Gray Barker (et al ):
Retired of Needs and for Cause
By Alfred Lehmberg
At issue? GRAY
BARKER'S NEWSLETTER Issue No. 20 - February 1984. 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.
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| Page one... |
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!
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…
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| 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.
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| Jim Moseley and Gray Barker... back in the day birds of a dismissive, discursive, and desultory feather. |
He could be remembered less fondly...
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