Beneath Your Bed Podcast
Beneath Your Bed Podcast
Flatwoods Monster
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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I'm Jen Sullivan and I'm Jen Lee. And we'd like to welcome you to beneath your bed, a podcast where we drag out all those fears that lurk beneath our beds from the paranormal to true crime, to the simply strange along the way, we'll be drinking cocktails and sharing stories from our Appalachian upbringings. Tonight, we'll share a tale of some high strangeness that landed on a Hilltop in 1950s, West Virginia, terrifying local residents and living on in local lore. We want to give a special thanks to Colby white AKA captain catfish for letting us use his song. Phantom of flatwoods during an ultra tonight. Thank you, Colby.
Speaker 2:Jen, how are you? I'm doing great.
Speaker 1: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 to day. Got together with my family and had some local cuisine. And unless you're from this area, be completely disgusted by it. As popular in the Delaware, Maryland, Virginia area. I had some steam crabs with lots of old Bay. I love old Bay, but you don't like the crabs. I know you think it's barbaric. Remember when we went out for crabs together and you said it looked like I was going to cry. Yeah. I thought you were just a little too. I don't know hands-on for where are you going to cry or you just look that way? I think I probably just looked that way. I think you're a drunk that night. It was just my glassy high drunk look. I was drunk. And remember, like, there was this really bad storm that came through too. And there were these tornado warning. There were some spouts that we were seeing on the water, but we didn't want to say anything to you because I was so fragile. I'm a delicate flower. You would have been too drunk to get out of there. Anyway, I wouldn't have known what 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 this afternoon and listened to the Sundays with Dracula. I don't know if you'd call it a podcast. It's more of a, a web broadcast and it comes every Sunday. We discussed a different chapter or 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 the heart. So it's like super graphic and kind of sexual in a certain way. So they were all over that. And there was this scholar. Um, his name is David skull. He's this film historian who specializes in writing about monster movies. And he does a lot of horror stuff. So he was there. He was really interesting. It was interesting to hear from him. So it was cool. It was just like a mellow day. So those people aren't like super intense. No, in fact, on, on the, um, cause it was just the host and then the two special guests who were chatting. So everybody else uses the, like they were actually talking, but the rest of us were just using the chat box on cause it's over zoom. And uh, you know, some people are really serious and have these really intellectual comments and other people were like, Oh, he said the word voluptuous again. Let's drink. So cause Stoker uses the word voluptuous over and over to talk about the female vampires. I think I might laugh. You know how I get, I nervous
Speaker 3:Laugh. I think you probably would laugh at some of it. And honestly, some of it is laughable. I mean, you know, and a lot of these scholars, they like to sexualize everything. So then a hundred percent I would laugh at it. And when people take themselves too seriously, that makes me crack up. Sometimes I just can't stop. It is funny. Sometimes I worry. Like I'm totally having an expectation like that and it worries me, but yeah, you're not a jackass about it. There's this one guy on there. And I really like him. He actually teaches the Dracula class, but he smokes a pipe. And recently I was like, damn, I want to smoke. Just like, why should men be the only ones who get to like act all scholarly and smoke a damn pipe. I want to do it to you would be so sick. I think I probably would. I'd feel cool as hell. If I smoked a pipe, smoke a bowl. Well, that's what we're doing on my 50th birthday. I'm not waiting until your 50th birthday. God damn it so well without further ado, I guess we should get into our story. So what are you having to drink tonight? What are we drinking? God, we are just, you're so obsessed with the substances I'm having. Um, I th there's not a title for it, but I did look at it. It wasn't something where I just dumped a bunch of stuff on my drink. Like I do sometimes and get carried away. I saw it in a magazine. I can't remember which one, but I picked up some little split bottles of champagne tonight. I love those. Those are great. And I spent$150 tonight on booze. Did you really, what did you buy bought some Quantro Lou carousel. I bought some more vodka cause I'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 splits cause I'm like, you know, there's so many times I want to try have a certain drink and then I don't have this. I don't have, it is very frustrating. So then I'm having to substitute. That is frustrating when you, I mean, it can be, you can lead to interesting inventions too, but it's just fun watching your booze accumulate. We totally sound like drunks, but I went to the liquor store on was that Friday, Friday, late afternoon. And I got some sham board and some also some splits, those things are so handy. And then I got something else. What was the other thing I can't remember, but just, Oh, lemon cello. I've got some lemon cello, so that's the best I'm running out of room and most of it is still stashed in my car. So I think I'll bring it in later on tonight when my wife is in bed, because I don't want her to see me carrying the wonder to know how much you bought. I bought this whole box of, of alcohol. I don't think she's going to start to think that I have a problem. Yeah, you don't. I mean, as we were discussing, I think last night, I think you said you grow into drinking. Like we're not doing it to get drunk where we enjoy the flavor. Again. I'm also drinking from a depression glass that the two of us, we went antiquing and I bought it and it's green and it looks like it's glowing. Well, that makes me think. And I think I remember
Speaker 1:This glass. I, I wonder if it's what they call uranium glass. That if you put it under a black light, it actually glows. It looks, um, it's the word for it? Like it Lorez fluorescent. Yeah. So you should get a little blacklight and see, it might actually be that uranium stuff. It's cool. Cause when you said that it's going well, that actually that like feeds into the story that I'm about to tell perfectly. You didn't tell me what you're having. Well, mine is not as exciting as yours, but it's a French 75. You had mentioned that earlier. I think a couple of weeks ago. And I was like, God, that sounds really good. So yeah, it's great. I love that taste of the gin combined with the champagne. And then of course the fresh lemon juice it is when I was looking up the recipe in there, a bunch of different ways you can make a French 75, I think like different variations. But somebody had said, is this a girly drink? And I'm thinking, well, that's a rude thing to ask, but it's actually named after a kind of artillery from world war one. And that's why it's called French 75. So because it'll knock you on your ass. That's right. So hopefully I will not be on my ass, but by the end of this episode, we'll really,
Speaker 3:That's what they said about it. I mean, that's why they named it. What they named it.
