Gray Barker (et al): Retired of Needs and for Cause

Gray Barker (et al ): 

Retired of Needs and for Cause

By Alfred Lehmberg

 

At issue? GRAY BARKER'S NEWSLETTER Issue No. 20 - February 1984. Errant critics can prepare already well-abused loins...

"The Flatwoods Monster Is Alive And Well, And Has Landed In Pennsylvania." We’ll pause for squirty giggles! ...This was the front-page headline appearing on erstwhile “author” Gray Barker's February 1984 newsletter.

Gray Barker was born in Riffle, West Virginia, in 1925, just a few miles north of Flatwoods in Braxton County. He became “popular” for his confabulated but semi-profitable “writings” on the back (coattails?) of the September 12, 1952, UFO "Close Encounter of the Third Kind" case known as the "Flatwoods Monster," an incident that he'd come to know and love as an accommodating teat, where he was one of the first on the scene… for what that was worth! 

Yeah... He'd ride that horse WET, boyo, like Rudy rode 9/11 in New York in 2001, to day's end.

Yes, one week after the encounter, Barker did go to Flatwoods on assignment from FATE Magazine to cover the story and write an article for it. During that foreshortened weekend, he interviewed a few of the more insignificant locals, talking to some of the young firsthand witnesses during his short day-and-a-half investigation… an investigation fudged out to a reported “3 full days,” ...much of that 36 hours standing in the shadow of Ivan T. Sanderson, and rather padding out his literary account with some purloined and inflated site-cred, it would seem.

In January of 1953, his article appeared in FATE titled, "THE MONSTER and the Saucer." This launched his very suspicious, and for this writer, illaudable career into the UFO and paranormal field as an “author” and later as a "publisher."

Over the next thirty-two years, Barker wrote extensively, if immemorably, about the "Flatwoods Monster" incident… right up until the time he sloughed the mortal coil rather mysteriously on December 6, 1984 at the age of 59.... Yet! Even as he’d made some noteworthy contributions to the Flatwoods case, clueless as he (and Sanderson!) were on the situation surrounding Flatwoods (…air war with ET!), one additional major factor was always overlooked from the beginning…

What did a true and accurate portrayal of the "Flatwoods Monster" actually look like, and why is that knowledge important and useful?! 

The original drawing of the so-called "monster," we’ll remember, was shown on the (lately storied!) TV show, "We The People" TV on the night of September 19, 1952. This is the program where witnesses Kathleen May and Gene Lemon bravely appeared to retell of their frightening and now Feschino-legitimized encounter story… and to a live nationwide audience from an NBC studio in New York City!

Before that show aired, the reader will recall, an artist hired by the producers sat backstage with the witnesses and interrogated them,  simultaneously drawing an illustration of the figure (just above) as he interrogated; it was to be used as a visual aid during their interviews later that night.

Yet, here was the needless (even if innocent!) distraction, misdirection, and major downside to the artist's illustration of the "monster," as drawn, as this writer has pointed out before! The artist misinterpreted the two witnesses' descriptions of the figure when they spoke with him for the moments available, and so he was able to totally misrepresent the appearance of the figure at this crucial point! This is key because it degrades the monster from all its attendant, accessory, and actual associations with surrounding activities of the time… like airwar with ET! No apologies!

The staff artist employed portrayed the monster as a scary-looking flesh-and-blood cryptid, or "monster," vaguely associated secondarily with a one-off UFO incident! It was clothed in a garment of some type, covered with a large hood, and was wearing a dress… sportin’ skeletal arms ending in big sharp claws… ludicrous and risible out of the gate! A Halloween witch? ...That would sure come later! Thanks and a hat tip to Gray Barker!

This false image of the figure above was broadcast across America and pounded into the planet’s very zeitgeist that night! It was thought to be the true appearance of the 12-foot-tall figure called a "monster."

It!  Was!  Not!

Among those who ridiculously believed this to be an accurate portrayal of the figure (as it facilitated his, in retrospect, convenient con and effusive “Flatwoodery”) was one Gray Barker! Ivan T. Sanderson, an investigator of more seriousness, was among others who had investigated the Flatwoods case in 1952...  None of them were aware of the true likeness of the so-called "monster," nor would they be! They were both clueless as to the ongoing air war, too, admitted in the press at the time! How did they miss this? 

Then? The public would not know what it looked like for many years to come.

