The Flatwoods Monster: From Myth To Reality—Foreword... Part II of II

 

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The Flatwoods Monster:  From Myth To Reality—Foreword... Part II of II 

byAlfred Lehmberg

Last time – Depressing betrayal… Intellectual Bigotry duly faced… Dicey first encounters… and doubt benefits!

...

   ...Really, what possible interest could a man with the stature of Stanton Friedman have in a bunch of “uneducated hillbillies” who can’t tell the difference between a juvenilely stupid-looking "space monster," and a barn owl in a big tree? Unless… what? More unrecognized personal bigotry? This writer came to be ashamed.

    …The “barn owl theory,” we’d all come to find, was a deflective red herring given by the USAF officials at Project Blue Book as a distracting “explanation” for the entity called… the “West Virginia Monster.” That “Barn owl” was distracting bupkis, in other words! The authorities had no idea what it was… but they knew that it was something they wanted one of... boy howdy... and something to be smothered going forward. There would be a lot of that, and early on, too!   

    Truly, smothered… even if a heavy contingent of armed West Virginia National Guardsmen and their extensive equipments were dispatched to the Flatwoods landing site area immediately (and we mean immediately!) after the event, and with only a few hours' notice! 

      How does THAT work?! They were onsite in Flatwoods on the Fisher Farm where it landed... that NIGHT! …Wait! What? 

     Moreover?! These soldiers would be fitted out with pieces of equipment from bazookas to gunboats, to deal with any unforeseen “consequences”! What's up with that!

   Now, stop! Would they do all that, and so quickly, for mere bupkis... mere“hillbillies” and a barn owl? 

    Why, it was almost like the activity was somehow expected and that they were ready… it sure explains the quick reaction by this massive light brigade-sized military contingent so quickly deployed! These deployments of men and equipment are not thrown together at the drop of a hat! 

     I was a military officer and have an appreciation for the logistics required for such a quick reaction to singular events, myself! The Commanding Officer, Colonel Dale Leavitt, demonstrated the quick and flawless execution of his orders, and his performance is an intriguing aspect of this case, forgetting the credit to his ability of command that he had earned! He was thrown curveballs by fate and completed the mission, admirably… if suspiciously! 

    Wait... What? Reader, this only remotely begins my cognitive “gob-smack,” eh? Entirely, then, throwing caution to the winds, and on the recommendation of Stanton T. Friedman, I contacted Feschino and asked him for a review copy of his book, The (publisher flawed) Braxton County Monster. I had to see what it was about and what could compel a man like Stanton Friedman, a nuclear physicist who had worked on functioning nuclear-powered rocket engines, to stand behind Frank Feschino’s work… or even write forewords and epilogs for it later as he would do repeatedly, reader, down the road! 

     Enticed to the edge of this new rabbit hole, then, and cutting to the chase, I found ample reason to dive in, headlong. It’s my way. Attack! No prisoners! 

     What I discovered in my long fall was not a group of “uneducated hillbillies spooked by haunts in the mountains,” but responsible, adequately educated, and wholly with it country people, country people, reader… People who knew what a freakin’ “barn owl” was, by God! 

     Additionally, and prior to the “Monster” encounter, several other competent witnesses in Flatwoods had observed what they described as either low-flying and flaming unidentified objects… or a “meteor” (put a pin in THAT!), pass over their town! Subsequently, it had fallen silently to earth and landed on the mountaintop of a nearby property, the Fisher Farm. 

       Silently? No sonic boom! No rush of roaring rockets or horrific impact? Such had been puzzlingly so! 

     The witnesses, a group of schoolboys playing football on the school playground that night, were largely “meteorite believers” when they saw the object fly over the playground and land. In a foreshadowing of actual events, one of the younger kids in the group actually suggested it might be a UFO that landed! ...The child is father to the man? 

     Regardless, the majority of the boys, accompanied now by two adults, one of these a National Guardsman, were en route on foot to the landing site on the farm, perchance to pick up some of the meteorite’s fragments! Upon reaching the location, the group continued the short trek to their destination towards the landing site …when the fateful “Monster” encounter unexpectedly occurred! 