Speaker 1:Did they really, I didn't know that. I thought they were just trying to, like, they had a love of world war one or something. I didn't realize it was the power, the drink. There's a lot of booze.
Speaker 3:I read. That's what it said. Whether or not that's true. I'm not sure, but it'll get you there. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well good. I, I don't want my second actually, my husband is so sweet. We have these French doors and they were closed and I held up my glass and he came in and got it and filled it up. It's like, I wish I had that kind of marriage. I didn't have to sneak my booze in from my car. It's a strong one. I'm pretty, pretty lucky. He's like a God, there's my drunk wife on her podcast. Again, let me fill up her glass so well with that being said, um, we are going to jump into the story of the flatwoods monster. And I think I've mentioned before in this podcast that I grew up in West Virginia. I went to college there too up in Bethany college, way up in the mountains. Yeah. So anytime I come across a story from West Virginia, it's kind of near and dear to me. I think if you think about like the big cryptid stories in West Virginia, most people think about 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 of it's the flatwoods monster, but I didn't really know anything about it. So I thought, let me just do this and find out some, some more about it.
Speaker 3:I've heard about it too. I've heard of it, but I've never read anything about it. So I'm excited for you to talk about what it is that you've learned.
Speaker 1:So I'll just get started. So it's also known the flatwoods monster is also known as the Braxton County monster in the Phantom of flatwoods. And it's kind of cool because one of my mom's best friends actually is from Braxton County. So I asked my mom to ask her if she heard about this. And she did say that growing up, you know, she heard stories like she didn't know any of the people involved, but she'd heard about it. So anyway, flatwoods is this little teeny town in Braxton County, which was in central West Virginia. And if you can kind of go back in time, this is going to unfold in the 1950s. So we're going to go to the evening of September 12th, 1952, it's around seven o'clock in the evening. So it's getting dusky, but it's not dark yet. And you know, it's the, the weather is still really mild. It's the first frost hasn't hit yet. So the kids are out playing and they're these two brothers and their, their buddy who are out playing football and their names are Edward and Fred may. I think he went by Eddie. So Eddie and Fred may and then their friend whose name is Tommy. So they're out playing football and they see something bright fly above them. And it appears to fall on this Hilltop 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 two brothers to their house and they get their mom whose name is Kathleen. And then of course, as there would be there more kids around. So they had a couple more kids come with them. Um, one of their names is Neil Nunley and I just mentioned his name because he's going to come up later in the story. And then there's also a 17 year old boy named Jean lemon. And the reports I read said he was a West Virginia national guardsman, which seemed a little odd to me. Like, can you really be a guardsman at 17?
Speaker 3:Get married in West Virginia at like 13 or 12? I mean, yeah, I don't know what the law, that's not a joke. I mean, years ago you could do that kind of thing.
Speaker 1:Sure. When I was growing up that like with parental permission, you could get married at 14. I mean, I hadn't even held anybody's hand at the age of
Speaker 3:My aunt got married when she was 13. Uh, when they lived in West Virginia. That's crazy.
Speaker 1:Now, was that your aunt that wasn't your aunt who later became a physician? Was it?
