UFO Pioneer: Major Donald Keyhoe and the Flatwoods Monster - Part 2 of 3

 

UFO Pioneer: 

Major Donald Keyhoe... 

and the Flatwoods Monster

by Alfred Lehmberg (with Frank Feschino Jr)

 PART 2 of 3

Major Donald Keyhoe closely followed the Flatwoods Monster case from its beginning and from the moment it hit newspaper headlines around the country! Keyhoe would quickly use one of his Pentagon contacts in Washington (alluded to in Part 1) to get some additional information about this bizarre incident. Very shortly after the occurrence, then, Keyhoe called the Pentagon and spoke to the USAF Public Liaison, one Albert Chop. He would call Chop again later in January of 1953.

During his first phone call to Chop, Major Keyhoe was skeptical of the incident! It had received so much negative [and false!] publicity in the press! The more news coverage that the incident received, the more inaccurate that coverage had become, thus attempting to turn the "Flatwoods Monster" incident into some far-fetched backwoods hillbilly monster tale around the time of Halloween just to sell snacks, soap & sundries!

One example of this inaccurate news reportage that we'll expose appeared on September 15, 1952, in The Washington Daily Mail. There was a spin.

The headline read, "THE MONSTER OF BRAXTON COUNTY" and reported, "A short time after a meteorite—or something… blazed across this town [Flatwoods] last Friday and seemed to land nearby, an evil-smelling, green-bodied monster 12 feet tall with bulging eyes and clawy hands sent seven young citizens running for their lives." This writer is reminded of the plots of some of the more moronic Flatwoods videos on YouTube. This was a story caricature. A degraded retelling of a retelling... of a retelling. A ruse. A dodge. A distraction?

In Flying Saucers From Outer Space, Keyhoe had begun his Flatwoods explication by stating, "I found myself faced with another puzzle, the case of the Sutton Monster." He referred to the "monster" as the "Sutton Monster," because "Sutton" was the nearby county seat of Braxton County. The town of Flatwoods was so small, actually, that it was not even on most maps. 

Keyhoe continued, "Of all the eerie saucer stories, this was the weirdest. When the story first appeared, I put it down to hysteria. As a joke, I phoned Chop." 

Kiddingly, he asked Chop, "How many intelligence officers are you rushing down to Sutton? Chop shot back, "You too? We're not even bothering to investigate. Several astronomers said a meteor went over there. Those people must have dreamed up the rest." 

No, we subsequently discover. There was no "meteor," no "several meteorologists" reporting, and no one was "dreaming"!

Another example of inaccurate news reportage appeared on September 15, 1952, in the Fairmont Times. Their headline read, "Police Say Braxton Monster Product of Mass Hysteria," and stated, "Police laughed. They said the so-called monster had grown from seven to 17 feet tall in 24 hours. The 'flying saucer,' officers speculated, might have been a meteor crashing to earth." That "meteor" again! Moreover, the actuality was that the police were out all night on the twelfth answering bizzare calls all over the county! They weren't even answering phones in some cases this writer recalls Moreover, no one was "laughing."

On that same day, the Wheeling News-Register headline read, "Metallic Odor Indicates Meteor [wait... what?!]- Officers Shake heads Over W.Va. Ogre Tale" and stated, "Authorities said the 'flying saucer' which Mrs. May's sons saw was a meteorite." There it is again! 

No, we can only shake our heads from our catbird seat in the future… where we ponder a single phantom meteor lingering in the skies for 21 hours and change... and never existing in the first place!

                    

             

On September 19, 1952, just seven days after the incident, eyewitness Mrs. May, eyewitness Eugene Lemon, and A. Lee Stewart, Jr. (the Sutton reporter who broke the story to the press), had appeared on a national television talk show in New York to tell of their "Flatwoods Monster" adventure. The Show was named, We the People and was hosted by hugely popular TV personality Daniel Seymour. It aired live across the Nation.

Well, when the obviously competent, intelligently sentient, and assiduously non-hillbilly witnesses talked to a live audience about their terrifying encounter, they shook the whole country profoundly and received a lot more attention. Ufological "Coal to Newcastle," but at that exact time in 1952, you see, the United States officiality was already panicking from the record amount of UFO sightings occurring steadily across the country (and world), overflying prohibited airspaces, and causing much official Sturm and Drang for the powers that be! All this happened, reader, by this writer’s watch and warrant! 

The Flatwoods incident was the JATO assist thrusting the “flying saucer” back into the spotlight! That the aforementioned powers were not amused but bemused at the prospect, is more understatement.

Major Keyhoe stated, "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." 

Further on into his investigation Keyhoe also stated, "Later, from a source outside of the pentagon, I heard that intelligence had followed this up by sending two men in civilian clothes who posed as magazine writers while interviewing witnesses. Even if this was not true, and the Air Force denied it, their check through the [West Virginia] state police showed more interest than they had admitted." The reader can predict what's coming. It'll get here...

NOTE: Unprovoked, Mrs. May reported to Frank Feschino, Jr. the following incident occurring on Saturday, September 13, 1952—the day after their encounter. "Two men came and knocked on my door and they told me they were editors from Clarksburg. Well, they said they were reporters from Clarksburg at first and they would like to go up to the place where it happened. Freddie [her son] went up with me."

