That "Flatwoods Monster" ... 3 of 3

Something "Happened"?
It's happening.
It will continue to happen...
"We" happened... so! We're not alone.
We are not alone and them not being here
because we can't get there...
Is pretty weak tea.

That "Flatwoods Monster"  

... 3 of 3

by Alfred Lehmberg

At that moment of the portrait's startling reveal, history was barely if indelibly made as a shocked American public gasped at the sight of the "Green Monster of Braxton County " on their nascent television sets for the first time! Too searing to last apparently... eh? 

The oddly penultimate Flatwoods program is barely referred to in concerted research... and the signature "monster" segment of it not at all... It did happen, reader. It did. Happen. There is too much reportage of the event for it not to have happened. What happens...  remember, continues to happen.

Verily, the artist's rendering was "a lie telling a truth," but real tragedy on further investigation, reader. It was a foolish TV rendition facilitating naught but cheap-shots for the "effects" they encourage, echoing decades, from in the beginning... and to this very day. 

Chief among these "shots" are the regretted memories of collateral damages suffered. Consider the unreturning and forgotten pilots lost engaging those UFOs... their families... and THEN think through the wounded pride and sensibilities of the betrayed persons involved with the Flatwoods affair extant. We arrive finally to the ongoing disgrace of a media continuing to misinform us today!

Still reader, the "monster" was seen for the first time, after a fashion, during that broadcast 63 years ago and remains in the public imagination—even apart from Feschino's efforts to make the story known himself—today!  Sadly, then as sometimes even now but for Feschino's valiant efforts, the "Monster" was incorrectly portrayed by the sketch artist, this writer is compelled to reiterate to the reader. How?

No... just, no... and thanks, History Channel!

We flashback to an intrepid first responder! During Feschino's videotaping with the former reporter Stewart, Stewart held up a reproduction of the 1952 drawing, telling Feschino:

"The picture in question that always seems to be in a lot of the articles that've been seen is the one right here. The artist at We the People drew that in New York on the actual day we were there. In fact, it was the focal point of the entire show. They started interviewing Mrs. May, and then went to Lemon, which was all a question-and-answer situation. They gave me the opportunity of summarizing the thing [story] in general and then again finished with this particular picture. That was basically the entire program."

Kathleen May with drawing 
Stewart alludes to...

Mrs. May told Feschino the following about her interview on TV, "They asked me if I knew what it was—you know [pauses] and Lord I didn't know... I had no idea. I know it wasn't an airplane. That's the only thing I'd seen in the sky besides a kite."

Now reader, let's fast forward to Feschino's investigation and explain his work and findings regarding the witnesses with which he'd toiled for all these years... until their deaths, verily. Remember, Feschino is a trained illustrator who graduated with a four-year fine arts diploma in illustration from the prestigious Paier School of Art in Hamden, Connecticut.

Frank's training is not to be taken lightly as he was coached by some of the best artists and illustrators in the world, including Kenneth Davies, Rudolph Zallinger, and John Massimino. Let this writer proclaim that it was Feschino who sat with the witnesses and talked for countless hours, questioned them, and otherwise interviewed them about their lurid close encounter.  Most importantly reader, Feschino also sat with them and drew police-style forensic drawings of the "monster" from their descriptions... their correct recollections!

Subsequently, from his drawings and sketches, Feschino made comprehensive and detailed studies of the "monster," later composing detailed paintings from them. His due diligence, tireless investigation, and talented illustrations result in an informed perspicaciousness several orders of magnitude ahead of the artist from the We the People program... who too quickly hashed out an incorrect drawing depicting the 12-foot-tall giant as a claw waving "monster" inexplicably floating and wearing a skirt from the '50s.  That's "built-in" deniability, reader! ...Happens a lot. I won't digress but the reader may have... imagination.

Is this picture resolving yet? At this time, we do not know the name of the artist, but we know he didn't get it right. 

Off the set with the witnesses maybe the artist was rushed and under pressure to finish the drawing prematurely. Maybe he was instructed by the producers to make it look like a scarier monster for impact effect... or maybe he just totally had misunderstood the witnesses during the pre-talk interview. I point out in preceding articles in this series above how unlikely all that seems given he must have had some foreknowledge by way of the existing print reportage...  Regardless of the reason, the drawing was not portrayed correctly and it almost stuck... to the significant chagrin of principal persons... who?

...Ask the families of 2nd Lt. Jones and 2nd Lt. Del Curto, two USAF jet fighter airmen who vanished during 21-plus hours of continuous UFO activity on September 12th, the night of the "monster" encounter in Flatwoods, to begin to appreciate the enormity of this, even if innocent, error.

