Presidential UFO Disclosure?

Presidential UFO Disclosure?

By Alfred Lehmberg

Harry S. Truman was the President of the United States on that fateful day of September 12, 1952! He would come to order, in an official UFO disclosure when the reader thinks about it... and because his advisors would have wanted one? He would order that UFOs be shot down. 

We digress a moment to point out that, at the time, sentient people would react strongly to that... as we've pointed out before...

Scientific sanity would not prevail...

Disclosure? Well, UFOs festooned America's skies that summer and especially on the night in question! The constant reader will recall that on our fateful September day, Frank Feschino, Jr., as a result of his painstaking research, his inordinate personal courage*, and his extreme due diligence**... discovered there were 21 hours of sustained UFO sightings occurring over the United States that night, and that these timestamped observations could be linked into "chains" of "direction" and "speed." The president had ordered that these UFOs, unabashed violators of Prohibited airspace ...apart from the fact that he wanted one, the reader is reminded, be shot down!

For an example of that hostility, perhaps, on this evening four different and damaged UFOs accounted for 13 repeated crash-landings in the eastern United States of West Virginia, South Carolina, and Tennessee. These were the reports of a concerned local citizenry as it was reflected in the newspapers of the time and well  BEYOND the official "tamp-downs" imposed by State and Federal government and alluded to in our preceding article.

An ET rescue of ET downed pilots as a result of faints to key
prohibited airspaces?***

It remains that one of the most memorable incidents occurred over Washington, D.C. at approximately, 7:00 p.m. EST! Just ONE of those damaged UFOs flew West over the Capitol at a very low altitude and badly scared the local Washingtonians. A meteor?

It was called, "The Flame Over Washington," and was later written off as a meteor by a disingenuous Government... only it was too damn low and too damn slow! In our suspected and data-based opinion on the existential of this tracked object? 

That alleged "meteor" was actually the "Flatwoods Monster" craft! It would continue flying West and land in West Virginia at about 7:25 in the evening. Then? Then all hell broke loose. Verily, Flatwoods would accessorize as a new American zeitgeist, all thanks to Frank Feschino!

See, shortly after this thing alerted the citizenry with its flyover? A 12-foot-tall alien occupant emerged from its damaged craft and encountered a group of the alerted Flatwoods residents! You know that story... Back to Harry Truman? 

The serendipitous seven! A real close encounter?

Well, he would have his hands filled that entire day and night during what is now known as the biggest "UFO flap" in American (human?) history! The "Flatwoods Monster" incident! As we've pointed out, it was the end of the "Summer of Saucers"! 

The president was neck-deep in saucers and their attendant teacups! How could a president NOT be to his elbows in the affair? How do we know this?

During Frank Feschino's research into the UFO events of that day, Stanton T. Friedman assisted and worked with Frank on the case via Friedman's contacts regarding White House and Congressional records. On one occasion, Friedman spoke to Feschino and said he was curious about the telephone calls President Truman must have received on that day... Ding!

Mr. Friedman informed Feschino that there were actually daily "TELEPHONE MEMORANDUM" documents, which logged and recorded the incoming "WHITE HOUSE" phone calls. The particular document that Friedman wanted was the "Sep 12, 1952" memo for "The President."

Friedman told Feschino he would try to obtain the September 12, 1952 document for him as an aid to his research and then made a phone call. Mr. Friedman was successful! A few weeks later he obtained President Truman's White House telephone memorandum for that day and read it.

Would this capture a president's attention
for the day?

 Shortly after, he called Feschino with the good news, then sent a copy to him, which Feschino reviewed. Feschino and Friedman talked about the memo at length, and both agreed that they would not have wanted to be in President Truman's shoes on that day! Wait... yes, they would have, is the bet! See... it's information not earth-shattering on its face; it's the implications of such raisin' the hair on the back of THIS old soldier's neck.

This interesting and informative document is transcribed in its entirety and appears in Feschino's "Braxton County Monster" book. The upshot on the down-low? President Truman was wholly unavailable at the critical time to talk to anyone. ...One wonders why that would be.

The man who shot at UFOs!

*There were consequences for a lanky Yankee boy wandering around those West Virginia Hills with a video camera asking questions no one wanted to answer... based on their expectation of FURTHER ridicule! One can smell the coffee...

