The Fine Art of Tic-turd Vaulting

 

The Fine Art of Tic-turd Vaulting

By Alfred Lehmberg

 

“…Just commentary, and afraid to publish the full text”? Well, folks need to be careful what they’ve wished for, and others ultimately thankful for those wishes made! ...And they are! This is the “full text,” then. The errant critic is not elevated with a cited recognition, as any elevation remains wholly undeserved… even faring “well” in the "exchange." ...We’re not there yet. We begin… the errant critic asks:

Did the Government Cancel a TV Show Because of the Flatwoods Monster?

Posted on September 1, 2026 by T**y B*****n

TLDR; um, no.

Lehm-- Well… as long as you’re “sure” (even if you didn’t read to all the periods), have some supported thinking on this subject (a subject based entirely on a causal conjectural supposition provoked by given facts pertinent to the case in the first place), and can reveal all this in a manner elevating and sincere, contributing to a history and NOT detracting from it... while NOT being a foursquare a-hole as is observed? It is welcomed. Remains, your manner sucks paranormal pond water; you don't read what you'd criticize… "Too Long Didn't Read" is pretty weak tea for an "investigator."

The 74th anniversary of the Flatwoods Monster sighting of September 12, 1952, is fast approaching — with no Flatwoods Monster Convention to observe and celebrate its passing. Did the Curse of Richie, howled under a full moon when the dog who didn’t die — but was rumored to do so during the Flatwoods Monster encounter! — cause a series of mysterious medical issues that some are calling “space herpes,” closing the Convention? Did Flatwoods sci-Fi Folklorist Frank C Feschino Jr. catch wind that I have challenged him to a formal debate, tuck tail, and run to cower under a porch like Richie? Or did the government’s Silence Group shut down the Convention as some scholars believe “they” shut down a television show called We, the People?

Lehm—Yeah? The 74th anniversary of the Flatwoods Monster encounter was looming like a slow‑turning saucer over Braxton County—and yet, no Flatwoods Monster Convention was rising to meet it. No parade of Braxxie bobbleheads. No lantern‑lit pilgrimage to the hill. No annual ritual to honor the night West Virginia briefly became the cosmic bullseye of 1952 and precipitated at all… by one Frank C. Feschino?

So… what happened?

Did the Curse of “Richie”—a lunar‑lit dog‑howl from the mutt who perhaps didn’t die but was rumored to have done so—finally metastasize into the dreaded space herpes, felling organizers, and shuttering the festivities? A folkloric pathogen from beyond the stars, striking down the convention like a Men‑in‑Black OSHA violation? That’s pretty juvenile, eh?

Or—and this is key! Explored! Is all this where the plot thickens like Barker’s less-than-perspicacious and puerile prose? Did Frank C. Feschino Jr., Flatwoods’ own “sci‑fi folklorist,” catch wind that he has been “legitimately” (pause for squirty giggles) "challenged" to a formal “debate”… so promptly reenacting Richie’s legendary tactical maneuver: tucking tail and scuttling under the porch, or could it have been the flip-side… a cogent program just not partial to swine wrasslin’?!

…But perhaps the truth is darker still! This is dismissing the conjecture that provides for the donnybrook, a conjecture legitimately based on, and what was provoked only by what was known of the times…

Perhaps the intimated “Silence Group”—that shadowy cabal of bureaucratic ghost‑handlers self-admitted to be holding sway on what is known and unknown about flying saucers (they're NOT there?)—would decide that even a modest rural convention was too much disclosure for the public? We all saw what happens as a result of a Roswell, or a Keck, or a Phenix Lights. ““All along, along, there were ‘incidents’ and ‘accidents’ / There were hints and allegations,” to quote a sentient bard! …BUT always a government’s heavy hand…

After all, after some poorly criticized “scholars” insist (errant critic’s sneer quotes noted!) “they” (the gub’ment) once MAY have shut down a television program (We, the People) for daring to platform Kathleen May, Gene Lemon, and A. Lee Stewart... the interested ARE alarmed! The reader will notice the use of the word, “may.” This supposition was never “insisted,” by these “scholars” it was suspected, given the UFO government’s observed (and documented) behaviors!

Still, if they could cancel a national broadcast (!!!), what’s a little convention in Flatwoods? Why not! A flick of a pen. A phone call. A memo stamped CLASSIFIED: NO FUN ALLOWED. Only… our UFO government has never been forthcoming as it pertains to UFOs, has it… that’s the history and this writer has been watchin’ since 1994!

So here we stand: A monster anniversary without a monster celebration. A town whose cosmic claim to fame is once again left to molder in a mire of the disrespected folkloric? A “folklorist” allegedly hiding under a porch. A dog’s curse echoing across the decades? And a government that—if you believe the credible mythos—still prefers its monsters unmentioned, and for obvious reasons!

No… Flatwoods deserves better. Some people make that obvious. The “Monster” deserves better. And the truth—whatever flavor of cosmic absurdity it takes—deserves its day in the sun. …And for the record? It was Ivan T. Sanderson, by report, reporting that the dog, indeed, died! A collie… was it named Ritchie? That was his report…

Gray Barker admits that when he came down to Flatwoods, WV, on Friday, September 19, 1952, to investigate the encounter,  two of the chief witnesses were away. 32-year-old beautician Kathleen May (1919-2009) and 17-year-old National Guardsman Eugene Lemon had gone off to appear on an episode of a New York television show called We, the People. 22-year-old Braxton County Democrat newspaper editor A. Lee Stewart Jr. (1930-1998) was also with them. As a result, he and cryptozoologist Ivan T. Sanderson were only able to question the other witnesses, ages 10 to 14,  and others like Max Lockhard who’d been on the scene before the authorities as well as witnesses to the fireball that preceded the encounter.

Lehm—Uh-huh… In other words, Gray Barker… That Gray Barker—patron saint of UFO fabulism and America’s nascent professional purveyor of cosmic baloney-shiznit—arrives in Flatwoods on Friday, September 19, 1952, ready to “investigate.” …And what does he find?

Nobody. Nobody of consequence, at any rate.

The actual adult primary witnesses—Kathleen May, Eugene “Gene” Lemon, and A. Lee Stewart Jr.—were already gone, whisked off to New York to appear on the contested “We, the People,” a live national broadcast that Barker somehow didn’t know was live. The man who would later claim secret knowledge of Men in Black lore couldn’t even keep track of a TV schedule. Sheesh?

So… Barker is left interviewing children—ages 10 to 14—and a handful of locals like Max Lockhard, who at least had the decency to be on the hill before the authorities arrived. Barker (to a much lesser degree) and Ivan T. Sanderson, a man who actually did the quality research (and on whose shoulders Feschino stands), are stuck piecing together the cosmic jigsaw puzzle from whoever wasn’t already on a train to Manhattan.

It’s the investigative equivalent of showing up late to a crime scene and asking the neighbor’s kids what they think happened! Barker “admitted” this writer's crepey old ass!

…And yet—yet!—Barker would go on to position himself as the authoritative chronicler of the Flatwoods Monster! Only the reprogrammable meat bags and otherwise credulous will buy into that! The man who “missed the witnesses” now claims to have captured the essence of the encounter! ROFL! It’s like writing a biography of Lincoln after interviewing only the people who saw the effin’ play!

Meanwhile? The witnesses Barker didn’t interview were on national television, being introduced to America as the bewildered participants in a cosmic close encounter of the 3^rd kind! It happened! Stewart, Lemon, and May were giving firsthand accounts while Barker was still trying to find someone old enough to drive.

This is the part of the mythos where the comedy and tragedy come together: Barker, the self‑styled “investigator,” arrives too late. The witnesses, the ones with actual adult memories, are already gone. Sanderson, the scientist, is left holding the credible clipboard. And the kids—bless their mountain-born, now deceased, little hearts—become Barker’s primary source material.

See? It’s no wonder Barker’s later retellings read like bad pulp fiction, they were! His investigation began with the narrative equivalent of interviewing the cast of The Goonies.

…But the mythos doesn’t stop there. Gird those loins… because while Barker is something less than inerrantly fumbling around Braxton County, the witnesses are being folded into the machinery of early television—a live broadcast, a national audience, and a moment of cultural imprinting that Barker would later pretend was part of his own investigative tapestry!