These were men launched into anxious flight
 with shoot-down orders, at night and 
in bad weather, during roughly 24 hours 
of continuous UFO activity all over the
United States, but specifically in the region in which
they were operating.  They were never seen again. 
This writer is a retired Master Military Aviator who flew 
in combat and reports that 
this is consummate bravery! 

Author/illustrator Feschino concludes, "When Mrs. May and the boys encountered the 'Flatwoods Monster' on the Fisher Farm on September 12, 1952, an alien being may have been inside of a large hovering probe or encounter suit, making it the reported twelve feet tall. The height of the figure witnessed was gauged by a tree branch under which it was seen. This mechanical, metallic-like hover-craft was more likely a shell with a propulsion system located at the lower torso. The color of the upper and lower torso areas was described as looking like the color of aluminum." One is compelled to gather back the fallen jaw.

Some of the witnesses described the metallic-looking body of the "monster" as green. Reasoned conjecture concludes that when May and Lemon cast their flashlight beams upon the "monster," it immediately reacted and the interior of the figure lit up, forcing bright light through the eye openings! Thus, the area was aglow and the (shiny aluminum-like) shell of the figure reflected the environment surrounding it, tree leaves and bushes. A reflected "green" is what they saw... Hence, the nickname, the "Green Monster." The following are the actual true descriptions of the "Flatwoods Monster" that Feschino describes here:

Forensic draft Sketch by Feschino as advised Freddie May 
with his mother Kathleen.

1. OUTER HELMET. A black ace-of-spades shaped outer helmet that sat upon the shoulders of the upper torso area. This outer helmet also had a clear glass-like barrier located at the front of it. The entire helmet was approximately three feet high and about three feet wide at the base.

2. INNER HELMET. Set inside the black outer helmet, was a red-colored interior helmet that had two large porthole eye openings. It was "worn" by the occupant. The neck area consisted of some sort of collar covering and this inner helmet rotated upon this collar.

3. UPPER TORSO. The upper torso of the structure was about three feet wide at the top and flared toward the waist area. Attached to the upper portion of the torso were a pair of antennae-looking devices, which were said to resemble small mechanical toy-like hands.

4. LOWER TORSO. The lower torso flared out from the waist area to the bottom area. The bottom area was said to be approximately four feet across. Set upon the lower torso were thick pipes situated vertically and equally spaced around the lower torso. They were described as being silver in color and as thick as a fireman's hose. The pipes seemed to be the exhaust outlets for the propulsion system capable of lifting the large fabricated unit.

Now reader, back to the original 1952 drawing, which is a focal point of this article. After the now we know doomed TV show, the three Braxton County residents stayed briefly in New York to see sites and then were flown back to West Virginia. 

Mrs. May was given the original drawing.  This she hand-carried with her back on the flight to Charleston, WV.

She told Feschino, "When we got off the plane down there in Charleston, Lord, there were photographers and everything else. They had taken pictures of me, and they were all waiting for us." The trio was taken to the Charleston Greyhound Terminal for their long trip back to Braxton County and Flatwoods. There, a Charleston Gazette photographer who had followed them from the airport took the below photo of Mrs. May and Eugene Lemon. This photo, as A. Lee Stewart pointed out to Feschino, has appeared in countless publications. 

...Too, it's funny... they don't look like hillbillies ...and, remembering that we all know a camera doesn't ordinarily add intelligence to someone's portraiture... it must have been a lucky shot. 

National News! ...And there WAS a "Flatwoods monster" We The People episode!

               

Trials and travails for the players were just beginning. Their ordeal would last for decades. I'm sure survivors are dealing with some aspect of it... even this moment.

Upon their arrival back home in Flatwoods, A. Lee Stewart would continue to handle the public relations, acting as the spokesman dealing with the media through his newspaper. The story was simply not containable as we would see... and top brass was worried about it.

Moving on, Mrs. May also told Frank about an incident involving a West Virginia National Guard commander the reader will remember, Colonel Dale Leavitt of Sutton, that bonafide hero of WWII we read about earlier. ...You didn't become CIC of the WV State Guard without a certain competence, eh?

Colonel Leavitt

Her meeting with Leavitt occurred in her house, which is near the farm, shortly after she returned home from Charleston, that afternoon.

All week long, Colonel Leavitt and groups of troops had been deployed on the Fisher property allegedly to control the large crowd of curiosity seekers and news reporters who were overrunning the farm and town. Upon her arrival home, Mrs. May explained the meeting she had with Colonel Leavitt and what curiously unfolded involving the drawing she had in her possession.