**One could have asked the late Stanton Friedman. He would have attested to Feschino's extreme due diligence. He posted fore AND aft in all of Feschino's books.

***These would be interior military sites associated with nuclear weapons production and delivery, so capturing official "interest." 

The State Police Facilitate A Cover-up of the "Flatwoods Monster" Incident?

 

                                                    The Oakland Tribune. Monday, September 15, 1952

The West Virginia State Police 

and the Initial Cover-up of the 

"Flatwoods Monster" Incident 

by Alfred Lehmberg

Shortly after the "Flatwoods Monster" incident occurred, the government began keeping a watchful eye on the events now quickly unfolding in Flatwoods. "Why would that be," we remark with some significant side-eye!

Mrs. Kathleen May told Frank Feschino, Jr., "The amount of people that came up here later the next day [Saturday, Sept. 13] was unbelievable! The National Guard roped off the area at the access road." This was just the beginning. Even now the story pops and sizzles. Erupting flame is justified...

During that day and over the entire weekend droves of newspaper reporters, writers, and curious on-lookers descended upon Flatwoods... to actually existentialize the Fisher Farm place-name where the incident took place, whether they knew it or not! Donald Keyhoe would auspiciously remark later that, "People will remember...".

Meanwhile, intelligence operatives had already put the wheels in motion to begin to diffuse the escalating "monster" story; thought necessary for reasons both reasonable... and for reasons less than reasonable it could be thought? 

Cold War with the Soviets had paranoid military and Government leaders reluctant to survey skies for both Soviet Bombers AND UFOs, eh...? They didn't want people distracted by UFOs when Soviet bombers, festooned with nuclear bombs, were the more pressing issue? 

It remains that there are now well-known presidential orders to shoot UFOs down... (All credit to Feschino) ...rather confirming their existence at all*... and the Government would have wanted one... for more reasons good and bad. ...Only consider, if the reader will:

We'll talk about "ego, pride, arrogance, and hubris" later.

...And given suspicious Agency activities and even property thefts of key evidentiary bits from Flatwoods (one such theft even on our newspaperman and sworn official/first responder A. Lee Stewart!) it is reasonable to presume that information manipulation by the clandestinely operating Government was occurring, and that some of that agency manipulation included working covertly through... the West Virginia State Police! 

The State Police visited Flatwoods the day after the incident! They also visited nearby Sutton, the county seat of Braxton County during that weekend. Their objective? To shut the locals up! Discourage them, in point of fact, from giving any information to anyone investigating and to debunk the "Flatwoods Monster" incident outright! ...Encourage the disparagement, laughing at, and actively ridiculing the story? Yes.

What were the real motivations for this? We don't know. We can only follow the data, and go where it leads?

Mass Hysteria?

The State Police started claiming, abruptly, that the incident was due to "mass hysteria" and that the damaged craft that the boys saw that night, "was a meteorite." Remember that the "whys" and "hows" of this alleged "meteorite" have been so thoroughly debunked that the concept of it is nothing but entirely risible!

At this point, then, and deliberately, the initial debunking phase of the government's plan was implemented, it seems apparent, and the cover-up of the "Flatwoods Monster" incident began in earnest. Moreover, this cover-up story was used by intelligence officials at Project Blue Book right up until the time the "Flatwoods, West Virginia" case was recorded on one of their "Project 10073 Record Cards." The incident was filed as "case #2078"! It was "evaluated" as: 

"Conclusion: [X] Was astronomical." ...Astronomical... a meteor lingering in the WV skies virtually every minute for over 21 hours... A credulity strainer, for sure! 

No... It might be said here that "conclusions" were not supported by documented evidence, and that the later "Condon Report," as would all UFO studies until just recently, continue to prosecute this unconstructive program of ridicule, mockery, and derision... we'll call it "ufological minimization." Why, one is provoked to ask... again!

The aforementioned Pioneer researcher Donald Keyhoe investigated the Flatwoods incident heavily as we know. He reported the following through his connections in Washington, D.C. 

Keyhoe would say, "I discovered that the Air Force had not ignored the Sutton [Flatwoods] report! To avoid public attention, intelligence had worked through the West Virginia State Police, securing all the details." Well, slam, swoosh, game-over, and let's beat the crowd to the parking lot! 

Keyhoe would add, "...Their check through the state police showed more interest than they had admitted." Ominous music could be cued at this point in our narrative.

