STF On The Flatwoods Monster!

STANTON T. FRIEDMAN 

ON THE FLATWOODS MONSTER

by Alfred Lehmberg

The late nuclear physicist, author, and UFO expert Stanton T. Friedman wrote the Foreward and Epilogue in Frank Feschino's, "Updated and Revised Edition" tome, The Braxton County Monster—The Cover-up of the Flatwoods Monster Revealed. Friedman was thoroughly convinced by the strength of the data supporting this case. Truly, it is a massive amount of data. Undeclared and "secret" (very low-key, officially!) Air war with ET (!!!) would seem a distinct possibility! Friedman followed the data. He was a scientist.

Mr. Friedman, who worked closely with Feschino on the Flatwoods case, knew the data, visited Flatwoods, met with witnesses, and actually stood multiple times at the landing site/encounter site on the farm where the incidents occurred. Thus, after working with Frank for several years, Friedman had become well-informed on the "Flatwoods Monster" incident. Mr. Friedman then reached his own conclusion on the case and would discredit the Air Force's Project Blue Book conclusion of the "Flatwoods Monster" incident. A revealed cover-up by any other name will smell as sweet... if not eldritch and arcane. Have a big whiff!

The Air Force's "conclusion" of the incident was recorded in Blue Book's, "Project 10073 Record Card," as case # 2078. It stated, "Location: Flatwoods, West Virginia," and it reported:

"The West Virginia monster so called. Actually, the object was the well-known Washington area meteor landing near Flatwoods, W. Va."  Their stated finding, "Conclusion: Was astronomical." Stanton Friedman's explanation or contradictory conclusion appears in the following passage of Frank's book, "EPILOGUE BY STANTON FRIEDMAN." In part, Mr. Friedman began:

"It is clear from the previous chapters that Frank C. Feschino, Jr. has continued to do an incredible job of collecting, arranging, and chronicling data about the Flatwoods incident... and the overwhelming amount of UFO events that occurred that day. His 'Flatwoods Monster' work informs us about Project Blue Book, the press, the key players involved during that time... and much more." 

On September 12, 1952, there was a host of UFO sightings, close encounters, and in most of these sightings, a simple explanation was provided... meteors! The facts; however, did not support that explanation. 

First off? Meteors don't "land," as was observed! They don't make "sharp turns"! They don't "reverse course" as was observed; they don't fly from city to city, following rivers and utilized airways! They don't make beelines to highly restricted military prohibited areas! When they do impact into the ground, there are often pre-impact sonic booms, craters, and shock waves that are very noticeable. 

Friedman would later quip that if a meteor of the size witnessed at the Fisher farm by first-handers had landed in Flatwoods? Well, the town would have had to have been re-christened Flattened-woods! True story! This writer heard him say it!

The fact of the matter is that there are meteor showers in September! Sure! Even Sky and Telescope Magazine, which often listed significant meteor flights, reported on them, effusively. There were; however, none recorded for September 12, 1952! None! That has to frost one's stacking swivel!

Furthermore, the Harvard Meteor Project operating between 1952 and 1954 and recording 2401 meteor passages, recorded none on September 12, 1952! The project, ironically enough, was under the direction of Harvard Astronomer, one Dr. Donald Howard Menzel, who was a well-known UFO debunker and UFO coverup scion of the klasskurtxian golden age...

We digress, but does the reader ever wonder about the reasons for such coverups? Coverups always have a criminal connotation, remember. Coverups deny the reasonable flow of information from who has it to who wants it... from who is and has been rewarded by its sole possession to the person who would be rewarded for having gained some of that possession... maybe needing it to grow as a human being! We need it, now. 

Status quo maintenance is a front-running reason for the lack of government forthcomingness on the subject of UFOs. The powers that be are loathe to react to change as we have seen all our lives, and that requires no citation. It costs them money and rattles, which is to say, threatens, their too often purloined catbird seats. 

It is insultingly offered by this long-privileged catbird crowd that a "disturbance of the peace" on the subject of UFOs is unwarranted because of the social "sturm and drang" it would cause religiously, societally, and culturally. One suspects that that may be disingenuous and betraying poppycock! Isn't that the reader's suspicion? No, wouldn't it rather ultimately unite us under a single banner of... humanity? We could use a little of that about now...

This writer's experience of 75 years offers that catbird folks won't give a rat's patoot about the intelligence, the education and informed improvement, or even the improving mental health of their flocks... where it means going from platinum fixtures to gold on their autumn homes... or complications on their stockholders' bottom line... just look at FOX Corporation... and it remains:

If we'd looked UFOs in the teeth back in 1952 we'd be over it by now and on to greater things, seems likely? We'd take the red pill and be improved thereby! If we're destroyed with the knowledge of the other, then maybe humanity has no real standing in the universe at the start! Rather, this writer suspects we'd be mining the asteroid belt and turning our planet into a garden were we to show some courage and set our chins on this subject!

Stanton Friedman understood all this... with a host of other greats like James McDonald, et sig al! He understood that the courageous human spirit is rewarded... and that the lack of spirited courage is NOT. This is why Friedman was unflinching in his examination over many decades and to his death. It's what real human beings do. Be brave or be a beast enslaved to their own cowardice and the futility that forebears. Friedman chose not to be a beast about these things. Feschino chooses similarly! This writer goes without saying.