On-site then at the Fisher Farm, they questioned Mrs. May. She reported, "We were just talking about the... 'thing.'" As Mrs. May spoke to the two reporters in the field of the farm, one of them walked away to the nearby site of the encounter by the woods downslope and examined that area.

Mrs. May continued, "One stayed there with Freddie and me and one went across and down. Well, he was gone about 30 minutes and came back." 

During that time, the wandering reporter had examined the site of the encounter near a big tree set along the path bordering the woods. On the site of the encounter, he found oil splattered throughout the area in the woods and along the path that had been expulsed from the "monster." The oily substance (not motor oil) was splattered across the landscape and also covered the tree branches. In the examination, the wanderer had become covered in this oily material.

Mrs. May reported to Feschino that, "He came back and said to the other guy, 'Now, what do you think Ed's gonna' think of this when we send these in for analysis?' That's just the way he said it. And he was covered. They had beautiful, nice suits on, with hats to match and he was striped. He looked like a zebra with oil." She added, "He was covered, on his arms, his legs, his hat, and everything. He had oil all over him."

Mrs. May had also told the men that this oily substance had also been sprayed on her own clothing during her encounter the night before. 

Now reader, a striking part of this interview with Mrs. May concerns the name that one of the men mentioned in front of her to his partner when he came back covered in oil, recall "Now, what do you think Ed's gonna' think of this when we send these in for analysis?" This was a curious coincidence, remembering what Keyhoe would report later in his book, Flying Saucers From Outer Space. We'll see that in just a moment, but another question. 

Who might Ed have been? For the record, was it mere coincidence that the name of the "Chief of Project Blue Book" at that time in 1952 was none other than, "Captain Edward J. Ruppelt"? Additionally, one must ask still one more question, “why would one reporter make this kind of statement to another reporter”?

"MonsterQuest film crew at the landing site.
Feschino is rightmost

Researcher Frank Feschino JR,
last century near the start of his research.

                                            

NOTE: On Sunday, September 14, 1952, the two men returned to Flatwoods and met with Mrs. May. They all returned back up to the site of the encounter on the Fisher farm. 

She told Frank Feschino, "Then the next day they came back and they begged apologies. They said they were from Washington, D.C. They said they were from Washington and they had flown in and rented a car and came up here."

Feschino asked, "Why do you think they didn't tell you the truth the first time?" She'd replied, "They were afraid that if they wanted information and we knew they were investigators we wouldn't tell them anything." 

One of these men was adamant about getting a sample of the oil from Mrs. May's uniform. Mrs. May said, "They did go down to the house and scrape some oil out of my uniform... so, I guess they wanted it for analysis or something, to see what kind of oil it was."

Feschino then asked Mrs. May about her oil-stained uniform, "Did you keep it or throw it out?" She replied, "I kept it a while and then I think I threw it away." 

Moreover, it seems that Major Keyhoe's "source outside of the Pentagon" was right, as Feschino's interview with Mrs. May has shown... but with a lot more information being told to Feschino by this key eyewitness. One thing was clear. These Flatwoods witnesses, any of them, were not bogus.

In Flying Saucers From Outer Space, Keyhoe made the following meaningful statement, "If the Air Force had sent investigators publicly in hope of killing the story, it might have backfired. Papers and magazines would have pictured the intelligence officers as making a serious investigation. It might seem like proof to some people that the Air Force was soberly impressed by the report, or at least the 'giants from space' were considered a strong possibility." 

It sure seems possible that someone in a position of power was impressed with something. Later on, we would see proof that there was all manner of "impression" afoot! "Two guys from Washington" was the least of it!

Keyhoe wrote, "A strong possibility..." Yeah... quite so when we recall that there is enough space, time, and surface area suggested by our time machine sky above... well, to facilitate the substantiation of anything... from the thinkable to the wholly unthinkable, and beyond. Unspeakable, even. Not unspeakable because you won't; unspeakable because you can't. That's a good thing, still. Our fires, no matter how bright we'll build them, will always reveal but that larger darkness.

END PART 2

UFO Pioneer: Major Donald Keyhoe and the Flatwoods Monster - Part 1 of 3

UFO Pioneer: 

Major Donald Keyhoe... 

and the Flatwoods Monster

by Alfred Lehmberg (with Frank Feschino Jr)

 PART 1. 

Among his too many to enumerate accomplishments, Major Donald E. Keyhoe was a Marine Corps pilot in the early 1920s. We could stop right there. Later, he's a pulp magazine writer and then a celebrated author who would become a key pioneer UFO researcher of the 1950s. We need to know who this fellow was.

Let this writer, a retired career military pilot and former Master Aviator, digress for a moment on the subject of Marine Corps pilots. The writer trained them in aviation procedures, air-combat skills, and knew them well enough for over two decades of periodic encounters to make an uncomplicated professional assessment. Provoked by cause? They'd as soon fly up the ass of a thundercloud as down the barrel of a big gun. Men "not to be trifled with" will be the takeaway and the close of this digression.

In 1956, Mr. Keyhoe co-founded the "National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena." This was the serious-minded civilian UFO group led by many prominent and well-respected professionals. Shortly after NICAP's formation, Mr. Keyhoe became its Director in 1957. This was a NICAP, we'll recall, before it turned cloudy and became the lapdog of classified intelligence interests.

