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How a TV Show in 1952
Turned a "Machine"
Into a "Monster"
by Alfred Lehmberg
On September 19, 1952, one week after the so-called "Braxton County Monster" incident, the "monster" of Flatwoods was featured on a hugely popular Nationally televised live TV show called, "We The People." This hugely popular series, decades on radio and beginning television, would last just one more iteration for the program's penultimate death! "We The People" would just inexplicably evaporate to disappear!
This was a virally popular (for the time!) television talk magazine program, broadcasted live from NBC studios in New York to the entire Nation. It was hosted by one Daniel Seymour, a credible and hugely respected personality at that time who was once recognized as Radio's best announcer... and who would, almost immediately, leave broadcasting for advertising! The reader can make of this what they will...
The show was ahead of its time and a nascent "precursor." The television eye of the entire Nation was upon it. The government, with a much better idea of what was going on, was watching, too.
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| Daniel Seymour |
A historical taproot for our current "reality TV," its whole schtick was to broadcast the "interesting" story of human interest, purported to be true, in a weekly format new to the planet! We'll pause a moment to remember that, among others past and present, a very well-respected Ivan T. Sanderson and well-regarded local boy Gray Barker, believed the Flatwoods story to be true.
Regarding the "We The People," first-person Flatwoods witnesses Mrs. Kathleen May, Eugene Lemon, and our credited reporter A. Lee Stewart, accepted an invitation to appear on the program. They traveled within days to New York to talk about their experiences involving the "Flatwoods Monster" affair.
In the studio, before the show aired, a sketch artist for the TV show interviewed May and Lemon and drew an illustration of the "monster" that was interminably aired during the whole of the broadcast. We've been over this before in detail.
We'll remember that, sadly, and with fulsome incompetence (he should have known better... there were news accounts he should have read, days in advance, describing the entity as a mechanical contrivance!), the artist "misinterpreted" the two witnesses' descriptions of the "monster," and then very incorrectly portrayed the figure not as described.
What? Was he trying for more drama? Hovering robots from space is not "drama" enough? ...And what WERE they trying for? Drama, or ridicule.
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| Not a ghost-witch! A mechanical contrivance! |
Instead of drawing the figure as a metallic hovercraft machine, which acted as a space suit and only resembled a 12-foot-tall spacecraft, it is sensibly offered, the artist drew the figure as a cloaked "monster" with arms and claws, wearing a dress, and then topped this aberration with a weird stiff-cloth hood!
This only gets a legitimated side-eye! Perhaps the plan? Tilt!
Additionally, the "monster" was correctly illustrated to be floating in the air above a drop-cast shadow, but this only added to the bewilderment and befuddlement of this so-called "monster," in the first place! What!! "Ghost bobbysoxers" in West Virginia getting close to Halloween?!
The sketch artist actually turned this large 12-foot-tall mechanical craft, which had abandoned its downed and damaged ship in distress on the Fisher Farm (as witnessed, so it's reasonably conjectured), and then made it to appear on a National television show as a claw-waving "monster" seen roaming throughout the woods of Flatwoods like a bad movie prop! "Spirit Bobbysoxers From Beyond"?!
During an early interview with Mrs. May, Frank Feschino, Jr. was made to understand that what had occurred in the studio with the producers and the artist that night was a bit of a railroading! She said, "They just told me they'd like to draw a sketch of it... and Gene and I told them what we'd seen, and he [the artist] drew the sketch." So, not a lot of input... and we need to remember that there were descriptions in print about a mechanical mechanism which the artist could have spun up on!
Feschino then asked Mrs. May, "Why did he draw arms on it then, because you told me it had antennae?" She answered, "I told him that too, but that's what he drew on it [regardless?]. To make it look more like a "monster" I guess." Mrs. May guessed right, is this writer's guess.
The drawing of the incorrect portrayal of the "monster" was aired at the beginning of the program and accompanied by scary music played obligatorily by a live studio orchestra... and was zealously portrayed throughout the program. So, readers! Short-skirted ghost-teens and woo-woo music right from the start! It's a surprise the story got any traction at all. ...But, it did. Feschino would throw journalistic sand down for more traction decades later for the story to have any life at all going forward.
Feschino, also interviewed reporter A. Lee Stewart of "The Braxton Democrat" newspaper, the reader will remember. Mr. Stewart was the first person of authority and officiality to arrive at the May home very shortly after their encounter with the "monster."
Stewart's testimony will be key to providing legitimacy for the actuality of the story. He also broke the story to the press, the constant reader will recall. We need to remember at this point that no one knew about Lee Stewart, or the very storied Colonel Leavitt mentioned earlier, before Feschino revealed them with his due diligence in research!
Stewart briefed Frank about the "monster" drawing and the airing of the TV show, "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 in general and then again finished with this particular picture. That was basically the entire program."
Pioneer UFO researcher and author Donald Keyhoe also talked about the program. He writes, "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 for new angles on the story."
Eyewitness Fred May explained the following to Feschino, "For publicity, the 'monster' got attention and I think that's why the papers played it up with claws and things like that—as something alive. ...It was mechanical. It was not alive."
Subsequently, even with all the media attention that this incident had received, the true likeness of the "Flatwoods Monster" was not revealed to the public at that time! It took another forty years for the true likeness of the so-called "monster" to be portrayed correctly. That was when illustrator Frank Feschino, Jr. began investigating the case!
...But wait! There's MORE! ...And you can read about it in Feschino's books. There was an air war. Something was shot out of the sky with extreme prejudice under presidential orders... and that story is made clearer and clearer day by day!
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