    For the record. The astronomy “history” books do not have any records of a passing meteor or meteor shower resulting in meteorites... for the date in question...anywhere in the region! Keep that in mind! 

      Furthermore, numerous nearby Braxton County residents had also reported several other low-flying UFOs passing over their county and even reported yet another crash of what was thought to be a “Piper Cub” airplane… which had reportedly gone down in flames, nearby! By watch and warrant, reader… some weird kind of game was afoot! 

     This particular crash, seen at close range and reported to authorities, occurred just a few miles from Flatwoods along the Elk River. This incident was in the small community of Sugar Creek. The reader is enjoined to remember that this was 1952’s “Summer of Saucers,” after all! UFOs are going to be... everywhere! 

     A heavy contingent of West Virginia National Guardsmen separated from the group of troops going to Flatwoods and diverted to the Sugar Creek crash area! Their mission was to deal with any situation and look for crash survivors. …Nothing was found! 

     There was neither evidence of a crashed airplane in the area that night nor evidence of a meteorite smashing into Flatwoods. Furthermore, to this day, suspicions of either have not been remotely found! Stanton Friedman would later quip onsite at the farm that a meteor in Flatwoods would have provided for a “flattened” woods! Yea and verily. 

  Wait...What? This becomes a familiar refrain, the reader discovers. Something crashed! Yes, there was a heavy and immediate military involvement in Braxton County that very NIGHT! The military must have been prepared beforehand, inexplicably, for these eventualities, is the suggestion! 

    Moreover, Flatwoods would be swamped with thousands of the idly curious for weeks, justifying the "occupation," the media would be obsessed with the incident, and there was even an episode of a nationally popular TV News magazine broadcast, “WE THE PEOPLE,” within days, highlighting it (inaccurately)! Moreover, the case was heavily documented in the officiality of the infamous Project Blue Book… the record of which Feschino would be able to avail himself, later on, when it was declassified! 

   All of this begs the question. What did occur in those Flatwoods hills on September 12, 1952? There is much, much more than can remotely be alluded to in this foreword, reader, apart from the interplanetary war... Wait...What? 

   A famous paranormal researcher of the time, one Ivan T. Sanderson, visited Flatwoods and investigated the crash-landing area, the site of the Sugar Creek crash, and other locations throughout Braxton County where the UFO sightings had occurred. He would write that something highly unusual involving several unidentified craft had demonstrably occurred on that fateful night! He also discovered that a plethora of UFO sightings were made over other nearby Mid-Atlantic States! 

   Though even if Sanderson was aware that UFOs had flown over other nearby States that night, his hypothesis of a “one-off,” that evening would still miss the mark. With no access to Blue Book documents, Mr. Sanderson couldn’t get a clear perspective of the “big picture.” 

   Eventually, decades later, Frank Feschino, Jr. became involved in the case! He would discover, given his access to now declassified Blue Book files… and decades of accredited hind-sighting… the consolidating military angle! He would see things clearly for what they were, at last! …Air war with ET? Well… it was WAR publicly “declared,” if not “officially” declared, reader!

Truth! How is this not official disclosure!

   Feschino would incisively continue where Sanderson and other researchers had left off, years before! He would leap gratefully from their shoulders (while giving full credit!) to a new level of understanding on the case, and one well justified by the official records! His decades of ceaseless due diligence to his very singularly focused investigation would pay off, finally, in his being able to see that “big picture” alluded to! 

   What Feschino had painstakingly gathered and compiled since 1993 was a mass of data points patently revealed, or otherwise drawn, from reliable military and civilian sources. He was able to reconstruct the events of that night and put the big picture together succinctly, and he actually mapped it out so the rest of us could see it!

 

  Verily, Frank's research indicates that something surpassed those hoary requirements to enter the hallowed black-felt halls of the “highly-strange,” friends and neighbors! …A bizarre supposition of harassed UFO occupants shot from the sky by the agitated Air Forces of the United States on September 12, 1952, on the authority of presidential orders to “shoot down” those UFOs! This begs a plethora of ready questions! 