Keyhoe was all this, yet, how many people remember this man? Who is now aware of his monumental, even seminal, accomplishments?

Let us begin here, then, to talk a little about this brave nascent ufologist, Mr. Keyhoe, and his illustrious, history-making, and multi-faceted career. This would be a career leading him to become a pioneer UFO researcher and highly prominent figure in the ufological field! Why, he should be as famous as J. Allen Hynek. This is equally true for other men and women in at the ufological beginning and now largely forgotten...

Donald E. Keyhoe was born in Ottumwa, Iowa in 1897. He grew up in that area and then, young and feeling the need for 20th Century speed? He entered the United States Naval Academy.

               

Keyhoe received his B.S. degree in 1919 and was then commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps. ...Just lookin' at 'im you know he's a bad-ass! This writer suspects that no one ever called him "keyhole"! Well, maybe once.

Later, in 1922 while in Guam, Keyhoe was in a serious plane crash and severely injured his arm. This incapacitated him and made him unable to further serve... he was so advised...

He would dabble in writing during his convalescence, later returning to active duty, stubbornly, with the Marines… but this was short-lived. He was forced to medically retire in 1923 because of his crash injury.

Subsequent to his service with the Marines, Mr. Keyhoe continued his writing beyond mere hobby status. He wrote four compelling stories between 1925 and 1927 proudly published by a very popular pulp magazine of the time titled, Weird Tales. This writer has some of these old pulps, including Keyhoe!

He also worked as the editor of the Coast and Geodetic Survey publications and was later employed by the Aeronautics Branch of the U.S. Department of Commerce. This initiative was to be the predecessor to the F.A.A.

In 1927, serendipity would strike! The Daniel Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics sponsored the world-famous pilot Charles A. Lindberg's coast-to-coast 48-state tour across America! This was of course after his celebrated solo, nonstop, and trans-Atlantic flight earlier that year. True story! This tour promoted air mail and burgeoning air passenger services and was at their very tap-root!

Colonel Lindbergh flew his legendary plane, of course, "The Spirit of St. Louis," to all 48 states! He was accompanied by another plane staffed with a small group called, "The Tour Party."

Among that group of hand-picked men called upon to assist Lindbergh on his flight across America... was our Mr. Donald Keyhoe, then the assistant to the Chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics, U.S. Dept. of Commerce at that time.

In his first book, published in 1928, Flying with Lindbergh, Donald Keyhoe stated that one Secretary MacCracken told him, "You will be Colonel Lindbergh's aide... unless of course, you don't want to make this tour..." Keyhoe would retort anxiously that, "There was not a man in the Department of Commerce who would not leap at that chance."

As Keyhoe stated in his book, the tour was a total success (...this writer remembering our now transonic air and spacecraft, its result!). "The entire journey," he had written, "had been made in 260 flying hours, or the equivalent of eleven flying days...We had seen each of the forty-eight states." This highly experienced former aviator can report that this aerial excursion would have been a monumental, even superhuman, effort of legendary aviational acumen!

Despite some inclement flying conditions across the country and several drawbacks on that tour, Keyhoe stated," The success of that almost spectacular journey was due to the personality of Charles A. Lindbergh." We would, of course, later find out other interesting facts about the "personality" of Mr. Lindbergh, but this is now, and that was then. Lindbergh had more than earned his fame at the time. Follows photos of the period.

Top Photo is titled, "THE TOUR PARTY," an insert photo opposite of page 123 in Keyhoe's book, Flying with Lindbergh. Mr. Keyhoe is standing far left and Colonel Lindbergh is standing center. Center Photo: NYT newspaper. Bottom photo: Col. Lindbergh and his plane.

                              

                               

                              

Major Keyhoe then left his job with the Department of Commerce and became a freelance writer. He penned numerous aviation adventure stories and a series of fiction and non-fiction tales for pulps, magazines, and various publications starting in 1931. He'd write on through the 1940s.

During World War II, Mr. Keyhoe rejoined the U.S. Marines and was stationed with a naval aviation training division. He retired with the rank of Major by war's end.

After Donald Keyhoe returned to civilian life he would become interested in this new and puzzling "flying saucer phenomenon" of the late 1940s! UFOs were, and steadily, being reported with increasing regularity throughout the press and all over the civilized world! Intelligent attention was begged and called for!

Keyhoe would then begin to research the phenomenon in earnest. His initiative here at the very nascence of ufology would evolve into the very beginning of humanity's on-again/off-again "serious" investigation into UFOs and their ancillaries... still existing today!

Keyhoe dug deep into some well-known cases from that era! This included the 1948 Mantell crash case and the 1948 Gorman UFO dogfight case, both of which involved fighter planes.

Because of Major Keyhoe's strong military aviation background, his accrued Lindbergh-imprimatur, and the many influential people he worked with and for, he had, over time, collected many important contacts inside the government. This included connections in the Pentagon and in military circles, including the USAF, where he had access to some pretty compelling UFO case files.

After Keyhoe, in his own words, spent "eight months of intense investigation," into the UFO topic, he wrote a lengthy trail-blazing article for TRUE Magazine appearing in their December 1949 issue. It was entitled "The Flying Saucers Are Real."

Major Keyhoe wrote a staggeringly straightforward opening to that article! Astounding, as bold as it was bald: "For the past 175 years, the planet Earth has been under systematic close-range examination by living, intelligent observers from another planet."