During an interview with Feschino, she reported, 

"I hadn't been home too long until this truck came up and it had all these troops and everything on it, and Dale came in. He asked me if he could borrow the picture and he took it out and showed it to all the boys [troops]. After a while, he came back in and said, 'Well, I want you to take a look at this' and he just turned it sideways and said, 'this is a complete missile.' "

The aforementioned missile is another reference to the 1952 drawing showing that Colonel Leavitt had actually held the illustration in his hands and displayed it to his troops as some kind of briefing aid!  He's turned it on its side to illustrate his supposition of the object as a mechanism. It also shows that even though the drawing was inaccurate, Leavitt already knew that it was something mechanical, some type of machine or rocket!

Remember, Leavitt, by his videotaped report, was tasked originally to collect leaked "oil" deposits and "debris" from the farm that night during a covert mission.  He also noted, "the [noxious] odor of burning celluloid" as he supervised that operation.  Leavitt ceaselessly talked to Mrs. May and all of the other witnesses in the days following the incident and stated, "Their stories are all identical." That's two good men, now. Feschino has them on tape.

During Feschino's interview with Leavitt on the Fisher Farm, Feschino asked: "Do you think it was an experimental CRAFT [of human manufacture], or do you think it came from someplace else?" 

Leavitt replied, "No... I think it came from someplace else..." ...And there we leave it?

Not quite. When pointedly drilled by Feschino, "What do you think happened here?" The colonel answered, "Well, there was something here that could fly backwards—or wherever they wanted [it] to go. Just anywhere, I think—As long as they don't tear up their equipment! It was right here."

Yes, reader, Colonel Leavitt knew it was not a monster, but a machine. ...What was the Colonel out there to actually search for? Why did he have towed watercraft and big caliber weapons?  We can't know that, as yet.

Subsequently, after the TV show, several more newspaper and magazine reporters set upon Flatwoods and interviewed Mr. May while several more photographers took photos of her in her home with the We the People "monster" drawing.  This would become harassment over the years and a reason Feschino had such a hard row in the township, initially. They'd had it to "here" with the ridicule!

Pioneer UFO researcher and writer Major Donald Keyhoe, USMC Retired, referenced in the epilogue below, wrote about the Flatwoods case in 1953, stating:

Donald Keyhoe

"...Then Mrs. May and the Lemon boy appeared on We the People and retold their frightening experience. It was obvious they believed the monster was real, and a dozen papers and magazines sent writers to Sutton [the nearby Braxton County Seat] for new angles on the story."  

No "ghosts," "haints," or Roc sized barn owls, then, eh?

Today, some of the photos taken of Mrs. May with the original 1952 drawing can be seen in numerous publications. It is incorrect to say that the original drawing has become a part of history regarding the "Flatwoods Monster" incident and endures as a legacy of the highly strange... for that reason.  Time marches on to reveal what it reveals. This writer suspects it'll be Feschino on the byline.

Kathleen May with We The People Illustration

Epilogue: 

The format of the We the People show, which was first telecast on June 1, 1948, was to interview various guests of the day about important events occurring in their lives. Ordinary people, celebrities, entertainers, and politicians alike were informally interviewed by the host, who would casually chat with them on the set. This informal talk show format made We the People one of the most popular TV shows of its time.

At the beginning of each segment, the guests were introduced with the opening line, "We, the People...speak." Yet, after airing the "Flatwoods Monster" story on September 19, 1952, this popular show was summarily and inexplicably canceled after the telecast of only one more program.  Highly strange, on September 26, 1952, the show made its final appearance on NBC TV. Curious, doubly so when you can find no trace of it in the current record... but, it did happen.

In closing reader, I would like to go back to 1952 and talk about a conversation occurring between Mr. Donald Keyhoe and Mr. Albert Chop, Public Liaison for the whole USAF.  Keyhoe, hugely respected at the time as a retired Marine officer aviator and former close aide to Charles Lindbergh, phoned Chop at the Pentagon and spoke to him about the Flatwoods case shortly after May, Lemon, and Stewart appeared on We the People and he witnessed the continuing press coverage of the story.  Keyhoe wrote the following in his 1953 book, Flying Saucers from Outer Space:

"This could get out of hand," I told Chop. Why doesn't the Air Force squelch it?"

"We've already said the object was a meteor," he retorted.

"A lot of people don't believe it. and the way it's built up it's bad. It plants the menace idea ten times more than the Desvergers story did..."

"It'll die out," Chop insisted.

"But people will remember it if something breaks." Keyhoe would finally insist.

Keyhoe would go on to say, "The Air Force hands-off attitude seemed peculiar to me. For the monster story was having a serious effect, in addition to letters from worried Americans." 