He wasn’t there, is the understanding!  He didn’t see it. He didn’t talk to the credible witnesses. He didn’t even know the show was live. …And yet? He would later posture as if he had the inside track on the truth!

…But what we want to discuss here isn’t the encounter or even the witnesses. It’s the cancelation of the We, the People TV show. That’s the issue. Is it "evidence" of Feschino’s journalistic "perfidy"?! Mmmmmno...

In a “not-so-wildly” conspiratorial article in which this author tries to make the case that the government publicly ignored the Flatwoods Monster case but was secretly trying to ridicule it, “Frank Feschino’s ‘Fanboy’ El Numero Uno,” this writer, a retired professional soldier with a Bronze Star and a Bachelor’s in Education (?), pens the following:

“Oh, and as a closing side note, is it just a coincidence that the “We The People” TV program was cancelled after it was aired the following week on September 26th? The Flatwoods Episode was the penultimate one! This was the most popular program on television, after all! The older reader may remember when the “Smothers Brothers” show was abruptly and inexplicably cancelled… it was bigger than that.”

As per usual,  a little actual research DID cut right through the “wild conspiracy speculation and outright misinformation” (read "justified if idle suppositions"!) provided by our errant “West Virginia Folklorist” Feschino… revealed by our “Errant Critic of the age,” but let’s give him a little more rope, a noose has 13 knots… and even correct? He has to hang for adjacent behaviors!

This television program first aired on CBS television from 1948 until 1949, when there were like two and a half, three channels! Then transitioned to NBC TV and was aired from 1949 through 1952. The final program, season 5—episode 13, was the last “We The People” show ever done. Does our aforementioned critic know the meaning of the word, “penultimate”? We might yet see!

Did the watchful eye of the government actually pull the plug on this TV show because the “monster” episode revitalized interest in the suppressed story AND scared the hell out of the country? Too, did they begin to reason that an unconstrained media should not be able to tell a story to such a vast audience without some kind of content moderation? This time, it sure seemed to upset their apple cart of deception and duplicity as regards their “Standard Operating Procedure” eh?

Lehm-- Did the watchful eye of the government pull the plug on “We, the People” because the Flatwoods Monster segment jolted the nation awake? Well—if you listen to the mythos, the answer is a resounding… it sure could have (!)… delivered with a wink and a cigarette burn on the edge of a classified memo. That was the Standard Operating Procedure of those persons involved, STILL!

Because here’s the thing: The Flatwoods episode didn’t just “revitalize interest.” It re‑ignited a story the government had spent a week trying to smother under a wet blanket of ridicule, misdirection, and “nothing to see here, folks.” ...And suddenly—suddenly—a live national broadcast beams Kathleen May, Gene Lemon, and A. Lee Stewart Jr. into millions of living rooms.

That’s not a local rumor anymore. …Now? It’s a national problem.

…And if you’re sitting in the “Silence Group’s” walnut‑paneled conference room, watching the public’s eyebrows rise in unison, you might start thinking dangerous thoughts: “Why is a talk show allowed to tell the truth?” “Why is a rural monster story trending harder than our Cold War propaganda?” “Why do these civilians have access to a live microphone?” “Shouldn’t someone be moderating this… content?” These are reasonable suppositions!

…Because nothing upsets a bureaucracy more than unmoderated reality, even “errant critics” must understand THAT!

The Flatwoods segment didn’t just scare the country—it scared the handlers and galvanized them! It reminded them that the media, when left to its own devices, can accidentally broadcast something unscripted, unapproved, and uncontained. And that’s the kind of thing that makes a Silence Group’s monocle pop out and roll across the floor into a mouse hole. SAY that is not so!

So yes—from this mythic's perspective—the Flatwoods episode absolutely upset their apple cart of deception and duplicity. It kicked the wheels out from under their very real Standard OperatingProcedure: Ridicule first, Deny second, Confuse third, and Forget fourth.

…Only Flatwoods didn’t forget. The witnesses didn’t forget. And the national audience—for one electric evening—didn’t forget either.

Did the government actually cancel the show? Historically, no—the cancellation was already scheduled it has been, and abundantly, demonstrated! …But mythically? Narratively? In the grand cosmic theater that was 1952? It remains possible, even probable, given what we all experience as regards this subject... and these others will not apologize for "supposing," based on what is known, eh.

It’s exactly the kind of thing they would do because nothing terrifies a deception machine more than a story it didn’t authorize—especially one involving a glowing, mechanical, possibly extraterrestrial entity that made a National Guardsman scream and a an entire nation... a world... gasp in wonder… just what ELSE might be out there.

You see, it was a LIVE talk show. (Lehmberg somehow missed that.) And the Flatwoods Monster witnesses (and Stewart) weren’t even the entire focus of that show. The “Air Waves” column by Budge Stretch (The Courier-Post, Camden, NJ, 9/19/52, p. 23) reveals that We, the People started out with the story of a woman who was studying commercial art after her sight was restored after 10 years of blindness.

 LEHM-- So here’s the punchline: We, the People—the show Barker treats like some clandestine, pre‑recorded, government‑massaged disclosure event—was LIVE. Live as in: no editing, no retakes, no Silence Group script doctors hiding behind the curtains. Only… Please to show this Author where he was not aware of the show being live?

…And Barker—the man who would later claim privileged insight into cosmic conspiracies—somehow missed it, too. He missed that the witnesses weren’t flown to New York for a taped segment. That they were there for a live broadcast, announced in newspapers two days prior, and aired exactly when the clocks said it aired.

That’s not a conspiracy. That’s a schedule. One a more “intrepid” Barker might have been aware of?

And here’s the kicker: The Flatwoods witnesses weren’t even the main attraction. They weren’t the headline. They weren’t the “big reveal.” They were the second act. We know that. Where was that ignorance indicated?

The show opened with a human‑interest piece about a woman studying commercial art after regaining her sight following ten years of blindness—a story so compelling it would overshadow any rural monster tale unless the monster walked onto the stage and ate the host. There was another guest that night… we know who it was. Does the errant critic?

This is the part the mythos loves: The Silence Group, the Men in Black, the shadowy handlers—all could very well be panicking, supposedly panicking, allegedly panicking, probably panicking… over a TV segment that wasn’t even the show’s primary focus! The Flatwoods witnesses were sandwiched between human triumph, one other famous person, according to Kathleen May, and some commercial breaks. They were a feature, not a takeover. Remains! This show took over the media’s attention, and globally, for months! There was no mention of the program's other participants, reader! The story was “FLATWOODS.”

I must here indulge in a side note. Both of these East Coast newspapers give two different times. The Greenville, Ohio paper gives the showtime as 7:30pm, while the Camden, NJ newspaper cites it as 8:30pm. Why is that?

Camden, NJ, was operating on Eastern Daylight Time (EDT). Greenville, OH, was operating on Eastern Standard Time (EST). You see, until the Uniform Time Act of 1966, the time difference between two cities depended on a patchwork of local daylight savings rules. NBC broadcasted We the People live out of its flagship studio (WNBT) in New York City at 8:30 PM EDT. Because Camden, NJ, was on Daylight Saving Time from April 27, 1952 to September 27, 1952, alongside New York, its local papers correctly listed the show at 8:30 PM. Because western Ohio remained on Eastern Standard Time year-round, local NBC affiliates received the broadcast at the exact same physical moment, but their local clocks read 7:30 PM.

LEHM— So what? …Go into a little fugue there (?)… or getting paid by the word? Perhaps showing off an otherwise credible research effort?

Back to the point!

LEHM— Please!

Even if we assumed an applecart of deception, duplicity and whatever other alliteratives Lehmberg cares to presume it carries, it’s just laughable to suppose that a TV show that Feschino believes resulted in a misleading version of Braxxie somehow upset said apple cart. Pick a lane, Feschinions (i.e., Feschino minions); You can’t have your cake and eat it too. 

LEHM—The errant critic might need another run at that. It’s not been made clear what “lanes” are referenced… Feschino maintains that the program misled the planet regarding what the “Monster” looked like… that said, this author will not apologize for aspiring to write well, and as to the cake? The errant critic knows where he can shove that.