Speaker 3:No, no. This was my aunt. That was not that my other aunt was in a lot of fun, but this aunt was, uh, it was crazy kind of fun. And she, I think I know who you're talking about. Your dad's dad's sister, my dad's sister and she was married. She was married at least three times. So the first one didn't work out. When you get married at 13,
Speaker 1:Can you imagine getting married that young? I just can't
Speaker 3:Even, I cannot imagine either. I just, I don't even know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it did happen. My aunt Carolyn, she snuck away and got married at 16 and she was also married three times. So I guess you get started early. You just worked your way until you find that perfect person. And I don't remember maybe, Hey, maybe they knew something that we don't learn the ropes exactly. Until you can eventually find somebody who will bring you another drink. When you, when you wave your class in the air,
Speaker 3:You ever see that movie coal miner's daughter. Of course. It's one of my favorites, not me. 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. She's like, he's up on top of me sweating, like an old pig. Do you remember that?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. That scene was actually, I do love that movie, but that scene is awful. It's like a rape scene really? Cause he's going and she's not liking it. And I don't like that movie. Well, you also don't like the movie now that might've
Speaker 3:Been the worst movie in history, although
Speaker 1:Jody was in it, I usually like
Speaker 3:Good Jody porn, but that was not the movie for that.
Speaker 1:Well, I guess it's because Jodi came across as like a special sort of like she was sort of off limits in that movie. Yeah. Enough about that. So anyway, going back to our story, cause we digress this bunch of people. Well, not a bunch, I guess there's about seven or eight. So they're the three boys, two more boys, the national guards guardsman. Who's also a boy he's only 17. And then Kathleen, who's the mother of the two brothers. So they all get together. They form this little posse and they say, you know, we're going to go up on top of this Hill and see what the heck is going on over here. So they climbed at the top of the Hill and as they get up there, they see this pulsating red light in lemon being like the prepared boy scout that he is, he has this flashlight and he aims it and he sees, and I'm quoting here, quote, a man like figure with a round red face, surrounded by a pointed headlight shape. I read a few different descriptions of the creature and whatever it was that they saw. Um, another article I came across, which was really good, it was called the flatwoods monster, a tale of the atomic age. And this was by someone named B Jesse. And it was published in medium.com in 2019, according to their report from their sources, the figure was about 15 feet tall and had like a humanoid shape. So it was kind of human, human looking, but it had this round blood red face and there was no visible mouth in the eyes didn't look like fully formed eyes, kind of like these I like openings. Um, the author said, they also said that some witness described a greenish orange light emanating from the eyes, which really sounds creepy. Doesn't it? It sounds like an alien Yeti does. And if you think about it, cause the Yeti is actually really popular in West Virginia LOR to I'd say like the big four of the West Virginia monsters is Yeti, big foot moth man, of course. And then the flatwoods monster anyway, also around the creature's head was what appeared to be appointed hood. And the mother Kathleen, um, said that the figure look like it was shining as if lit from within. So it was kind of a glowing thing happening. She also described, and I'm going to quote here, cloth, like folds on the body and quote, and then she said it had clawed hands. So the cloth like folds, that's strange. That's like a, is what a really unusual description is and unusual description. It struck me that way too. And I'll talk more because skeptics grabbed on different details and they debunk it in different ways or try to debunk it. And they, so they mentioned that detail later, we'll talk more about it. One member of the group, the kid, Neil Nunley, who I mentioned, um, said that the figure moved towards them and he said, it didn't, it just moved. It didn't walk. So it didn't seem like it was touching the ground. It was more like it just glided towards them. And then they, they also reported that the creature made a hissing shrieking sound as it moved towards them. And at this point, lemon, you know, the brave national guardsman screamed and drops his flashlight. Like I totally feel the sky. I would have been doing the same thing and the group ran away and they're pushing each other down all along the way. They're throwing their friends kind of like I did when we went in the haunted house right now you were frozen stiff. And the people were, I feel like people were pushing me. Well, the people, the people behind us were getting pissed off because you wouldn't move. So I had to, and you know, the other group, people of the group that were with us, they were kind of backing up too. So you were getting pushed a little bit, but I had to grab you and drag you through the rest of the haunted house. Were you scared? No, not really. I think I just, I had to get you through it. That helped a little bit. Cause you were, you were more scared than I was, but they're pretty realistic when they jump out at you and stuff that's that always gets you are, you can totally imagine, you know, you just put yourself in these people's shoes and you see this thing and you're like, what the hell is that? You know, I can completely imagine why they would've ran back down the Hill. They also, um, said that they smelled this really funky smell. They described it as, and this is a quote, a pungent mist. And they said it almost smelled sulfuric in, in that they became, was so nasty that they became nauseated and their eyes were burning from this, whatever it was that they were smelling. There's something in, I think it's Florida and it's called the skunk ape and it's similar, like a Yeti Bigfoot type thing. And one of the descriptions is that it smells like sulfur or it might be, it could be an Arkansas, but I've heard of that. And someone or multiple people, you know, in the course of my reading saying that I've never heard of that. Wouldn't that be awful to be something that was called a skunky kid? My French 75 is hitting me to be a skunk ape. And like