Was the frightening nationwide telecast of the "Flatwoods Monster" segment on September 19, 1952, the reason that the plug was pulled on We the People, reader? Well, here we are 66 some odd years later and still learning about the "Flatwoods Monster" incident.  Perhaps more truth looms in the upcoming future.  I'll stay tuned.

Read on...

Listen!

Albatross

.,¸¸,.»§«,¸¸,.·´¯`·.,¸¸,.»§«*¥*»§«,¸¸,.·´¯`·.,¸¸,.»§«·.,¸¸,.

Introduction

Take a break from John Ford?

...While he bears his affrightment?

...His memory fading ... 

injustice très strident?

Forget he exists so bereft of his joys

—all the things that he misses...

his possessions and toys?

Ignore his distress,

and forget all his woes...

forget that he suffers cruel "hospital" clothes?

Would that I could... but before I forget?

I think of the watchers—them previously met.

This other records, for a future's long memory,

the regret that we'll feel. I'll bet it's compulsory!

Part One

...Before the sun rose up this morning,

the first in many days,

the pre-dawn air was crystal clear...

the kind of sky that pays.

But I only saw one aircraft,

no peculiar points of light...

I'm distracted by more thoughts: John Ford—

his god-forsaken plight.

Darkness gathers overhead;

the moon's in full-on leer.

It's gibbousness is mocking all our madness

... loathing ... fear.

...And I saw the threat just hanging there,

a sword of Damocles,

and I knew at once the bravest 

can be brought to fearful knees.

...A siren in the distance 

wasn't shooting harmless blanks. 

Its piercing wail sought blood in chase! 

I shuddered, I'll be frank. 

See, with all our systems suspect 

(...what's in the "mainstream" news?), 

the cops and courts and black-ops corps 

should give us ALL the blues!

Part Two

The sun came up at last, thank fate, 

and I was there to see... 

...a *golden dawn* discounted, friend, 

by those who see it free. 

...The simplest thing for granted, 

like water from the tap ... 

where you control the water flow, 

or smell a puppy on your lap. 

To stroll outside to your back yard 

—they cannot take it from you— 

to feel the trees, the frozen ground 

...see squirrels run around you?

A cloudless sky, your vision flies 

...lost in the "grand forever"

... you think it's right that this not stop 

—that nothing hurts you—ever! 

The cold air nips and numbs your nose, 

your breath is misted smoke, 

a chuckle made remembering... 

something clever, or a joke...

...Something to feel good about 

—"No worries," Aussies say! 

A promise from infinity 

to begin, exciting days. 

...Feeling good with honor 

is that heaven here on Earth... 

...that we scrabble and compete for, yes, 

from every squalid birth.

Part Three

All John has is honor; 

he's taken such a hit. 

I'd be beyond depression in their *mal-affected* pit. 

The sun not on my face, 

drugs and orders from nurse *Ratched*; 

I think I really would go nuts; 

and then I know I'd catch it

 ...

I hope I'm spared attention 

from that psychopathic lord... 

who's engineered confinement 

for the gad-fly Johnny Ford. 

Because *noticed* by this psychopath, 

then plagued by cruel devises? 

...You'd let me suffer unjust clutches 

and ignore my unjust crisis! 

I'd speak for you—it doesn't matter— 

you couldn't be less anguished; 

you'd leave me my confinement... 

let me suffer as I languished...

It's not completely altruistic, see. 

You do this for yourself. 

You'd want someone to speak for you 

as you suffered, robbed of *self*. 

So I'll bleed a bit for "Johnny", 

'cause I'd want it done for me. 

He who stopped a *bullet* 

so's we'd lose OUR scales... and see.

• lehmberg2002@gmail.com
• http://www.alienview.net/

...Portends the close of this "John Ford consciousness raising" iteration, the fifth in twenty years... I know I have at least one more in me ... until we hear something new, then?

*

...But every appropriate piece I write, mentioned or not, is an apology—read, explanation—of our witless and obscene treatment of John Ford. This ongoing reminder of Ford's travail is deserved until John Ford IS restored? Without doubt.

*

Remember, plainly, the accuser in this toxic affair—the late John Powell—is the cited guilty one! He was even convicted, subsequently, for a similar criminal conspiracy wholly trumped up for Ford!  The, ironically, still incarcerated John Ford, on the other hand, is personified as an unblemished record, perfect in every detail!! He proves to be supportably imbued with a staid community pillar-ship... A freaking saint in comparison to Powell ... an innocence framed and railroaded to protect a criminal elite extant for DECADES, reader! This writer says true! The reader must suspect same!

*

Great suffering and most barragrugous ZOT, brothers and sisters, if you've gotten this far!

