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A "Flatwoods Monster" Anniversary Article You Will Only Read Here.

Let's cut straight to the chase, reader, and reveal why this writer writes here today. While other writers may be posting and printing fanciful if inaccurate anniversary articles about the "Flatwoods Monster"... ...Well, how should we say it? Let the hammer heat the iron in that inexplicable heat's absence. It's the future? Expect hard. Hope for gentle.

...But back at the ranch, let's put it this way. The principal researcher on the Flatwoods case is the only writer with the necessary sack to write what really seems to be the truth (whatever that means?) about what very likely may have happened seventy-one years ago on this current date, precisely. It's a tough sell, admittedly. 1950's Sciencefictiony-sounding nonsense... air war with aliens, indeed. Indeed? Only, there's data.

Frank Feschino, that researcher regarded, has been tireless in practicing his due diligence for decades, impressing three of ufology's big guns (the late Stanton T. Friedman, Richard Dolan, and Robert Hastings), among notable others, and there is very little (anything?) that is added but distraction and disinformation on this subject apart from Feschino's incisive, tireless, intelligent, and heralded contributions to it.

 

Plain and simple? It has been seventy-one years, today, since a 12-foot-tall extraterrestrial (yes!), a metal-clad giant... roamed the woods of Flatwoods, WV! It was called the "Flatwoods Monster," and it made a forced landing in Flatwoods on September 12, 1952! This may have been after being shot down by USAF jets. Yes! That's where the data leads! 

Only weeks before on July 28, the USAF admitted they had given their fighter pilots presidential orders to shoot down "flying saucers"! They were told to, "shoot them down if they can't talk them down." That would be lawyer talk for, "Shoot one down." UFOs had been invading prohibited airspace for months... and the government would have really wanted one!

Officials must have been shocked to discover what their Air Force pilots shot down on that dreadful September summer night in 1952. Tonight! 71 years ago—seven decades and change! This writer was four! 

Now, consider! Discovering that huge aliens were the occupants of the craft they had shot out of the sky... would certainly have been a damned good reason for this incident to be covered-up so extensively by the United States government. They wanted no panic. Reflect on Orson Wells and his 1938 radio program... there was some sturm and drang given the violence of the "martian invaders," one can read.

Let this writer re-emphasize, reader! This will not appear in any other anniversary article except this one. 

Now, a little back story. Even though this incident was well documented since its occurrence, it sat dormant with little to no new information coming forth for several decades. 

Too, over the years, there was so much inaccurate information told to the public about this case! The "Flatwoods Monster" was on the way to becoming a mere myth or folklore tale! This is forgetting the sacrificed military lives nearly swept under the rug but for Feschino's efforts finding them again...

 

Then, in 1991, illustrator Frank Feschino, Jr. discovered this story after visiting some relatives in Braxton County, WV. He'd become intrigued with the incident, spending much of his life, now, researching it. Furthermore, he became the first primary investigator to research this case since the early 1950s. 

Feschino met, talked with, or interviewed many of the primary witnesses directly involved in the incident! He's shed a whole new light on this terrifying case and reveals a lot of new information. 

To wit, here are some of the quotes from a few of those witnesses involved in the incident from Feschino's book. Again, this will not appear in any other anniversary article except here. The reader will bear in mind that these were all vetted principals with reputations of honesty and decency... fellow humans with stories to tell.

Eyewitness to the damaged craft over Burnsville, WV enroute to Flatwoods.  (Burnsville is about 10 miles north of Flatwoods)

Wally Hefner: "I was sitting in front of the taxi stand. It came from my right heading left toward Flatwoods. It was so much lower. That is what caught my attention, and it wasn't an airplane or a weather balloon, but it was traveling fast and I'd say it looked like a ball. It wasn't on fire, but it was reddish-orange and was very fast... and I knew as low as it was, just clearing the treetops, that it was going to land someplace close, someplace very close in our county. And, of course, I'd heard the next day about it landing in Flatwoods." 

Eyewitness to the damaged craft flying over the school playground in Flatwoods.

Freddie May: "We all looked up and saw a ball of fire coming from over the mountain here. It came right over the top of our heads. Oval shaped... Flames were trailing behind it... We told our mother that it lit, up on the old Fisher Farm." 

Eyewitness to the damaged craft flying over Flatwoods.

Margaret Clise: "The thing was oval-shaped and red. It was bright and glowing. It was big and it was flying at a very low altitude... It startled me when I saw it. It was so low. It was barely clearing the treetops." 

Eyewitness to the damaged craft flying over Flatwoods just before landing on the Fisher Farm.

 Jack Davis: "I saw a lighted object coming through the sky...It was an oblong-shaped object and lit up. Well, my first thought when I caught the first glimpse of it, was there was an airplane coming down and it was in trouble. Then I recognized, it wasn't—and it was bigger than an ordinary aircraft you'd see in this area at the time... It came a little bit above the height of the trees... It had a clearer, brighter illuminated light from the top and was kind of orange-red. The top of it had the reflection of a light that I would describe today as a mercury vapor light. It didn't resemble a meteor to me. To me, the object I saw was a craft... I had the general feeling that whatever it was, [it] had landed. It was coming down, not very far over the treetops, until it came in behind the trees that follow the ridge... I knew it was up there and I knew with the reflection, the light stopped there, and I could see the reflection of it through the trees. It was very obvious to see."

Eyewitness to the "Flatwoods Monster" near the tree on the farm.

Kathleen May: "We came upon it. We got close enough to it so I could see exactly what it was, and we all saw the same thing. I was as close to it as the length of a car, a small car ...It was kind of floating. It was about a foot to a foot and a half above the ground. I was close enough that it squirted oil out all over my uniform... They [investigators and townspeople] measured, and it was right under this limb of a tree, ten to twelve feet."

Eyewitness to the "Flatwoods Monster" near the tree on the farm.

Freddie May: "It was mechanical; it was not alive. Maybe inside the thing—there was something that could have been alive. What I saw was either a small spaceship or a suit of some kind. Something it was wearing. It was mechanical." 

First witness at the scene of the encounter after the incident that night.

Newspaper reporter A. Lee Srewart, Jr.: "We were armed. We had a twelve-gauge automatic shotgun and a couple handguns. Two or three other people who lived right around there came up and went with us; they were also armed. Upon arriving on the scene, we were always reminded by the boys about the odor that made them sick... We just spotlighted around because none of us was inclined to hunt for something we didn't know what it was in the dark. We decided we would go back to the May's. We were on the mountain probably thirty to forty minutes." 

Witness from the West Virginia National Guard who led 50-60  troops (A detachment from a bigger force) onto the farm after the encounter that night.

Forward Commander Colonel Dale Leavitt: "They [the USAF] called me on the phone and asked me to get them what they wanted and I told them I would send it back to them. I did. And I came up here and got it. I dug some dirt, and all that sort of thing, leaves off the trees, and sent them in... The Air Force, that's what they wanted me to do...  I took dirt, and leaves, and some of the wood... We had about 50 people here, and I don't know how long. Well, we stayed the night... yeah, to see if something else was going to happen... Something was a cover-up!"

Cover-up, indeed! We all could have crossed the Rubicon on the UFO issue in 1952 and been better for it is this writer's intuition. We are ill-served, now, just kicking this cosmic can forever down the road to our destiny. 

...We have to think bigger. We are being very small on the issue of UFOs...

Again, reader! This will not appear in any other anniversary article except here.