you stink, like that would just be awful, but maybe they think it's nice to smell like that. I'm sure they think that they spell it just fine. Oh God. All right. So moving on, I had more to say about that, but I'll just be quiet. Um, I'll say real quick, I've been watching the show called pioneer quest. It actually came out in 2000, but these two couples live as pioneers in the old Canadian West for a year. And like they can't use deodorant, brush their teeth, take Babs. It's crazy. I can only imagine. And apparently they have sex with each other. I mean, not like the two couples, like not together, but like the couples have sex and I'm like, I just don't know how they do it. I mean, I think couples would, I mean, if you have nothing to do, like I would just be so mortified getting back to the story. Other people had seen this weird light go across the sky and um, a local sheriff and the deputy had also, um, they had been investigating reports of possibly a down to aircraft. And so they were looking around, I think in the same vicinity, but they said they didn't hear anything and they didn't smell anything weird that these other witnesses reported, but news of the incident traveled fast and before long, this tiny little town was filling up with investigators and reporters. And it's, it's interesting. Cause the national press services rated this story of the flatwoods monster. It turned out to be the 11th most, I guess, reported on and read, read about story for the entire year. It's about wild.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I mean, you said that it was, it happened in what, 1950,
Speaker 1:Right? Yeah. 1952. And so, you know, even since then, so at the time there was a ton of interest about it. And even since then, there's been, you know, a lot of people have been trying to figure out what really happened and there've been skeptics who have tried to debunk it. But anyway, in the aftermath of this incident, um, within a few days, like I said, you know, the town was just overrun with reporters and investigators and it even attracted the attention of the us air forces, project blue book. Now I haven't heard of that before I was doing this research. Have you heard of it?
Speaker 3:Yeah. I read quite a bit about it years ago. I was really interested in it, but I haven't read anything recently. So I'd have to refresh my memory.
Speaker 1:The little bit that I learned about it is that of course it was part of the air force and they investigate a UFO sightings. And the program ran from 1947 to 1969. And at the time it was secret, but declassified documents have since revealed that the flatwoods incident was investigated. However, um, they determined that nothing, I guess, nothing extra terrestrial was taking place, that it was actually a meteorite, you know, fallen from the sky
Speaker 3:With people that are the debunkers. They really get on my nerves sometimes because they can be such dicks and you know, always running around. Yeah. Always running around, trying to debunk everything.
Speaker 1:I wonder what the urge is to do that.
Speaker 3:I just, I think sometimes it's just arrogance. I'm not sure.
Speaker 1:Cause at the time there was this guy named grey Barker. He was an author and an UFO enthusiast. So he wrote about UFO's. So he came to the town and he started interviewing the witnesses about a week after all of this went down and he later published an article and he based it largely on Neil Nunley, who was one of the boys on his account because he felt that he was the most credible of the witnesses. A lot of people are, there are a lot of reports that after this happened, when they were talking, you know, in the, in the immediate aftermath of the citing that the, the group of people were just completely beside themselves, like they couldn't speak in coherent sentences. They weren't making any sense. They were just, I mean, as you can imagine, they were completely freaked out. So anyway, he, he wrote an article about this, which in fate magazine and then in 1956, he also wrote about it in a book among other topics in a book that was called, they knew too much about flying saucers. So I haven't been able to lay my hands on either of those things, but I'd like to read them, you know, just to get some of those accounts as well,
Speaker 3:Because you just really have to jump through hoops to even get access. If you can get access to do some of these articles at all.
Speaker 1:And I think when you're under kind of a time constraint trying to get this stuff out so you can make a show about it, it limits you sometimes to what you can get, but people listening may want to try to find those things. And at some point we may try to find them too. It's nice that there's more research to be done. But anyway, so about going back and telling him a little bit about a half hour after the sighting on September 12th, there was a newspaper guy, his name was Aly Stewart. I saw another source that called him steward, but I'm just going to call them Stewart and hope. That's right. Um, he was the co editor of the local paper called the Braxton Democrat. He arrives on the scene and he's one of the people who said, you know, people are so terrified. They're not even making sense, but Stewart and Eugene lemon, who's the national guards guy who dropped this flashlight and got the hell out of there. They together. And they're being really brave. They returned to the site, but when they get there, there's nothing. Stuart goes back again the following morning. And he says that he D he discovered some skid marks, which were spaced about 10 feet apart. And it looked like the grass had been flattened. So I'm just trying to think, like, what could that have been? I mean, I don't think there was a vehicle. Sure. There's the vehicle now? That would be 10 feet
Speaker 3:Part. Well, if it's like a UFO, I mean, isn't that something that's kind of common for that to the flattening of things, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. So it could be that in an interview with, with Barker, who was the guy who wrote about the, the UFO's Kathleen, you know, the mom, she told him that she had also gone back to the site the next day. And I'm like, this lady is brave because I would not have been doing that. But she got there and she finds a gooey greasy substance on the grass. And some of it, I imagine it's the fifties she's wearing a skirt, I'm guessing, or how stress on her clothes. And, um,
Speaker 3:I'm just like what he, I mean, you're thinking of a house dress or it never would have even crossed my mind.