One first-person local Jack Davis, who witnessed the damaged "Flatwoods Monster" craft go down that Friday night told Feschino the following about the West Virginia State Police. He reported, "...I was in Sutton and a patrolman by the name of Gumm talked to me a little bit. He expressed to me that any remarks or anything that people might ask about it ["the monster"]...not to give them any information and not to discuss it." Jack Davis indicated the WVSP trooper who spoke to him was insistent he not provide any "legs" for this story.

Davis also encountered state troopers in Flatwoods during this time and reported the following, "They told me just not to discuss it with anyone. They said it was not to be discussed with anyone and not to tell a bunch of tales about something I'd seen that I didn't know anything about. ...That if you couldn't tell them what it was, then you didn't tell them some 'phenomenon tale.' " He added, "I would notice that very, very often they'd come along on rounds and stop at the local stores in the area of Flatwoods—basically, just in my opinion, to disperse the loafers or whatever you want to call them." The bulls roustin' the woo-woos & looky-loos...

A. Lee Stewart, also indicating this official "discouragement," said the name of the WVSP trooper leaning on him was named, "Corporal Ted Tribbett."

On Sunday, September 14, 1952, the first report of the West Virginia State Police's cover-up involvement, as it can be called, "debunking" the "monster," appeared in "The Charleston Daily Mail" newspaper. That paper's headline read, "Braxton Co. Residents Faint, Become Ill after Run-In With Weird 10-foot Monster." 

"Smelly boogieman," indeed... Well, they sure smelled something!

In part, it further read, "However, State Police laughed the reports off as hysteria. They said the so-called monster had grown from seven to 17 feet in 24 hours." Uh... no, it didn't. Everyone knows what the last guy reports in the party-game "Telephone." Corruption and bupkis of the transmitted information will be made inaccurate and distorted in transmission. There's a lesson to be learned.

On Monday, September 15, 1952, the United Press picked up the story and several articles across the country carried the State Police's debunking story. One such article appeared in "The Wheeling News-Register" with the headline, "Metallic Odor Indicates Meteor—Officers Shake Heads Over W. Va. Ogre Tale." Yeah... that's "helpful" where it's not dismissive and insulting. The principals in this affair would endure insult for many years. ...Until Feschino, it is offered. Then some respect would be shown. 

The News-Herald. Franklin, PA. Monday, 
September 15, 1952.

 

The paper reported, in part, "SUTTON, W.Va. Sept. 15—(UP)... Authorities said they believed the 'flying saucer' which Mrs. May's sons saw, was a 'meteorite.' The incident occurred during a meteor shower over a 3-state area." Remember reader, and we reiterate! There were no meteors recorded by skywatchers on the night of September 12, 1952! There was only 21-hours of sustained UFO activity over the United States and in that region..."Summer Of Saucers", remember! That's what people were seeing!

Undeclared air war with ET providing for a UFO's forced landing in Flatwoods? We can only follow the data. 

...But no meteor showers as had been unreported by the perspicacious and duly diligent "meteor nerds" of the time, boy howdy, who were looking into the skies for something, anyway, as a result of the annual ε-Perseid meteor shower of about that time! Still! They recorded no significant meteors or showers.

A virtually unceasing 21 Hours and some minutes of this! Meteor?
They had to call it something, for reasons good and bad!

There were more newspaper examples of the West Virginia State Police's involvement in the initial debunking of the "Flatwoods Monster" case. ...But this would not have been the end of the "story manipulation" by a suspiciously anxious officialdom, a "story manipulation" including the denial of the very existence of military pilots lost in this "ET air war"—violently prosecuted that very night of the 12th—until Feschino ferreted them out... a "story manipulation" only getting more detailed, compelling, and data-rich the more one immerses themselves in it! 

The reader can do that immersion here, themselves, in the way most advantageous to Mr. Feschino... His book is a trove of compelling information gleaned from the factual record and painstakingly stitched together over many years to be a supported truth... frankly, a truth told to be understood so that it can be believed!

Closing, it remains, reader! There was an extraordinary activity, then, that Feschino has recorded in our human history—the scope of which is so open-ended and serendipitous that it has the potential to rewrite the whole of human history... while wholly enhancing our script on that path forward and beyond, reader... to a more expansive and fulfilling history yet to be writ! That's THIS writer's intuition.

