PROJECT BLUE BOOK: FLATWOODS MONSTER--THE TRUE STORY Part 3

What Regards Us As We refuse To Regard In Turn?
Feel that breathing on your neck...
This writer does.

  PROJECT BLUE BOOK (PBB): 

  FLATWOODS MONSTER - 

  THE TRUE STORY
  by Alfred Lehmberg

  PART 3

Previously: A nascent cover-up, the master map, and weird stuff getting curiouser and curiouser!

...Through the Keyhoe (sic) (then More on that upcoming), down a rabbit hole, and just getting more contrarily substantive, less dreamlike the further we fall... That is curious! 

We introduce another piece of the Flatwoods personage puzzle. This will be a brother writer/researcher in the tradition of the aforementioned men Gray Barker and Ivan T. Sanderson... those savvy investigators doing the best they could with what they had... but men still falling short of solving the Flatwoods enigma! 

Remember, these men all knew that there was "something" there, but they didn't have Feschino's future chronological advantage and his Proj. Blue Book file access! They didn't have their own shoulders on which to stand! 

So, now we encounter another in that line, Major Donald Keyhoe, USMC retired and military aide to that Charles Lindbergh. Too, we begin to throw more light on that irritating government predilection to the reflex cover-ups awarded to highly strange incidents. It's an affectation that our officiality always seems to have regarding these matters. 

Anyway, Keyhoe, quickly to become a nascent ufologist himself, is a hard-nosed rationalist and as equally hard-boiled as a writer, so a communicator, reader! More to the point, he's hardwired with military contacts close to this "UFO problem." This is a man who might be an interesting source for info on same, n'est ce pas? 

The reader can be assured that here was a man of no small credibility. He was hugely respected by any and all.

He would have occasion, in these troubled times, to talk to the USAF public Liaison Official of the time, one Albert Chop, at the Pentagon, in January 1953. They would discuss the brouhaha surrounding the Flatwoods case. Adding insult upon injury to the "Flatwoods Monster" encounter, Chop would explain the possible and speculative, yet absurd, explanations regarding the so-called monster incident in play by the Air Force: He'd trot out what the Air Force is going to trot out... what it always trots out. Chop informed:

"First, the glowing object seen by Mrs. May and the boys was actually a meteor; it merely appeared to be landing when it disappeared over the hill."

"Second, the group did see two glowing eyes, probably those of a large owl perched on a limb. Underbrush may have given the impression of a giant figure, and in their excitement they may have imagined the rest."

"Third, the boys' illness was a physical effect brought on by their fright."

"Fourth, the flattened grass and supposed tracks were caused by the first villagers when they came to investigate."

How about, ...No? ...Just, no. With regards UFOs and their affiliation with a "humanity," it is a can just not kicked forever down the road without consequences coming due. One won't put off the dentist, forever. 

Keyhoe would have known these same things, himself. First, a meteor of the size described would have certainly provided for "Flattened Woods" as Stanton Friedman pointed out, to start, and besides, there were no meteors, remotely on or in the record on those days, for the finish! 

Second, the "Owl" of the area was never misidentified before nor has it been misidentified since! It is a ludicrous supposition given these persons involved were not credulous hillbillies confused as regards their own local fauna, fauna known for generations.  Moreover? The "owl" in question never was. It was an invention, you know, like Joe Nickell's ufological relevance.

Third, frightened by what exactly? A heavy battalion of armed troops was sent to cover the entire region! Just a fraction, but still sizable chunk of that force, went to Flatwoods.  Some would call that overreaction to hillbilly kids grabassin' in the woods at night... One would think... 

Fourth, the Air Force assertions are not supported by the facts, then or now. The biggest of their assertions, the "The meteor," falls apart at the beginning and all the rest degrades in light of the record extant from the time. Sorry, Doctor (immaterial) Joe Nickell. One won't be able to carry much sand in a sieve.

Ok reader, now let's make an overview of the scene at Flatwoods, its cast of characters, and then the perplexing activity of this inexplicable affair. This will be an "activity" decidedly odd even given circumstances later (and too readily this writer adds)  dismissed by your garden variety, so suspiciously militant, naysayer (read skeptibunky)... as "hillbillies" reacting to their local "fauna." Not remotely true. Ludicrous on its face.

There were Project Blue Book intelligence officers and other officials involved in the "Flatwoods Monster" case, present. The first-hand telling of these investigative events, which occurred in Flatwoods, can be read in Feschino's book as they were told to him by the primary "Flatwoods Monster" witnesses. One of them, Mrs. Kathleen May, the woman who actually met and encountered the Monster and Project Blue Book officials at the scene, is, like her sons, a key first-hand witness never losing a shred of dignity and credibility over the decades.

Enter, now, one Highly decorated WWII Vet Colonel Dale Leavitt, the commander of the West Virginia National Guard. He was the OIC of the military initiative into the area, provoked by nameless circumstances so busily severe that police could not respond to calls! Fact.