     Feschino’s in-depth research investigation documents, timestamps, and pinpoints more than a dozen locations where four damaged UFOs had repeatedly crash-landed throughout the Southeast United States on the infamous night of September 12, 1952, just to start! It is evident, and not unreasonable, that some of those downed UFOs involved occupants... who may have departed their damaged crafts? 

   Verily, besides the "Flatwoods Monster" incident, another story involving a "monster" appeared in newspapers via the Wheeling, West Virginia area a couple of days later! More specifically, this was in the community of the Vineyard Hill housing project. Wheeling Police and the Wheeling Intelligencer newspaper reported that "anxious residents" there "flooded switchboards" and were "asking for confirmation of rumors that a '10-ft monster from another world’ was roaming about their community." 

     Furthermore, it was also reported that the "'horribly burned body of a woman' was found on Vineyard Hill." Additionally, one person's inquiry into the matter asked the police department if it was true that a "policeman had been burned mysteriously about the arms." This unheralded incident involving a "10-foot monster" and the discovery of a "burned woman's body" seems to be yet another cover story. …Who can know anymore, given the official mendacities already evidenced... everywhere!? 

     Oddly enough, there were never any further reports, death notices, or obituaries for a dead woman's burned body being found that week. Cover stories aside, I ask; did this incident actually involve the discovery of a burned and deceased... alien body being found by Vineyard Hill residents? The appearance of yet another "monster"? …Who can know, given the compartmentalization of official secrecy prosecuted for… the worst reasons imaginable? There were other... strange occurrences!

    Wait...What? Feschino further points out that only six weeks earlier, the Air Force had publicly revealed that, “The jet pilots are, and have been under orders to investigate unidentified objects and to shoot them down if they can’t talk them down”! This is also true by watch and warrant! "Official disclosure" should smell as sweet! 

     Here, it was the senior public information officer for the military, Lt. Colonel Moncel Monts, who had made this startling statement (of official UFO disclosure!) on July 28, 1952! This disclosure would circle the globe, fulsomely carried by the International News Services!  Wait...What? Reader, it gets weirder than that. 

     Many men and aircraft had been lost in “Lurid duels of Death,” according to the 1956 book written by former USAF Blue Book Chief, Captain Edward J. Ruppelt! It’ll get even weirder?   

     In and of these data points, comparatively unremarkable and ufologically prosaic when taken by themselves, much like dabs of pointillist paint… with perspective, then, a tale unfolds! See, as one zooms out from these points in a reflection on their obvious relationship to one another, remember, they actually paint a picture in the existential corporeal as weird and detailed as that of a Salvador Dali painting! The image is there; the so-called “Monster” is real. This is the picture Frank Feschino, Jr. paints for us! 

     Summing up, Feschino is, flatly, the undisputed leader and subject matter expert in the "Flatwoods Monster" case and other UFO events of that night regarding the affair. He takes the lead by right of his undisputed provenance in what has found, rediscovered, unearthed, filmed, documented, sentiently interpreted, and otherwise illustrated regarding this key bit of aviation history… history which has come to be known as the "Flatwoods Monster" Affair! Recall that we only know of this affair, at all, a result of Feschino's singular initiative! 

    Yes, in fact, reader, I have been to Flatwoods on three separate occasions. I have spoken to the sober and unblinking principals, walked the Fisher Farm, and touched the infamous and decaying oak tree. Additionally, I saw Feschino’s extended videotaped footage of journalist A. Lee Stewart and Colonel Dale Leavitt, on-site principals, testifying to this horrific occurrence of high strangeness… as it had been happening! Wait...What? 

     No, the “Flatwoods Monster” affair is a “myth,” reader, only since a wholesale and ridiculous fiction, which the Flatwoods story only but resembles...would already have been wholly forgotten, right?! Revealed… the “Flatwoods Monster” incident is a highly strange, fine print, reality, reader!  

      Verily, this is a book about changing history and righting some forgotten wrongs. Let a truly intrepid and professionally sober Frank Feschino, Jr. lead you through it! 

     Closing, truth can be painful and inconvenient, especially to those angered and enraged in direct proportion to how guilty (or wrong!) they’ve been about it. Read this book to see for yourself… and be as astounded as this writer was!

 

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Alfred Lehmberg, CW4, U.S. Army, Retired

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