The price? We don't know! We've NEVER known! We reach and try to close our grasp! Though, the reader can bet that a lot of ego, arrogance, pride, and hubris has to be cast aside before that more fulsome path can be realized... 

Isn't that the ZEN? Isn't that the WAY? 

It may be we're not behaving in a manner demonstrating a worthiness for those futures, howsoever they might have been realized. That should be considered. 

Too many times in our hoary, hoary history... have we not believed ourselves to be at the very center of things, be that very center jewel in Creation's crown... ...only to find that the evidence was always irrefutable that we were not? 

We might take a lesson from that? It could bring the saucers down. Until then... buy Feschino's book!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

*...Why we don't use the term UAP. See, UFOs are presumed, on reasonable evidence, to be a real thing in a real world with the existentiality of a brick thrown through a plate glass window of a CSIcop commissary... substantial in the corporeal... by definition! UAPs? They don't even have to be there, at all. We won't give a flatulent fat fiddler for the UAP, only by what is there in the real world... whatever THAT turns out to be. We're going to stop taking Zebras, up close on a clear sunny day, for probable horses only misidentified by the misleading, the gullibly misled, and the mentally ill. 

Feschino's Bad Rap Flap!

Feschino by the infamous tree...

Frank Feschino lives, my friend! 

Remember him as you pretend 

you took no sides when he disclosed... 

his tale to us on many shows. 

 Invited, he just tells the story. 

There is no reward or glory, 

just a smear by those effusing 

an "ignorance" which Frank's refusing!

.

Not that he'd expected "praise," 

but he's dismayed at the "disgrace." 

 See, all he did was sift too well 

the "well raked dust" of Bluebook's "tell."

. 

 Too, what was told as data's sieved, 

and facts appear we can't forgive? 

 Why, a betrayal of the trust 

which others missed!  It's not discussed!

.  

...Or, what occurs when trust's abused, 

and all Frank's work was then misused... 

to cheaply make the printer's buck, 

a published pile of steaming "suck"...

The printer cut and pasted wrongly.

He raped Frank's work and wronged it strongly.

He mixed, mismatched, and snipped Frank's work...

His book was near destroyed, the jerk... 

.

Hauling data, Frank's returned. 

 Sixteen years his search had churned! 

 Too, he's been busy "prosecuting"

all the claims dismissed "refuting"!

.  

Truth be told, it's all worked out 

and documented, hope to shout.  

Project Bluebook as I said, 

a trove of treasure as it's read, 

then recounts named journalists 

describing facts as they exist! 

Last, first-persons make account 

of what they saw was flying about... 

together, these all paint a picture.  

If we but copped, we'd be the richer.

.

Still, dismiss him, and the stars, 

plus all of one's professed regard 

to hoeing jealous rows of science! 

  The lack of which tempts pseudoscience.  

See, he pinpoints, plots, and notes the time-hacks... 

...points where UFOs had made their impact.  

He defines an audit trail!  

It's the "saucer's" holy grail!

.

Lo, some were damaged, spitting smoke.  

This was reported, not a joke: 

connected points, established flight-paths... 

...of UFOs.  Now, there's your cold-draft!

.

Seems Frank might be, what I sure feel...

  is the righteous, real deal.  

The harbinger of fact portrayed: 

that truth resembling hand grenades!

.

Too, there's interest from lettered principals 

most agree are more than sensible. 

Massive data must sustain 

more truth per drop than's been maintained 

by specious words or ill campaigns 

employed to cant considered brains!

.

Frank's been at this, years, my friend! 

 See, you've the "cant," I would contend. 

 You condemned him without reading, 

without so much as even reaching! 

Then locked ranks and shut him out 

without a thought t'what he's about!

.

Too, all because his book was raped (!) 

dispatched to an ignoble jape; 

perverted by an errant press 

and hacked beyond belief: oppressed!  

Ask Don Ledger who contends... 

That "errant press," too, hacked on him!

.

...Some reactive meme dispatched, 

to aid "pro-active effort's" crash? 

 Folks who can't see other venues, 

the "blinkered fools" with jealous "menus," 

these must have it all their way... 

or make the rest, then, rue their day!  

...But, truth is truth and shall will out 

"The way" is truth, we hope to shout?

.

Frank has, frankly, done the work 

where others, frankly, weren't alert! 

 This must help to open doors 

obstructed by "convention's" force, 

a force maintaining world views 

of niggards wishing mundane news!