He personally led a heavy platoon of troops onto the Flatwoods encounter site after receiving an unusual and off-chain-of-command call from the USAF in Washington, D. C. to deploy to Flatwoods with haste! An apt response to "hillbilly kids" provoked by a simple meteor into seeing a space monster around Halloween this writer asks? This writer, in turn, suspects not.

A. Lee Stewart

Oh, and of the many others who told Feschino about the officials involved in the Flatwoods case. These would include A. Lee Stewart, Jr., the reporter who broke the story to the world, and then first-hand witness Neil Nunley, who also saw the "Monster" at close range and knows an owl from what comes to be described later as a mechanism! There were the boys and they would be, on some levels, scarred for life, periodically mocked and humiliated about the affair. There are other issues.

Yes, Feschino's research and investigation into this incident is indeed the most informative on record, the longest and most factually dense in history! The book is worth the price of admission to a... forthcoming future of a future... forthcoming. 

Sometimes it's just that easy if we let it... if we're strong enough! See... this writer thinks it's not all bad news, or why the cover-up? Seem's the rare cover-up serving anyone but the cover-upper. That's the history.

No, this writer thinks at this point he can safely say: were it not for Feschino's extensive, dedicated, and decades-long investigation, his devoted research into the events of the September 12 and 13, 1952 vis a vis resurrected Project Blue Book case files... there would be no Flatwoods case, at all, today. It would have remained lost forever... buried, like our government plainly intended it to be.

There would be no Flatwoods books, no Flatwoods TV shows, no Flatwoods radio programs, stories or Flatwoods... anything. In other words, Feschino single-handedly uncovered and resuscitated knowledge of this massive UFO cover-up and, with the help of Stanton Friedman and a few others, arduously exposed the cover-up of the "Flatwoods Monster" incident, et al! There's more than mere punch in this pudding, reader.

As for the coat-tail riders, glabrous cling-ons, CSI fan-boys, klasskurtxian gad-flies, back-shooting glory-seekers, and other supposed "experts" or bald thieves of Feschino's work and content, this writer suspects Feschino might be singularly positioned for a grab on the shirttail of the truth as regards this extremely twitchy affair, where the aforementioned iterated scalawags, don't... it's, and again no apologies, it's one of those stories changing, everything... perhaps neatly explaining the problem with the embrace of same. I offer the reader that the writer's long intuition is that its better news on the other side of disclosure with regard to the UFO... 

Countless others, on the other hand, have a similar intuition ... now, thanks to Feschino! The "Flatwoods Monster" or "Braxton County Monster" is Feschino's baby, cutting to the chase; it is his story, all the evidence comes as a result of his efforts pretty much alone, and he deserves his dominion over same. 

I can attest to this having worked with Feschino for many years, traveled with him, having done some radio programs with him... even appeared on a 2010 History Channel Flatwoods episode with him alluded to previously. By Crom's devils, I wrote the back cover review of his ground-breaking book! This writer, summa graduate, and former Master Aviator is convinced some game was afoot!

Recently, Feschino told me, "I don't mind, so much, the others who have latched onto the story or pretend to be experts." He said, "I know the facts of the case! I was the one who devoted nearly half of my life uncovering the incident! The rest are pretenders." He adds, "My books, radio interviews, and the video/audio documentation of witnesses in my documentaries are my testament and track record, and they go back to 1991." 

This could all very well be true. In fact, it occurs to this writer that Feschino may have been the only one to break this story! A tall claim, but as a school-trained renderer across many artistic media disciplines, to even a forensic quality, Feschino was able to "draw out" what witnesses were describing in a way that jogged abused and shell-shocked memories of these affected persons and in a way your garden variety investigator cannot or would not. 

Artists can have an endearing quality... a result of them being able to capture another's tortured memories as they are iterated, perhaps... ...which brings us to our criticism of the History Channel's Project Blue Book Flatwoods Monster episode...

Thing is? I liked it, or would have. I rather liked the smoky innuendo, the humanist sub-plotting, the X-file-esque feel, the actors and the acting, or would have. This writer says that having had to pay to see it. I would have been glad to drub it were it execrable... but it was not. It was rather like a Twilight Zone episode encouraging the reader to think and wonder, mayhap... because it was allegedly based on fact... ...and there comes the rub!

See... the real Flatwoods story comes at a time during the biggest UFO flap in US History. Fact. In 1952 UFOs were so ubiquitous, bothersome, and threatening to prohibited flight spaces that President Harry Truman ordered the military to shoot those UFOs down! Fact. Men and machines are credited lost in this... air war. Fact. One of these UFOs, damaged in the conflict, finds its way to the center of West Virginia and crash-lands. Fact. There is "contact" between frightened locals and the UFO's conjectured occupant. Fact. Seems like a hell of a story to me. ...And scene!