*

...Besides! Suffolk County, reader! Suffolk County! ...A prime focus for all manner of crimes, grafts, and chicaneries so abundant and for so long... ...citation is in no way required! 
*
This is forgetting that documentations of weirdnesses expressed locally are so extreme and bizarre that UFOs, riddling Suffolk County history themselves for those same decades, are only part of the mix in an aggregate weirdness of the County... More Truth!

*

...Anything can happen, anywhere. If you told me many years ago that I would later be vigorously defending two conservative Republicans (even as I lived to regret one of them), and once thinking about throwing support to a third ( Ms. Barwood of Arizona fame), I would almost certainly have been piqued and irritated. So you see, anything CAN happen. I digress.

*

Over the years, many of you have "advised" me that I detract from myself with this series on Ford. That I court "wackodom" defending wackos! 

*

Christ on crutches people, how could the point be so completely missed? This is not about me; that I cheapen myself, prosecute a similar madness of my own, or even supply the reader a reason not to read what I have written! This is simply just not the issue.

*

This is not about me being read, or taken seriously. This is not about me one whit or particle. The closest this gets to being about me is that it is about you, actually, reader—you the individual. 
*
This is about your [our] freedom to think, learn, and love in a universe that you [we] take personal responsibility for. This is about your [our] personal efficacy and your [our] freedom to belong to, constructively achieve, and ethically influence a REAL world we build out of the senseless chaos around us! This is about our freedom to demand that the greatest are held to the same standards of accountability that you are. This is about a level playing field where everyone pays their fair share in a search to discover that... "truth that is out there."

*

...Your concern for same. It's about you.  I'm only one of you, see.  Only... I'm your albatross.  I will rot and stink around your neck until... until? Restore John Ford!
*
Yeah... I rave. I'm moved, no, driven to it!

*

Early last century, Nazi Germany started to round up the "trouble-makers," people a lot like you. It started slow as the Nazis first tested the ethical waters, employing their euthanisms of murderous neo-Darwinism gingerly... ...actually, what *Amerika* had prosecuted for "four score and seven years" with their own indigenous peoples... peoples used as a ready model and "proof of concept" by Hitler... that hurts, eh?  https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/affrighted
*
Hitler followed the example of the United States with regard to liquidating human populations... he thought we were on his BEAM! ...Wow!
*
Was he right?

*

The Nazis were emboldened when an ignorant population chose to believe the skillful propagandas, turned their eyes away from the abject horror, called it something noble even... and then let it all slide to an eager and grasping perdition of progressive pogrom-ery! As a consequence, the world slid as close to the lip of forthright hell as it probably ever had... do we court it again just now? A necessary digression.

*

...Presently we contrive to glide even closer to that lip. Its edge begins to crumble beneath our "made in China" skates...

*

...Even "Tailgunner" Joe McCarthy is defended by the pundit neo-elite, reader, along with a somewhat less than perspicacious POTUS... The progressive out-of-the-box-thinker, the individual interested in the general "rising and advancing" effort to deal with the fast-approaching future? Yourself, perhaps? 

...Suffocated from the bully pulpits of an unelected leadership who prefers to ignore, even facilitate, our inflicted problems with an exploding population... to cultivate same. I say true!

*

Why and how?

*

See... in an exploding population of individuals, there is a diminishing measure of respect required to parse out to each bothersome one. That's the real reason nothing is ever seriously done, for all the terrifying warnings of educated people (our finest minds, reader...) about the very well recognized "over-population problem."

*

The man, one comes to find, does not want to have to respect the individual, overmuch; it costs too much. The "man" wants to have his choice of individuals from which to choose, and then unethically manipulate those individuals with that choice!

*

Individuals, as a result, have to be ... the *right kind* of individuals ... ultimately coercible and breakable ones. Which is to say... not individual at all...

*

The privileged arbitrary can pick and choose between the most malleable persons, set them against one another, codify and inculcate that behavior as healthy "competition"... ...when this couldn't be further from the truth... based, as it is, on rank disrespect of the individual from the start.

*

...And that is why we are overpopulated. It's desired! It's the PLAN! ...Can you dig that? Outrage is not enough, reader!

*

Oh, it's ok to be *kooky* new age, crystal squeezing, or channeling the spirits of boo-jum, ...whatever blows the individual's *spiritual* dress up... just as long as you don't ask real questions and then get STRIDENT as hell with the *authorities* (read "authoritarians") if you think you're getting "shined on"... ...by that which you so very righteously criticize! 
*
Did our John Ford test the outer edge of some *un-elected* Suffolk county envelope of serial sociopathy, criminality, and evil?

*

Most likely. ...And showed us all something in the bargain:

*

When you, seriously, contrive to look for the *real deal*? The 'man' starts bringing out his social hammers and his static nails. There is no amount of due process or equality under the law to save you from those who command the houses where those laws are codified and employed.