Speaker 1:Well, she says she gets it on her clothes. So I'm imagining like, you know, those little fifties, like Shirtwaist dresses that they wore,
Speaker 3:Maybe it was some, I would say overalls.
Speaker 1:Hmm. I think she was vacuuming in her high heels, in her shirt, waist dress. And then, and then she hopes it up the Hill. Okay. We'll go with that. Maybe not the high heels though. Maybe she puts on her nice little flats. Yeah. Maybe she puts on her husband's boots or something. So anyway, she goes up the Hill and she gets this goo like on her dress and she tries to wash it out and it won't come out. Like she washes it several times and she can't get the stain out. So it seems like it's something from another world. So she also told Barker. And to me, this is very interesting. She says that she was warned by government officials not to give out any information to anybody which kind of that, that creeps me out. Like what, what were they trying to hide? Why didn't they want her to talk?
Speaker 3:It seems to be a common theme, anything that is other worldly or ITI or UFO related, you always hear that people are, you know, we're worn. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And I think there are, so there are probably so many stories and local legends around the country about very similar things, you know, that happened. It'd be interesting to put them all side by side and see what are some of the overlaps common themes. Um, but as I mentioned over the years, you know, the skeptics who you hate, they have said that the occurrence was most likely due to a meteor that fell from the sky. And in fact, on September 12th of 1952 immediate, or had been observed across three States, so Maryland, PA, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia, but that doesn't account for everything. Right. I mean, I've seen a actually I've seen a meteor driving back from West Virginia to Maryland. Really? Actually this is a, I won't tell the whole story, but I saw it driving back a few days after my dad died and I was coming back from the funeral and I was like, Oh my God, it's assigned from my dad. And then later maybe it was, you know, he's done a lot. Actually. I feel like he sent a lot of signs around that time later, I looked it up and apparently people all along, I think the East coast had seen it. So I could look up and probably tell you what day that was. It was in 2016. So it was like January or early February when I saw it.
Speaker 3:And it was probably a song for your dad. I believe that.
Speaker 1:And I was alone, Brian and I were driving separately. Cause we, he had gone down after me. And so, you know, I was alone in the car and I called him on my phone. I'm like, did you just see that? And he's like, yeah, what was that? It was really weird. So I mean, they do look, I mean, they're very impressive things to see, but it doesn't account for like this figure, this hooded figure with the red eyes. But other skeptics skeptics have said that the figure they saw was probably a bar now that was in a tree. So they say the glowing eyes, the hissing, the clawed hands and the cloth, like folds, they explain the cloth, like folds as the foliage. So like the foliage looked like that.
Speaker 3:I don't buy that. I mean, yeah. I know that I get frustrated with skeptics. I'm a skeptic, but you can't dismiss everything. And to say that the folds were foiling is that, I don't know. I mean, if you think about Bigfoot or Yeti, they have that hair that's hanging down. It's kind of drapes from their arms. And that's what it kind of sounds like to me. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Somebody, this was like a really hairy alien or something. Um, or, you know, in the way I think it was Kathleen who had, had described it that way and she 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 saggy folds and stuff. So she didn't say it had hair or anything? No. Nobody described hair. Okay. So then Jen, it's not Yeti. I know you want it to be, I know you are just longing male, Yeti or Bigfoot
Speaker 3:For a good, yeah. For a good Yeti. You want to hear Yeti a hairy Yeti woman? No, I don't want that.
Speaker 1:So yeah. So that's what they said. And then in 2000, um, Joe Nickell, who was part of the committee for skeptical inquiry and other asshole, according to him, he determined that it was some combination of a meteor and aircraft in and out. All three
Speaker 3:Of those rolled into one. I mean, that's,
Speaker 1:That's ridiculous. Like there was a meteor and then there was an owl. And then I think it's more likely it's more likely to be an alien. All three of those things occurring at once. Yes. Yes. I think that your theory makes way more sense. There was this other guy named Ryan helped to, um, he talks about the nausea that the witnesses reported. And he said that this was consistent with hysteria and overexertion. So that got me thinking, like, I'm trying to think of a thing the times when I've been really scared and I don't remember being nauseous, you know, me either. And
Speaker 3:Whereas being nauseous, that is a symptom I believe of radiation poisoning.