Not so, History's Project Blue Book episode. "Based on fact" is not served by a content alleging to be factual while being in no way factual, beyond the bones of shrouded statuary carved of a demeaned factuality, story distortions to the factual contrary and ridiculously confabulatory... Truth disparaged to become a laughable distortion of facts reworked into a dismissive parody of what happened, actually, so as to perhaps dismiss, as parody, what actually happened! Was that it?

As a pure fiction I would have liked it! I was adequately entertained. Yes, I would have liked it unreservedly, but there is that duplicity problem. It said, as much as more than intimated with a heavy hand, that it was based on a true story! 

It remains that I feel I have a good reason to suspect that that assertion, in and of itself, is such a distortion of the narrative, besides being known factually to be otherwise, so as to make opportunity for the ready dismissal of same... the contrived result. Just another mainstream sandbag... 

The credible, then, wholly discredited. Readily believed rumors. Gladly ignored facts... When did we come to this? What's up with that?

I guess that's what you can do after Ronald Reagan destroyed the FCC's "Fairness Doctrine" a doctrine providing substantive penalties and consequences for knowingly lying on Public airwaves. Some of these lies are bigger than other ones...

Remains, Truth, as it can be hashed out for our existential reality, is degraded and subverted by this program and programs like them. They made the true story ridiculous and so made it forgettable. That's unforgivable.

What's real is the evidenced potential for real Air War with entities from beyond our Earth and 3rd Kind Encounters with same. That's the evidence... no lipstick for that pig... How are we served, especially in the long run, with this story made forgettable? Is the real story just too real... is that it? Well, even honorable pragmatism based on ever-convenient crap... is crap, just not inconvenienced, ever...

...Though, who would have thought that it would be the History Channel to obviate our real history, eh? This writer stifles a snort. Though, this is, and has been, the apparent case.

...Still, seems there may be a special place in History Channel hell for programs professing one thing, doing something altogether and solicitously different, and then mocking the very truth on which that truth was professed to have been based, as truth... just for the old injury accessorized with unearned insult one would suppose? Some good faith seems called for! The History Channel's betrayal is a disgusting kind of irony, this writer says true.

Feschino regards the crapulous proceedings of some pretty obvious cognitive dissonance from the corporate main-streamers with startled amazement, even after all these decades. Consider, reader, the most astonishing story imaginable cast away like it was a filthy rag! Maybe it is, to some. To others it may seem more like a full on leap into the embrace of the 21st Century... a retreat from a wasteful and hypocritical, psychotic and psychopathic, 19th...

Without shame and sans all apology, as the reader has been forewarned, this writer offers, instead of the usual forgettable obligatory foolishness, a monstrous tale of documented air war with ET (men and machines disappearing wholesale), downed ET pilots escaping and evading (killing dogs and scaring people), a well researched encounter between ETs and humanity (credible salt of the Earth kinds of folks), all wrapped in a suffocating cowl of cold war, political hypocrisy, and the new American exceptionalism... 

I asked Feschino for his opinion of the alien "monster" as portrayed in the Project Blue Book, Flatwoods Monster episode. Feschino laughed. 

"To me, it looked like a 10-foot tall hot-dog somebody left on the grill too long. ...Ya know, that hot-dog nobody wanted getting pushed to the back, off the grate and forgotten about... Add a pair of piss-hole in the snow eyes and grabby-ghoul arms and you have one hell of a silly-looking portrayal of the 'Flatwoods Monster.'."

He added, 

"Mrs. May would have been devastated and disappointed if she had seen this episode... the way they handled it... the way they portrayed the attitude and demeanor of the principals and the townspeople, brave persons, actually, put under much duress during the affair. It was astonishingly, even libelously, inaccurate!" 

True enough, these people did not deserve this characterization.

This writer has spent time with these people. He is wholly outraged for them.

Feschino goes on, 

"You see, I worked with Mrs. May for many, many years, knew her well and spent countless hours talking with her and documenting her testimony. There was a reason that she worked with me for all of those years... it was because she trusted me and wanted the truth to come out... so did I! ...And that's what I did—I told the truth!" 

Closing, Feschino clued this writer to his outline for a plan well structured as a framework to, at last, get the... beyond astonishing... true story right, at last... dead pilots killed and missing in terrifying military action, their falsely dishonored memories, and the tortured souls of bereaved relations rather earn this clear-eyed consideration. 

"My definitive goal at this point," Feschino says unblinkingly, "is a Hollywood movie based on my book. To that end I have already written a treatment for a screen play. It is a real blockbuster and will never be equaled. I can guarantee that... and this story really is based on the truth..." This writer's money is on Frank Feschino.

Read on... 

PROJECT BLUE BOOK: FLATWOODS MONSTER--THE TRUE STORY Part 2

  PROJECT BLUE BOOK (PBB): 

  FLATWOODS MONSTER - 

  THE TRUE STORY
  by Alfred Lehmberg

  PART 2

Previously: Training and persistence. Resolving the near-ruined record. Provenance is ignored?