Furthermore, the show description from the Camden, NJ newspaper we cited describes the monster as “varying in height from seven to 17 feet” tall, exactly the sort of ridicule Lehmberg claims the Silence Group was inserting into the media. Why would you cancel a program that presented the Flatwoods Monster as a ridiculous caricature of its allegedly true nature, doing your job of ridicule for you? Why would Lehmberg cite the We, the People artist’s drawing of the Flatwoods Monster as misinformation and then claim the show was nonetheless shut down for reviving interest in the truth?

LEHM—Apples and oranges… or in this case, apples and spent adult diapers. The conjecture (all it was ever based on were the admitted government-revealed attitudes regarding UFOs) about a We The People cancellation… was that it might reasonably be conjectured by the secret-keepers that what had been allowed once should not be allowed again! That has abundant fairness! What about the NEXT UFO that “We The People” wanted to do a live show on… nipped in the bud! Our errant critic conflates different “ridicules” to make a senseless point as irrelevant as it is pointless… WTP’s drawing was misinformation and WTP could have been shut down in the cause of censorship. That doesn’t happen?!

Fortunately,  Lehmberg can spit his excuses and hamfisted attempts to patch up his silly conspiracy into the wind for all I care because,  as it turns out, his Silence Group plot also requires a TIME MACHINE and his conjecture that the cancelation of We, the People was in any was shocking is revealed to be utter dramatic nonsense!

Lehm—You insult this writer. Given what we knew about Blue Book UFO Standard Operating Procedure and a government’s official attitude regarding UFOs it seemed reasonable that WTP might get caught up in a cancellation, just given the story’s effect on the planet. That was the supposition… It remains! This writer can appreciate the facts revealed to give credit where credit is due. The actuality of it… if not their sneering delivery!

You see, the cancelation of We, the People was determined and announced well BEFORE the Flatwoods Monster event of September 12, 1952. For example,  the Ross Reports on Television for Aug 31-Sept 6, 1952 (Vol 4 No 4, Supplement A) note on page 5, reporting on Sponsor Activity:

GULF OIL thru Young & Ruble am, cancels We, The People (NBC -TV Frl 8:30-9pm) after the program of September 26, and will sponsor a dramatic program in the same time slot starting October 3.

That replacement program, Gulf Playhouse, lasted 13 weeks before being replaced on Jan. 2, 1953 by Gulf Oil with Life of Riley (Ross Reports on Television Vol. 4 No. 7 Supplement E (DEC 28 ’52 – JAN 3 ’53), p. 3.

In its Sept 1, 1952 issue, Broadcasting Telecasting magazine also reported that Gulf Oil was dropping We, the People and were replacing it with a show tentatively called Gulf Theatre.

The announcement made its way into newspapers as well. For example,  the Sept 3, 1952 edition of the Meridan Daily Journal (Meridan, CT), the Live Wires section of Lawrence Witte’s “Static” column (p. 3) reports:

“We, The People,” one of the oldest programs on the TV screen, loses its sponsor Sept. 26. A dramatic program will take over.

The announcement was carried even earlier in The Bedford Daily Times-Mail, appearing on the Associated Press “Radio TV Day By Day” column on page 6 of its August 29, 1952 edition.

Lehm—This! This right here! This is all that would have been needed, its point made, and there would have been congratulating back-slaps and smiles all around… …But the errant critic pivots to this:

And why would the government or the Silence Group shut down a TV program that seemingly did its job for it — and was already on the chopping block? They wouldn’t, of course. They wouldn’t need to.

LEHM—And thank you so MUCH for pointing that out… our honest conjecture didn’t pan out… but here you call apples “oranges” and oranges “apples.” A national news program announcing the “upsetting, contrary, and the unpermitted” without a filter is not ridicule per se. It’s a threat to the secret keepers, and it is entirely reasonable to wonder if this would cause a program’s cancellation. The Smother’s Brothers’ cancellation might be an illustration of that.

So in the end, despite the hyperbole and the conspiracy theories, it turns out the Flatwoods Monster had nothing at all to do with the cancelation of We, the People.

Sorry, Lehmberg. You tried.

LEHM—And will continue to do so, “adorable,” as accused! Our errant critic has made his contribution. This writer has read to the new period, accepts the facts as iterated, and is elevated for that! WTP was likely not cancelled over FLATWOODS… thank you, errant and obnoxious critic, for that journalist elevation, such as it was… Well done!

…Looking forward to our next exchange of the constructive, proactive, and productive, eh? We concede to your contribution, but not to your tone. Your tone is detestable. See, it remains that Flatwoods is a watershed moment in a field being discussed and debated in Congress at this time, right now. UFOs are real… this drives the interest.

Feschino remains to have the definitive take on Flatwoods, is more inclusive and encompassing in that take, and remains that take’s subject matter expert into the Flatwoods Affair...  

Truly! Accept no substitutes!

The anxious kerfuffle over the idle, if supported, conjecture regarding government pressure to shut down “We The People” and in which the errant critic DOES triumph? That’s a pole-vault over a suppositional tic-turd, boy howdy. Though, you seem to be trying as hard as you can… this writer will continue to do the same.

I'm Your Huckleberry...

"I'm Your Huckleberry..."

by Alfred Lehmberg

Pointed out again, of needs and causes, if tediously, it seems we must necessarily overstate the obvious, if interminably! Justifiably and indubitably, readers! We must blow our horns with forceful regularity or scurvy content thieves contrive to make funnels of them! Gird loins for some sincere Miles Davis. 

Frank C. Feschino, Jr. is a graduate of the Paier College of Art in Hamden, Connecticut, as has been reported! He is learned and knows the ins and outs of all of the finer aspects and facets of professional illustration, commercial art, and photography... as a professional. Call your waiter!

Moreover? He is surrounded by a myriad of top-notch professionals in ufology’s respected inquiry, and they are already named in previous pieces. These professionals hold him in high regard and in no small esteem… especially as a boots-on-the ground field investigator and videographer... He's no mere keyboard warrior, noisome armchair debunker, or impertinent Google "searcher"! Trade up!

So why is it, then, that Feschino is lately assailed by “anxious pretenders” sailing out of the paranormal mal-Aethra like angry Hulk-Hogan wannabe gunfighters... expulsivly aiming to defecate disingenuously on his honored reputation of many decades? 

What? ...Who has the fastest “draw”? …Pun intended.

Feschino was assiduously trained, again (!), by several world-class artists including Kenneth Davies, Jean & Rudolf Zallinger, Paul Lipp, and John Massimino. He earned his four-year Fine Arts diploma in 1981. Furthermore, reader, feel FREE to check his art background, as some have! 

Imagine their annoyed irritation finding out Feschino is everything he said he was! See, Feschino is not some hack amateur slop-artist like so many out there in these troubled and troubling times! He is the real deal, reader, and this can readily be determined in his quality illustrations! Accept no substitutes, as has been said.

Detail from Shoot them down!

Anyway, included are some of Feschino's hand-painted illustrations pertaining to the famed "Sept. 12, 1952 UFO flap" occurring over the mid-Atlantic & eastern region of the United States.  They are necessarily poor resolutions, or purloined as pointed out, eh? These highly-rendered paintings were created with acrylics and done on canvas stock and illustration board. Moreover, there are many more... actually a stockpile of Feschino's drawings, paintings and maps in his portfolio… all related to the Flatwoods case, which have yet to be seen! There are dozens of these studies and conjectures extant.

The Fireball and the Cessna! It happened!

See, unlike some cut-and-paste “authors” who pretend to be “illustrators” and who create childishly amateur drawings for their paraphrased and mawkishly forgettable chapbooks (and good on them for that, they’re productive IF unserious!) Feschino, on the other hand, is a trained artist who illustrated his own books with quality work, due diligence, and a perspicacious attention to detail. There are no amateur drawings, paintings, or simpleton artworks in his massive portfolio, nor is there any need for computer-generated illustrations. Feschino was doing all this last century so kind of pre-dates AI… No… Feschino’s hand was adequate to his monumental task!

Fireball and C-46... it happened.

In the future, respected reader? Watch the Flatwoods Monster 1952 page on Facebook. Feschino will also be releasing (as we speak!) never-before-seen video footages, interviews—numerous photographs, drawings and paintings, etc. related to his decades-long research into the Flatwoods case… as well as materials related to his 1952 UFO “air war” research...