BAM! Eh, reader?

This statement, and the entire contents of the article aforementioned, had forever embedded Keyhoe—not only into the history books of the "flying saucer" community, but the huge public audience who had read it, breath abated, themselves! After all, this was THE Major Keyhoe, writing in the renowned and highly popular TRUE Magazine, a magazine having no small credibility for the time! 

This was the beginning, then, of Keyhoe's UFO investigative career! UFOS would become a hot public property under Keyhoe's tutelage as interest in the sightings of UFOs was steadily spreading across the planet... as we've pointed out.

With the viral success of his article and the additional information he had acquired, Keyhoe expanded his TRUE article into a groundbreaking book with the same title, The Flying Saucers Are Real! This was published in 1950. Mr. Keyhoe then wrote another blockbuster book, Flying Saucers From Outer Space, published in 1953. This was the book gaining him recognition as a true civilian "pioneer authority" on UFOs.

Keyhoe would go on to write four more UFO books between 1955 and 1973. Many will say that his 1953 book, Flying Saucers From Outer Space, was his best.

In Major Keyhoe's book Flying Saucers From Outer Space, Keyhoe writes about a close encounter case particularly catching his attention and in which he gives some important information concerning that highly strange incident. He had to keep going back on this one. This one just wasn't adding up. 

This case was to be the "Flatwoods Monster" encounter of September 12, 1952... and loosed are curiosity's dogs!

(END OF PART 1 of 3.)

Psychopathic Percussions

.

.

You may hear the *strangest* music, 

but its syncopated beat 

will absolve you of all fearfulness. 

When you're fearless, you're complete. 

. 

The tunes are self-evolving 

and appear at once sublime, 

Remembered, then, they are such 

as brought from Terry's* mind.

.  

M's "land" has no locality, 

it's everywhere at once; 

see, everything's connected, and once "there"?  

There is "free lunch."

.

...Elevation's certain 

if one's open to his song 

in our universe of ...wonder... 

far from want or rage or wrong!  

Time is its vibration 

and "vibration" is a "music";

 Too? That music is a blessing sent 

since all sense dances to it!

.

Though... if one then listens closely 

for the notes to fall their way?  

Discordant songs of psychopaths 

prove the order of the day! 

Know its "concert of collusion" 

for the "chords" that they will stroke... 

with their "self-invested orchestras": 

Jealous Corporates! The "Anti-woke."

.

Their music is self-serving, 

duplicitous—a lie.  

It's all about a "bottom line" 

to serve too few, is why.  

It's all about a "trickle up"

—the gulf's divide is plain—

so some can live apart and dry 

while we endure hard rain.

.

See? Their music's badly written. 

It's not using all its notes. 

Songs disrespecting happiness?  

Music smashing all your hopes?!  

...Likely, not the way its 'sposed to be. 

Better music is well-known! 

...But we're beset by psychopaths 

who conduct the cruelest tone.

.

...Pray listen to their voices, though, 

for they blend in ways unplanned. 

A glimmer of some truth portends—

it's music, understand!? 

Music has an inner voice, 

transcending any lie. 

Too, music leads to everything! 

That "math's the path" is why...

.

...And, it's music that will always work, 

will always proffer truth; 

"told to be then, understood, 

it's then believed"—of use!

.  

Finally, it is beautiful!  

It transcends all obfuscation.  

Above concerns considered?  

It has the right vibration!

.

So we "listen," then; 

who plays bad tunes? 

Yes, all we have—a pity—

conducted by sure psychopaths 

who express a shadow's bidding... 

.

These conduct an "orchestra" 

to buttress status quos; 

the musicians, then, are in the tank... 

...and bought.  That's on the nose.

.

Let's grok alluded orchestras 

and parse them out real fine.  

Let's analyze their music, friend, 

before that's made a crime!

  .

Let's examine pitch and tone 

re-tuning errant strings, 

and make a better music 

than a "one percent" would sing.

.

...The HORNS, then: played by News folk, 

though their key is flat and dull; 

aggrandizing solos 

are the "focus" they'd extol.

.  

At best, "whores of shallow aspect," 

reporting not... (the bastards!). 

Betraying public trusts, one finds, 

they're serving other masters!

.

They move a tune along alright, 

you'd almost think they care, 

though it comes up short of climax—

denouement is never "there."  

Mythic Swinton blew the clearer note; 

he had to drink to do it—

he knew that they had all sold out... 

and blew that tune!  All knew it.

.

He hit the righteous high notes! 

His music sweet and clear, 

he should have been a frontman, 

he sang so hard and dear. 

Though, we just rolled our "blind eyes" up, 

pretended a mistake... 

awaited safer *music* 

which we lapped up for our fate.

.

The STRINGS are plucked by charmless "priests" 

who moan their shallow dirge. 

They play upon the guilt produced 

on harps that but discourage. 

They whip us with their hair shirt bows 

and guilt us with their strings. 

Then, fleecing their respective flocks, 

become religious kings.

.

Theists pluck "dour movements" 

from their strings composed of gut, 

thus provoking ardent churchsters' weeping wail! 

...and that's just nuts!

 ...

They whimper hopeless harmonies 

of meaningless dichotomies 

insuring only futures where 

We fall into their traps! Their snares!