Speaker 1:Ooh, that's creepy. And if this thing is kind of glowing, you know, maybe it maybe there is some, and then you think about that gooey substance grass, just very weird. And I didn't come across anything that even addressed the pungent smell. So I don't know what that was anyway. So five days after the incident, Kathleen May who again, is the mom of the boys just to keep everybody straight here. And then Stewart, who is the co-editor of the Braxton Democrat, the two of them get on a plane and fly to New York. That was probably a really big deal for them at the time, especially. And they appear on this show on CBS called we, the people. Now I don't, I wonder if I asked my mom or something, if she would remember that show, I've never heard of it. But anyway, they're on the show. And part of what they're doing on the show is they're having Kathleen describe what she saw. And then there's an artist who's making a sketch kind of like they do with crime sketches. And the result looked so outlandish to people that they, they started to say that the whole thing was a hoax that this couldn't possibly, this couldn't possibly be true. So I went and looked up the image, which you can do if you just type in, um, could have been, uh, it could, it could have been a really bad artist. Well, it could've been, you know, and if you look at the picture, it looks stylized in a way that like, it looks mid-century modern, it looks like 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's this big flame around its head. It's kind of cool looking, but you know, it does look strange, but I mean, what picture of an alien doesn't look strange? Strange people started kind of giving them hell about that. And I didn't, I wasn't able to find out any information about this, but maybe wonder what happened to Kathleen and some of these other, I mean, probably the kids were okay. Cause they were, they were just kids, but I'm thinking like Kathleen and maybe Eugene, the national guardsman, like, did people talk about them? Did they, you know, did they act like they were looking for attention? Um, I just wondered what their lives were like in the aftermath of that.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Whether or not they were ostracized or if it conflicted with Christian belief, if it's a, it's kind of the Bible.
Speaker 1:Oh, totally. So it very well may have. And I think that would be, that would be a fascinating angle, you know, either to write about or to do some more research into, but whatever happened with them, um, over the years, the little town of flatwoods has really done its best to capitalize on this story. So they now have a museum dedicated to the flatwoods monster it's in Sutton, which is really close to flatwoods. Also tiny little town
Speaker 3:It's in the Piggly wiggly.
Speaker 1:It is. Yeah. It's actually in an old pharmacy of all things, which maybe, maybe it was a Piggly wiggly.
Speaker 3:I don't know the pig is what we called it. The pig. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Pig. That's what he's saying. I didn't have a Piggly wiggly. We had a trade. Well, I went there every week with my mom and dad. It was like this big outing. And I was so proud when like our shopping cart would be like filled to overflowing with groceries. Like I felt like we were so well off, even though we weren't, but it was just exciting. Like get all these groups.
Speaker 3:I kind of feel like maybe my family was more Backwoods than your family. Yeah. My, my brother was telling me tonight an interesting story that I didn't know our uncle, um, no, our great uncle had a moonshine still behind his house. I mean up the, you know, in the woods, back in the holler and he would take my brother and my brother. Yeah. And my brother's like, he would put me to work cause I would have to lift like these heavy bags of mash and put it in and it was a copper still. And he said that our great uncle would send him back home when he was getting ready to fire it up because you can have all the ingredients or what you need for moonshine. But once you light it, that's when it becomes illegal.
Speaker 1:I never knew that. That's fascinating. I wonder if it was dangerous to light it too. Did they ever catch on fire?
Speaker 3:I think not that I ever heard because my grandfather had one too, but I've never heard that before, but yeah, it was just kind of interesting. Anyway, that's a, another deep woods Bible belt, coal mining town. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I do think that it sounds like your family. Um, and these, a lot of these were like your extended family. Right? Um, they were a little more Backwoods than my family,
Speaker 3:Family and extended family actually. I mean, there were a lot of people in my family, believe it or not are very educated, but they still held certain beliefs, especially with Christianity and Satan and Lucifer, it being an actual physical, tangible thing. But yeah. Other than that, most of my family, except for the older generations were pretty educated.
Speaker 1:Yeah. In my family, my brother was the first to go to college. I mean, you know, my parents were certainly very smart people, but they hadn't, they hadn'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. But I love that story from your brother. That's awesome.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I never heard that before. So I was really interested in hearing what he had to say. That's really cool.
Speaker 1:And for once, yeah, maybe, maybe that time will never come again. So Frederick,
Speaker 3:Oh my God. I'm get to savor the moment.
