Awesome or Off-Putting is a weekly delve into cryptozoology, ufology, aliens, medical marvels, scientific wonders, secret societies, government conspiracies, cults, ghosts, myths, ancient artifacts, religion, strange facts or just the plain unexplainable.

This week: Ufology/Aliens

Giant slug-like aliens are a pretty rare sight, to state the obvious. In fact, as far as hecklerspray knows, only one such sighting has been reported ever – by a large group of youths in 1952. The creature has come to be known as The Flatwoods Monster, and is popular enough (in a folklorish way) to have its own action figure and movie.

A few weeks ago we told you about a group of people who fended off roof-crawling aliens until they had a chance to run for the police. Today's story seems fairly well related to that one, in that today's tale happened only a few years before the cabin-crawling one, and it also involves a whole bunch of witnesses seeing the exact same thing.

It's not an exact parallel, though, because this time the witnesses were almost entirely young men under the age of 18. In September of 1952, several boys were playing outside when they saw something flying overhead. It was described as the typical UFO-ish disc, but it was sparking. It slowly lowered into a nest of trees up near a mountain top.

The boys weren't sure what they had seen, but thought clearly enough to get an adult opinion on the matter. Eddie and Fred May were among the first to reach a parent. They told their mother what they had seen, but initially she didn't believe them. Upon stepping outside, she saw a pulsating red light emanating from the the spot the boys said the ship landed. She sent her two boys scrambling to the home of 17 year old Gene Lemon, who was in the national guard.

Lemon, Mrs. May, a dog, and four young boys all set out to climb the mountain. As they neared the site, a foul odour was detected. When members of the group neared the landing site, they had a good view of the ship. World Of The Unknown describes it simply like this:

"…a thing about 25 feet in diameter and perhaps six feet high"

As everyone stood there mesmerised by the pulsating red ship, the dog started snarling and barking. Lemon whipped around with his flashlight, and saw it. Again, we'll let World Of The Unknown summarise it:

"Whatever it was, it was alive… and it was a giant by human standards. The flashlight showed the head and shoulders of a creature slightly less than ten feet tall. It appeared to be wearing a helmet of some sort, projecting from a dark blue-green or greenish-gray body which reflected the flashlight beams like rubberised silk. The most awesome part of the scene was the thing's face…almost round and blood red… with two greenish-orange eyes which glowed in the flashlight beams as do the eyes of certain fish and some wild animals. But this was neither fish nor wild animal."

And the group saw the creature move. Though it's feet were well hidden by brush and overgrowth, all agreed the thing seemed to slide more than walk. A hissing sound accompanied the creature's presence, as did a very concentrated stink.

Then everybody ran like hell. A little while later Lemon returned with an armed party, but both creature and ship were gone. The thing did leave tracks however, skid-mark like things where the group had seen it moving.

So what do you think? Is this a true story? Well our first thought is that it is, because it resulted in action figures. And action figures don't lie.

Read More:

Flatwoods Monster – Wikipedia