...

They don't police their ranks at all, 

and do us ALL so wrong. 

Their songs are rank extortion 

built to string us all along! 

These songs are self-enriching 

and produce no pangs of guilt... 

for the many who just cash on in, 

eroding mental health!

.

The REEDS? They're paid politicos 

who must whistle from their stumps... 

...just exactly what a "public" wants to hear—

the facile chumps! 

They listen to their horns and strings, 

then harshly hum their spins on things: 

a beatified corpocracy... 

they but pump!

...

On gravy trains, they'd rather be, 

they laugh at you and promise—tease! 

They keep their hand within your pocket, 

lifting cash and keys or lockets... 

looting from your stuff they'll buy 

that music for their comfort's eye!

.

Some reeds split off like missiles! 

"Truth at last"(!), you cheer and whistle! 

But these are reeds soon locked away 

if they refuse "their" piece to play! 

...Johnny Ford was such a "reed" 

(I hope that, soon, he might be freed...)!

...

An unpleasant cacophony, 

this mixture of strings—

of brass or of reeds 

and more *curious* things. 

The movement is hollow; 

it is tuneless—discordant; 

it settles for short term 

and forgets long importance. 

It limps through its song 

like it's missing the notes. 

Forbidden to play them? 

Songs sound like a joke.

.

...And who's this *Forbidder*? 

Who "conducts" from the shadows? 

Who's the arranger—

this snake without glasnost? 

What is his end, 

and how is that measured. 

Who wins again (?); 

whose nest has it feathered?

.

Good music it's not, 

but your *beat* is still good—

and the notes they don't play 

ARE a symphony, dude! 

...And that's your paid ticket! 

You hear what's NOT there! 

That music is better 

(...trades Clem for Astaire)!

.

See? It's you who adds percussion! 

It's you producing heat! 

It's you producing rhythm... 

Individuals tapping feet. 

It's you distilling truth from fear. 

It's you to play and croon. 

It's you providing heart and soul—

who keeps that beat in tune!

.

...So, hear your own music! 

Refuse their contrived! 

Look for those sweet notes! 

Be on guard for their jive. 

Make new connections 

and wake up, refreshed! 

Tolerate more that the 

MORE MAY BE BLESSED!

.

Concrescence is looming, 

and what do we find? 

That their music's awful, 

but your music's fine!

• lehmberg2002@gmail.com
• www.AlienView.net

*Terence McKenna's Land

• Bip.Boop.Bop - but'-ton, dada--dada!
• Bip.Boop.Bop - but'-ton, dada--dada!
• Bip.Boop.Bop - but'-ton, dada--dada

boom, pa-boom, pa-boom, pa-boom-ba-pish...

• Bip.Boop.Bop - but'-ton, dada--dada!
• Bip.Boop.Bop - but'-ton, dada--dada!
• Bip.Boop.Bop - but'-ton, dada--dada

boom, pa-boom, pa-boom, pa-boom-ba-pash...

• Bu-dot, but ot in dada! Tink! Tink!
• Bu-dot, but ot in dada! Ta Tink! Tink!
• Bu-dot, but ot in dada! Pa-tinkity! Tink! 

boom, pa-boom, pa-boom, pa-boom-ba-posh... 

• Bip.Boop.Bap - but'-ton, bada--dada!
• Bip.Boop.Bap - but'-ton, bada--dada!
• Bip.Boop.Bap - but'-ton, bada--dada... 

(wait for it...)

...Taditity boom!

Restore John Ford!

Well... Would You?

Well... Would You?

by Alfred Lehmberg

UFOs (and remember, we don't use that duplicitous and disingenuous "other" term UAP in these parts)... ...UFOs [pausing to meaningfully glare at the reader] continue to dance and spin on the peripheries of human consciousness even as we wade the base externalities of human tragedies like war, poverty, plague, and nonsensical Republican governance. Walk with me.

With the attention spans of gnats manipulatively attenuated by psychopathic persons profiting from their lusty perfidy, we won't ask the simple question. Simply: why the alien's "hide and seek"? Why don't they just go ahead and land? They almost DID in 1952, we suspect, and were ordered shot down by President Truman for their trouble... 

So... "land," and all that that must imply. Would you? Especially when you might have a little more responsibility than the reprogrammable meat bags you regard, below you, staying true to the self-evaluation we'll explore in this piece. 

Responsibility? Even we have observed the lesson in ethics of a "prime directive." 

...And think about all that while trying to use a balanced perspective on our aggregate humanity. Take pains not to be too kind to us. Err on the too-critical side. We earn it as we have earned it.

Consider, for a moment. "Mammals" have to trump "reptiles"—essential psychopathy—because reptiles are limited by their internal programming to the entirely self-concerned, exclusively. Self-interest is supreme, sporting goals both short-term and socially non-adaptive. At birth, hardwired, reptiles are all they'll ever be. The point, forgetting that "sometimes" we "need" the reptile (another story)? 

Have we aggregate humans been any more than self-interested and conscienceless reptiles, by and large, virtually defecating in bed and pushing it down with our "feet" (read, disrespected people) essentially, belying our mammalian live births, milk production, and skin hair... to ape a lesser being or life expression? Could we be better? 

