Investigators now suggest the light was a meteor and the creature was a barn owl perched in a tree with shadows making it appear to be a large humanoid.

[4] At 7:15 p.m., on September 12, 1952, two brothers, Edward and Fred May, and their friend Tommy Hyer, said that they saw a bright object cross the sky and land on the property of local farmer G. Bailey Fisher.

May, accompanied by the three boys, local children Neil Nunley and Ronnie Shaver, and West Virginia National Guardsman Eugene Lemon, went to the Fisher farm in an effort to locate whatever it was that Edward and Fred had claimed to see.

Lemon said he aimed a flashlight in that direction and momentarily saw a tall "man-like figure with a round, red face surrounded by a pointed, hood-like shape".

According to Barker's account, the next day, A. Lee Stewart Jr. of the Braxton Democrat claimed to have discovered "skid marks" in the field and an "odd, gummy deposit"[4][5] which were subsequently attributed by UFO enthusiast groups as evidence of a "saucer" landing.

[4][10] Nickell concluded that the shape, movement, and sounds reported by witnesses were also consistent with the silhouette, flight pattern, and call of a startled barn owl perched on a tree limb, leading researchers to conclude that foliage beneath the owl may have created the illusion of the lower portions of the creature (described as being a pleated green skirt).

Researchers also concluded that the witnesses' inability to agree on whether the creature had arms, combined with May's report of it having "small, claw-like hands" which "extended in front of it", also matched the description of a barn owl with its talons gripping a tree branch.