***

Feschino's Reconstituted 10073

Yes reader, it was Frank Feschino who discovered the "PROJECT BLUEBOOK 10073 RECORD CARD ATIC Form 329 (REV 26 Sep 52)," for the "Flatwoods Monster" case! There's your provenance for PBB Flatwoods records, extant. Full stop!

It was Frank Feschino who analyzed numerous "Tentative Observers Questionnaires" and "Air Intelligence Information Reports," documents. It was Frank Feschino who re-imaged illegible "Project 10073 Record Card" papers, "Air Intelligence Information Report" narratives, and ATIC communication "ACTION" reports! This is forgetting various other intelligence reports re-engineered back to readability over the years, reader, by one Frank Feschino!

Let us be crystal clear that it was Frank Feschino who letter-detected faded first-person witness handwritten manuscripts to readability (a doozy to decipher... a paper in its own right) and, over the years, re-inked them to the record's legibility. Finally, it was Frank Feschino who then made it public, largely for free, reader, apart from his very well-received and credible (perhaps the problem?!) book, on the internet, radio, or TV.

It was Frank Feschino, for the record, first to put civilian eyes on... was first to see the September 12 and 13, 1952 Project Blue Book case files, in more than a few decades. Within those files was the "Flatwoods" file designated case, "#2078." This writer seems sure a debt's owed to Feschino rather than this uneasy dearth of same... even carried around for a time on a three-cornered journalistic cushion for this writer's money, but we digress.

See, immediately, there seemed an abundant mystery afoot... revealed a result, only, of Feschino's efforts. In turn, perhaps we'd even have some definitive answers regarding questions we now can have, at all... you know... regarding a seemingly clear Air Force cover-up of the "Flatwoods Monster," affair.

To wit, so we can lay this out crystal clear: we refer to the case in the "comments" section of one of its documents, section #11...

The Air Force so confidently proclaims, 

"The West Virginia monster so-called. Actually the object was the well-known Washington area meteor of 12 Sep landing near Flatwoods West Virginia. Have confirmation from an Astronomy Club from Akron, Ohio. Letter from E.C. [BLACKED-OUT] President - Akron Astronomy Club." 

Ok... right here we can throw the brake full on, even accessorized with that nasty scratched-record sound! Let us remember that this was a "statement of fact" by an officiality, for the record!

The official conclusion reached, then, was recorded in section 12 of the 10073 Record Card: 

"12. CONCLUSION: [X] was astronomical." 

...Nothing to see here folks, move along now to your homes and tune in some "reality" TV... bake some cookies... wash the dog...

No.

See, to start... the Project Blue Book officials blamed the whole Flatwoods sighting on a meteor, known then, specifically (suspiciously!), as "the well-known Washington area meteor." Stop! There are problems with any or all of this as the reader will see. 

The referenced Akron Astronomy Club (AAC) letter, which Feschino also had to make legible, stated, 

"EXAMPLE: Typical Meteorite (Fireball). 12 Sep Fireball -- September 12, 1952-- Flatwoods, W.Va."

The "Washington area meteor" was also referenced in The New York Times on September 13, 1952 in the article, "FLAME OVER WASHINGTON." 

...The "FLAME." Ok... "OVER WASHINGTON." Right. Only...

This same article also stated, 

"Newspapers offices were flooded by calls from witnesses of the phenomenon who sought an explanation...At the United States Naval Observatory a spokesman said, 'reports sound like a typical meteor.'"

The Springfield News reported the same story, "Flaming Object Seen at Capitol" and wrote,

"A flaming object believed to have been a falling meteor tonight flashed across the skies startling hundreds of Washington area residents. The object was seen over the capital and nearby Maryland and Virginia.The Weather Bureau, Naval Observatory and newspaper offices were jammed with a flood of calls from persons wanting to know what the mysterious object was."

Reader, please take note of the sheer amount of calls the newspapers reported received concerning this object... propagandized even, it becomes increasingly clear, to be a meteor! "Newspaper offices were flooded by calls from witnesses" and "newspaper offices were jammed with a flood of calls from persons," was the effusive report!

Now reader, let's take a look behind the scene at a "Tentative Observers Questionnaire," from a credited witness who reported his sighting to Project Blue Book, himself. Here, Feschino spent countless hours recreating a particular handwritten page from this document, a document which was severely faded and not remotely legible at a glance, and then brought those words back to life... or they would have been lost forever.

From the near illegible...

To readability!

Again, it was Feschino discovering the following shocking testimony on page 8 of this witness's report under section "30." In part, this witness wrote:

"I don't know what it was I saw and will insist on what it was NOT, I have seen meteors, and the newspapers will have a hard time telling me I was looking at a meteor on 9/12 [September 12]—maybe it sounds good to persons who didn't see the object—this THING was being flown...In summation, this may sound as though I am inferring some fraud in the reports given to the public, perhaps responsible parties believe they are true and the best information available, but did they see the thing on 9/12? [Name blacked out]"

See, and we come to it at last, the problem with this cover-up story, which was clearly implemented by the USAF, is that there are no recorded meteors or meteorite landings in the United States, anywhere, for September 12, 1952...except in Project Blue Book! None." ...Let that sink in.