Verily, our unwashed and unspun behaviors among ourselves, over time and even that suspicious history composed by winning psychopaths, speak for themselves in lurid volumes! Reptiles? That's kind. 

We humans express, rather, as sometimes clever if still self-consuming cancers, as a mass, always multiplying beyond our needs and expectations... to cruel extinctions of ourselves... and our other planet-mates. Sentient Elephants, whales, and dolphins (oh my!). We've few saving graces, then, and a recognition of that may be one of them.

So then, in observation of the preceding, what is an alien's upside to their landing? What's in it for them, to be clear? One is reminded, obliquely, of pearls cast before swine, humanity being far from the pearlish in that observation. 

...We were warned not to be kind, remember. Sure, it could be the wholesale inverse of what's considered, but how likely is that, you know, being honest with self?

...But any honesty is obliviated by the ubiquitous FOGS we manufacture to obscure those unsettling and inconclusive lights in the sky we regard, and admitted sporadically, now and again, by duplicitous officialdom—the abortion fogs, flag-burning smokes, same-sex marriage smogs, the cruelly baseless miasmas of antitrans-persecution... this from a grabbag of social sex/race-centric betrayals and hypocritical cultural infidelities, every one of these toxic items suspiciously and peculiarly unsupported by fact, and touted only by the well-monied "extremist suspicious" (read, Republicans) ... all to keeping otherwise harried persons thinking with their glands instead of their brains...

There will, eventually, be dire consequences. There always are where the short-sighted stupid are preferred and celebrated to the good sense and far-sighted sentient folk! Faux-moralistic Rightists are going to pay heavily for their uber-moral campaigns of misdirection and hypocrisy, of course, but the sane, sensible, and secular will suffer too, for their grievous sins! That sin? The toleration of another's mal-based and toxic intolerance.

The immediate former, incidentally, may even actually earn the "persecutions" they whine falsely and disingenuously about now when the latter, and justifiably, have had enough of their unblinking mendaciousness, social insentience, and bald hypocrisy! The hyper-Religulous will pay heavy freight for putting their stock into the untested faiths demanded by Gods they'd invented themselves to do their bidding... encouraging valueless and shallow, so unexamined lives. There's a sin not admitted to.

Verily, they make us ALL pay for their trouble... for their crimes! Again! Always! So!

Resolved! The last "King" must strangle the last "Priest" with the king's own steaming entrails as has been outlined in history!

Which reminds me, to digress from home!

It's constantly been said that the "Conservative" never forgets... hence the apt and overtly lard-assed pachyderm as the GOP's ponderous and pedantic symbol. Elephants are legendary with regard to their long memories (it's why they're people, but that's a story for another time). ...But, you know? I think the inverse must be true with Present Day Republicans, remembering of course that "both sides" being equally at fault for equal blame is a craven lie of but one "projecting" and "gaslighting" side...

When one recognizes the historical, logical, sequential, and inevitable results of authoritarian oppression, rank tyranny, legislated morality, and an applied and very energetic double standard profitably employed—every freaking time by the illiberal autocrat (!) ... one is compelled to consider, reader, that the Conservative never REMEMBERS! They are either without efficacious memory or they are fulsome and full-blown psychopaths and hypocrites as regarded above, and lying about it, all for power and influence. Maybe that's the same thing...

It's a fool's errand trying to get them to admit what they were saying and thinking yesterday, forget last week! Living in a bubble provides for its own toxicity, it seems plain. Memories get short in the pursuit of listening to the voice giving you permission to be your worst self, even at the cost of your own best interests. We spoke of bed defecation earlier...

On reflection, then, the elephant is ill-served, if not insulted outright, regarding its association with the so-called Grand Old Party, neither grand, nor old, or a "Party." This provokes the admonition that Republicans might consider the assumption of a new symbol more in keeping with their record, their morality, their ethics, and their self-serving mal-production. ...The river lamprey or E-bola virus springs readily to mind!

Yeah-yeah-yeah... Clinton may have been the ASS (donkey) who fronted his party, AND the liar that he's painted out to be... ...but, reader! His motivation, compassion, and priority—forgetting that his trumping record, morality, even ethics, and production—are SAINT-LIKE when compared with the fulsome sins of his trickle-downing, supply-siding, and Constitution-evading predecessors and successors! Obama? He's f'n Christ risen, virtually, and walking the Earth for a little old-school hyperbole; this is especially galling to many.

If Clinton spent a weekend in a county lockup for his one faithless transgression by way of lyin' 'bout a BJ... Shrubs, Bush Sr, Reagan, Nixon, and the orange scourge should get life in prison with no hope of parole for theirs!

They didn't (or won't?), and it is that which wholly invalidates the chest-beating, lurid moaning, and the sorry teeth-gnashing of those who would have an "Obama" summarily removed from office, right now, out of naught but bigoted pique. ...And so "righteously," too... for wearing a tan suit, that one time...

Our short-falls are legion. Only admitting to them will begin to ameliorate them! Hard cheese, but the only chance we might have as a species, come to it...

So... in well-deserved conclusion... give in, not to virtual reptilianism's psychopathic autocracy and the stark lawlessness of the senseless and nonsensical unrepresentative, but to rationality, not rightist rationalization, and the rule of sensible law! It'll bring the saucers down... to bring us home, again. That's this person's intuition.

Restore John Ford! (...oddly, a Republican, though that matters not at all.)

