The Real "Flatwoods Monster"

 

Kathleen and son Freddie encounter the Monster

The Real "Flatwoods Monster" 

by Alfred Lehmberg

There is an overwhelming number of artists across the world who are still illustrating the "Flatwoods Monster" incorrectly. It is a toxicity. It sets a bad example for the veracity of this vitally important story. 

See, the "monster" is NOT a ridiculous-looking apparition: claws-waving at the end of skeletal arms, wearing a sweet-sixteen pixie dress, and cloaked with a Dracula hood. This does us all a disservice. Let's put this to bed or we're on the path to be the monsters in the story, ourselves! ...And we kinda' were, eh? We can reflect on whose president commanded his military to shoot UFOs down at the start and then who was waving murderous shotguns around at the results... but we digress too early...

These current artisans, persons taking liberties with their own renditions of the "Monster," for fun and profit, are only adding insult to injury, one finds! They furiously work to keep the disingenuous and invalidating folklore alive regarding a very serious incident documented to have actually occurred. ...An incident perhaps foreshadowing humanity's new existentiality! ...Or its missed opportunity to secure same!

Verily, a quick internet search will show the reader how many absurd and incorrect renditions of the "Flatwoods Monster" there are, out there! It is absolutely and regrettably pitiful!

Furthermore, these individuals are profiting from their ridiculous-looking portrayals of the "Flatwoods Monster" by producing trading cards, action figures, statues, posters, and patches... a sweet and sour candy to name only a few. Once again, pitiful!

The original drawing of the "Flatwoods Monster" was shown on the TV talk show "We The People," we'll recall from an earlier article. This program was aired from New York, remember, on September 19, 1952, one week after the encounter, as has been written about on this site. The risible drawing we beat to death here opened up the TV show even then accompanied by eerie-woo-woo-climax-music, just before firsthand witnesses Mrs. May, Gene Lemon, and first responder, reporter A. Lee Stewart, Jr., were to be interviewed.

Prior to the show being aired, we remind the constant reader, a sketch artist sat down in the studio and interviewed witnesses Mrs. May and Gene Lemon, as has been written. Briefly, during that interview, the artist simultaneously drew, too hurriedly by half, the "Flatwoods Monster" on a poster board from their descriptions... but HERE was the major problem! The artist couldn't read a newspaper article, articles which had alerted "We The People," in the first place?!

The artist had otherwise totally misinterpreted what was told to him by the two witnesses! When all was finished, the artist's portrayal of the entity was fundamentally incorrect and looked nothing like the actual subject being described to him! Key point! This rendering is utterly dismissible... where Feschino's renderings are, and decidedly, not! Subsequently? The incorrect drawing was shown to a nationwide audience that night and history, if inaccurate and risible, was forged...

Now, let's set the record straight by letting the public know what the "Flatwoods Monster" actually was... It was a machine, NOT a "Monster." More on that later.

Credentialed illustrator Frank Feschino, Jr. researched this incident for decades and worked with the actual "Flatwoods Monster" witnesses, all still sharp and sincere. He sat with them on many occasions, did sketches and comprehensive drawings as he spoke with them, and then worked his way into full-color illustrations. His illustrations correctly portray the true likeness of the so-called "Flatwoods Monster," which are more accurate by far than the TV artist portrayed it back in 1952, goes without saying. The following statements were told to Frank by Witnesses Freddie May and Mrs. May... and it is added that these are encounter descriptions published in major newspapers PRIOR to the "We The People" episode and should have keyed an illustrator to a more accurate rendering:

Freddie May Stated: "It was mechanical; it was not alive. Maybe inside of the thing there could have been something that was alive. What I saw was either a small spaceship or suit of some kind. Something it was wearing. It was mechanical...The figure was made of metal. Now, I was not half the size of it." 

Additionally, Freddie explained what the so-called arms and claws were that the "We The People" TV show sketch artist very incorrectly portrayed, "There was something in the upper torso area that I could see. From what I saw, they could have been antennae." He also explained what was misinterpreted as being eyes on the facial area of the head, "The eyes were portholes." Freddie then explained what was portrayed as a cloth hood surrounding the head, "Over the head was a big ace of spades covering." He stated, "I would describe it as a helmet."

Mrs. Kathleen May Stated: "We came up on 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 looked more metallic. It was just kind of floating; it was about a foot to a foot and a half off the ground. The head and face were round. The head was a red color. It has great big eyes, portholes, or whatever you want to call them, and basically lit up. It was a funny-looking orange in the portholes. It looked like there'd be lights behind them." 

Kathleen May with the original rendering...

She went on to explain the covering over the head, "Over the top of its head, was a great big black thing that looked like the ace of spades." Additionally, Mrs. May talked about the so-called claws, "It looked like, something like... antennae sticking out from it, between the body and the head."

The entire story with all the details can be read in Chapter 5 of Frank's book, "MONSTER OR MACHINE. In closing, Frank is a graduate of Paier College of Art in Connecticut where he majored in Illustration. An aside...

During his four-year program, he was trained by master artists Kenneth Davies, John Massimino, and Rudolph Zallinger. These are significant names in artistry. 

Frank once shared, "When I was a student at Paier, if I had ever pulled a blunder and did a shi**y drawing like the "We The People" artist did in 1952, I would have been thrown out of class." He would add, "My teachers were tough. No nonsense. Davies was my illustration teacher, Massimino was my painting instructor and Zallinger was my portrait painting teacher. I had the best teachers around. That TV artist was so bad, he wouldn't have been accepted into a draw-by-numbers group, much less Paier."

Finally, some things to remember about the "monster." It is the supported conjecture that this was a being from another world shot out of the sky on presidential orders. In fact, this was the end of a long "Summer Of Saucers" of jet scrambles on UFOs, lost men and equipment, collateral damage vis a vis crashed jets, and the "lurid duels with death" that Air Force Blue Book Chief Major Ruppelt alluded to in his book. 

Despite all this, the monster refrained from molesting the witnesses in any manner, apart from scaring them away. A short few hours later there would be angry men crawling those hills on the Fisher farm with rifles and shotguns and still able to smell the acrid smell of the "monster." The monster got away... good?