.

Shoot Them Down is called a hoax 

and mocked, insulted... made a joke, 

but now it has deserving edit, 

a second look provokes its credit! 

 Too! Feschino's story's caught the eye 

of persons more amazed than I!

.

Though, Frank's accused of a "destruction" 

a "very silly" contrived "construction "

... built to "bring the 'study' down..." 

already limping and unsound!

.

But that's a crock, the data's there! 

  This has one by the shortest hair. 

 See, it's in the record no one read! 

  If it's a snake, it bit! You're dead!

.

Condon was a liar, hoss, 

and what's that fare, friend? What's our loss? 

  What would we be if we weren't slaves... 

...and faced our futures... acted brave?

.

Truth is better through my lens... 

It facilitates respect, my friend.

.

Too, I... suspect that Frank's sincere, 

accept his work (oh my... oh dear!), 

and see that it's not Frank to say... 

...compelling truth! No, that's "Bluebook's" play!

.

See? Over half the data's crassly there. 

 All had missed the "thread," Mon Frère! 

 Likely blinded by Herr Condon... 

ill perceived "non-truth," the problem.  

Dick and Jerry*, primrose "led" 

to be so hard-nosed, and that said?  

Science fiction is far off... 

...but data driven? Those shoes drop!

.

It won't impede the crushing fact 

that "Shoot Them Down" was "orders," Jack! 

 We would want a saucer bad, 

so risked a war with "others"! Mad!

.

Too, it's not like we can't be stupid, 

addled, brainless… less than lucid, 

caught within the errant snare 

that we're "alone," but au contraire! ...

.

Now I don't know what I've found out 

is truly what it's all about, 

but I respect what Frank has done... 

what he's late writ... and by the ton! 

 Too, some heavy-weights have waded in? 

 Those who scoffed (?), prepare your chins!

.

Friedman, Cox, and Porterfield 

know the data cited's real. 

 Good and Barker make a case, 

and Maccabee had interest placed. 

  Responsible, one follows data, 

the rest is bupkis; zero... nada.

.

Think! There is more that has been missed 

if these men think this might exist.  

If I'm wrong, I'll say "Mea culpa", 

double-slap my face like Culkin, 

apologize in verse and prose... 

admit that "you" were on the nose.  

...But, I don't believe I'm wrong, at all; 

convictions "soar and cleave"—my call!

lehmberg2002@gmail.com
www.AlienView.net

*Richard Hall and Jerry Clark (though with all due respect...)

...

Three generations of serious UFO researchers just missed it; the biggest flap in United States History, a flap of which we too faintly or even barely heard! 1952! The Summer Of Saucers! Books have been written about it!

But, three generations of "UFO Hunters" from Keyhoe to Kimball, reader, never recognized the fumbled ufological ball! Ivan T. Sanderson believed something to be there.

Gray Barker, of all people, got close, but he didn't have Bluebook.

A "special thank you" is extended to Dr. Edward Condon, then, the stealth spook and authoritarian obturator who had Bluebook in toto and blew it off of needs decidedly niggardly, short sighted, and dangerous. Ignorance always is.  Shame Dr. Condon! Shame! ...Vergogna!

Ask Stanton Friedman... the generation between Keyhoe and Kimball—presuming I'm forgiven this stretch for alliteration—he'll admit he missed it, I'm betting. But presented to him in the data-rich manner in which it was offered? 

Friedman caught this train, reader, shovels coal in the tractor, and officiates sagely at the caboose, still! Read on.

Revealed! TV's Logical "Machines" Into Fanciful "Monsters"!

How a TV Show in 1952 

Turned a "Machine" 

Into a "Monster"

by Alfred Lehmberg

On September 19, 1952, one week after the so-called "Braxton County Monster" incident, the "monster" of Flatwoods was featured on a hugely popular Nationally televised live TV show called, "We The People." This hugely popular series, decades on radio and beginning television, would last just one more iteration for the program's penultimate death! "We The People" would just inexplicably evaporate to disappear! 

This was a virally popular (for the time!) television talk magazine program, broadcasted live from NBC studios in New York to the entire Nation. It was hosted by one Daniel Seymour, a credible and hugely respected personality at that time who was once recognized as Radio's best announcer... and who would, almost immediately, leave broadcasting for advertising! The reader can make of this what they will...