Read on.

"I'm Your Huckleberry"

For Ron Mon... if that is his real name...

.

.

.

So you DARE to call me crazy? 

I'll debate that point's contention, 

best prepare to pay a "freight" conjectured fair! 

See, I'll snap your weak derision 

(born of fatuous pretension!), 

and return it with three folds—

One best beware!

.

We'll see who's sane when it's explored

the assumptions bigots make,

make "light" unsettled darknesses 

light's loathe to mask or fake.

Prepare for self-disclosures, then

Offended folk? Be free!

"I'm not locked up in here with you;

You're locked in here, with me."

 .

See, your "insult's": insufficient! 

They define your small pretension—

and they frame you out, so plain, 

for one to see. 

Friend? Your reductionism's facile; 

Though, I'm shoved upon its "edge" 

...but I've resolved you're sans control; 

of you I would be free!

.

See? You're not remotely "free," dim-bulb... 

you're befettered by "restriction," 

impeded by that cold wet fish 

of *class*... its "bitch," *tradition*!  

See, "Tradition's" over-mechanized 

to shore-up jealous means. 

Most "ceremony" shackles us 

and keeps us from our dreams.

.

Then? Who lives where 

you'd know terror, friend; 

who knows your secret deals? 

Who knows what kids are thinking 

(and that from them you shall steal!)?

... 

...Who knows if washboard clouds must mean 

a sound—so low—is heard; 

only whales hear this music 

so should live free, undeterred...

.

...For me, I'd freely die out on 

the edge of airless space... 

before I'd give an inch to such as you. 

Your *righteous* soporific's 

flatly specious in its whining... 

what we've come to find 

is blatantly untrue!

.

Why, it's you who's plainly crazy—

self-defined—and then what's next? 

Why, it's you, a mawkish blue-nose, 

who contrives some "failed test." 

It's you, your foul "activity", 

and your *righteousness* pretended—

to you of course that can't apply... 

as hypocrites suspend it!

.

As for you, you'll get comeuppance 

when the truths you hide are known. 

Who, then, climbs your walls in anger, 

and, then, who drags you from your home? 

Who will ask those questions 

which are answered from the heart? 

...You shall not have your "lawyer" there 

to play his scabrous part!

.

You'll stand alone, uncovered. 

Who's then calling on the phone? 

Who makes you pay for disrespect... 

Who's taking back your bone?

.

Who's had enough of *secrets*? 

Who'll make you rue your day... 

that you hitch good folks to servitude, 

and then make them pay your way?

.

You don't deserve the secrets 

which should rain from starry skies. 

You don't deserve that bounty, 

and you shouldn't wonder why!

You're "content" to stumble blindly 

in the shadows of your *Fathers*, 

you fletch them out as heroes, 

and won't listen or be bothered 

if we later find them ill-advised, 

aligned by specious *sight*, 

a shackle on our freedoms

as obstructers of our light!

.

You contrive your *little* secret 

in the hopes that you slide by—

are absolved for your indifference 

so we gulp your bigger lie. 

I point this out, flat mad as hell, 

as I am off my knees! 

My play'd be "pay the piper," 

so our children could be free!

.

For this you mock/deride me, 

that I see you wear no "clothes"—

that I mock your lack of "balance," 

and your ethic's full of "holes." 

That the 'man' would squeeze your gonads,

 and you'd toe his unjust line 

to spew unjust derisiveness, 

abusing all you find!

.

You'd encourage new divisiveness 

while the world slowly dies. 

You'd abrogate "decisiveness" 

to feed your fat despised!

.

Giving in to their malignity, 

you are the true depraved! 

You have given in to devils! 

You are wrong, unjust—unbrave!  

You prosecute the innocent 

to suit depraved elites; 

you undercut our values 

and then push us to the streets!

.

I bite an unwashed thumb at you! 

I give the "secret" sign! 

I hoist my middle finger 

in the hopes that you're confined! 

I continue my rude gestures—

I intimate contempt. 

Your outrage and annoyance, 

I portend, is heaven sent!

.

See, your lack of "face" emboldens me, 

I am DRIVEN by your spite! 

Encouraged by your bitter bile 

I fight a better fight!

Your jeers, they must embolden me.

I've seen what makes you cheer!

My self-respect goes up a notch

Any time you smirk or sneer! 

Your taunts? My ammunition! 

Your jeers? My hand grenades! 

See? Your petty—facile—comments 

fuel poetic fusillades!

.

I've strength where you have weakness 

'cause I understand your plight. 

I hate your jealous shadows! 

You hate I want more light!

.

So I fester in your kill file! 

I shall not go away. 

Like Jefferson's black progeny? 

I'll shout the truth one day!  

'Till then? I'll be so "up your nose," 

your pea-brained head distends!  

Your lips will feel my scrubbing knees 

and my boot heels feel your chin.

.

lehmberg2002@gmail.com
www.AlienView.net

"I'm Your Huckleberry"

• Yeah—too!  Those you'd criticize—for all their competencies, talents, and integrities—may have feet of clay as all do. Their mistakes have been made. Their credulities have been strained. Their assumptions have been prosecuted. Their confidences have been betrayed.  These are significant still if only for their consistent sincerity... even as I can't agree with them in all cases...

