Flatwoods Monster - Conventional Explanations

Conventional Explanations

After examining the case 48 years after the event, Joe Nickell of the paranormal investigation group Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), then known as CSICOP, concluded in 2000 that the bright light in the sky reported by the witnesses on September 12 was most likely a meteor, that the pulsating red light was likely an aircraft navigation/hazard beacon, and that the creature described by witnesses closely resembled an owl. Nickell claimed that the latter two of which were distorted by the heightened state of anxiety felt by the witnesses after having observed the former. Nickell's conclusions are shared by a number of other investigators, including those of the Air Force. The Mothman and the Kelly-Hopkinsville encounter have also been dismissed by skeptics as owl sightings.

The night of the September 12 sighting, a meteor had been observed across three states, Maryland, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, and had been mistakenly reported as flaming aircraft crashing into the side of a hill at Elk River; approximately 11 miles (18 km) southwest of the location of the Flatwoods sighting. Three flashing red aircraft beacons were also visible from the area of the sightings, possibly accounting for the pulsating red light seen by the witnesses, and for the red tint on the face of the creature.

Nickell concluded that the shape, movement, and sounds reported by witnesses were also consistent with the silhouette, flight pattern, and call of a startled barn owl perched on a tree limb; leading researchers to conclude that foliage beneath the owl may have created the illusion of the lower portions of the creature (described as being a pleated green skirt). Researchers also concluded that the witnesses' inability to agree on whether the creature had arms, combined with Kathleen May's report of it having "small, claw-like hands" which "extended in front of it" also matched the description of a barn owl with its talons gripping a tree branch. However, some have asked that if it was an owl then why did the witnesses not see it as such, even after shining a searchlight right at it. Many investigators have countered that this and the creature's supposed 'gliding' can be ascribed to hysteria and the heightened state of tension amongst the witnesses causing them to be panicky and irrational.

Alternative explanations included those put forward by the local media; that the September 12 group had witnessed the impact of a meteor which resulted in a man-shaped cloud of vapor, and those of Kathleen May and her sons (recorded some time after the incident); that they had seen some kind of covert government aircraft.

Every year there is a festival in Flatwoods West Virginia to celebrate the "Green Monster", it is a 3 day festival starting on a Friday and ending Sunday afternoon, a weekend of live music, the Green Monster museum and trips to the site.