*

John Ford became a distraction, a lawfully stinging gad-fly in their ointment, and he's being unjustly hammered for it. Lastly, and significantly, there, but for the grace of your jealous God, go you.

*

As postscript, to qualify as a TRUE psychopath? One must be, by definition, NOT crazy! Bet you thought it was the inverse …consider the implications of THAT, reader! Who's the psychopath?

*

Look in a mirror. As I point out in the preceding link, he might be there.

*

Gods and devils ... priests and "installed" Presidents—be gone! Get you from the world's face! You can no longer be afforded! You cause more problems than you solve. The trust seemingly EXISTS for you to betray it, Sir and Madam.  Not so! Rather, save yourself; save us all!

*

Restore John Ford.

That "Flatwoods Monster"... 2 of 3

There was no doubt in a very highly respected
Ivan T. Sanderson's mind...

That "Flatwoods Monster"
... 2 of 3
by Alfred Lehmberg

The nonfiction treatment continued here is a series very much interrupted by the bruhaha, a result of that intellectually obscene Project Bluebook "program" via the History Channel... We resume with the Flatwoods story back in public attention... and even on the Richard Dolan program in a series of programs...

.,¸¸,.»§«,¸¸,.·´¯`·.,¸¸,.»§«*¥*»§«,¸¸,.·´¯`·.,¸¸,.»§«·.,¸¸,.

Before:  Flatwoods, a different kind of UFO case. The summer of saucers. We The People!

.,¸¸,.»§«,¸¸,.·´¯`·.,¸¸,.»§«*¥*»§«,¸¸,.·´¯`·.,¸¸,.»§«·.,¸¸,.

A. Lee Stewart 

Some back-story regarding the famous 1952 drawing of the so-called "monster" is in order. The aforementioned figure, that illustration for a hit TV show We The People the reader discovers, was inaccurately and so more dismissively portrayed at the start and for better than half a century... until Feschino, our intrepid and highly trained near-forensic illustrator, became involved. Truth revealed.

During his investigation into the Flatwoods incident beginning back in 1991, and after a long hard slog to win the trust of journalistically betrayed witnesses and humiliated—so outraged—locals, Feschino worked closely with many of the persons actually involved in the incident, first hand. He communicated substantially with the predominately witnessing May family among many others. 

These included A. Lee Stewart, Jr., first responding co-owner/reporter of the Braxton Democrat newspaper, and Colonel Dale Leavitt, a "decorated hero of WWII" commanding the West Virginia National Guard in 1952. The Guard was called out a result of the Flatwoods affair. Quite a reaction for the performance of some hillbilly kids spooked in those same hills, one might wonder.

The reader is reminded that Feschino talked with, otherwise interviewed, and visually recorded the testimonies of first-hand witnesses, only typified by matriarch Mrs. Kathleen May and her sons Freddie and Edward. This would happen, usually unpleasantly, numerous times over the years with regard to their close encounter with the "Flatwoods Monster."  

Feschino also worked with and later videotaped Stewart at his home in North Carolina over a period of days.  Additionally, Feschino talked to, taping for the record, Colonel Dale Leavitt on the Fisher Farm in Flatwoods about his substantive involvement in the case.

The Commander of the West Virginia National Guard.

The Colonel has an interesting story. He had actually become involved in the incident after receiving a call from the Air Force on the 12th, that fateful night in question.  He had been ordered to the encounter site with a near battalion of troops carrying everything from boats to bazookas! Does this sound a little more involved than mere alleged crowd control for thousands of curious rubberneckers and thrill seekers?  It was.  More on the Colonel later.

Moving along as there's ground to cover, Feschino then transcribed all of these interviews into his books.  With his permission, I will explain what Kathleen, Freddie, Colonel Leavitt, and Stewart told Feschino about the 1952 TV drawing and the true appearance of the so-called, "Flatwoods Monster."

To begin, the reader will remember—and as previously discovered in Feschino's research—the witnesses, from the beginning, reported that the "monster" was actually mechanical and some sort of a "hovering craft" or "encounter suit"!  It appeared to be a lifting device or system emitting a noxious exhaust gas through long pipes.  This is the description from the start!

Revealed!  The 12-foot-tall figure was NOT a claw waving mountain 'haint wearing a cloaked hood and a pleated dress as depicted on the We the People television show in 1952!

As history records it, the reader discovers that the far-reaching tale of "a giant alien seen in Flatwoods" had gained the attention of an extremely popular television talk show in New York City titled,  We the People. New York!  The curious misdirection had its start there.

