Case file · Retrieval claim
The 'Martian monkey' of Mableton
In July 1953 two Atlanta barbers and a butcher showed police a small hairless 'alien' they said had fallen from a red saucer on the Bankhead Highway west of Atlanta.
1953 CE · 33.81, -84.58 · status: hoax
The account
Edward Watters, Tom Wilson and Arnold Payne had shaved a dead rhesus monkey, cut off its tail, dyed it green and scorched a ring on the road with a blowtorch, reportedly to win a $10 bet. The press ran it nationally for a day.
The sceptical view
A pathologist at Emory recognised a monkey within hours, and Watters was fined for obstructing the highway. The body is still shown at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation's crime lab museum.