Friedman, onsite at Flatwoods, WV

More to the point, there was never a meteorite landing in or near Flatwoods on that night in question, or ever as far as this writer knows. Stanton Friedman was to later to have quipped, "If it had, the town would now be called 'Flattened-woods.' " To this day, no one has ever found an impact pit or crater in the area, which would surely be noticeable after all the documented commotion for such.

See, after years of research, plus putting together his data of UFO sightings for that day onto a "Master Map," astonishing in its own right, Feschino discovered that the "Flame Over Washington" was more likely that damaged Flatwoods UFO flying over the Capitol on a western trajectory, continuing on about 200 miles, and then landing in Flatwoods about 30 minutes later! There's your "flame," and a real "Energizer Bunny" one, too! 

MASTER MAP -- Just a fraction...

Additionally, a preternaturally intrepid Feschino discovered and assiduously documented 116 locations where twenty-five UFOs were sighted, crashing and landing over and over, virtually leapfrogging, reader, and all were sighted within ten east coast states during, and get this, twenty-one sustained hours of UFO activity! Others might have remarked on reported evidence of one hell of a battle with aliens from space... Let that sink in...

Yet, the "Duration" of this alleged "Fireball" was said to be "5-6 seconds" according to that Akron Astronomy Club document, a document that the Air Force rather blitheringly used as their alleged prima facie evidence. This won't be the last time this writer notes how very sad and suspiciously poor this cover-up attempt by the Project Blue Book officials was,  so as to provoke in the reader an awareness of the artless same.

Realize that after years of research and putting together his data of UFO sightings for that day onto the aforementioned "Master Map," again astonishing, as the reader can see, Feschino's evidence illustrates that the "Flame Over Washington," passing over the Capitol on a western trajectory at about 7:00 pm, was just... not... a meteor!

It better fits the evidence that this reportage was the damaged Flatwoods UFO craft, shot up by Air Force jets ordered to do just that, as it stands. No apologies, remember.

Whatever it was, it would continue on about 206 miles and then land in Flatwoods about 30 minutes later around 7:30 pm. 

The Project Blue Book 10073 Record Card stated the time of the meteor sighting in Flatwoods was...

"TIME: 19:30" (or 7:30 pm) EST. This same document states, "Actually the object was the well-known Washington area meteor of 12 Sep. landing near Flatwoods. Have confirmation of an Astronomy Club from Akron, Ohio," again, and pointed out for emphasis. 

Just... Not... A Meteor!

Now pay close attention, reader! The Akron Astronomy Club letter stated the time this sighted "Fireball" was, "TIME: Approximately 7:00 P.M. E.S.T." Flatwoods? 7:30 PM. This time-lapse of 30 minutes clearly proves it was NOT a "Typical Meteorite Fireball"! 

Consider, reader! The Akron Astronomy Club stated this "fireball" had an "Actual velocity: 27 miles per second." Were this the case, reader, then this fireball would have reached Flatwoods in near single digit seconds after passing over Washington, DC, not 30 minutes! That's the physics!

30 minutes at the noted speed is beyond the pale of rational reasonability, by orders of magnitude! True rationalists must retch or be the wretches they'd proclaim as wretched, retching! That point, honed fine.

To further hone this point, the "Duration" of this alleged "Fireball" was said to be "5-6 seconds" according to the Akron Astronomy Club document our Air Force rather blitheringly used as their support and evidence beard. Truly, and again, this is a very sad, even deplorable, cover-up attempt by the Project Blue Book officials, to say the least. It just begs to be overturned and invalidated!

So, let's kick this rock over even risking a bite! Feschino discovered and documented 116 locations where twenty-five UFOs were sighted that day! For the record, and focusing on these sightings, there were more likely four UFOs crashing a total of 13 times within 3 states, South Carolina, Tennessee, and West Virginia, while eight other UFOs made landings in three states, West Virginia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. All 25 of the accounted-for UFOs were sighted over and within ten east coast states during only twenty-one sustained hours of UFO activity, and most of that in around an hour! Let that sink in, too!

Air War with ET!

Now, just to show how inaccurate, desperate, and almost-wanting-to-be-caught acting our "officialdom" was seeming... certainly poor in graft's craft, as has been noted! It's that Blue Book's attempt to cover-up the "Washington area meteor" was, as Feschino discovered, destroyed the Government's report with a clear depiction of what transpired by connecting all the plotted points of UFO sightings that night, and by using the time stamps of these sightings! He could clearly establish just "who" was "what," and "where"! ...And, too? That there had been other damaged UFOs seen that night on completely different flight paths than just the one to Flatwoods! Courses to Nuclear sites and major military bases. The Akron Astronomy Club, flatly, had NOT borne witness to the so-called "Washington area meteor."

