11-18-1966

High School Science Club Says Beast May Be One Of Its Weather Balloons

Red Eyed 'Winged Monster' Sighted in W. Virginia

The Columbus Dispatch
Columbus, OH
November 18, 1966

Point Pleasant, W. Va. (AP) - The Science Interest Club of Proctorville Fairland High School in Lawrence County, Ohio, its adviser says, may have started it all.

"It" being a winged monster with "penetrating red eyes" that has had hundreds stalking the hollows and hills of this Ohio River country the past two nights.

Since Tuesday night numerous calls have besieged the Mason County sheriff's office here telling of "sightings" of the terrifying apparition originally reported by two young Point Pleasant couples.

Whatever it was, authorities say, it left Mr. and Mrs. Steve Mallett (sic) and Mr. and Mrs. Roger Scarberry "plenty scared."

The couples said they were riding in a car "about midnight Tuesday" and as their auto crested a hill, "it" loomed in front of them.

They said it "resembled a flying man... between six and seven feet tall... with the wings of an angel, covering a span of about 10 feet... gray and white, with penetrating red eyes about six inches apart."

They said they turned tail and headed back from the outlying TNT area (wartime site of a munitions plant) where it appeared. But, according to Mallett (sic), 20, the creature drifted right along behind them as they hit speeds up to 100 miles an hour - and at one point "was in front of the car again."

It veered off as they reached the lights of the city.

Then Wednesday night, while hundreds - many with weapons - searched the TNT area - a Cheshire, Ohio, man who asked that his name not be used, said "it" chased him near Gallipolis, across the river from here.

Edward Prichard of Huntington, the science club adviser at Proctorville, about 30 miles from here, suggested that balloons released by the club may have been "it."

He said the youngsters, conducting studies on air currents, released two 4 by 7 foot gas-filled balloons.

"The prevailing winds would carry them over Mason County," Prichard said. "Light catches these things in strange ways at some angles. Imagination can do the rest."