The show was ahead of its time and a nascent "precursor." The television eye of the entire Nation was upon it. The government, with a much better idea of what was going on, was watching, too.

Daniel Seymour

A historical taproot for our current "reality TV," its whole schtick was to broadcast the "interesting" story of human interest, purported to be true, in a weekly format new to the planet! We'll pause a moment to remember that, among others past and present, a very well-respected Ivan T. Sanderson and well-regarded local boy Gray Barker, believed the Flatwoods story to be true.

Regarding the "We The People," first-person Flatwoods witnesses Mrs. Kathleen May, Eugene Lemon, and our credited reporter A. Lee Stewart, accepted an invitation to appear on the program. They traveled within days to New York to talk about their experiences involving the "Flatwoods Monster" affair. 

In the studio, before the show aired, a sketch artist for the TV show interviewed May and Lemon and drew an illustration of the "monster" that was interminably aired during the whole of the broadcast. We've been over this before in detail.

We'll remember that, sadly, and with fulsome incompetence (he should have known better... there were news accounts he should have read, days in advance, describing the entity as a mechanical contrivance!), the artist "misinterpreted" the two witnesses' descriptions of the "monster," and then very incorrectly portrayed the figure not as described. 

What? Was he trying for more drama? Hovering robots from space is not "drama" enough? ...And what WERE they trying for? Drama, or ridicule.

Not a ghost-witch! A mechanical contrivance!

Instead of drawing the figure as a metallic hovercraft machine, which acted as a space suit and only resembled a 12-foot-tall spacecraft, it is sensibly offered, the artist drew the figure as a cloaked "monster" with arms and claws, wearing a dress, and then topped this aberration with a weird stiff-cloth hood! 

This only gets a legitimated side-eye! Perhaps the plan? Tilt!

Additionally, the "monster" was correctly illustrated to be floating in the air above a drop-cast shadow, but this only added to the bewilderment and befuddlement of this so-called "monster," in the first place! What!! "Ghost bobbysoxers" in West Virginia getting close to Halloween?! 

The sketch artist actually turned this large 12-foot-tall mechanical craft, which had abandoned its downed and damaged ship in distress on the Fisher Farm (as witnessed, so it's reasonably conjectured), and then made it to appear on a National television show as a claw-waving "monster" seen roaming throughout the woods of Flatwoods like a bad movie prop! "Spirit Bobbysoxers From Beyond"?!

During an early interview with Mrs. May, Frank Feschino, Jr. was made to understand that what had occurred in the studio with the producers and the artist that night was a bit of a railroading! She said, "They just told me they'd like to draw a sketch of it... and Gene and I told them what we'd seen, and he [the artist] drew the sketch." So, not a lot of input... and we need to remember that there were descriptions in print about a mechanical mechanism which the artist could have spun up on!

Feschino then asked Mrs. May, "Why did he draw arms on it then, because you told me it had antennae?" She answered, "I told him that too, but that's what he drew on it [regardless?]. To make it look more like a "monster" I guess."  Mrs. May guessed right, is this writer's guess.

The drawing of the incorrect portrayal of the "monster" was aired at the beginning of the program and accompanied by scary music played obligatorily by a live studio orchestra... and was zealously portrayed throughout the program. So, readers! Short-skirted ghost-teens and woo-woo music right from the start! It's a surprise the story got any traction at all. ...But, it did. Feschino would throw journalistic sand down for more traction decades later for the story to have any life at all going forward.

Feschino, also interviewed reporter A. Lee Stewart of "The Braxton Democrat" newspaper, the reader will remember. Mr. Stewart was the first person of authority and officiality to arrive at the May home very shortly after their encounter with the "monster." 

Stewart's testimony will be key to providing legitimacy for the actuality of the story. He also broke the story to the press, the constant reader will recall. We need to remember at this point that no one knew about Lee Stewart, or the very storied Colonel Leavitt mentioned earlier, before Feschino revealed them with his due diligence in research! 

Stewart briefed Frank about the "monster" drawing and the airing of the TV show, "The artist at 'We The People' drew that in New York on the actual day we were there. In fact, it was the focal point of the entire show! They started interviewing Mrs. May and then went to Lemon, which was all a question-and-answer situation. They gave me the opportunity of summarizing the thing in general and then again finished with this particular picture. That was basically the entire program."

