The Flatwoods Monster

On the evening of 12 September 1952 a group of boys, a mother and a National Guardsman went up a hill in Braxton County, West Virginia after seeing something fall, and came back down saying they had met a three-metre figure with a glowing face and a pleated metal skirt, in a choking mist. Several were physically ill afterwards. The Air Force explanation is a meteor plus a barn owl in a tree, plus fear; locals have never accepted it. The town leans into it now with a museum and five giant chairs shaped like the thing.