the ground nearby. Inquisitive as children are, they’ve got to find out what’s just flown over their heads. But first, the children gather one of their moms: Kathleen May. 

So, now the little gang is composed of Tommy Hyer, brothers Ed and Freddie May plus the latter boys’ mother. According to Medium writer B Jessee, three other young lads joined the group, one of whom brought his pooch Rickie along as well. The search party was now eight strong – counting the dog. Yet what they’re about to find will frighten the wits out of them.

Unfortunately, with so many sets of eyes, accounts of what the boys and Kathleen saw that night were confused. And they have only become more so over the decades. Though one thing we do know is this: what the children witnessed terrified them so much that they quickly skedaddled out of there. Jessee notes that the group found the dog later – hiding under a porch and shivering with fear.

The story of what they’d seen in their little West Virginian village of Flatwoods somehow got into the mainstream media after local reports. Yep, the being became a national sensation overnight! Whatever it was they’d seen now had a name; the Flatwoods Monster. Though whether this apparition was an Earthly manifestation or something more sinister from outer space was a question left hanging in the air.

In any case, the U.S. government took it seriously enough to instigate an investigation into the by-now notorious incident. The U.S. Air Force put investigators from Project Blue Book on the case, according to declassified documents. This organization was a secretive government probe into the UFO reports which had proliferated around the U.S. in the early 1950s.