Speaker 1: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 video games, including the legend of Zelda. I have heard of that one and then called fallout 76, which I feel like I've heard about in several others. So I thought that was kind of cool. And it's just, it's just a really, you know, it's part of the folklore of the region at this point, people seem to enjoy telling the story. I, as recently as 2019, I came across this article. It was published in 2019, it's called the West Virginia monster that crept into international pop culture. It's by Katelyn tan. And she talks about how there was this local, I guess during the time that all of this happened, 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, West Virginia. He's actually set it to music. And so on the West Virginia public radio site, you could listen to it. And it's a, it's a folk like a folk type song, which you know, me and my folk music. I loved it. Yeah. It's awesome. So go listen to that.
Speaker 3:Put a couple of lesbians and some, some guitars.
Speaker 1:Oh. And it's like, you got a maid. It's like, what else do you need on Nirvana? Not the band, but the spiritual state of perfection. So one verse from the song reads Phantom of flatwoods from moon or from Mars, maybe from God, not from the stars. Please tell us why you fly over our trees, the end of the world, or an omen of peace. I like it. I can too. And, and it goes on. So I'm going to try to get in touch with this guy and see if he'll let us use part of the song in the sentence. That would be amazing. I might try to find him tomorrow actually. Um, I'm not sure how I could get in touch with him. Maybe Facebook. He probably won't accept my friend weirdo. Um, but I'm going to give it my all who's this bitch. He's like, what does she want? Um,
Speaker 3:We can always stop Kim. I'm sure that would make them feel more comfortable. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Maybe, you know, maybe he plays in some places around Morgantown. I actually have a friend who is from the Morgantown area and she, she used to go clubbing and go out to a lot of different, I don't think focusing or hanging out in the clubs. I don't know. Maybe she knows something, but she can get in touch with him
Speaker 3:Or there that I used to go to many years ago. Oh my God. This is so funny
Speaker 1:That you mentioned the gay bar. Because when I was in college, I went with my friend. Her name is Abby and we went to Paris together. So we started abroad the same semester, but we were friends. And so she took me home with her one weekend and we went to it, wasn't a bar. It was somebody's home. And it was called the house of opulence.
Speaker 3:Did it have a sign or that's just what they called it,
Speaker 1:Called it. And it was like this gay house. So, and there were a lot of like drag Queens who stayed there. It was really cool. He never told me that before. I kind of forgot about it, but I was like, we're going to the house of opulence.
Speaker 3:It just seems like West Virginia is not the place for a gay bar, but yeah, we used to go a few times. And do you remember what it was called? I think it was like deer park or the area was deer park. Okay.
Speaker 1:A long way to go to a gay bar.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Well, you'd make the trip. You make the drive and make the trip. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh, so, so yeah, I'm going to see if we can maybe get this song on, use it in our episode so people can hear it. But going back to the article written by Jesse, that article about the atomic age. So they wrote something and I'm just going to quote here. They said this and other UFO reports. So the flatwoods monster and other UFO reports fed into some of the cold war. America's greatest fears, science run mad and impending dooms day. And there was a little bit of serendipity today, which, you know, I love those moments when I was listening to that show today about, you know, Sundays with Dracula, the film historian, the monster film historian, David skull was talking about how he got into monsters as a boy, I think probably back in the fifties. And this was during, you know, the kind of the, I guess the beginning or beginning of the cold war. Does that sound right? When did the cold war start? I don't know. Kind of like probably early fifties, but he said, you know, I loved the monsters. I loved Frankenstein and Dracula and Wolf man, but what I wasn't afraid of them, like what I was really afraid of was nuclear annihilation. Like I was afraid of the bomb. And so he said, and this is his quote monster is we're a kind of nuclear security blanket. Like in other words, you could sort of think about monsters and be scared about not that he was scared, but think about them. And like they functioned as a kind of metaphor for everything that was scary in this cold war, America, the idea of the bomb and the fragility of life on earth and everything. So I thought that was super interesting, especially because it seemed like the other article I mentioned was talking about exactly the same thing. And you know, if you think about like, if you remember from the eighties, you know, they'd have the midnight movie. I was always so excited about those, like the horror movies and the scifi movies. Like every week we got the TV guide and I would look up to see what would be,
Speaker 3:I would do that too. And I would stay up with my dad and I would like scoot up close to him cause I would be scared and close my eyes, but I'm sure a lot of those movies, except for night of the living dead, I would probably watch and think they were history,
Speaker 1:But he's always looked really goofy. I mean, it looked like somebody had built this like a styrofoam ball and cut it in half and made a flying saucer. But you know, it made me think about a lot of these movies made in the fifties. They kind of were about those cold war anxieties. I think. So. I just, I just think that's really interesting. Something I'd like to think more about. It's just, yeah. It's interesting stuff. And you know, it makes you think about the stuff that we think about or that we find scary, whether it's vampires or Yeti, which I'm not sure you find that scary. So which is something
Speaker 3:I'm fascinated by Yeti, but
Speaker 1:Like, what is that about? Is it, is it about more than just the fact that like that's a creepy thing? Like, does it, is it a metaphor for other things that we're scared about in our lives
Speaker 3:Or underlying deep psychological disturbance?