The story will continue to be told with respect for the legitimate history as it is respectfully outlined, and that outline will always be knowledgeable of the responsibility incurred in a contribution to that history… while aspiring NOT to detract from it… as others, anxious "gunfighters" trying to boost flagging reputations (?) seem complacent to do. Not at this station, only… don’t ambush this writer in a public street… he won’t suffer obnoxious bullies thinking themselves literary wits or loutish fools believing press releases they’d have written for themselves, eh? There’s been a long evidentiary reputation, in evidence, for that lack of suffrage. He’d strike the sun if it offended him…

But… Feschino meeting them in the streets at high noon for some shootout "debate" used as a coercive and uncalled-for bludgeon? It may be determined, and quickly, that these “up-and-comer gunsels” brought ill-maintained weaponry and dud ammunition to such an exchange… but there can be no shootout at high noon… for NOTHING, reader. Debate will be impossible sans an opponent suspected of an inability to follow the rules of the debate, one, and two? Nothing will be gained from the proposed donnybrook but the elevations of reputations undeserving of such an elevation, eh?

We ask, how many "researchers" and "writers" out there today have worked and interviewed as many primary witnesses involved in the Flatwoods case as Feschino has? How many have even set a contemptuous foot on the Fisher Farm last century, risking life and limb in the initiative? Verily, how many have actually read the entire Sept. 12 and 13th Blue Book case files (which had to be reconstructed from fading documents (virtually illegible!), holding the truth of the UFO events that night?

Touchdown at Flatwoods! It happened!

Besides… Debate schmate! There is THIS writer to bring abusive persons into… focus. He’s 78 and a retired professional soldier, “with time on his hands and no child to raise”... He makes it his pastime bringing “things” into "focus"… Do a DEEP dive on HIM. ...Then? Forewarned so forearmed? ...We can play.

As was pointed out before… these ostensible and erstwhile Flatwoods “gunslingers” lack, at the end of their tedious day, any standing, their credible reputations, any professional references, and their own credibility at the start. Even “big guns” with names have yet to give a better explanation for Feschino’s assertions, explaining, for example, the findings he exhibits on his "Master Map"! This map displays the "September 12, 1952 UFO Flap." This took YEARS to consolidate!

Remember, Flatwoods was only a small part of the mindblowing "events" occurring that night... an event at the END of a long bizzare story. Flatwoods was not a singular UFO one-off! You see, Feschino looked outside of Flatwoods and its "monster" mythos! He discovered the prelude and aftermath of the entire Flatwoods incident! Air war with ET! It boggles the mind!

This is what the likes of an unserious Barker, a serious Sanderson, and an intrepid Keyhoe, among others, were never able to do as regards Feschino’s assertions and findings… Too? Well, we’ve already talked about the consequences of “swine wrasslin’”! Come to it? This writer will step up for that... and is. This is how it's done. It is the way. Read on...

...We Get "Comments"

...We Get "Comments"

by Alfred Lehmberg

Lately, this writer gets the limpest, if risibly threatening, commentary from the nastier cheap seats vis-à-vis the Flatwoods thing! It arrives like a wet paper spear thrown at a tank column... wholly unwarranted spitballery—spirited, arguably, but ultimately as drolly ineffective as it is substantively indecorative. Neat trick... that.

It brazenly announces itself, currently, with the fatuous opening “You’re hilarious!” This is as though one's tone was somehow a substitute for substance... as though a less-than-appropriate and dismissive chuckle could remotely stand in for the hard labor of an actual decades-long research! ...And this writer only aspiring to write some truth as it is sensibly perceived, about that decades-long research.

It’s a familiar, if intellectually dishonest, move... a projection, a deflection, a diversion... like the priest of a shrinking orthodoxy trying to laugh off the threatening heretic rather than confront the new text presented in good faith!

Then comes the self-aggrandizing flourish—“I’m not even sure whether to take it seriously.” like the attentive seriousness alluded to was ever asked for, desired, or even superficially appreciated ...But, it remains! He did take it seriously! Proof is in the proffered pudding!

He took it seriously enough to write a paragraph about it. He took it seriously enough to invoke Feschino’s "downfall" like a campfire ghost story told to keep the dim-bulb acolytes in line! He took it seriously because the arguments, as produced, struck a low-watt and amateur nerve! Well, nerves don’t lie and Feschino is so far up this abusive commenter's nose he can feel Feschino's knees scrubbin' his top lip!

Then? The senselessly insensible objection to “conjecture posing as research” is the most mythic part of this monumentally mawkish missive! Hurled like shiznit are accusations of material error... without a single counter‑fact, citation, or engagement with the material as presented... being made!

It’s a curious thing to watch! ...An anxious little man of little dimension swinging at his own self-invented shadows, himself, while publicly insisting that he’s defending the light, right and true! Now, THAT's hilarious! No... If conjecture is the crime, then the referenced recent comment is the accuser's confession.

...But then—comes the odiously ominous benediction! “Remind Frank when this is all over that he had people like you to thank for his downfall.”

...Ah. ...And there it is. The tribal oath. The invocation of Feschino as a "fallen king" whose ruin must be pinned on anyone who dares to read the record without bowing to "Barker’s sainted gospel," eh? Is that where we are?

The commenter is not critiquing the work... he's policing allegiance to the discredited, debunked, and dismissed! He's not debating the facts; he's defending the myth, and with stale bupkis. ...Buyer beware?

So, closing? Let this writer return the favor in admonition! Know this, reader! When the dust settles at the end of the tedious day and all karmic seeds are planted as laid to rest? The "commenter" (such that it was?) might be reminded that it wasn’t people like this writer, only honesty's aspirant, who caused a "downfall"—it was the weight of the evidence, honestly sought and recovered, refusing to kneel to obnoxious bullies & web weasels, or those beneath concern, consideration, or contempt! Read on.

2 Shades of Gray

 

2 Shades of Gray

...Observed, then, as a less-than-constructive investigative breed, enfeebled AND enfeebling, ensorcelled AND ensorcelling—enblightened AND enblightening ! Resent! Reject! Revile! ...Of needs and for cause!

by Alfred Lehmberg

This is the cover for "Gray Barker's Newsletter," a fatuously fabulist and facile publication, No. 4 from 1976. The portrait illustrates a much more respected John Keel sitting studiously at a table ostensibly... perhaps reading a book of the arcane while surrounded by his "Eight Towers" denizens.

John Keel, in a small digression, was a quality journalist and Fortean writer who was the author of the well-known book, "The Mothman Prophecies." In Ufology and Fortean subcultures, the flaccid phrase "The Eight Towers denizens" was popularized, in all wit’s paucity, by Gray Barker, himself. Meaning nothing, actually? It was referring to the paranormal "ultra-terrestrial beings" in John Keel's books and writings. Full stop!

This short essay is not about John Keel! It is going to be about West Virgina "author" Gray Barker.

Indubitably? Barker became "well-known" for being one of the first persons to investigate the "Flatwoods Monster" incident back in September of 1952. Oddly enough, though, even as Barker investigated and wrote extensively about the "Flatwoods Monster" case, he never knew what the figure actually looked like... nor was he able to derive anything substantive about the "Monster's" affair! This can be demonstrated by his own hand!

Observe… even 24-years later in 1976, the cover of his publication still shows the so-called "monster" of Flatwoods incorrectly! They just didn't know, didn't WANT to know, and were incapable of knowing! 

Moreover? The comical twist to this cover illustration is that the silly figure depicted, as such, is actually based on the comically ceramic "Braxton County Monster" lantern! THAT was innovative… not so much! Too? Remember that the lantern itself was based on the incorrect drawing shown on the "We The People" TV program featuring the "monster" on September 19, 1952! 

Even as the skirt-wearing "monster" was not taken seriously by most locals and still considered a joke, the lantern was created as a money maker, a fund raiser actually, for the civic group, the Jaycees, "The United States Junior Chamber" in the late 60's. The so-called "monster" of Flatwoods was simply considered to be a West Virginia folklore story, a local legend!

These lanterns? They came with a paint can lid! This lid was used as a base for a candle to sit on, and a paint can wire was attached to both sides of the head, providing a way to carry it around... The figure also had openings in the eye and chest areas for the candlelight to shine through. Note the same pattern appears in the chest area of Barker's cover drawing. Revealed, eh? It is apparent that Gray Barker and his associates NEVER knew, had no clue... as to what the so-called "Monster" actually looked like—even by 1976!

Figurine mold used for construction
at The Sutton Flatwoods Museum...

