Lou’s View

By Lou Bernard

I’ve always liked cryptids, those unexplained monsters that appear in remote areas. Bigfoot, the Mothman, the Loch Ness Monster….There’s something fun about the cryptids. Clinton County has got quite a few: The Giwoggle and the Susquehanna Seal are both native to the county, and Bigfoot and the Jersey Devil have both been known to visit.

We may have gotten a visit from the Flatwoods Monster, as well, even though that one is known to be in West Virginia. You probably have not heard of the Flatwoods Monster, so let me recap for you.

On September 12, 1952, a group of witnesses saw a meteor fly over and crash on a hillside in Braxton County, West Virginia. Moments later, they claim to have seen a weird-looking creature roaming around. It was dark green, with glowing red eyes, about ten feet tall, with some sort of skirt and long, stick-like arms. Most noticeably, it had a spade-shaped head.

Nobody has ever conclusively explained what the Flatwoods Monster was, but the small community of Flatwoods, West Virginia is known for the creature. There’s even a small museum dedicated to it.

The Flatwoods Monster may have passed by Clinton County, as well. Chapman Township, to be specific.
On September 15, 1952, the Record ran the headline “Drury’s Run Folks Spot Flying Saucer.” Bill Hritzko and Mrs. Ernest Crossley saw something silver and “colored just like a star” pass over at about 6:30 PM. It was said to have passed over “at great speed,” heading roughly west.

People gathered outside the Green Lantern tavern near Route 120 also saw it fly over. Putting aside the reliability of people at a local tavern, Green Lantern is also the name of a comic-book superhero who deals with aliens a lot. This makes an especially cool article for me, the first one I’ve written that involves both a UFO and a Green Lantern.

“Bill Hritzko spotted it first,” said the front-page article,”Right overhead, coming from the east. He pointed and the people gathered on the porch of the Casper home and outside of the Green Lantern Tavern all saw it plainly as it headed west toward Shintown and Westport.”

I might have missed the connection. Except that immediately below this article, there was another one about the sighting in Flatwoods. It said,”Seven persons in this West Virginia community assert that they saw a green monster with fiery red and protruding eyes in the area where the meteorite reportedly landed.”

I called the Flatwoods Museum and spoke to a helpful and knowledgeable young guy, giving him the details of our sighting. His immediate response was,”Wow.”

I also contacted a local geology professor, and asked if it were plausible that a meteor could pass over Clinton County and make it to West Virginia about an hour later. It’s something of a minor miracle that most of the local professionals are used to this sort of question from me. (I once had to ask a local gardener how long it would take an oak tree to grow to the point it could be made into a coffin.) The geologist told me that, yes, an average meteor could easily make it that distance within an hour.

It was said to be headed west, and if you look at the map, it passed over Renovo, and then Westport, which puts it in the right direction. The man from the museum told me that their meteor came from roughly the northeast.
Which means that, yes, there’s a good chance that we shared the same meteor.

I’m kind of intrigued, that the Flatwoods Monster would have passed by us before landing in West Virginia. It flew over us, crashed in Flatwoods, and made an appearance. Maybe next time, it’ll stop to visit us for a while before moving along.