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Lighting The Flatwoods Fuse
by Alfred Lehmberg
PART TWO
When I awoke early on the seventh everyone had already been
up for awhile moving like a platoon of Army Ants. On the previous day, after I'd retired, it had been discovered
that the venue where the event had been planned was short required sound and
lighting equipment! Replacement equipment provided by the furious activity of Larry
Bailey's two younger sons drew too much power for the recently restored 50's
type movie theatre and was blowing fuses.
The sound and light boards needed to be virtually rewired, heavy klieg
lights had to be procured and mounted, colored gels and masks were cut and
affixed to carousels while rehearsals and run-throughs had to be completed—yesterday!
Where were the expected harsh shouts, finger-pointing,
hurtful allegations, angry accusations, and exasperated capitulations? Nowhere to be found, reader! In its stead was a calmness, ready
volunteerism, and sacrifice to common cause.
I had other things I probably should have been doing, but I even found
myself setting up Stanton Friedman's 35mm slide presentations or helping Doug
Gokey, one of the event security guys, set up the boards and displays of Feschino's
Flatwoods mini-museum.
Forgetting the preceding for just a moment, I report that I
was treated to encounters with my fellow Homo sapiens rather adding to
the unusual fellowship—fellowship so thick you could breath it like it was
oxygen enriched air:
Shoot Them Down!
It is an important story, reader,
perhaps even the story given the remarkable
genuineness of it. It deserved
the best possible foot forward and everyone gravitated to that end—this story would be told, brave persons would be celebrated, and the sacrifice
of departed service members would be
remembered and even vindicated! That brave deceased, involved and perhaps
even perishing in undeclared and secret air war with extraterrestrials—just
pause a moment to breathe on that—is difficult to blow off. Everyone was
spring-loaded to giving their best.
First up is John Barker.
From 1950 thru 1958, Barker, an acknowledged expert in military aviation
history, was a close 1952 associate of early WV radio personality Hugh
McPherson. McPherson was a huge
WV Personality.
Barker, now in his eighties and still tack sharp, was out to
the Bailey Fisher farm, scene of the celebrated Flatwoods Monster incident,
soon after the highly strange affair went down! He took reports on the acrid alien
smells, saw the terror in interviewed participants, and wandered the—still
fresh—landing sites. He observed the cordons restricting entry into the inexplicable "what-are-they-doing-here" military
presence... forever impressed, himself, that we are not alone. Barker—still
a trusted, if largely retired professional person with a long established wealth
in community idiosyncratic credit regarding his honor and dependability—was there.
We spent about 90 minutes chatting about his deep and
abiding interest in UFOs. and a warmer and more eloquent elder gentleman I have
yet to meet. Listening to the articulate
Mr. Barker, I was reminded of the depth, scope, and timelessness of the
ufological milieu I suspect I could get in no other way...
Next up was Scott Ramsey.
Mr. Ramsey, FYI, has focused the past 20 years tracking and documenting
the facts, piece by unsettling piece, to some pretty startling conclusions
regarding the so-called "Aztec Incident," a related affair. This incident remains, at least, relevant
given the activity on both sides of the military/ ET equation which Frank Feschino
trots out in two bulletproof current additions he can stand by. That should get
juices flowing! ...But you, reader, discount what
Feschino's discovered in his two decade and change sifting the data at the reader's peril. The first edition of his work, remember, was butchered
by an errant publisher.
Decidedly, Feschino has
separated fact from fiction regarding the alleged Aztec, New Mexico
Crash/Landing of 1948. His painstaking
investigative journey has taken him to 29 states and drawn interviews from some
60-plus 1st and 2nd hand witnesses. In addition, Mr. Ramsey has archived over
2200 supporting Atomic Energy Commission and US Air Force Documents, including
uncovering three old and abandoned radar bases still suspiciously secret more than half a century later! What's up with that, eh?
Ramsey's been a busy man, and no less busy is his lovely
wife, companion, and partner in the concise, detailed, and extensive research,
Suzanne. Scott himself was very
personable, had an affability provoking a comfortable friendliness. Scott was
there to support Feschino.