Flash forward, readers, to 1992! Enter one trained forensic Illustrator by the name of Frank C. Feschino, Jr.! He begins an intense investigation into this luridly ebullient story mucked up by the likes of Barker! Feschino would discover that the reporting of the incident had become horrendous; indeed, it was fragmented, inconsistent, and insensibly convoluted.

Moreover, it was heavily covered-up and debunked by the government! This only added intentional insult to collateral injury! 

For decades, Feschino did extensive research into the history of the Flatwoods incident... and he also worked, closely, with many of the original eyewitnesses. That will no longer be possible.

Feschino had rediscovered, only as a result of his Friedman-trained due diligence, that the 12-foot-tall figure called the "Flatwoods Monster" was not a scarily clawed cryptid roaming the woods of Flatwoods, at all; it was actually a metal machine! This had been reported almost immediately in the first news reports, oddly, but ignored by New York and “We The People,” and enduring as a fact virtually forgotten until Feschino unearthed the old clippings! 

Yes! In a supportably plausible reality, this so-called "monster" was likely some kind of metallic "Space Suit"… but like a structure resembling a small rocket ship or spacecraft. Moreover, this mechanical apparatus also functioned as a strangely silent (apart from an eerie “frying egg sound” and a weird drum thump!) “hovercraft vehicle” ...comparable to a manned space probe?

Feschino was able to illustrate his forensic analysis in his many art pieces… Yes, friends and neighbors! The "Flatwoods Monster" was actually a "machine" and not a clawed "monster” of any stripe.

Remember that this “monster” showed remarkable restraint after being shot from the sky in a very highly suspected air war with these same Extraterrestrials… then had to endure an abrupt encounter with screaming witnesses flashing beams of light at it, luckily unarmed, or it WOULD have been shot! …Another supposition with logical support for the errant critic to vault over!

No. During Gray Barker's short investigation in 1952, he never grokked the faintest grasp of the remotest understanding regarding what the so-called "monster" actually looked like... or its busy part in its current events... escaping and evading those shooting it down, it is offered! He just went along with the disingenuous distraction!

"...Nothin' more to see here, folks!"

Barker always believed that the clawed "monster" drawing displayed on the 1952 TV show, "We The People," was a true representation of the figure! He used that image repeatedly over the decades! Observe! Not knowing (or wanting to know, it is offered!) any better, he published various renditions of this so-called clawed, dress-wearing "monster" in his periodicals throughout the years… right up to 1984 which now brings us back to Barker's 1984 article.

Page one...

The headline of this article refers to an incident involving an encounter with a "monster" that occurred in Masontown, Pennsylvania, by report! Gray Barker very deliberately and disingenuously calls it the "Flatwoods Monster." This is a senseless conflation where it is not errant confabulation! According to him, "The Flatwoods Monster Is Alive And Well, And Has Landed In Pennsylvania." That was HIS conflation, and most people will only remember the headline! The Flatwoods Monster is casually disserved only to make an abusive point as we shall see!

Immediately, we suspect one desperate for legacy’s memory and trying to cash in from a “semi-auspicious” past for a new , if waning, literary relevance… it is offered that this has abundant fairness. Barker certainly tried to embrace the “serious” towards the end of his life, thinking UFO’s were “theater,” and he was dismissive of any serious community.

The opening article of Gray Barker’s Newsletter #20 adopts a deliberately earnest, folkloric tone, returning, for pathetic reasons already described, to one of Barker’s favorite subjects: the Flatwoods Monster. Rather than treating that creature as a joke or a metaphor, Barker recounts the legend in a dramatic, almost reverent style! It was his "bread and butter" after all!

He describes the "new" monster’s physical features—its glowing eyes, claw‑like hands, a towering, hooded silhouette—and revisits the original 1952 Braxton County encounter with the theatrical seriousness that made his early work “famous.” The article frames the Flatwoods Monster not merely as a historical curiosity but as a living piece of American UFO folklore, something that continues to “appear,” “re‑emerge,” or “manifest” in new contexts. Risible! 

Begins this conflated outrage!

What Barker communicates is twofold. First, he is reaffirming, for his own self-aggrandizement, remember, that the Flatwoods Monster is a central icon of saucer lore, a creature whose mythic power still resonates decades later! No festivals or celebrations as yet… that would be circa Flatwoods AF!