Speaker 1:Exactly. Yes. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Speak volumes about me. I'm going,
Speaker 1:I think we both have appointments with our therapist tomorrow. Maybe you should bring that up in your session.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And then I'll be committed.
Speaker 1:I'm going to bring up the fact that I've been like shopping, like crazy online today. I bought mid century modern deer figurine on eBay that I did not need. Yeah. What are you going to do with that? I'm going to put it on my mantle. 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 of like a fifties ish vibe going. I have a few new pieces that are like from that, not time. And the deer kind of fit in with it.
Speaker 3:Well, you can talk to your therapist about your Amazon purchases and I can talk to mine about buying boxes of alcohol and having to leave it until my leave at my car and sneakers.
Speaker 1:Well, I don't think my husband knows about all of the, all of the stuff I've been buying either. So actually I'm wearing a shirt that I bought that says you gotta be kidding me. Like come to, I now have this wardrobe, like 10 gray t-shirts that have various like cats and cat sayings on them. And that's what
Speaker 3:You're going to be. The crazy cat lady, my friend.
Speaker 1:I definitely am. So I'm trying to think if there's anything else about the story. I think that's pretty much it, but yeah. Great story.
Speaker 3:I never, yeah, I had heard of it, but I didn't know anything about it. So now I'm going to look up the illustration of what it looked like. I'm curious. Tell me what you think about it again. I'm going to also check out and see like when the whole UFO craze began and to see what the early descriptions were.
Speaker 1:That would be so interesting. I'll try to look up some of that too. And I hope we do more shows about extra terrestrial type stuff. Cause it's, it's so scary. I mean, at least to me, are you the kind of person that gets more excited about it? Because I get more scared about it. Like if, if people are coming here from outer space, like I'm going to die, like I'm so scared. I get scared about it more so when I was younger, but now it's just this burning curiosity that I have. And then it's like, if you were to somehow get answers, you might not, you know, wish you might wish that you'd never gotten those. I remember being a kid and for some reason I was really scared of aliens. And we had this dining room table with this, like see-through lace tablecloth. And I would, cause I spent a lot of time thinking, what am I going to do if they come, where am I going to hide? So I was like that table, I'm going to get the tablecloth will be the perfect camouflage. You are a smart one. I was smarter. You couldn't get anything past me. Where are you going to hide now under, beneath, beneath my gosh. No, that's too frightening. Cause there could be somebody under there. So I don't have anything under my bed. It's just space. Yeah. But someone could, that means somebody 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 and I look forward to our next episode and everybody else has had time to, and I look forward to the day where we can actually podcast to the same room where there rather than having to do it remotely because there are some issues, a little bit with some 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 over each other. It's it's because we were literally just going by what we're hearing in our headphones. So it's a challenge, but I think it's definitely helping to get us through this quarantine and social distancing period. And it's a fun way to spend time together and do something creative. So it's something to keep our minds off of. COVID exactly. And that makes me wonder what kind of stories are going to come out of this COVID pandemic. I mean, are people being more drawn to the supernatural now because of what we're going through? Because you know, there are like a lot of fears about mortality right now. I think people are just, you know, they can't get out of bed. That's how I think it's embodied or they're they're compulsively shopping or they're bringing alcohol in under the cover of darkness. Oh well. And we will see you on our next episode
Speaker 4:One evening and flatwoods a mother and boys saw a gray light and heard a great noise. They ran to the Hilltop. Didn't know what they feared. It was there in the dark that the Phantom appeared. Oh, Phantom of flatwoods from Moonah from Mars, maybe from God and not from the stars. Please tell us why you fly aura trees, the end of the world or no man of peace. The size of the Phantom was a sight to behold green eyes and a red face to the story. It was towed. It floated in air with fingers. Flame, it's gone with a hiss just as quick as it came fan I'm a flag woods from moon or from a us maybe from God and not from the stars. Please tell us why the end of the world on no man of peace or frightened, they started to pray. They were living in hopes of another new day. There's no end to this story, except just to say, the spoiled will go on for it's written that Wayne then on the flatwoods from moon, from Mars, maybe from God and not from the stars, at least tell us why fly or the end of the world on old man of peace.