Rainelle UFO (May 1950)

Beckley Post-Herald
3 May 1950

The spring of 1950 was a big season for flying saucers in West Virginia! In February, a UFO was seen over Fairmont. In March, multiple witnesses reported a craft in Bluefield. In Charleston, a rectangular UFO was observed in April. Continuing with this trend, the town of Rainelle would have its own flying saucer report in May!

On May 2, 1950, two young men had a sighting on a rainy, spring afternoon. D.L. "Dave" Fleshman and Robert "Hank" Webb reported a brown disc streaked with silver, flying low over the town in a southerly direction. The object was about the size of a No. 3 washtub, and was moving very rapidly....so rapidly, that it had disappeared before the boys could alert anyone else to come observe the craft. 

Rainelle is located in the southern part of the state, in Greenbrier County. There doesn't seem to be much in the way of patterns with these 1950 sightings. They come from different parts of the state, and don't necessarily share many physical traits as well. So what was invading the skies over the Mountain State in 1950? 

#3 Washtub

1950 Rectangular UFO Over Charleston

Photo Source

This month,Theresa's Haunted History blog has been filled with UFO stories! I didn't plan on it, but it's been an interesting ride, documenting some of West Virginia's forgotten cases of strange objects in the skies. For the last day of the month, I've got yet another saucer tale for ya!

So, back in the Spring of 1950, there was somewhat of a significant UFO flap occurring across the Mountain State. Between March 14th and March 18th, UFOs were seen in both Bluefield and in Fairmont. But, a month later, on April 8, 1950 another UFO was spotted over the skies of Charleston. The report was published in the 13 April 1950 edition of The Leader (Hinton, WV). It states that Mrs. Hazel Lewis, a Statehouse telephone operator, saw a RECTANGULAR shaped craft flying at a terrific speed. It circled the area, high above the city, then shot straight up and out of sight. It did all of this without making any noticeable sound. 

What's interesting is that up until Mrs. Lewis' sighting, all the flying saucers being reported around the area were described as round or saucer shaped. No one had reported such an angular craft. Did Mrs. Lewis simply misidentify a saucer-shaped UFO, possibly based on her angle of viewing it? Or, was she lucky enough to be one of the first to witness a new type of flying saucer, different from those previously recorded in West Virginia and beyond? Today, there are actually quite a few reports of rectangular shaped UFOs, but even still, they pale in comparison to other forms. Let me know your thoughts in the comments below, and remember to keep your eyes to the skies! 

Flying Saucers Over Follansbee

This news clipping above comes from The Weirton Daily Times and is dated Thursday, 09 February 1967. Two days earlier, on Tuesday February 7, 1967  John Casale of Hoover Heights (located just outside Follansbee, WV in Brooke County) spotted a UFO flying over his home on 2nd Street. The craft was described as being yellowish in color and round, flying from the direction of Steubenville, OH towards nearby Mingo Junction around 8pm that evening.

Among the other witnesses were John's wife, and his children, Mary Ann and Peggy. A handful of others witnessed the flying saucer as well. They were reported as being Louis Casini, Larry Kofur?, Dan Buffington, Richard Banfi?, and Lenny Baldauf. 

Unfortunately, I couldn't find any additional details about this particular sighting, but a quick search led to a handful of other UFO reports coming in from Follansbee between 1989 and 2017! In addition to this 2007 highly detailed account of a black, arrow-shaped anomaly with red lights seen over Rt. 2 submitted to UFO Net (read report HERE), incident reports from NUFORC can be found for 1989,  1999, 2001, 2005, 2007 (which closely resembles the other 2007 report from UFO Net, but happened a few days before), and 2017.  With the exception of the 2007 incidents, all of these craft seem pretty different in their descriptions, and not once did the round, yellow saucer of 1967 seemingly return. 

There is no shortage of UFO sightings from the Mountain State and I'll continue to share and document as many as I come across. Keep your eyes to the skies, and feel free to contact me with your own sightings of strange aerial anomalies! 

Wheeling UFO?

AAAAHHHH!!! Is that an....unidentified flying object?  Back in mid-September of this year, this photo was making its rounds on Facebook, particularly among groups dealing with West Virginia-related paranormal phenomena.  It seems as if it was uploaded by a user named 'Phil T. Rich,' and was allegedly taken in the Highlands area of Wheeling, WV by the father of Phil's unnamed friend.  It ended up being shared by another person to the WV Mutual UFO Network Facebook page.

The photo was shared to my personal Facebook page by a friend and before I even had a chance to SEE it, the mystery had been solved!  Unfortunately for those in the ufology community, this picture IS too good to be true. 

Les O'Dell of WV Cryptids and Strange Encounters shared the photo on his page and almost immediately a sharp-eyed fan named Rebecca Slaughter Boyer was able to debunk it!  As it turns out, there wasn't a mother ship flying over Wheeling, WV.  Instead, the image of the giant UFO comes from a smart phone app called Camera 360.  The image featured here goes by the title of 'End of the War--Starship.' 

