Mrs. May and the Incorrect Drawing

 

Mrs. May and the Incorrect Drawing

by Alfred Lehmberg

One week after the "Flatwoods Monster" incident on September 19, 1952, witnesses Mrs. May, one Eugene Lemon, and newspaper reporter A. Lee Stewart, Jr. were fervently sought out to appear on a nationwide television talk show in New York called, We the People."

The trio was interviewed by the host Daniel Seymour. Seymour was a huge National figure at the time. We The People was a News Magazine show featuring human interest stories and aired weekly. It transcended mere popularity and was heavily followed.

Before the show aired, "monster" eyewitnesses May and Lemon sat down with an artist in the studio. They would speak with this "artist" about their encounter with the so-called "Braxton County Monster." The purpose was to have some illustration for the TV cameras.

As they gave their descriptions of “a towering mechanical figure”, the artist would simultaneously draw HIS impressions in a pencil illustration of the "Monster" on a large poster board. The fulsomely inaccurate drawing was wholly misinterpreted by the artist! The figure portrayed was of a claw-waving "monster" outfitted in a cloth garment wardrobe and wearing a sweet-sixteen pleated dress like a bobbysoxer! It missed the mark by a parsec!

We only now know of this artist's inaccurate portrayal after trained Illustrator Frank Feschino, Jr., investigated this case and revealed the facts and details! We have become much better informed than a skirt-wearing claw-waver in a Dracula cape!

For years Feschino interviewed witnesses at length and was informed an "informed" otherwise! Feschino produced more effusive and accurate renderings of the “figure” during his interviews with these key witnesses, and when he interviewed Mrs. May about the "Monster" he asked, "Did it look cloth-like or metallic?"

She answered, "No! It looked more metallic." Moreover, eyewitness Fred May told Frank that, "...the figure was made of metal." He added, "It was mechanical; it was not alive. Maybe inside the thing, there could have been something alive. What I saw was either a small spaceship or a suit of some kind. Something it was wearing. It was mechanical." Mrs. May would add, "It hovered a foot, to a foot and a half off the ground."

The reality of the true likeness of the figure as portrayed by Feschino is a far cry from the original misrepresentation produced for We The People! Theirs was of the figure wearing a tunic top, a pointed hood, and a flowing dress! This unfortunate misrepresentation would plague the credibility of the story for years!

...Back to 1952, in the studio; the inaccurate drawing was shown at the opening of the television show and was accompanied by scary orchestral music before the three guests told their stories. The faux stage was set!

Reporter A. Lee Stewart told Frank Feschino, Jr., "The picture in question that always seems to be in a lot of the articles that I've seen is the one right here. In fact, the artist at ‘We the People’ drew that in New York on the actual day we were there."

Stewart explained the show to Frank, "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 in general and then finished with this particular picture."

After the airing of this program, the media and press ran with the story and further distorted the likeness of the "Monster"! This, of course, led to the incident becoming a dismissable folklore tale. ...But today? Today, we can know otherwise!

Flatwoods was only the end of the story, remember, regarding an undeclared air war with ET in 1952. It would seem to this writer that Feschino has provided for it to be a beginning of the current story, or the sense we are trying to make of this UFO thing, now.