The AAC, contrarily, had not seen any meteor! Rather, actually, they sighted another damaged craft that had passed over Baltimore, Maryland, and was then headed on a northwest flight path towards Wright Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio! This object was also in flames and was tracked over thirty locations by Feschino. 

For an alleged meteor, this "flaming object" had passed over northwest Maryland, proceeded over Ohio, then redirected northeast towards the northern West Virginia panhandle... where it nearly collides with a commercial passenger plane [heavily documented!]! It then redirects and heads south over West Virginia to crash-land five times in that state! Wait! What? ...Redirecting? 

Funny meteor, eh, reader? Yet, to add to the mayhem of flaming and damaged UFOs flying across the United States, another and third damaged "flaming object" was seen streaking across the country on a southwest trajectory and heading directly towards... Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee! This writer thinks that that might have rung some bells, and he would wager on kinked short-hairs bunched on the shriveled sacks of governmental wonks for all the actioning embroglio! Oak Ridge! That was our nascent atomics industry, remember!

It had passed southwest over Virginia, then actually flew seventy miles through the security-sensitive no-fly zone of the "Oak Ridge Air Defense Identification Zone," ...finally to crash-land across the Tennessee border into Arcadia, Tennessee! Here it was sighted going down! This would set off a search and rescue operation by the "Kingsport Life Saving and First Aid Crew" with an ambulance. 

Upon arrival, the crews saw "strange flares" off in the distance, but before the object could be reached, it took off and headed south through the State. Feschino pinpointed and documented this UFO over ten locations including Virginia, then Tennessee, where it crashed twice! It was then tracked to depart out over North Carolina. Check the map. It's all in the record Feschino uncovered and constructed almost forensically.

To complete the record for those, perhaps, uninformed readers who are unaware of this incident, or on Feschino's intrepid investigation into this case, the reader might ask, what was the "Flatwoods Monster" incident and what actually happened that night? Prepare for dirty download and conjunct data-burst.

In a quick overview? (...And the writer makes absolutely no apologies for the ridiculous audaciousness of the presented assertions as has been pointed out... but one is, or should be, constrained by facts... go where these lead... though heaven falls!) Proposed:  the "Flatwoods Monster" affair was a sub-set of one of four different UFOs shot down by USAF jets on September 12, 1952, approximately six weeks after it was publicly revealed on July 29, 1952 in The Seattle Post Intelligencer, that the "Air Force Orders Jet Pilots to Shoot Down Flying Saucers If they Refuse to Land." 

Newspaper Article Headlines of the time...

Yes reader, that headline is absolutely true! In part, the article says, 

"Lt. Col. Moncel Monts, (USAF) Information officer, stated: 'The jet pilots are, and have been under orders to investigate unidentified objects and to shoot them down if they can't talk them down.'" 

Hence, the overwhelming amount of non-communicating UFOs sighted over, and going down, in the United States, just on September 12, 1952! There are "...other, and more lurid battles" Ed Ruppelt, the PBB Chief of the moment, would later write. 

By using information Feschino had laboriously extracted from first Project Blue Book documents, newspaper articles, magazine pieces, past research materials, and his own first-hand eyewitness interviews (many of those videotaped), he then plotted all the points of the UFO sightings, landing areas, and crash sites onto his "Master Map." Then! Then, he was able to connect the dots; recreate a cohesive timeline of events.

A plethora of UFOs in just 21 hours!

This established the foundation for the storyline of Feschino's book, wholly disproving and discounting the Project Blue Book "single fireball meteor" explanation and its convoluted story-line of events, exposed after all these years, by... who was that again?

Now, all that said, let's take a moment and go back to July 29 of 1952 and talk about a most interesting follow-up statement, regarding all this "Shoot Down" foolishness. It was made by Robert Farnsworth, President of the United States Rocket Society. It was sent immediately after the flying-saucer-shoot-down orders were publicly revealed. Seems someone could think beyond the auspices of the hindbrain and reptile gonads!

Mr. Farnsworth sent telegrams to President Harry Truman, Robert Lovett, the Secretary of Defense, Frank Pace, Jr., the Secretary of the Army, and Daniel Kimball, Secretary of the Navy, in regards to the shooting down of flying saucers. On July 30, 1952, The Louisville Courier reported the following in an article: "Don't Shoot Them Down, Rocket Man Says"...

"...Other and more lurid Duels of Death!"

"I respectfully suggest that no offensive action be taken against the objects reported as unidentified, which have been sighted over our nation. Should they be extraterrestrial - such action might result in the gravest consequences, as well as possibly alienating us from beings of superior power. Friendly contact should be sought as long as possible." 

In other words, "Guys! If they can get here, they can kick our ass!"