Notice the holes in the eyes and chest...

…Which brings us to the point of this essay. Gray Barker, a professionally vacuous man, was very easy to humiliate in a debate (as one Jackie Gleason was able to effortlessly demonstrate; link below). He was a dodgy fabulist more interested in lurid story details than he would ever be in the factual details of the story. 

Verily! He contributed nothing to very little for the Flatwoods Affair, only “investigating” it for a day and a half of his “reported” three days. …He had to get back to a job he held 9 to 5! ...Stout investigator HIM!

No... That's amateur... at best. Remember, reader, that Frank Feschino, Jr. picked up the Flatwoods case where Barker and Sanderson had both left off, and investigated the case, singularly, for decades. 

Remember that he actually worked with and interviewed more KEY people and witnesses involved in the incident than anyone EVER did, has, or will interview! Remember, finally, that Feschino, being a college-trained forensic illustrator, gave us an accurate portrayal of the so-called "monster," something Barker nor Sanderson were never able to do!

Back to Barker, remember his own notes, letters, and later recollections show this journalistic perfidy, plainly! He arrived in Braxton County already looking for a “story,” not the “facts.” He spent most of his time interviewing locals in bars, not witnesses. He left early because he had to return to his 9‑to‑5 job at WV's Department of Education. 

He never followed up with witnesses; Kathleen May ran him off when he tried, it's said! He never cross‑checked testimony. He never examined the physical evidence. He never returned, meaningfully, to the site. His “three‑day investigation” was a marketing phrase, not a timeline. All Barker was interested in was salacious grist for his equally salacious and duplicitous "grist" mill! There would be others following him.

Again! Gray Barker, for all his questionably dubious notoriety, contributed almost nothing of substance to the Flatwoods Affair! His “three‑day investigation” was, in truth, a day and a half of casual inquiry squeezed between barroom conversations and the obligations to his 9‑to‑5 job, as was pointed out.

Resolved! Barker was not a researcher or an investigator; he was an embroidering sensationalist—a myth‑mongering confabulator! He was a man more enamored with his errant and duplicitous embellishments than any factual fidelities... his only interest was the money and not givin' a sucker an even break. Jackie Gleason famously humiliated him in debate, revealing how shallow Barker’s facile grasp of his cases truly were. This can be found on YouTube… 

This is worth the listen! During this November 16, 1958 radio interview with Barker and UFO enthusiast Jackie Gleason on Long John Nebel's talk show (this writer was 10 and might have heard the show live!), Gleason effortlessly demonstrated Barker was nothing but a two-color fictioneer. He showed that Barker was more interested in ghoul-lit story details printing money—and a name for himself in the book publishing business—than in being a credible journalist! This was evident by Barker's initial Flatwoods investigation when he was cast to the sidelines after a bona fide investigator, Ivan T. Sanderson, came on the scene at Flatwoods to conduct a serious and in-depth investigation!

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Yet Barker’s sensationalized account, thin as presented (!), became the popular "goto" version of the Flatwoods tale for decades, obscuring the sober testimony of living witnesses and burying the real, more global (and ignorantly mocked of late), "air war story"… beneath sordid layers of meaningless theatrical invention. He shaped the “myth” while “ignoring the reality.” 

It would take Frank Feschino, decades later, to excavate the truth that Barker never bothered to seek OR countenance! Such was so!

Be it also Resolved: because Barker was one of the first to publish on Flatwoods, his sensationalized woo-woo version became the default narrative endured for decades! The monster only became more monstrous. The encounter only became more insensibly dramatic. The witnesses only became more frightened. Observers only became more confused! The details only became more ridiculously explicated as Sci-Fi B-film cinematics... 

See? All this entirely overshadowed the actual witness testimony, come to find out later… which was: consistent, sober, intelligent, and far less theatrical... if profoundly astonishing, STILL! See? The story was REAL! Feschino was able to bring all that to light, and it's precisely why Flatwoods can be measured "BF" and "AF"!

Barker’s exaggerations created a discrediting fog that serious researchers—including Feschino—had to cut through decades later for any "story" legitimacy at all! ...Know that Barker’s own colleagues—our John Keel from above, that mocking pelicanist Jim Moseley (don’t get this writer started on him!), and named others—repeatedly described him as: a prankster, a hoaxer, and a man who too willingly “embellished,” his stories too freely. He was well-known for someone who valued sales over truth, and someone who enjoyed misleading the UFO community for effin’ SPORT! ...And purloined profit, one might presume. ...Gleason took him to task for it in the video above! This writer wants to whack Barker with a wet pine board!

He famously helped fabricate the ominous “Men in Black” mythos. He published hoaxes knowingly. He encouraged others to exaggerate their stories. He once admitted privately that he wrote things “because they sold.” What sensible person hangs their hat on the memory of such as that?! Barker was not a villain, so much... but he was NEVER a journalist or a credible researcher! 

Consider, now! ...Any persons pondering the placental attachment of their own “reputation” or “credibility” to the legacy and likes of Gray Barker (?)... should proceed with extreme caution! Cut a chogey, reader! Pull a one eighty! Cease and desist with prejudice!

See? Barker was never a reliable investigator of cryptozoology or the UFO phenomena; his "legacy," such as that is, is that he was a sensationalist storyteller whose work routinely blurred, embellished, or outright replaced fact with theatrical invention! That's the report. 

His “investigations” were risibly shallow, often consisting of brief visits, barroom interviews, and hurried departures back to his day job, leaving him with but fragments of testimony… These fragments were then inflated into lurid narratives designed to sell his equally lurid books! 

...It would even seem Barker established a "business plan" for others going forward! Those currently paraphrasing Barker's moldy and incompetent coattails, so those further entertaining salacious inconsequentials, immaterials, and irrelevancies as potentially factual, are abounding in a loud minority! Credible Service is not performed by these. Feschino, on the other hand, provides that service.

...Selling fanciful and throwaway books of no consequence or relevance... rather than documenting any truth a researcher’d "sought." …That will be the polar opposite of Feschino. Accept no substitutes, as was written before!

Friedman, Feschino, Hastings, and Dolan

The reader should recall that America and the rest of the planet are on the very precipice of a full-blown ufological disclosure that will have significant, if not seismic, consequences going forward. The late Stanton Friedman, Richard Dolan, Robert Hastings, and Frank Feschino, researchers of that ilk and caliber, can provide a history and a reasoning foundation for that disclosure. The others, the substitutes aforementioned... not so much.

Know that Barker openly admitted to fabricating details, encouraging hoaxes, and treating the UFO community as an effin’ stage for pranks and myth‑making, and NOT as a worthy field deserving rigor, best practice, or due diligence... qualities Feschino demonstrates in proverbial spades and for decades!

As a result, anyone leaning on Barker’s fatuous materials inherits not his “notoriety” but his methodological weaknesses, boy howdy—his exaggerations, his omissions... his too casual relationship with real evidence, and his sordid reputation for preferring drama over accuracy...(!) ...His—lies?!

Yes, his influence on popular lore is undeniable, but not in a good way! His contribution to any factual understanding of "things" is beneath the incorrigibly negligible. So? Building one’s credulity or credibility on Barker’s work is like building a house on dollar-store carnival scaffolding: eye‑catching for a while, but structurally unsound when the foundations are thumped, then it crashes to ruin to be wholly forgotten at the end of the day!  

Serious researchers should treat Barker as a sad cultural artifact, not a factual foundation. That’s Feschino’s approach, reader, and unwashed critics with interesting reputations and remarkable histories demanding “equal time” and “respect”… well, they just lack standing, credible reputation, and their own credibility. ...Beneath concern, consideration, and contempt as the crow flies. 

Too? One deigns to wrestle with pigs to get just as dirty... but providing only for the pig’s enjoyment. Not at this station! Read on!

Flatwoods, AF!

Feschino, the May family, and a bearded Ron Shaver...

Flatwoods, AF!

by Alfred Lehmberg

 

This writer had written earlier that a timeline regarding Flatwoods can be measured demonstrably as Flatwoods BF and Flatwoods AF… Before Feschino and After Feschino. That is going to be minus all histrionics or any hyperbole. Everything that has come to be substantively known about the Flatwoods affair has Frank C. Feschino on the "blame-line," full stop! Accept no substitutes!