We've never been "in Kansas," reader. The Ramsey's understand same.
Realize, reader, in a short digression, that the jury is
still way out on the Aztec occurrence. MJ-12...
Roswell
Though, further trying to throw a bucket of
cold water on the Flatwoods affair is not the carpet-bagging stranger coming to
the great state of West Virginia who doesn't really make a dime even trying to cover expenses... it is West Virginia's own,
ironically enough. Based on fatuous
bupkis? Some local press came not to
praise "Caesar," but to cremate
him!
Locked into the dreary pedantic and unable to appreciate at
least one impassioned metaphor, Mr. Bill Lynch,
astonishingly if predictably clueless and uninformed—but with a ready if
inexplicable sneer regardless—misses
the point, the chance, and the journalistic boat,
eh? Missed the boat, when he knew better: follows, a link to a dead
page at a Charleston , WV
http://thegazz.com/gblogs/strangeplaces/2007/08/29/space-aliens-want-our-women-and-maybe-a-corndog/ The link is dead but the reader can detect
the predictable cant. A "good laugh"
is had all around, eh?
Relegating perhaps hundreds of brave servicemen and the
sacrifices they made to an insulting joke regarding "aliens wanting our women" and perhaps as some second choice,
"corndogs"... is in the
poorest of taste, at best. At worst
it is a stake in the heart of an honorable pecuniary opportunity for West
Virginia that could not be achieved in any other way!
Famous flying saucers don't land in just
everyone's back forty. How ironic to
spit in ones own face, but Mr. Lynch seemed to have achieved same.
But the program itself. What about the program itself, minus the 12 foot Flatwoods Monster
replicas, the huge saucers painted in 3D, the fog curling off the front of the
stage, the red lasers, colored lights and finishing mock shuttle (of the
imagination?) launches powered by twin nitrogen gas cannons? What about the program itself, minus the street closed off outside and
festooned with automobiles popular in 1952—even one authentic and perfectly
reconditioned Olive Drab Army Jeep looking ready enough to strike out to the
crash site circa 1952—all highlighted with easel mounted placards iterating
facts and figures of the affair at Flatwoods?
The program, patient reader, is a compelling multimedia presentation including a very thorough
telling of an astonishing story as real as spots on apples and more relevant
than football on TV! Persuasive and
compelling original songs by Anthony Sica, performed live and on video,
question our Government's role in the aggregate ignorance of every one of us. One of his compelling songs even channels the
spirit of one of the pilots lost as a
result of "Shoot Down" orders issued by the highest authority, plaintively
beseeching that he be remembered for his sacrifice!
Frank Fechino gives a short talk before showing his
Flatwoods documentary film and solemnly iterates the names of pilots known to be lost in the incompetently reported, poorly conducted, and childishly chronicled,
if suspicious, "official records" of the time. He would honestly choke up, a little, as he
recited this harrowing litany on the first night of the program. He recovered, and wouldn't blubber like I
would later—forgetting he sure primed my pump—but Feschino thoughtfully mourned
the memories of young men forgotten and betrayed even as they bravely sailed
into the teeth of their ultimate
sacrifice!
The reader is asked to imagine himself—or herself—as the
pilot of an all-weather state of the art Air Force jet September, 12 1952,
during a documented 21 and a half hours of sustaind UFO activity. The jet, loaded with dozens of transonic
ballistic rockets sits—engines roaring—on the dark and stormy tarmac in standby
with orders compelling one to launch themselves into the teeth of the complete
unknown: ordered to interdict, engage, and shoot down UFOs. Such orders were issued, reader.
Last not least, Stanton Friedman, in great voice and in his
usual inimitable and extremely well reasoned manner, lays out for the listener
not only how possible it is for Aliens to be here, but how possible it is, based on our own well understood
technology, for us... to get there! This may begin to explain an Alien's interest
in our humble Earth. Enough.
Reader? I must report
that the two day program, conceived in an efficacious
sincerity and a tireless diligence,
was a success without qualification
even as it cost all the participants at the start. See?
It's to become, I suspect, a dry fuse leading to an explosion of
the future... for the future!