Farnsworth's telegram to these officials could have been taken more seriously! On the night of September 12, 1952, the United States military shot down four UFOs just off the east coast of the United States.

Subsequently, these damaged objects all headed inland and crash-landed within the United States. Feschino also discovered and documented the locations where these four objects made repeated crash-landings for a combined total of thirteen locations in three different states. Facts will get... more... quarrelous.

One of those damaged objects passed west over Washington, D.C. in flames and eventually landed on a hilltop in Flatwoods, West Virginia at about 7:25 pm. Shortly after, a nearly 12-foot-tall metallic-like "hovercraft structure" emerged from the downed object and encountered a group of curious locals, our Flatwoods residents. This huge being became known as the "Flatwoods Monster" aka. the "Braxton County Monster," and it's the end of the story. It is not the story in and of itself.

That story is the audit trail on the evidentiary pathway to a forgotten airwar with ET. No apologies.   

It was a mechanism!

OK, what about all of the other 100 plus locations where various other UFOs were seen passing over different States, in reported distress, and making landings on September 12, 1952? Well, not to give too much of Feschino's research away without reading his book, but the downing of those four UFOs conceivably triggered a mass search and rescue mission at two different locations within West Virginia to extract their fellows it is asserted; one in central West Virginia and the other in the northern panhandle region! 

Seems the "opposition extraterrestrial" took care of its own and attempted to leave no fellow ET behind! Well reader, actually, there was one ET perhaps left behind and found by civilians in northern West Virginia before it could be retrieved! 

Remember that other flaming object that the Akron Astronomy Club saw and those other eight UFO landings I told you about earlier!!! Those eight UFOs TOUCHING down looked just like it was part of a search and rescue mission to find one of their own stranded in the West Virginia northern panhandle area. It resembles all that to this old combat aviator! 

The Columbus Citizen of September called it something else though in the headline of their September 13, 1952 newspaper, 

"FIREBALLS SHOWER CITY AREA - Meteor Fall Blamed As Cause of Scare." 

There you have it reader, now the scuttle-butt and skinny was an isolated "Fireball Shower" and not a single meteor!!! Yet, The Boston Globe was a lot closer to the truth in their reportage of this isolated incident... from a "PITTSBURGH - September 13 (UP) dateline, they reported the descending and landing objects as:

Four States "Bombarded" by Meteor-Like Objects

Only... where were the craters?

Remember, folks. This writer will have no apologies.

***

NEXT: Through the Keyhoe. Persistence of vision. A treatment for the elements of a true story.

PROJECT BLUE BOOK: FLATWOODS MONSTER--THE TRUE STORY Part 1

WE INTERRUPT THE PREVIOUS 

PROGRAMMING FOR BREAKING NEWS!

PROJECT BLUE BOOK:

FLATWOODS MONSTER

THE TRUE STORY
Part One

by Alfred Lehmberg

On January 8, 2019, a new and much-anticipated HISTORY CHANNEL UFO series would be broadcasted, if TV and internet hype was to be remotely believed. It was titled "Project Blue Book." ...And here we go... 

The website of the HISTORY CHANNEL stated the following information about their new series [please excuse the necessarily bold brackets from this writer. HC is in italics]: 

HISTORY’s [...and pause a moment to ponder the implications of that proclamation! Truth! Honesty! Good Faith! Pffft!] upcoming new drama series [yeah... make that clear at the start...] ‘Project Blue Book’ is based on the true [and where is the provenance of that assertion?], top-secret investigations into Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) and related phenomena conducted by the United States Air Force from 1952 to 1969. Dr. J. Allen Hynek (Aidan Gillen), a brilliant yet underappreciated college professor [part of the "drama" one presumes, Hynek was very appreciated, kept his reputation, and made some legit bank, appearing in perhaps the touchstone UFO film, CE3K...], is recruited by the U.S. Air Force to spearhead a clandestine operation called Project Blue Book. Along with his partner, the debonair Air Force Captain Michael Quinn (Michael Malarkey), he is summoned to investigate UFO sightings around the country and use science to discover what really happened [...arms akimbo and eyes askance...]. However, when some encounters cannot be explained away and cases remain open, Hynek begins to suspect that he has been duped by the government into a larger conspiracy to cover up the truth [...as close to the facts as we shall sail, has been this writer's experience.]. Set against the backdrop of the Cold War and rising Atomic Era, each episode will draw from the actual [...and the reader should note that point...] Project Blue Book case files, blending UFO theories with authentic historical events [...note again!] from one of the most mysterious eras in United States history. [Well, they got that last part right... but to foreshadow our point, what is the provenance, good reader, of those "actual Blue Book Case files"?] 

Dr. J. Allen Hynek in the film CE3K. 