Same UFO

The semi-cloaked appearing UFO has been showing up in photographs since at least 2015 (according to this article on Above Top Secret) and can trace its origins back to a composite art piece by Jukka Korhonen called "V for Victory."

As we enter into the spooky season, be prepared to see a LOT more of these phone app hoaxes featuring ghosts, UFOs and other creepy critters flooding social media.  It seems like each October, people try to scare the crud out of their friends and family members with these smart phone apps and many of those photos ended up being posted under the assumption that they are the real deal.  If you are presented with a paranormal photo that seems too good to be true and you suspect it may be a ghost app, there's a couple of great sites featuring a database of ghost app images and information.  Two of my favorites are:  1. There's a (ghost) App For That and 2. Ghost App Ghosts. 

Hope you're having a wonderfully spooky week so far! Keep checking back for new blogs every day throughout October, and don't be afraid to keep your eyes on the skies---just because this particular image isn't an actual UFO doesn't mean that they aren't out there....

The Elk Garden Cemetery UFO

West Virginia is a weird place.  The amount of ghosts, monsters, UFOs and other strangeness here in the Mountain State make West Virginia a paranormal enthusiast's dream.  And, one of the weirder incidents in our spooky lore is the Elk Garden Cemetery UFO.

RD Dean Memorial I.O.O.F. Cemetery Gate and Nethken Methodist Church in background. Photo by KC of Find-a-Grave (2014)

UFO flaps are nothing too out of the ordinary, and West Virginia has seen a few times over the years where a large amount of unidentified flying objects have been seen by multiple witnesses over a period of time.  One such UFO flap occurred in the small community of Elk Garden, located in Mineral County, during the 1960's and 1970's.  It seems as if a large, rounded craft was seen shining lights in the vicinity of Nethken Hill, especially around the local Methodist Church and its adjoining cemetery.  The best viewing spot was around the Kalbaugh Farm on the western side of the hill, and it wasn't unusual for carloads of residents and out of town visitors to drive up the hill and try to catch a glimpse of the unexplained lights.  Not everyone was lucky enough to see the lights, but a few residents did over the years, including a local minister.

The incident in question was documented in Bob Teets' 1994 book, West Virginia UFOs: Close Encounters in the Mountain State.  On the evening of October 8th, 1967 Reverend Harley DeLeurere was contacted by a member of his congregation (noted in the book as being the town's mayor) and the man's adult son.  The man and his son told the minister that they were going to watch for UFOs on Nethken Hill and asked Rev. DeLeurere to join them.  He gladly did...and it would be about two hours later that he would question that decision.

At that point, the men noticed something strange near the roof line of the Kalbaugh home.  The mayor's son described it as 'a big turtle with lights on it.' The craft moved towards the Methodist Church cemetery, but it ultimately ended in the nearby R.D. Dean Memorial I.O.O.F. cemetery.  There is hovered over a day-old grave at a height of about six feet and shone a beam of light directly down onto the fresh grave. The men ran towards the cemetery, but by the time they got there, the craft and the light had vanished without a trace.

It was believed even at that time that there was a connection between new burials at both cemeteries and the strange craft.  It seemed to many that any time someone was buried in either the Methodist Church or the I.O.O.F. cemetery, the mystery lights were seen.  But what WAS the connection?  West Virginia isn't the only area where UFOs have been seen hovering over cemeteries.  According to the site, Inexplicata--The Journal of Hispanic Ufology, similar tales can be found in Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, and elsewhere.  One theory that has been proposed is that these UFOs are sending these beams down to freshly buried bodies to retrieve previous alien implants from those bodies.

The community of Elk Garden only had a population of about 300 during the time of the sightings and witnesses do feel there was a correlation between the lights and new funerals.  If these lights were intended to retrieve implants...well, that's a HUGE chunk of residents that must have had these implants!  What was so special about this community and its citizenry that would warrant such close study by beings from another world?

Out of curiosity, I went to the Find-a-Grave page to check out the list of burials for the R.D. Dean I.O.O.F. Cemetery.  The VERY FIRST entry was for an 81 year old woman named Berdie Mae Roderick Abernathy.  Berdie Mae passed away on October 5, 1967...just days before the incident noted by Rev. DeLeurere.  Could she have been the owner of the fresh grave that allegedly drew the attention of a turtle-shaped craft from beyond our understanding?

In a state full of weirdness, this is truly one of the stranger incidents, not just in West Virginia UFO lore, but of UFO lore in general.  Why do YOU think these UFOs were so interested in these two little cemeteries in a small WV community?  Let me know your thoughts down below in the comments or over at Theresa's Haunted History Facebook!