Consider, this investment of time, passion, and real dollars
was supported in an unstinting and selfless camaraderie entirely bereft of ego! It was executed with imagination, intelligence,
sacrifice, and bravery; the Event was a bona
fide success. Smoke that,
hostile punditry!
In a sidebar, this writer hopes that as a result of this
success the people of West Virginia
realize three things:
One, that they are top dead center on the short
list of one of the most astonishing and precipitous events of modern times,
two, that they owe Larry Bailey and
his three fine sons, especially Gilbert Bailey... three of West Virginia's own,
a hearty vote of thanks for bringing the preceding to them... and three... just how poorly they are served by what passes for some journalism in the beautiful state of West Virginia.
The Flatwoods Fuse is lit folks. Buckle in.
Eh? Oh, right. The aforementioned tears.
Larry Bailey decided at the very beginning of his initiative
that he wanted to tie kids in somehow with the interesting historical aspect of
the Flatwoods affair and its presentation.
Consequently, when the opportunity provided by Charleston's Heritage Towers Museum presented
itself, that he sponsor a Flatwoods Monster Art contest for age-grouped kids,
Bailey jumped aboard without the slightest
hesitation.
Well, the two-day program is finally at an end and we're
shutting down the theater on the last night.
Everyone is exhausted and ready for some down-time. Bailey is insistent, though, that we return
to the Heritage Museum, unannounced, and congratulate the kids who'd won in
their age groups. Well, at this point,
we'd have done anything for old Ben Cartright, eh? We put on our spurs, and in a kind of
Flatwoods Monster Posse, moseyed down the street on foot a few hundred meters
to the Museum. Included was Larry and
his son Gilbert, Stanton Friedman, Frank Feschino, and myself among others.
We walked in the front door of the, really, very interesting
cultural museum—let me quickly digress and tell the reader about a genuine
ceremonial grain door from the Ufologically famous Dogon Tribe in Africa on
display! Look that up! Anyway...
The museum is all tricked out "Flatwoods monster and
UFOs," the kids have been watching UFO and Science programs all afternoon
and evening, and they're keyed up in a pleasant and productive sort of way, anyway.
Celebrating their own very real local history, the kids wave glowing
green chem-stix as the adults validate same wearing fluorescent green and
bobbing antenna. Absent from these
educated persons was the knowing look, the klasskurtxian sneer, or the remotest
smug pellicule of
same (sic). I was genuinely touched.
Well, into this themed and very pleasant exuberance of kids
and adults, and a big feature of the
program all day authoritatively on television anyway—walks Stanton T. Friedman!
Friedman is followed by the "star of the extravaganza down the
street at the theatre," followed by a merry band exploding flashes and
otherwise chronicling the event, plus the event promoter.
Well, the kids were all "...oh WoW!" and "We
don't believe it!"! Eyes were wide
and breathing was quick and fast! I
could tell that the kids appreciated this capstone
to a great day for them... firing their imaginations with a future looming
somehow beyond economic depressions
outside, right here in their own Capital
City
The winners of the
age-grouped art contest quickly presented themselves and they all just beamed,
but one little fellow fairly eclipsed the rest.
He glowed with an inner light bespeaking, it seemed, that this was the
absolute and uncontested high point of his short life so far; heroes and
book-writers like Stanton Friedman had walked down to see him, congratulate him,
and shake his hand... He looked up
grinning into Feschino's face and said, "Mr. Feschino, I want to write and
draw and paint, just like you someday..."
Need I go on, reader?
Eyes filled right there, but with a masterful control—I'm
a manly man dammit—they didn't spill until we were out of the museum into the
hot night walking back to the theatre. Still,
I was fine, recovering nicely... then Larry had to say, "Did you see the
expression on that little kid talking to Frank?"
My tears gushed like rococo fountains. Me and anyone else with a lick of sense, a
shred of intelligence, or some small brace of consciousness, eh? No apologies here. Remembering what was said earlier about necks and field stations, dare
to mock me, eh?
Read on.
"Son, when a man knows deep down in his heart, when he really
knows, he doesn't have to argue about it, he doesn't have to prove anything.
Just knowing is enough." -- Ben Cartright
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