Showing posts with label Flatwoods Monster. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Flatwoods Monster. Show all posts

Friday, August 22, 2008

[???] Braxton County 2008


8-21-08


The following still images were recovered from camera and field equipment found in the storage room of a West Virginia police station. Upon developing the film found in the equipment, only about 10% of the images were usable due to the condition of the equipment, although they provide both a date and time.

The equipment is otherwise in an unusable condition as a result of physical damage and its age. Markings on the case of the camera and monocular are consistent with chemical burns.


The identity and whereabouts of the operator are not currently known.

This is the first photograph in chronological sequence. A humanoid figure and ship (?) appear in the distance.



At this point the operator attempted to use a more powerful monocular scope with night vision capabilities. The image is grainy, although it provides a date and time.


A clearer image of the humanoid.


This is the last photograph in the roll.


So, totally realistic, huh? Amazing that field agents in the '50s had access to night vision equipment with digital rangefinders. I had fun making that image... guess I got a little carried away. War of the Worlds, not quite.

Few ETs/cryptids have captured the popular imagination like the Flatwoods Monster and his Horvathian compatriot, the Mothman. Even in toy form, there have been many, many versions of the Flatwoods released in recent years- I have only a handful of them, photographed below. The particular toy used for this shoot is a tiny 3.5" glow-in-the-dark version made by ILANENA, and is one of only 25 pieces sold at a recent toy show in Japan.


With all of this popularity, I will be highly surprised if we go a few more years without a movie about the Braxton County incident... hopefully this time the filmmaker doesn't make the Mothman mistake of turning a real story into a hospital ward psychological thriller starring Richard Gere. If I wanted to watch The Eye, I would have rented it, thanks. At least that would have had Jessica Alba.

Wednesday, May 9, 2007

[Review] Ice Scream

Well, I had a very nice article written up for this figure, but Yahoo Japan's auction counter just crashed Firefox and caused me to lose all of my work. So here's some pictures. EFF YOU YAHOOOOooooo.

Just took some quick photos, since Flatwoods will be invading my office tomorrow morning, along with a few of his friends.

This Flatwoods Monster was a recent, and stealthy, release in David Horvath's contribution to Wonderwall's Kaiju for Grow-Ups series. Supposedly it was a edition of 50, but paint mess-ups and pieces that escaped to the collection of Horvath and Wonderwall lowered that number to around 40-ish, by my estimate. So, a nice quiet little release, that was only publicized on Horvath's own blog and released in a covert drop-off at Giant Robot's LA store. I actually had to do a bit of wheeling and dealing to grab one of these- I believe they were only sold online for a few minutes, but I had mine locked down long before that. Nyah ha.

Horvath, as it turns out, is a great fan of the paranormal and strange, although few would guess this from the whimsical paradise created for his Ugly Dolls characters. I guess he took advantage of his commission with Wonderwall to release this creative urge in several fruity flavors of Mothman and Flatwoods Monsters toys. Many, if not most, of the Flatwoods were based on elements of the Flatwoods Monster encounter story. Although I'm not sure that this particular clear colorway has a basis in paranormal-reality, it does bear a resemblance to a certain Marmit-produced toy...

One thing that irks me about the clear vinyl used for this toy is that it shows off every imperfection, bubble and dust speck on its surface. On the other hand, I can hardly wait to stuff it with sparkly things, and maybe my little Marmit Flatwoods toy? Maybe when he gets back from work.

Oh, and the figure comes with a nice header and some lineart from Horvath.