Pioneer UFO researcher and author Donald Keyhoe also talked about the program. He writes, "Then Mrs. May and the Lemon boy appeared on "We The People" and retold their frightening experience. It was obvious, they believed the monster was real, and a dozen papers and magazines sent writers to Sutton for new angles on the story." 

Eyewitness Fred May explained the following to Feschino, "For publicity, the 'monster' got attention and I think that's why the papers played it up with claws and things like that—as something alive. ...It was mechanical. It was not alive." 

Subsequently, even with all the media attention that this incident had received, the true likeness of the "Flatwoods Monster" was not revealed to the public at that time! It took another forty years for the true likeness of the so-called "monster" to be portrayed correctly. That was when illustrator Frank Feschino, Jr. began investigating the case!

...But wait! There's MORE! ...And you can read about it in Feschino's books. There was an air war. Something was shot out of the sky with extreme prejudice under presidential orders... and that story is made clearer and clearer day by day! 

Buy it here so Feschino 

can see more of what is his!

COLONEL DALE LEAVITT--Revisited

...Close to retirement as Commander of the West Virginia
National Guard. What could he have known he wouldn't
share with Feschino, and what could have slipped out anyway...

COLONEL DALE LEAVITT—Revisited

by Alfred Lehmberg

Late last century, the constant reader will recall, Frank Feschino, Jr. interviewed retired Colonel Dale Leavitt. This is the storied commander of the West Virginia National Guard, we can recollect, who was involved in the "Flatwoods Monster" case of 1952. The constant reader needs little reminder.

Feschino video-interviewed the retired Colonel at the various locations where the incident had occurred on the now-infamous Fisher Farm at Flatwoods. Though, it was not until this seminal interview; however, that exotic, new, and corroborating information was to be revealed! 

See, it was thought until this time that Leavitt's only participation in the Flatwoods case was but for crowd control in the days following the unsettling incident of the 12th! Documented, of course, is the matter of the extreme interest generated by the press! Thousands of people visited the subject farm in oncoming days. ...But Leavitt's role was to the contrary! Leavitt was there for much more than merely that! 

Leavitt and his near battalion-sized National Guard outfit were actually in Flatwoods shortly after the "monster" incident" at the direction of the Air Force (!!! more on this momentarily) and also in nearby Frametown as it turns out, to investigate an alleged "airplane" crash as we've written about before. 

Remember that late on the night of September 12, 1952, Colonel Leavitt received a call at his home from Washington, D.C. and was ordered to Flatwoods by the United States Air Force, and out of all protocol the constant reader is reminded! The Air Force Top Brass won't just call directly on the WV National Guard, out of the blue! That's not the way things work. No, heralded by this strange lack of "red tape," something undefinably "twitchy" was afoot!

At about 1:30 am on September 13, Leavitt went to the Fisher Farm with some 50-odd armed troops, to start, and cordoned off the farm from public access. Leavitt also examined the farm, directed the collection of samples and debris from the tree area where the encounter occurred, and had the surrounding field combed. He... found stuff!

Leavitt told Feschino, "They called me on the phone, and asked me to get them what they wanted and I told them I would send it back to them. I did. I came up here and got it. I dug some dirt and all that sort of thing... leaves off the tree and sent them in." Colonel Leavitt also stated, "I got some of this 'oil,' the little bits of this and that to see what it was." Meaning, he was finding stuff that he didn't know what it was? He also told Frank he took "some of the wood" from the nearby (now famous!) tree where the encounter occurred. He would discover other things.

Feschino videotaping his interview with Colonel Leavitt at
the site... tree and famous overhanging branch in the back.

Feschino asked Leavitt, "Where did you have to send all this? Did you send it to Washington?" The Colonel answered, "...The Air Force. That's what they wanted me to do." Feschino asked, "Now, when these samples were sent out, they were sent to Washington directly?" Leavitt answered, "Air Force people, that's who wanted..." Frank respectfully interrupts and reiterates, "Now, they contacted you?" Leavitt answered, "Yeah." Frank asked, "Through Washington?" Leavitt, "...Yeah and they wanted to know what it was."

Colonel Leavitt stayed on the Fisher Farm for "about 45 minutes," but left his troops there departing for another location in nearby Braxton County, Frametown, to investigate another subsequently reported incident, as has been mentioned. That incident involved an alleged "plane" that was witnessed to be "on fire," which had been seen crashing into a wooded area around Frametown along the Elk River... where it was reported burning, still! This was a real report! They had the guy!

