United States · 12 September 1952
Flatwoods, 1952
ReportedA group of boys saw something come down on a hillside above Flatwoods and went up to look, with a mother and a National Guardsman along. What they came back down describing was a towering shape with a hood or a spade-shaped outline around a glowing face, and a smell that made several of them ill.
- Where
- Flatwoods, West Virginia
- When
- 12 September 1952
- Who reported it
- Multiple civilians
- How direct
- Civilian witnesses; official/press investigation records require page audit
- Entities described
- 1 reported form
- Handled as
- INSUFFICIENT SOURCE PROVENANCE
- Evidence class
- NON-OFFICIAL / PENDING
What the record resolves
A shape, a height, a number of figures. Nothing that resolves a body.
A hooded or spade-shaped outer outline around a luminous face. Whether that outline was garment, helmet or body was never resolved.
On that description this archive reads the form as Other morphology. That is a reading of recorded words, not the record classifying itself.
The record
An official file preserves that a report was made and examined. It does not, by itself, establish what was seen.
- U.S. Air Force / NARA Project Blue Book records information page (opens in a new tab)
The document is attached to this entry.
What is not settled
A hillside at night, a torch beam, and a group of frightened people is a poor instrument. A barn owl on a branch has been proposed and fits the outline uncomfortably well. The illness is the part that resists the easy explanation. As with Kelly, the familiar silhouette comes largely from later artwork rather than from what the witnesses first said.
