The Flatwoods
Monster (as well as Mothman) has become a
popular collectors figure and toy in Asia
for some unknown reason. Numerous
plastic toy figurines have been made
depicting the Flatwoods Monster in all its
glory.
Here are some
of the products, festivals, and odd ball
stuff honoring this reclusive monster:
- The town of Flatwoods holds an annual one day
Monster Day Festival that takes place in the
Flatwoods Outlet parking lot.
- Braxton County has printed a brochure about the
monster in an effort to attract tourists.
- A Braxton County Monster Museum is operated near
the town of Flatwoods, and local gas stations sell
Monster-related artifacts.
- The Monster is also known as the "Green Monster".
Flatwoods displays a road sign that reads "Welcome
to Flatwoods, Home of the Green Monster".
- Some residents of the town of Nitro, WV claim that
the Flatwoods monster abducted pets in their
community on September 12, 1952, and continues to
create crop circles there.
- The Flatwoods Monster is one of very few US-based
entities that is regularly depicted in the Japanese
toys known as kaiju. Artist David Horvath has
recently created a series of vinyl art toys that
includes the Flatwoods Monster, the Mothman, etc.
- In Japan, Flatwoods Monster was introduced to
children by Hiroshi Minamiyama (Science fiction
editor, occult writer) and other writers as "3-meter
alien." Many children in 1970s when the "UFO boom"
took place were influenced by this "alien."
- In the NES game Amagon, the final boss appears to
be based on an artist's rendering of the Flatwoods
monster created for the September 19 edition of "We
the People". (See [6] for image)
- The Flatwoods Monster also appeared as the second
boss in the Sega Genesis game Space Harrier II.
- In the video game The Legend of Zelda: Majora's
Mask, enemies called "They" or "Them" by Romani, the
only one who believes in them, slightly resemble the
Flatwoods Monster.
- In Sgt. Frog, 3M, an alien TV show host whose
impostor measured rating factors in centimeters, is
said to look like the Flatwoods monster.
- In episode 4 of the anime series "Negima?!," the
Flatwoods Monster appears for a brief moment.
- The Pokemon Deoxys appears to be based on the
Flatwoods Monster
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Flatwood
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Mothman
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plush toy
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Flatwoods Monster
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Amagon
(video game) confronting a
Flatwoods-like creature |
By Mannix
Porterfield, Register-Herald reporter,
Published: June 16, 2007
Move over, Mothman?
If the money comes in to finance a movie, you
might not be the only weird West Virginia
creature memorialized on film.
An independent filmmaker in Los Angeles says he
would gladly handle a movie about the Flatwoods
Monster — provided someone can put up sufficient
financial backing for the project.
It was back on
Sept. 12, 1952, that the
12-foot
metallic oddity, emitting a sulfuric odor,
horrified a gaggle of children and adults on a
summer evening, after a fiery streak was spotted
in the sky along a steep hillside in Braxton
County.
A legend was born, unleashing torrents of
speculation and inspiring a book by Frank
Feschino, a star player in a Sept. 7-8 gathering
in Charleston devoted to unidentified flying
objects.
Using their own funds, Thomas Dickens and his
partner, David Burke, are completing a
feature-length film titled “Alien Gray Zone-X,”
due to be released no later than next summer.
“This could be a great motion picture that could
be done that could basically compete with
Hollywood films,” Dickens says of a possible
Flatwoods movie.
Dickens spoke glowingly of “Alien Gray Zone-X,”
using such superlatives as “amazing” and
“groundbreaking” to describe it.
“And that’s not just because of the special
effects, but there’s a lot of human drama to
it,” he said.
“There’s a love story and a lot of great fight
sequences that use stunt people trained in
fighting. There’s a message to it. Most films,
and I don’t want to give away our ending, kill
the aliens, but ours is different.”
Given the funds, Dickens would do the same for
the Flatwoods Monster.
“I would love to do this movie,” he said. “My
partner is interested. However, at this time, we
don’t have the budget to do it.”
If he ever gets such a project launched, Dickens
wants to work with Feschino as a part of his
team for technical advice.
Feschino believes the monster was a space alien,
part of a contingent engaged in a fiery sky
battle with U.S. Air Force jets off the Atlantic
Coast. The author also is convinced that UFOs
continue to buzz the Braxton County area, since
it is on a direct flight line to the White House
and the regional terrain affords ample space in
which to conceal craft.
“Basically, we would do everything,” Dickens
said. “Write the script. Do pre-production.
Design the creatures. Based on a true story, we
would use the best research and witnesses to get
the idea what this creature would look like. But
we have to get a budget. We would be able to do
the entire film.”
Dickens hopes to attend the September summit at
the Capitol Theater in downtown Charleston,
coming less than a week shy of the 55th
anniversary of the Monster’s appearance. This
also is the 60th anniversary of the Roswell
incident.
Promoter Larry Bailey is promising attendees
“hard evidence” to show UFOs are piloted by
extra-terrestrials.
If a Flatwoods Monster film were made, Dickens
said, he would envision some scenes on site,
provided landowners are willing to grant access,
including a depiction of what Feschino feels
were aerial warfare between alien craft and U.S.
jets.
In fact, that is the theme of Feschino’s latest
book, “Shoot Them Down.”
Richard Gere starred in “The Mothman
Prophecies,” a film dedicated to a moth-like
creature said to roam an abandoned plateau near
Point Pleasant in the area of an abandoned TNT
site left over from World War II.
Unlike Mothman, a precursor to the 1967 collapse
of the Silver Bridge that claimed 46 lives, no
violence has been linked to the Flatwoods
Monster.
A 17-year veteran of the film industry, Dickens
says he strives to compete with Hollywood
productions in quality.
“We don’t want to make anything that looks
low-budget,” he said.
“We use people who look very professional. We
use people that look like they have universal
appeal.”
Bailey says he has attracted so much interest to
his UFO gathering that he might expand it by
adding a Sunday matinee, since the Capitol
Theater has a seating capacity of only 660. As
things stand now, Friday’s show runs from 6 to
10 p.m. with Saturday billed from 3 to 7 p.m.
An art contest supervised by Heritage Towers
will reward children for the best depictions of
UFOs or aliens.
Besides Feschino and Flatwoods eyewitness
Freddie May, the two-day event will feature
lectures by world-renowned UFO expert Stanton
Freidman, who says the government has engaged in
a cover-up since the 1947 incident in Roswell,
where many believe the Air Force concealed the
bodies of aliens after their craft crashed in
the New Mexico desert.
Since the first Register-Herald story was
published about the gathering, Bailey said he
has been besieged by media outlets across the
nation, including live radio remotes in Los
Angeles and Santa Barbara, Calif., Brownwood,
Texas, Bridgeport, Conn., and Lincoln, Neb.
“We’re getting contacts from everywhere,” he
said.
Eventually, the summit could evolve into an
annual event, rivaling that of Roswell, now a
Mecca for UFO believers, Bailey says.
Skeptics are welcome, but they could find
themselves hard put to counter Freidman, a
nuclear physicist who has appeared on a number
of cable television networks, the promoter says.
“Stanton has won two debates,” Bailey said.
“They were with people that were scoffing or
trying to tell everyone the UFOs were just
meteors. He has some hard evidence that he
uncovered under the Freedom of Information Act.
That’s some of our hard evidence.”
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