Leavitt would set up a group contingent of troops throughout these Sugar Creek and Frametown areas to search for any "crash survivors"; he then proceeded back to Flatwoods with some 50 additional troops to investigate the apparently more imperative "monster" incident on the Fisher Farm. Evidence of the "burning airplane crash" at Frametown was not immediately presenting itself!

Leavitt had gone to this Frametown crash area subsequently, as it was taken to be the more serious, one would presume... vis a vis its "burning airplane crash"... though it remains odd that it would not be a civil search and rescue effort responding to a civilian "plane crash," but an armed military loaded for bear, reader, from boats to bazookas... and how did they know to brings the boats? Consider, where and why does one send the war hammer... when a dust-pan would have sufficed? 

Leavitt was there with his over-kill contingent of troops to search for "crash survivors"?! Some salt was required! 

No, they were lookin' for the twitchy shiznit! The reader will recall that UFOs were ordered shot down, at this time, and there were UFOs festooning the skies for hours... and some of these UFOs were acting like they were in distress... Frametown and Flatwoods are two cases in point! 

Leavitt then proceeded to Flatwoods with his 50-odd more troops to investigate the "monster" incident on the Fisher Farm. There was found near Frametown to be no evidence of any "burning" OR "crash" as we'll see. All the real activity would be back at Flatwoods.

We would remind the reader that the following transpired when Feschino asked Colonel Leavitt how long his troops stayed on location at the Fisher Farm that night. 

Feschino, "Now how long was everybody up here, a total time?" Leavitt, "Well, we had about 50 people here, and I don't know how long... Well, they stayed the night." Shocked, Feschino responded, "They did?" Leavitt replied, "Yeah. To see if something else was going to happen!" One wonders what Leavitt had been briefed had the possibilities for a potential "happening"!

Concerning the alleged plane crash that Leavitt investigated with the original group of troops at Sugar Creek in Braxton County around Frametown, Leavitt told Feschino, "We didn't find anything." 

Uh-huh... well, given that there was a UFO in the sky for almost every minute of a contiguous near 24 hours on September 12th, in distress or not, there is offered a plausible reason that a crashed plane wasn't found. 

The "flaming object" seen going down earlier and "burning" was actually a UFO, perhaps shot up by the United States Air Force, which had crashed, self-repaired, and then already taken off by the time the area was searched. No evidence of a reported burning crash was found as we've pointed out...

Furthermore, Feschino discovered this this Frametown UFO, which was damaged evidently, had actually crash-landed twice along the Elk River, only a few miles apart! It first crashed in Sugar Creek, then took off (it must have; it was reported crashed and not there on inspection) followed the Elk River and crashed again in nearby Frametown some eight miles away. It would take off again... or all this was a mirage of mass hysteria?

Leavitt stated the following about his troops along the Elk River looking for a crashed craft, "They had to fan out and try to find that airplane... but there wasn't anything there..." This damaged UFO had actually crashed two times and already taken off by the time the entire area was searched along the Elk River by Leavitt's troops. No one had made the leap that there were two crash-landing sites in the same area because airplanes don't usually crash... then take off again!

Colonel Leavitt expressed his opinion about the "Flatwoods Monster" incident and the alleged Frametown plane crash he'd  investigated in Braxton County that night. He stated, "Something was a cover-up [here in Flatwoods]! There was something down below too, but I don't really know what it was." By "down below," The Colonel meant geographically down in Frametown. He had a documented witness reporting a burning plane crash! Yet, he could find nothing! That would perplex this writer to his dying day.

Colonel Leavitt's exclusive interview with Frank can be read in its entirety in his book:  The Braxton County Monster Updated & Revised Edition... The Cover-up of the “Flatwoods Monster” Revealed [Expanded] (Please avoid Amazon, get it at Lulu link above so Feschino can realize more of what is and has been revealed... the fruit of his arduous labors. Thanks.)

A decorated hero of WWII and returned home, Leavitt's day job was at a Texaco Station, explaining the quaint uniform. But Captain Dale Leavitt commanded the Contingent of WV National Guard headquartered at Gassaway, WV and he was the man of the hour on site answering fate's call. He would eventually command the whole of the West Virginia National Guard.