Barker’s narrative technique here is intentional: he is re‑establishing the myth before doing anything else. He wants the reader to feel the atmosphere, the dread, the mystery—the same emotional charge that animated his earliest saucer writings. The tone is celebratory (“REJOICE YE UFOLOGISTS AND MAKE MERRY”), signaling that this is a return to roots, a reminder of the era when UFOs were strange, theatrical, and fun rather than bureaucratic or politicized?

Second, he is preparing the reader for his later nasty pivot—one that uses the monster metaphorically as a cudgel! By treating the creature seriously on page one, Barker sets up a contrast with the later sections of the issue, where he applies the monster’s imagery to contemporary UFO personalities and feuds. …Persons like our earnest and upcoming. Ms. Enion…

In short, the first page is Barker in "storyteller" mode: mythic, nostalgic, and “sincere” (sneer quotes doing heavy work here!).  It is the stage‑setting prologue before the insulting and abusive “satire” begins.

Barker opens up his article by writing a synopsis of the September 12, 1952 "Flatwoods monster" incident as was said. Then, off the rails, he then goes on to write, "The Monster Returns." …Robert Downey, Jr. eye-roll…

Enion, at the left, on another case...

Barker states his laughable assertion, "Saturday, April 16, brought with it one of the most bizarre and terrifying cases ever to be investigated by the Pennsylvania Center for Research and marked the return of the Flatwoods Monster. On that day, field investigator Diane Enion answered a call from a family living in Masontown [PA], a few miles north of the West Virginia border." 

Mrs. Diane Enion of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was a C-level, if earnest, paranormalist of that time and a local investigator during the late 1970's and 1980's. She was serious and earnest, by report, about her work… just the kind of person that Barker loathed at the end of his life.

She was also the coordinator and a leading member of the small "Pennsylvania Center for UFO Research," a tiny organization operating for many years without disgrace. During that era, Mrs. Enion investigated UFO sightings and related anomalous phenomena that included cryptid sightings in western Pennsylvania and the greater Pittsburgh region. Barker disliked her, and her ilk, remember.

The focus of this 1984 article is the alleged "Monster" sighting occurring in Masontown, Pennsylvania! Gray Barker writes, tongue burrowing into his disingenuous cheek, that this was the return of the "Flatwoods Monster." Barker finished the article making Enion into a “Flatwoods Monster” in her own right! The witch aforementioned.

The witnesses gave the following description of it, "Glowing red eyes peered out from a wizened green face, cloaked in a pointed hood, surmounting a loosely flowing robe or regalia. Clawlike hands and long pointed fangs fed their terror as it suddenly rose..." The text that appears to the right of the "Monster" drawing states, "Composite witness drawing of Masontown (nee Flatwoods) monster. Spotted in an abandoned house playing on a weird organ-like instrument, the monster bared its fangs, and floated toward the witnesses, its red eyes glaring."

Whether this incident is true or not, as reported, is irrelevant! The point is that Gray Barker conflates the inaccurate drawing of the "Flatwoods Monster" shown on the 1952 "We The People" TV show with the Masontown "Monster," while disingenuously megaphoning it to be the same entity! Risible on its face! Misdirecting and malfeasant! Disrespectful and dissembling!

This article appeared in "Gray Barker's Newsletter" February 1984 issue, and he died later that year, rather mysteriously (perhaps even of AIDS, as he was the “right” person, a closeted gay man, functional, sadly, at the “right” time), on December 6, 1984; but as regards his situational awareness of relevant actualities vis-à-vis Flatwoods, therefore? 

...Barker spent the last thirty-two years of his life never knowing what the "Flatwoods Monster" actually looked like. …Not having a clue and spouting lurid nonsense of whole cloth for his own purposes only self-serving about the paranormal… that’s journalistic treason!

He always believed the so-called "Flatwoods Monster" was a "monster" clothed in a garment, covered with a large hood and wearing a dress with big sharp claws… that’s the point! Moreover, Barker's investigation into the case failed to show the public an accurate portrayal of the 12-foot-tall iron-clad figure or even a hint of its associations prevalent at the time… which contributed to the folklore tale of a "monster" lurking the woods of Flatwoods on September 12, 1952... all the way to 1984?!

Clearly, Barker cannot be taken seriously as a researcher or a journalist. In the grand bazaar of American high strangeness, Gray Barker strutted through the paranormal aisles like a mincing snake‑oil troubadour, an unsubtle con-artist selling faux-wonder by the rainbow bottle and lying mischief by the psychedelic crate, never pausing long enough to remember that some of us were actually trying to read the substantive map instead of being repelled by Barker's lurid marquee! Feschino is the former such person…

His laughter was bright with irresponsible dimness, his pranks mal-legendary slanders of contrived bupkis… and every time he knowingly winked at the audience? ...Another thread snapped loose from the tapestry of serious inquiry! 