Remember that Feschino spent three decades ferreting out the details, substantiating and time-stamping the “real” and unfanciful time-lines, interviewing and video-recording the surviving first-person witnesses (now all deceased!), and establishing an earned credibility with Ufology’s leading writers and researchers. There was the late Stanton Friedman. There is Richard Dolan. There is Whitley Strieber. There is Robert Hastings. There is Bill Birnes. These professionals see Feschino's value and worth, and all of the preceding bespeaks Feschino's panoramic scope of subject-matter expertise regarding the affair, how it plugs into history, and how it all so desperately matters NOW given new official and public interests in the subject of UFOs. 

Too? This but begins a list of named persons who have appreciated Feschino’s work… Consequently?

People sans all provenance, principle, or creative paradigm pirate his images and photographs unconscionably, like they did the research, rendered the drawings, or made the discoveries... themselves! This is unconscionable… when all Feschino requires is credit for his substantial efforts made at HUGE personal cost!

Only, there’s a rub for these pirates! Feschino, one discovers, reports a massive trove of material that is not in his books or on the internet. All this unreleased material helped substantiate the actuality and existentiality of the Flatwoods story… so he is able to demonstrate how he came to his conclusions and was able to make his astonishing assertions!

Feschino DEFIES anyone else to be able to remotely do what he has done! …This is forgetting that credible material revealed by these "persons," but adding to the Flatwoods Story (and not fallaciously detracting from it?) would be accepted as welcome even if Feschino’s well-crafted assertions and superbly supported conjectures were nullified and DESTROYED! Feschino aspires to the “science” and the “journalism”! If he’s wrong, so be it. Only, SHOW him! Show THIS writer. Show your work! Feschino has!

This trove alluded to demonstrates the provenance and the providence of only Feschino’s initiative. It can be gotten no other way!

It could be safe to say that any subsequent claim of “the true story of Flatwoods, REVEALED,” from maliciously fallacious follow-ons or “wannabe-Gray Barkers” (and one suspiciously anxious “debater”) going forward, is only a tedious example of more piracy of copyrighted material… or a complete and utter fabrication, a mechanism of distraction… for a thoughtless cash or power grab! 

Feschino will countenance or facilitate none of this. His only interest is the story and the memory of the good people who endured it.

Want a revelation, reader? REVEALED! Extensive video and photographic material exists that could be shown to an interested public, but for these unethical scurvy content pirates, aforementioned! These materials will be held back, therefore, but gleefully used to dismantle the weak arguments and facile assertions of these identified pirates who publish their insulting, inaccurate, and contrarious… “works.” 

Feschino delightedly anticipates these “new truths” about Flatwoods that are “avowed” to be soon reported, eh? Only, we caution that they shouldn’t be part and parcel of Feschino’s work of 30 effin’ years of effort, due diligence, and PRODUCTIVE initiative… or risk effusive literary embarrassments, follow?  Read on.

THE MONSTER THAT WAITED!

Flatwoods Colleagues Dave Spinks and Frank Feschino

THE MONSTER THAT WAITED!

[Rooted in Ridicule—Raised by the Relentless]

 by Alfred Lehmberg

…For half a century, the "Flatwoods Monster" waited. ...Chill. There will be no ominous music, only the music of the celebratory!

Still, it lurked in West Virginia's "hollers and the hills," waiting in the memory of one warmly quiet Indian-summer September night... when, suddenly, the sky tore itself wide open, and something wrapped in flames came down—came down with the force of a story refusing to die… even when government officials endeavored to bury it, cover it up, and even tried to hide it… forever!

The people of Flatwoods remembered, oh, and how they remembered, even when they pretended not to and had little desire to double down on a continuing embarrassment, admitting that they remembered! The witnesses recalled everything; however, even when they were instructed by officious authorities that they shouldn’t… (note the upcoming link!) 

...And the land remembered, too, because land always does, somehow... some collected memory of the persons living and breathing on it... especially when the land of that one particular farm in Flatwoods was, itself, left emotionally scarred and intellectually poisoned by an unusual, very highly strange occurrence on September 12, 1952!

On that night, remember, a seemingly damaged UFO (realistically conjectured to be the victim of UFO shootdown orders very publicly in effect at the time!), a UFO witnessed to be on fire from these conjectured attacks, went down on the “mountaintop” of the Fisher Farm at 7:25 pm! That's the history! 

Shortly thereafter, a 12-foot-tall metal-clad occupant departed its, thought crippled, ship! It would encounter a group of curious folks witnessing the event who had gone in search of the downed object that they’d seen land! 

Abruptly, it put in its startling appearance! Enter, the "Flatwoods Monster." 

...Also entering almost at the same time? Official, unending, and focused ridicule! It was the government's standard operating procedure... SOP.

We observe that memory, itself, becomes a fragile thing when the ridicule of it is weaponized. Ridicule, linked just above, came fast, and it came quickly. 

The newspapers mocked it. The broadcasters sarcastically smirked. The official voices—the ones wearing suits and carrying clipboards—dismissed, deflated, and denied it, as our “anxious agency mavens of  duplicity” will... we can observe! The eyewitnesses were treated as curiosities, then as embarrassments… and then as subjects of mockery. 

Moreover, this thing, this so-called "Monster," once seen in the raw terror of its huge and towering stature? Well, it became a skirt-wearing punchline! A cartoon. A hallucination. A thing to be forgotten and pushed away into the shadows of cryptid woo-woo history that only the non-serious may write about. 

As a result, the small town of Flatwoods fell silent! That silence deafened for decades!

No. There were no festivals, no guest speakers... no bric-a-brac sales after 1952. No commemorations. No civic pride demonstrations. No annual retellings. …Just crickets from the State-provoked hush of a beleaguered town, a town that had been taught to doubt its own eyes… and be quiet! 

The "Monster" became, then, an unfocused ghost... not because it was unreal, but because our immutable culture, and its official abandonment of the story, demanded it! The story was not just erased—it was shamed into non-being! By design! The government had quickly stepped in and executed a well-rehearsed job of covering up this UFO incident and “tamping it down.” Not the link above.

Flash forward forty years! Children grew up hearing only errant fragments of an old folklore tale. Adults grew old and died remembering only the fear and embarrassment they had lived through when curious visitors, vapid lookie-loos, and predatory “reporters” periodically trampled their town! 

The witnesses aged, carrying a truth that they were too intimidated to talk about for fear of being ridiculed again …And the "Monster"? Well, whatever it had been, wherever it came from, and whatever it symbolized or wanted? It became a diminishing myth… a myth without a keeper.

Then... one day? One day, a young man arrived in Braxton County, a man who was visiting some family members for a short weekend trip in September of 1991! ...And Lo! He would be a man totally unaware of what he was going to stumble into... this... "Flatwoods Monster" affair!

This very sober and focused young man was not a “believer,” nor was he a “debunker”...but his opinion on "such that provokes that this anxious polarity" would soon change! ...What WAS this damned thing!

…As time passed, he couldn’t get it out of his mind! He'd keep coming back to it! 

His curiosity would get the best of him, finally, and he began what would become an intense investigation into the case! He visited the area more often… delved into what there was of the lore... and became, by increments, a total believer! This writer shares that belief, as the facts are hard to ignore… It’s hard to argue against the existence of the sun when it clears the horizon at every dawn! The closer you look at it... the brighter it gets. Over time, brighter and brighter! Such would be the Flatwoods case!

He would soon become a cartographer of these forgotten things! He would become a chronicler of the unspoken… and Flatwoods would consume him for the rest of his life.

Standing on the shoulders of persons like Ivan Sanderson, Kathleen May, and Stanton Friedman et al… he would see farther and in greater detail... discovering the shocking tie-in between Flatwoods and a very obvious if undeclared air war with ET. There is data!

Yes, folks, and lots of data… In July of 1952, the Air Force revealed it had ordered their fighter pilots to "shoot down" UFOs if they couldn't talk them down! As we would soon come to find out, there was also an overwhelming and shocking number of fighter jets and airmen who had nebulously vanished into thin air or died under mysterious circumstances during that era! Equally nebulous records of these "losses" were just not making sense!

Moreover, many of these fighter pilots were also decorated WWII and Korean War Aces… distinguished combat veterans who had survived horrendous air war battles abroad only to come home and die or mysteriously disappear in a highly strange one at home! 