Really, yes people, after only five days! New York! Big doings for the time!

On Monday, September 15, 1952, The New York Daily News, reported the eye-catching headline, "The THING, 10 Feet Tall, Terrifies Party of 7." The article described the giant figure as a "10-foot tall 'thing' with the flushed face and green body that 'seemed to glow'." Furthermore, this particular article also gained the attention of Project Blue Book officials at Wright Patterson AFB. They clipped the article and archived it in their "September 12, 1952" case file identified as "Case 2078."

Yes, reader, intelligence officials were keeping close tabs on this incident, which was quickly making national and global headlines and becoming a major focus for the media of the time! Remember, folks, this was the 1952 summer of the saucers!

Shifting gears, in 1996, Feschino talked to A. Lee Stewart, Jr. at his home in North Carolina, as has been reported where the video interview had been taped. It was the first such interview Stewart had done since 1952! Stewart, remaining sharp as a proverbial tack, recounted his considerable participation.

On the night of the incident, Stewart was called by the West Virginia State Police and asked to go to the May home ...on behalf of those police because those State police were unable to get to the area! See, something else, apart from the current story, howsomever related, had the State Police "occupied."  I'll say no more about that other than "cue the ominous music."  

UFOs were in abundance and all over the United States coast to coast and border to border!  The police were, at the same time, "occupied."  The music climaxes!

Back at the ranch, literally, the story continues as Stewart was the first person of officiality and authority to reach the May residence, hard-boil the witnesses, and actually go to the site of the fresh encounter on the Fisher Farm.  On-site, he smelled the sickening sulfur odor, saw the disturbances in the field at the nearby landing site and later found a piece of debris in the form of a melted metallic-like substance. Most strikingly, he saw the fear of the witnesses. Why was Stewart contacted, one might ask. What officiality contacted him? Who gave him his authority?

Stewart, a former Air Force veteran and respected photojournalist in Braxton County, owned a very sophisticated and professional camera for the time, and over the years had received many a call from the area police to accompany them through various accident and crime scenes to take photographs. Additionally, Stewart also broke the event to the Charleston Gazette later that night on September 12, 1952, and was justifiably credited with the whole breaking story.  Mr. Stewart would be tasked and began handling the public relations through his newspaper, the Braxton Democrat which he'd owned in part.  For weeks, he received calls from around the world!

Later, on Tuesday, September 16, 1952, May, Lemon and Stewart were contacted by the top TV media of its time to appear as guests on the program already alluded to and talk about their involvement in the Flatwoods affair.  By mid-week veteran journalist and science writer Everett Clark, who went to Flatwoods to cover the story, met and spoke with Stewart and reported, "He has had 70 or 80 out-of-towners call since that night."

Mr. Clark also met with Mrs. May and reported, "Mrs. May has had more than a hundred phone calls from all over the United States." The story has captured the imagination of the entire globe!

On September 18, 1952, Mrs. May, Eugene Lemon, and A. Lee Stewart were subsequently flown to New York City as guests of the hugely popular TV talk show hosted by Daniel Seymour and stayed at the luxurious Belmont Hotel. That afternoon they were driven to the TV studio for the live broadcast scheduled to air live later that evening.  

It was an extremely intense experience entirely out of the wheelhouse for innocently provincial West Virginians, to say the least.  But then, they'd seen a "monster" and lived to tell the tale.

Before the show, Seymour, his staff, and a sketch artist for the program sat down with May and Lemon, interviewing them pointedly about their experience. They asked them to describe the figure and appearance—some likeness—of the "monster."  The artist "sketched out" the described being on a huge 24x36 inch illustration board—and rather too hastily reader, logically, given major newspaper articles had already preceded the arrival of the party from West Virginia, garnering New York's interest in the first place!  No, the artist sure lost points for not producing what was described in print and person and of which he must have had some prior knowledge!  I suspect that logic may be impeccable.

During one of their interviews, Kathleen May told Feschino, "They just told me they'd like to draw a sketch of it, and Gene [Lemon] and I together had told them what we'd seen, and he [the artist] drew the sketch."

The original rendering resurfaced at last!

Feschino asked, "Why did he draw arms on it then ...because you told me it had antennae?" May answered, 

"I told him that too, but that's what he drew on it. To make it look more like a monster, I guess..."

One must remember that Kathleen May, a high school educated woman of reasonable intelligence and by no means a "hillbilly" (one of the "Nickellsonian" skeptibunky slurs she and her town would learn to endure over time), was still a country gal humbly provincial in a 1952 New York City, New York. ...With everything moving around Kathleen at the speed of sound, relative to her, and most people of the time? She was justifiably intimidated.