Barker (and others!) didn’t just muddy the waters—he butt-surfed across them, kicking up senseless waves of needless confusion that washed over witnesses, researchers, and the very mysteries he claimed to responsibly chronicle! He was a desecration of the field! …And in that wild, yee‑ha riot of Barker's hoaxes and hijinks, the field lost, therefore, something pricelessly precious: the fragile, flickering possibility that the unknown might someday be understood rather than so needlessly… unfathomed.

Jim Moseley and Gray Barker... back in the day
birds of a dismissive, discursive, and desultory feather.

Barker kept the circus alive, sure—but he (and Jim Moseley, et al!) let the libraries of ufological Alexandria burn! ...Encouraged starting the fires, themselves!

…And in a universe where truth already hides behind ten thousand duplicitous masks, or where a lie is across town before the truth gets its effin’ pants on… his refusal to take off even one of his own masks left the rest of us chasing shadows, shadows cast by a man who loved the spotlight more than he could have loved the starlight... 

No. He was not an asset; he was a deficit. Not a treasure, an errant detritus! No steward of history, but a carnival Barker for frog-eatin' geeks and two-headed chickens...

He could be remembered less fondly...

Flatwoods, AF… A Chronicle of the Definitive

Stanton Friedman observes Feschino's MUFON field team
digging at the base of the "TREE" for its sample's material analysis... 
Taken by this writer...

Flatwoods, AF… A Chronicle of the Definitive

by Alfred Lehmberg

 

Were this writer to strip away his own association, his own decades of mythic‑cadence broadcast and literary production, his own proximity to the witnesses... and then ask the following question of someone in the authoritative… cold?  

“Who is it on the planet who has the definitive take on this Flatwoods Monster Affair”?  

The ready answer is actually still very quick, very clear, and entirely defensible. Prepare to accept no substitutes!

There is only one person, extant, whose work meets the threshold of: primary‑source interviews, surviving witnesses recorded on video, on‑site measurements, mapped timelines, correlated military flight paths, documented search‑and‑rescue activities, cross‑checked newspaper archives, physical terrain analysis, multi‑years of boots-on-the-ground fieldwork... AND, apart from wild blueberry and conspiratorial horse-muffins (?!)... only reasoned and evidence-following “supposition” and some reasonable “conjecture” (damned little of that!)… there is a non‑speculative reconstruction with an audit trail!

Who is this person? It’s Frank C. Feschino, Jr… no apologies!

…Not because of hype. Not because of fandom. Not because of UFO culture. …But because no one else has done the work! Let this writer break it down cleanly, without any personal association clouding the issue… “jus’ the facts, ma’am.”

To start, He typifies the Definitive = Primary Sources + Reconstruction ethic! See? A “definitive take” on a historical event requires: first‑person witnesses, contemporaneous documents, physical on-site analysis, timeline reconstruction, cross‑agency correlation, falsifiable claims, and reproducible evidence. Only one researcher ever assembled all of those for Flatwoods, and in the story’s SERVICE!

 What Feschino actually did (objectively)? Well, starting back in 1992-1993, he began talking with many of the KEY surviving witnesses involved in the Flatwoods incident who were willing to talk with him. Subsequently, as time passed, Feschino laboriously gained their trust and would begin to tape-record many of the primary eyewitnesses. These are exclusive interviews, extant!  

Racing the undertaker, he was able to record all the KEY players who were not too intimidated to come forward and put their testimonies onto tape for the history books... and believe this writer, there remained a couple of witnesses who were still unwilling to talk for fear of government repercussions and ridicule! Yet, as it stands today, Feschino has more taped recordings (video and audio) of the witnesses involved in the "Flatwoods Monster" incident than any other modern-day investigator! 

Then? Then he reconstructed the 1952 (air war with ET!) military panic ensuing during the infamous “Summer of Saucers"! He mapped: radar tracks, crash‑retrieval attempts, search‑and‑rescue deployments, the “July 1952 UFO shootdown order” context, and the 20+ UFOs seen over multiple states! 

He also identified USAF fighter airmen lost on the fateful night of the 12th… Among others, they went out and didn't come back… man and machine lost to this day, with no government explanation of the jet's whereabouts! These airmen simply vanished into thin air and were forgotten about! A shame! Only Feschino was able to bring them to light!