Wait! What? Can it not be apparent to the reader yet that an air war of another kind was going on and being heavily covered up by the Air Force, right here at home! Didn't the Air Force think ahead and realize that these UFO might actually shoot back? Someone, please call the waiter for the effin' reality check! It's no stretch, reader, to suppose that UFOs ubiquitously overflying prohibited airspaces, civil and nuclear, and provoking (...excusing? We wanted one, remember.) these shootdown orders alluded to, MIGHT produce the crash of one of those air combat UFOs in Flatwoods' backyard! 

We remind the reader that this new young man, aforementioned, arriving on the scene was a college-trained artist who graduated from the "Paier School of Art" in Hamden, Connecticut, as has been recently written. Over the course of 4-years, he majored in illustration art; he studied portraiture painting, anatomical drawing, life drawing, was trained in various media techniques, and specialized in pencil drawing, akin to a forensic artist. We talked about all this! This would be KEY for Flatwoods!

Moreover, he would be a credible researcher with the stubbornness of a man who had decided that this critical truth deserved a second chance, especially when no one else was telling it, and no one else cared! He was just what was required: the right man at the right time! 

Later, we would come to find out that this man's art background combined with his research skills would play that critical role in revealing the true identity of the "Flatwoods Monster"! This intrepid young man’s name was, of course, Frank C. Feschino Jr. 

At first, he came quietly. So quiet and undetected, in fact, only a few people in the area knew he was even there. Truly… Flatwoods residents didn’t know what to make of him, at first… Frankly, he was treated initially as just another Carpetbagger as of old!

See, Outsiders had come before—reporters and curiosity‑seekers—but they had always taken more than they gave... were rude and presumptuous! Patronizing and objectifying! That was the report to Feschino! 

Reporters and writers had come to extract, not restore, and would cover the story as a joke… annually even, during the Halloween season, reporting it as a silly folklore tale. The townsfolk hated that. Every Halloween since 1952… laughter at Flatwoods’ expense. Ah, mirth!

At the beginning of his quest, Feschino was taunted, scoffed at, treated unkindly, and even physically threatened by some of the locals while asking questions in and around the Flatwoods, Sutton, and Gassaway areas. He was told, "We don't talk about that 'monster' round' here no more—got it!," and "Why don't you leave this story alone, boy, and git, we've had enough of your like already!" as well as, "We don't need your kind here—snooping around town and talking about no monster nonsense."

…But, things began to change when the locals started seeing Feschino more often, becoming a more familiar face. They would ask him what hotel he was staying at when coming into Braxton County. In other words, "Where you stayin' at when you come to these parts, boy?!"

Feschino explained that there was no need for a hotel because he had family in Braxton County and would stay with them at their horse and cattle farm in the mountains of nearby Frametown! That seemed the charm making a difference!

Flatwoods attitude slowly changed; then, the locals even warmed up to Feschino! He wasn't considered so much of an outsider anymore, once they learned he had "kin folk" here-abouts...! During the early years of his investigation, by the way, a computer-less era... "boots-on-the-ground" investigator Frank Feschino traveled to countless libraries and bookstores throughout West Virginia and across many surrounding states seeking information about the "Flatwoods Monster" incident.

Consequently, he sat at library microfilm machines for hundreds of hours, found many articles, and then copied them for his record. He bought every book he could get his hands on containing any bit of lore, information about the Flatwoods story, as well.

During his travels, Feschino also met several antiquarian book-sellers along the way, and went to many major book shows. The dealers he had met and befriended had saved him every UFO book and publication containing the Flatwoods story... and more!

Remember reader, this was a pre-eBay era, and Feschino was still able to scour the country, gather and accumulate a massive collection of material on the Flatwoods case… that no one even cared about or was interested in at the time! 

Subsequently, Feschino had amassed a huge collection of material...I mean a tremendous-sized assemblage of various newspaper articles, many original books, and other publications on the Flatwoods case. 

Though, as Feschino reviewed all of the information he had at hand, he found something very puzzling about the story! He discovered that it had been so badly retold so many times over the years that the story had become grossly distorted, inaccurate, and larded with absolutely overwhelming (and discrediting!) inconsistencies!   

Still working low-key, Feschino eventually met and interviewed many of the key witnesses who were involved in the incident! He sought to find the answers he had been looking for to set the record straight. He'd succeed to a degree!

During these early years, he encountered and worked with primary "Monster" witnesses Kathleen May and her son, also a witness, Fred May. A key point of the case that Feschino quickly discovered while working with them was that the so-called "Monster," was NOT a monster at all. Wait! What? Not a monster?!

The witnesses told Feschino that the well-known drawing of the figure, which had been seen in countless books and publications since 1952, was NOT accurate. This is a meaningful repetition of what has been recounted previously.

This giant figure, the patient reader will recall, was illustrated as a garment-wearing "monster" that magically floated, had a big round head covered with a cloth hood, was wearing a long-pleated skirt and had long skinny arms tricked out with obligatory (but nonsensical!) monster claws. No.

Illustrator Frank Feschino did something that the artist hired by the TV show did not do, nor had the time to do, or just really didn't care to do. Feschino sat with the witnesses on different occasions, NOT just one time… he talked with them effusively, he interviewed them relentlessly, and he listened exhaustively, as has been said!

He accomplished something that the previous original investigators, nor any other artist since that time in 1952, was able to do! No one was able to get a true and accurate portrayal of the "Flatwoods Monster," and illustrate what it actually looked like… except for Frank Feschino. 

This is key, reader, because Feschino was the one to change the skirt-wearing scary boojum monster, disconnected from any explanatory mechanism or story explaining its appearance, into a full-blown mechanism or mechanical contrivance (a weird one!) resulting from the landing of a craft associated with what was an air war of a sort ordered by the president... or maybe the reader thinks that the president wasn't read in as regards military orders to shoot UFOs down.

For several more years, Feschino continued to research and investigate the so-called "Monster" of Flatwoods... but at a much deeper level... and one might even say he went down “deeper into the rabbit hole”! He's go deeper if he could! 

Feschino continued to go back to Flatwoods, he came with new information; new documentation, he came with official military records, several maps to reconstruct the storyline… and he came with a determination that bordered on obsession!

As time passed, Feschino continued to befriend more locals, made several new contacts, and they began to take him seriously. They knew he had started to unravel a cover-up to reveal the truth, and moreover, he meant honest business. 

Proclaimed HERE with evidence! Frank Feschino was the very first having the audacity to say out loud: This story matters and must be faithfully told, or it will be lost forever! 

He listened. He documented. He respected. …He honored. He treated all the witnesses he had come to work with—not as oddities—but as human beings enduring something extraordinarily unfair… and being punished for it ever since. He treated the town of Flatwoods not as a spectacle but as a place with a deep wound that deserved healing. …And at last, Flatwoods began to thaw. Not bad for initially being assessed as just another carpetbagger!

Now, this writer asks an important question; where were all the people who now claim to be the “experts” and “aficionados” on the Flatwoods case? The "writers," the "authors," the podcast "storytellers," these “documentary” makers and noisome "naysayers"; where were they back then when Feschino was traveling thousands of miles to document this incident before the witnesses died… but carving the story out at all? 

This writer will tell you where they all were... They were nowhere to be found. They were nonexistent! Crickets! Some would too kindly call them "Armchair quarterbacks," while other truer researchers call them lazy hacks or even grasping plagiarists! 

Moreover, most of them had never even set foot on the Fisher Farm where all the events occurred that night, let alone document, photograph, and videotape the encounter area and entire farm, for decades, now! Feschino was first… AND last! The Fisher Farm is presently locked up tighter than a bull’s patoot in fly season!

Furthermore, the May family witnesses, Kathleen May, her two sons, and others who had been silenced by decades of derision—found in Feschino someone who believed their dignity mattered! They trusted him and had even taken him in as one of their own. This writer saw evidence of this. It was like The May family (or what remained of it when this writer got there) and the whole town of Flatwoods carried him around on a little three-cornered cushion. Feschino would not abuse this trust.

No. Feschino didn’t sensationalize them. He didn’t exploit them. He didn’t render them to props. He documented their testimonies and gave them back their story… and when a story is returned to its rightful owners, it begins to breathe again! 

