Beckley is Full of Beasts!

Eyewitness sketch of the Beast of Beckley
Source: The National Cryptid Society

My mom grew up in Beckley, West Virginia and my grandparents continued to live there up until their deaths in 1997 and 2005. As a kid, I spent a LOT of weekends and summers at my grandparents' house, where they fostered my love of all things weird and spooky. I didn't realize it until becoming an adult, that the very place where I learned so much about the paranormal was actually a hotbed of Fortean phenomena! Not only are there multiple locations with a haunted history, but the area has a high number of UFO reports as well. And, from what I've realized just recently...

Beckley is FULL of Beasts!

It probably all dates back well before the 20th century, but the general public first heard about a monster lurking around Raleigh County back in 1934. Although it was sighted for several years before and after, late Spring of 1934 was the year of the Fireco Varmint. 

Fireco is a small community, located about 14 miles south of Beckley. In May, newspapers began running the story about a strange creature being seen and harassed by locals. Described as being anywhere from 2-4 feet tall , 6 feet long, and with yellow-gray hair, this small but swift beast was known for attacking animals and being immune to gun shots. It was seen by two brothers, Thomas (18) and Lawrence (23) Roark, spotted the creature one night around 9pm and fired upon it with no results. The creature was seen in the same area later on by witness, Berlin Shumate.

15 year old Willis Wooten came across a headless dog and found tracks that were as big as a man's hand nearby. Wallace Bowling, however, had one of his cows attacked; the creature was found with its stomach split open and its intestines spilling out. Miraculously, the animal survived the attack with the quick help from a veterinarian. 

By the summer of 1936, the Fireco Varmint was back, but it has grown to 10 feet long, and was also snatching the heads off full-grown hogs. So, what in the world were these citizens seeing, and what was killing their pets and livestock?  

Some say that the Fireco Varmint never left the area, and perhaps has even been sighted in modern times, but the newspapers largely gave up on documenting the unknown creature. However, in 1959 another monster showed up on the radar. Well, kind of.

The Raleigh Register
23 October 1959

In October of that year, the local newspaper ran a couple of articles about the 'East Beckley Monster.' Residents in that area were convinced that something was stalking their neighborhood. Newspaper offices were flooded with calls, but the Beckley Police Department adamantly denied the existence of anything supernatural. When residents brought up the fact that the police were out late one night shooting at what they believed to be the monster, the police calmly explained that it was simply a pack of wild dogs. 

Oddly enough, none of the newspaper articles mentioning the beast bothered to actually describe its physical characteristics in any way. I really wish they would have, though. If we had some sort of description, we might be able to link it to the Fireco Varmint or even to ANOTHER Beast of Beckley that would appear on the scene decades later!

On March 9, 2019 the website for the National Cryptid Society published an account submitted by a user going by the name of Raven. Raven and Raven's family had seen a mysterious, terrifying beast near their Beckley property, dating back to at least 2001-2002. It was Raven's little brother who saw it first. Around 8 pm one summer evening, their mother got a call from their grandmother saying that they needed to come pick the little brother up from her house. She only lived a very short distance away; in fact, they could SEE the grandmother's front porch from their own house. Usually, the little brother had no issues in going back and forth by himself, but this time, he had seen something that had scared him BADLY. 

When they finally got him to talk about it, he described a black creature with yellow eyes. The beast stood taller than the boy's father (who was quite tall himself at 6'6'') and smiled at him with sharp teeth. Even at the rate the Fireco Varmint seemed to 'grow,' it seems unlikely that THIS beast was the same 'species.' 

Not long after the brother's encounter, Raven and a friend decided to look for the beast themselves on the grandmother's property. Raven, feeling uneasy, stayed back while the friend went down over a small hill. That would prove to be the wrong course of action, as Raven soon noticed crouched in the brush, a dark creature with not two, but FOUR yellow eyes staring back. The friend also reported seeing the beast, and the two quickly got out of the area when the creature roared at them and picked up a branch. The next day, the two friends returned to the site and found claw marks in a tree where the beast had been.

The last time Raven personally saw the creature was in November of 2014 after returning home late one evening. Looking out the window towards where the cars were parked around 3 am, Raven noticed the outline of a horrific creature that was pitch black, humanoid in shape, and thickly built. It was tall...at least 6'8'' by estimates. After staring Raven down for a few minutes, it ran off. 

Raven's brother had seen the beast as recently as a month before the story was submitted to the website, and it was reported that even after Raven moved away, screams and roars continued to be reported in the area. However, the creepy part is that wherever Raven went, the beast seemed to follow. From across town to even vacationing in South Carolina, Raven could FEEL the beast nearby. 

The Beast of Beckley seemed to be more active in the summer months, and would sometimes be accompanied by unexplained lights in the woods. Skeptics tried to pass off the sightings as a black bear, but I think that some of the reported behavior suggests that not only was this NOT a black bear, but perhaps a creature not of this natural world. Since that report was published, at least one other independent witness has come forward and claimed to have seen the exact same thing in the general area. 

Are we dealing with multiple 'types' of beasts, reported over the span of nearly 100 years, or is there some thread connecting the Fireco Varmint, the East Beckley Beast, and the Beast of Beckley together? I'd love to know YOUR thoughts, and if you've had an encounter with an unknown creature in the Beckley/Raleigh County area, please let me know in the comments below...or find me over on Theresa's Haunted History of the Tri-State FaceBook!  

Sources and Further Reading:

The Fireco Varmint-Theresa's Haunted History Blog

Legend of Beast Resurfaces Near Fireco, WV-WV Explorer

The Raleigh Register. 23 October 1959

Beast of Beckley-The National Cryptid Society