See, where she was from, in Flatwoods, with a population of only 300 people and well before the Interstates making travel more effortless, it took her hours of road time to get anywhere at all. Kathleen lived in a mountainous region where even the police sometimes couldn't get, at times, remember. Yes, reader, Kathleen May can be entirely forgiven for letting herself be pushed around by fast-talking New Yorkers, to a degree, with regard to the true likeness of the "monster."  

...A deep Elizabethan bow to the memory of Kathleen May.

The biggest misconception about the "monster," one is reminded, was of its overall appearance being described as cloaked in a dismissively inexplicable cloth garment, wearing a pointed hood and sporting a pleated skirt/dress like a teenage bobbysoxer. This was never the case. 

Besides, reader, where were the rest of the Barbie-doll accessories and accouterments, doting Ken-dolls driving motorless sports cars and living in plastic beach houses? This is sarcasm not uncalled for, reader.  I'll wallow in it, and thanks.

...Sometimes enough's enough, eh? Sometimes it becomes too much!

Hurdles, howsoever unintentional to genuine enlightenment on the broader subjects, especially the highly strange ones, become increasingly tedious and more difficult to bear as this writer ends the summer of his winter...  I digress.

Kathleen May told the artist that the lower portion, "was shaped like drapes" fluted and pleated. She tried to explain and stated, "It came out on the sides.  It flared out." Frank then asked Kathleen directly about its appearance, "Did it look cloth-like or metallic?" She exclaimed, "No! It looked more metallic."

At this point reader, the sketch artist took May's description literally and drew the "monster" in a cloth outfit wearing a dress, rather than the truer likeness, below.

The "Real" Monster!

See, the realistic portrayal of the figure as described to Feschino during his interviews and also described to Stewart back in 1952 was a hovering mechanical device! 

...Posted Monday, September 15, 1952, and, as pointed out above, and preceding the We the People interview (so they should have known)! The Charleston Gazette posted an article containing this information about the accurate description of the "monster." This was obtained by Stewart during his interviews with the witnesses back in Flatwoods.

Then and later corrected to original reportage
in 2002 by Frank Feschino...

This article, "Braxton Monster Left Skid Tracks Where He Landed—(Special to The Gazette)," actually precedes the incorrect portrayal of the TV show "Monster" drawing... by five days! The witnesses gave the actual description regarding the "monster," at the start!  We the People really can't claim ignorance when it was this initial report crossing their interest threshold, initially.

It "...Wore a suit of green armor. Looked like a mechanical man. Had a blood-red face. Sported a black, spade-like cowl which extended a foot or more above its head." Yes, Stewart got it right in his reportage.

Five days later in New York, Kathleen May was trying to describe the pipes to the artist and likened them to the rolling pleats of drapes! The artist drew... drapes.  C'mon! Given the artist must have been provided Stewart's report... the artist could have just phoned that in!

Eyewitness Freddie May told Feschino, "What mother described as the pleats of hanging drapes, were actually tubes running vertically." He added, "They were metal, they were actually metal pipes" and compared them to the thickness of a "fireman's hose." Freddie also told Frank, "I think those tubes were some sort of propulsion system. It was hovering about one-foot off the ground." May also said this of the figure, "It was mechanical; it was not alive.  Maybe inside of the thing—there could have been something alive." May added, "what I saw was either a small spaceship or suit of some kind. ...Something it was wearing.  It was mechanical."

Media then and now? The FCC once had a "fairness doctrine" precluding more of same. We digress...

Off the set, back in the New York studio, the TV sketch artist finished drawing the "Monster" illustration and handed it off to a crew member to be used for the opening of the live TV broadcast show later on. Mr. Seymour had finished talking with May, Lemon, and Stewart off camera, and the crew prepped them for their imminent interviews. Seymour strode out onto the set and took his place at center stage while the three Braxton County residents took their seats on set to begin their presentation.

Daniel Seymour

The live show began moments later when the camera focused on the master of ceremonies, Mr. Daniel Seymour.  There was a hush.

The show opened by setting the scene with a soft narration while the orchestra simultaneously performed soothing background music. Seymour calmly began, ...

"Imagine a scene of the autumn dusk in a lonely and secluded spot, which you reach right after viewing a fiery meteor in the sky.  This is easy to imagine." Suddenly, another camera cut swings us abruptly to the big drawing of the "monster," which was flashed on the screen as the orchestra music turned eerie, intensifying. 

Seymour, stated, "THIS WAS NOT SO EASY."

Next: History hysterically distorted historically, the cover-up installed, and Charles Lindbergh's military aide demonstrates some real prescience.  

https://alienviewgroup.blogspot.com/2019/04/that-flatwoods-monster-3-of-3.html