The "Monster" stirred. Not literally—not in the woods, not in the sky, but in the cultural consciousness of a town that had forgotten that it was allowed to remember it, at all! Gradually, the "Monster" awakened, opened its eyes, took a deep breath, and rose. …And metaphorically speaking, the "Monster" looked in the mirror and saw the true reflection of itself once again... ...it had not been forgotten after all! 

The "Monster" became less of a burden and more of a symbol to the region. Less of a shame and more of a heritage. Less of a joke and more than just a West Virginia legend. …And a true story, when treated with respect, demands celebration!

So, in 2001, for the first time in the history of Flatwoods—for the first time since that fateful night in September of 1952—the town held a festival. A FESTIVAL!

This was an event that had never existed before! A gathering that no one had dared to propose! A festival that would have been unthinkable in the prior decades of provoked silence! An event that required someone to say: We are done being ashamed… and Feschino would organize a substantiation for his clear admonishment to the town of Flatwoods… that SHAME… was a thing of the past! 

Besides Feschino, Mayor Peggy Clise believed in this festival idea, too, and supported him 100 percent! The witnesses that Feschino was working with attended, stepping into public light for the first time in half a century!

…And the "Monster"? The one that had waited in the darkness for so long? It finally had an honored day of its own! 

The festival was not a carnival of fear. It was not a circus of mockery. It was not a sideshow. It was a reclamation. A cultural resurrection. It was a communal exhale after fifty years of holding its breath… And once the first festival happened, why, the second became easier. And then the third. …And the fourth...

Immediately after 1952 the base incident was written up in many books and publications, but the story was fragmented, inconsistent, and inaccurate. The story had become confusing, too puzzling, and was never told in its entirety. Moreover? The truth behind the government cover-up was never going to be known or even revealed.

Coming up to speed, no one had ever cared about the incident! No one bothered to put in the time nor the money required to uncover the truth to the depth that Feschino did! After he became involved in the incident in 1993, he’d spend decades investigating it, he’d piece the fractured story together, he’d write his informing books, and then he’d publish them... And that truth that this writer has been belaboring... that truth was finally revealed. 

The forewords and epilogues for Feschino’s books were written by his colleague, Mr. Stanton T. Friedman, who saw real substance in Feschino’s assertions regarding ET air war, and he devoted many years in attention to that project, himself, as well. 

Feschino's Government cover-up story, his rendition of the "Flatwoods Monster," his eyewitness interviews, his artwork, and photos are all copyright-protected in his books under American copyright law, which is standard procedure to properly publish a book and protect it, as anyone should know. Some seem to need a reminder.  

That said, after Feschino put the "Flatwoods Monster" incident back into the productive spotlight with his books, the publicity he garnered, and the attention his story received was overwhelming and effusive. Feschino's works would be featured in countless newspapers, magazines, and internet articles throughout the world!

The author has been interviewed by numerous radio talk show hosts including personalities Whitley Strieber, George Noory, Bill Birnes, Richard Dolan, Connie Willis, Alejandro Rojas, and Shadoe Stevens, just to name a few. Feschino also appeared on many West Virginia television news broadcasts, West Virginia PBS TV, and several West Virginia radio programs. He also guest-appeared at numerous lectures and did many book signings throughout the state of West Virginia, as well. He is, quite simply, THE subject matter expert as regards Flatwoods and its ancillaries. Accept no substitutes.

While building momentum through the media, Feschino also caught the eye of several conference promoters and subsequently traveled throughout the United States to spread the word about the "Flatwoods Monster." He was also featured in the first-ever "Flatwoods Monster" cover story with a feature article in UFO Magazine penned by this writer. 

Frank Feschino also appeared in a rather "unfocusing" episode of "Monster Quest" on the HISTORY CHANNEL with Mr. Friedman and Fred May, which featured the "Flatwoods Monster" and "Frametown Monster" incidents of 1952. Feschino’s been to all the rodeos, got the requisite shirts, and earned all the badges.

…And the "Monster"? Well, whatever it had been, whatever it had represented—it now became a guardian of identity rather than a specter of embarrassment. …And no matter what anyone believes happened on that night back in 1952, the "Flatwoods Monster" was positively thrust back into the public eye once again… indefinitely, this time!

The "Monster," the well-recognized (if false) original 1952 "Flatwoods Monster," had become a mascot, a tourism icon, a symbol of local pride! Businesses adopted it. Artists painted it. Children and adults wore it on T‑shirts. The town and local communities embraced what had been shunned… after once being told, ironically, to forget about it. Flatwoods became known, not for its ashamed silence, but for its world-shaking, if difficult to accept, story!

…But the deeper truth is this: The "Monster" did not rise on its own. It was raised!

Quite simply, it was raised (resurrected?) by a man who refused to let ridicule be the final word! It was further raised by witnesses who found their voices again, who weren't scared to speak out and stood steadily by Feschino, the sole man able to substantiate and actualize their truth... give them their voice! 

It was raised by people who decided that their past was worth celebrating! It was raised by the simple, stubborn act of remembering... and recollections are going to be more easily recalled when presented with the facts, which Feschino was able to iterate in documented abundance.

…And in this “remembering,” something extraordinary happened! The "Monster" became more than just a mythical incident. More than a sighting. More than a headline. More than just a West Virginia legend in a crass fabulist’s dodgy “woo-woo cryptid book.”

It became a testament to the idea that truth—even a highly strange truth, even an uncomfortable truth—deserves its place in the world! 

It became proof that communities can reclaim what was stolen from them. It became a reminder that stories do not die when they are mocked; they die when they are abandoned! 

After decades of ridicule and silence, Flatwoods stopped abandoning its story. …And the "Monster," patient as a West Virginia Blue Ridge, stepped out of the darkness and back into the light once again. …But this time the ridicule and jokes were left behind! This time, Feschino had pieced together the REAL story and unraveled the cover-up with his due diligence and incisive scholarship… and his fact-supported revelations! The Flatwoods story… and beyond, is his, by damn, in this old retired soldier's uncredulous estimation! Remember what this writer said about the sun.

Today, the festivals and events continue to carry on with another generation of folks taking the reins and keeping the story alive. The celebrations grow, and there is a Flatwoods Monster Museum in Sutton as well. 

The "Monster’s" image appears on signs, souvenirs, murals, and has its own chairs! It even has hamburgers and food items named after it. 

Now, a new generation of citizens from that area thrive because of it, only too often completely forgetting the man who helped resurrect the story 35 years ago... when local consciousness didn't give a rat's pa-toot about it, and who want to cast him off NOW as that carpetbagger aforementioned. ...This is as uncalled for as it is unfair! If he was a carpetbagger, he was one who ironically paid off!

Regardless, he remains woven into its fabric—not as a mythmaker, but as a truth-teller and history-restorer. Before him: silence. After him: legacy… legacy and profit. Yes, Frank Feschino spent the better part of his adult life on this story so as to tell the truth and so that future generations could learn about it. …Learn FROM it.

Its lessons are vast AND world-shaking, as has been mentioned! So, again, this writer must ask, what were all of the self-proclaimed current-day Flatwoods "experts, writers, authors, and armchair podcasters" doing while Feschino was conducting his substantive and all-encompassing investigations... for decades? Yes, the ones who ignobly profit off the "Flatwoods Monster" case and tell the public they have, "The Real Story of the Flatwoods Monster." Where'd they get that story?

Everybody is an “expert” now! One shakes one’s head…

The "Monster" waited fifty years for someone to tell the full and accurate story, truthfully! It sat quietly for five decades waiting to be resurrected. It found that someone. …And the town, the entire county… if not the whole of West Virginia to a degree… found itself. 

Today, in the hills of Braxton County, where the night sky still remembers what it saw, a 12-foot-tall so-called "Monster" knows that its waiting is over. It is home and recognized again. 

Thanks, Mr. Feschino, for not giving up on this fascinating story and for your many, many years of dedication and your SERVICE to Flatwoods AND West Virginia… service while others are content merely to profit… without the smallest word of appreciation or a line of credit to the guy who made any of it happen at all! 

Verily, the truth of the Flatwoods Monster, itself, its history, the recorded data of that history, and its documented audit trail… which Feschino spent the whole of his adult life ferreting out, making sense of, and publishing on… can only be measured chronologically “BF” and “AF.” …Before Feschino... and After Feschino. Smoke THAT if you need to... or should! Read on!