No one else has done this. Call your waiter!

He conducted multi‑year on‑site fieldwork!  He worked on-site at the Fisher Farm with witnesses! He documented the terrain, the two landing sites, the encounter site at the tree, the trajectory lines, the witness positions, the terrain geometry, and the lighting conditions!

Again, no modern researcher has done this much research on a single UFO case of any flavor! That was Stanton Friedman's report to THIS writer!

Moreover, Feschino did what no one else did; he videotaped the farm over the years, which had not yet been groomed, or its appearence changed by its new owners. Most importantly, he photographed and videotaped the deteriorating tree at the site of the "monster" encounter before the long-dead tree fell down! Did the Monster kill it? That's the type of an question errant critic loves! 

Moving on, Feschino documented and videotaped many of the other Braxton County locations where UFO events had occurred on Sept. 12^th, accumulating a virtual treasure trove of recorded footage for the historical archives!  Again, no one else...

He collected an abundance of material! There also exists a trove of: photographs, video tapes, audio tapes, paintings, sketches, maps and much, much more. This material is not online and not in his books. No other researcher has access to it; duplicates have been made, and all are safely locked up!

He cross‑checked every available newspaper account! He built a massive archive of press coverage articles on the Flatwoods incident, "Sept. 12^th UFO Flap" events, and made the Project Blue Book documents legible for the first time, which no one had ever read before!

He Produced the only coherent timeline! Everyone else’s version is fragmented. His is the only one that matches witness testimony, matches military activity, matches geography, and matches chronology. This is why even major UFO historians defer to him on the Flatwoods issue.

3. What have other contemporary “researchers” done? Other writers have: airily summarized, fulsomely speculated, reflexively debunked, heartily derided, casually dismissed, baselessly reviled, gladly re‑interpreted, deconstructively mythologized, or baldly retold… But none have: interviewed most of the witnesses, reconstructed the flight paths, mapped the terrain, correlated the military response, or produced a falsifying timeline, so? They cannot be “definitive.”

They can be interesting. They can be skeptical. They can be creative. They can be mawkishly loud, abusive, and obscene... so entirely in need of “tone police”! …But they cannot be authoritative!

 The global consensus among serious researchers? Among historians, archivists, UFO investigators, military‑history analysts, and timeline reconstruction specialists? The consensus is: Flatwoods = Feschino’s case. Not because of belief. Because of methodology.

If the writer removed himself from the picture entirely? If he was a stranger to the case… If he had never written a word about it… If he had never met a witness… If he had never touched the archive… If he asked, “Who has the definitive take on Flatwoods?” The answer would still be: Frank C. Feschino, Jr. …Because no one else put in the the years of work and due diligence!

He researched the incident the old-fashioned way; he went to the many sites in question, documented his work, and interviewed the surviving witnesses involved! No one can ever say Feschino was a keyboard warrior who sat on his arse and “researched” the Flatwoods case as some are content to do, riding on coat tails they don't credit and acknowledge while using them as bathroom tissue!

He did the best that he could, at the time, and he did it and with the best equipment he had available during that time. Meanwhile, where were all the others who now claim to be the Flatwoods authorities on the case?  Where were all of the stalwarts over the past 30-years, this writer asks ask? He’ll tell you, they were nowhere to be found, reader because they didn't think to record the history of the incident before the witnesses died.

It's that easy! Simply put, this story slipped right pass them like a 100-mph Bobby Orr slap shot in front of a crowded net in overtime!

No, it’s much easier to sit back… just let somebody else do all of the work, spend countless dollars… and then chime in after the fact to act like a big shot!

"Ho, ho, ho, look at me, I'm a singin' Santa Claus singin' demented Santa songs!" Seriously. In reality, and let this sink in, reader...it took an outsider (a mislabeled carpetbagger?!) from Connecticut with a likeable personality, some camera equipment, a lot of drive, constructive motivation... and massive cojones, amigo, to document the "Flatwoods Monster" incident when Feschino did!

…And last, if not least, but in closing? Let's give a well-deserved shout-out and special thanks to West Virginia paranormal author, stalwart, and good man, Mr. Dave Spinks. He is a highly-respected man in the community, a veteran boots-on-the-ground investigator who also helped to keep the REAL "Flatwoods Monster" story up front and center in the spotlight where it rightfully belongs! Lead constructively, follow sentiently, or get out of the way, responsibly... Read on!