This 10 episode UFO series allegedly based on Project Blue Book casework was created by David O’Leary, also the writer and co-executive producer of this effort. Robert Zemeckis, one can read, is credited as the executive producer along with Arturo Interian, Jackie Levine, Jack Rapke, and Barry Jossen, supporting. Cutting to the chase interestingly enough, and at the focus of this writer's interest, the second episode of this series concerns the unarguably famous, "Flatwoods Monster" of West Virginia. This particular show airec on January 15, 2019. This writer was watching. 

I say "unarguably famous" because this long lost "Flatwoods Monster" incident, occurring on September 12, 1952, was buried away and long-forgotten, even denied outright, until one individual, Frank C. Feschino, Jr., began investigating the case back in 1991. He became consummately interested in an uncomfortable tale substantiating itself more and more the closer he got to it. Not the usual case with affairs ufological. He's not alone. There are others similarly interested. 

Feschino has many credible luminaries of the UFO Research community as interested celebrants on the veracity of his effort. The reader might recognize the names Robert Salas, Richard Dolan, Stanton Friedman, Robert Hastings, and Whitley Strieber... just to start! Even hard-nosed "paranormalizers" [tm] the likes Jeremy Vaeni and Jeff Ritzmann are not entirely revolted with Feschino's cited assertions. Facts are facts functioning factually, in point of fact, and the likes of the preceding shall have no small respect for that. 

Ultimately, and for illustration, Feschino has become the top researcher and investigator into this close encounter incident since it happened back in the day, and he is still actively involved in the case as this piece is read. Exceeding far in advancement of respected peers the likes of Gray Barker, Evert Clark,  and Ivan T. Sanderson, he has met, video interviewed, and documented many of the key witnesses involved in the incident, as I've written before. 

He's produced books and articles about the "Flatwoods Monster," appeared on television, done countless radio shows, and traveled the country doing lectures and book signings about this singularly strange and compelling case. He has been indefatigable! 

All this? ...And he's pretty easy to find. He's no cloistered recluse. He's reasonable and not impossibly pecuniary... the reader can afford him... think of an Ivan T. Sanderson for the 21st Century to a degree. 

Yet, and here begins this writer's puzzlement: There is no mention of Feschino anywhere on the History Channel's website and nothing about his book, The Braxton County Monster—The Cover-Up of the 'Flatwoods Monster' Revealed... which blows the hoary lid off the cover-up of the "Flatwoods Monster" case, in the first place... and where a  research has already been completed by the subject matter expert, extant in the second! It's somewhat like the story of the Salk Polio Vaccine told with no mention of or reference to Jonas Salk! 

The History Channel site does lateral the reader a loose link to a decidedly weak July 20, 2018 article written by one Roy Wenzl: 

"In 1952, the Flatwoods Monster Terrified 6 Kids, a Mom, a Dog—and a Nation. It prompted a U.S. Air Force Official Inquiry, part of an Initiative called Project Blue Book." 

No, not at all. This is just another uninformative and mal-informing article not mentioning author Frank Feschino or his substantive investigation into the Flatwoods case. This article, like the work of a plethora of other writers and their articles over the years, misses the point by the obligatory parsec and ignores the abject seriousness of the incident which Feschino uncovered during his very arduous investigation, invariably treating the affair like it was "an amusing little tale of folk history." It's ever been more than that. Air war with ET would fill the bill, one would presuppose. That would change everything... and everything is reluctant to change!

You see, reader, it was Feschino who got a copy of the Project Blue Book microfilm reel for September 12 and 13, 1952... about 25 years ago as the crow flies, and reviewed 170 pages of those documents for those two singular, and very particular, days!

Only, there was a major problem with these files! This created a crisis. 

The Blue Book documents photographed for the microfilm were actually copies taken from the original documents. The originals had been archived by the Air Force, and the copies were then edited with blackout lines to hide witnesses names along with other information the authorities didn't want the public to know or see. 

The "Thermoflex" copy machine was a standard copier used in the 1950s. Cheap ink on these copies proved that they did not fare well over long periods of time. That wasn't good. 

You see reader, the problem was that these edited copies had actually been sitting around for enough time to be virtually unreadable! They were badly, almost illegibly faded by the time they were photographed for microfilm use and not the best reproduction resolution was to be found there. In other words, the degraded text of many of the documents was too poor to read easily, not without monumental difficulty! The writer is reminded of the Ramey Memo and its tortured, even computer-assisted, translation by Dr. David Rudiak.

Remains, Feschino, a trained artist and illustrator, persisted! He spent hundreds of hours over many years, enlarging, magnifying, deciphering and re-inking page after page of near-illegible Blue Book documents in order to be able to read them, at all! 

So, how does one reference files when it was quite likely they would be virtually unreadable by the time they'd get to them in the last year or two? Unless... they'd read Feschino's book? That's what the perspicacious person would do, read the paramount work available. Would anything else be even competent? One must be wondering where The History Channel did its research... This writer does!

Next: Provenance asserted. Cover-ups uncovered. Lingering meteors debunked.