• ...Yet they are as GODS of absolute HUMILITY and perfect certification when compared with your boundless, if groundless hubris, tedious self-promotion, and abundant lack of wit...

• "You grovel at the feet of these, a piss-wit's toad on scabby knees..."

• See?  You are especially obnoxious given that the "fruit" from your metaphoric "trees" screams "dolt," "lack-wit," "troll," "fatuous bore," and "coward"! Your production is laughably homocentric, hopelessly narcissistic—larded with pathetic arrogance and baseless hubris, and your anxious explication is only evidence of rank cowardice, intellectual and otherwise, full stop!

• Now... that's an exposing exposé worthy of an exposed exposure, eh? Still, entirely lost on you, I suspect.  That's what reflex reductionism will do for you: enslave you to a misapplied Occam... See, it remains that sometimes it is required to "complicate the hypothesis," you klasskurtxian swine!  Occam never ruled that out contrary to what you might have believed. He said, "not without necessity"!  Necessity commands!

• Step off, there's a lad!  Then pound cement past a prolapsed pore. There, that's better.  Know too: "I'll be your huckleberry...," and strike the sun were it to provide your offense!  It's.  My.  Job!

• You know who you are.  Bunched up, hopelessly inbred, and mutually supporting, one metaphoric or literary grenade gets you all! Read on.

Good News, Plus...

Good News, Plus...

by Alfred Lehmberg

It had seemed a propitious day, if tense and ominous... if filled with dread. Reality, looming. Existentiality in meatspace. That bell tolling for thee. Well, me... this time. The inexorable singularity remains to loom for us all. That may be good news, whoever you are. Read on.

Unfortunately, my very fearful, now-late Mother made the nonplussing disclosure to the first internet buddy calling me on the telephone. I'd had a stroke, you see. There was concern. We won't bury the lead.

She did it out of concern and fear for what she knew was a sympathetic ear, but it was "disclosure" nonetheless. I'd have sooner if we kept it to ourselves. The reader can suspect why.

Why? Think about it... I didn't want a reader to have any "excuses" to employ against me, thinking they could confidently answer questions about me, or the like, and it was largely my own damn business, anyway! I was the one payin' the f'n freight... and besides. It's not like I'm an airline pilot or a neurosurgeon... well, maybe a neurosurgeon, remembering Ben Carson...

She didn't know, was the point. "Otherwise distracted," myself? I didn't think to tell her not to. It's what people do.

The result was that I hadn't remotely felt like she'd blabbed. Her heart was in the right place, yea and verily. She's gone now... 1996...

It remained that the "news" was out, though, so I'd endeavor to turn it into a disclosure of my own... and a good thing, too! For reasons I'll go into, it was good news for you too, reader, even as you might perceive that it was bad news for me. It was good news; however, for me, though, too. Opportunity had presented itself!

Seriously! I mean that. See, the bell was rung, and hard... ...just, not shattered. This would be a bell taking the lesson! I was well served as it turned out...

See? As part of the new mammalian internet consciousness and aware of (unabashedly woke to?) an initiative combating the reptilian consciousness which had preceded it... and in the spirit of same? I was compelled to make a full report of that good news to you, reader. Listen up.

It was good news, remaining so years later, surprisingly, and I would be laughing, laughing in the pleasure of that news, sincerely, even as I first typed these words, now so long ago. Why, I'm laughing, now!

There were some grateful tears mixed in with all the eventual laughter. I was extremely grateful that I still had the capacity for both... 

One anxious Tuesday, many years ago, at about eight o'clock in the morning... and during some news report about the aggregate egregiousness that our then-current United States government had committed (...but that story only at the tip of the iceberg, [right ?!]), I'd had that stroke to which we allude...

Yeah... sincerely committed to the idea that I just may live forever? I had a stroke. It was an attention-getter, yea, and verily!

Not a bad one, mind you, and not one requiring me to bang this essay out with my forehead, now, by any means... even as it's slowed me down... but a stroke nonetheless. A "Bell" rung as indicated, and I was shaken to my stackin' swivels!

I was left unsure on my feet, later making a lot more mistakes as I typed, and I couldn't chord my guitar for a long time... but hey... it could have been a lot worse. A lot worse. Moreover, recovery continues. Lucky stars are well-counted!

Oh, I'd had it comin'. We all do. Close to fifty pounds overweight, no real regular exercise in the preceding decade, and wrapped a little too tight (one might argue?) than is good for anybody? I'd been skatin' a tad too close to the edge of the f'n abyss for a while, at that point! The aforementioned bell tolled, finally, for... me. Sucker gut-punch!

I got a "wake-up call," to cut to the chase. Moreover, that new mammalian consciousness I'd alluded to earlier can transfer! Make it a wake-up call for yourself, too, if you choose! A 'freebie' "Lehmberg's Good News Plus" call! ...Costs you nothing but the time to read this essay. You could be pointed in a whole new, and more efficacious, direction.

...But outed? I owe it to you, reader, to start the, alluded to, transfer... apply the appropriately efficacious, inspired, and aspiring spin... tell the true story. See, I'm not to be pitied, or eased-up-on, or considered infirm... I'm not to be immediately considered dotty, disrupted, disordered, or disturbed. I'm still me, if a little slower version at present. Moreover, I flatly refused and wouldn't (won't!) tolerate reflexive sympathy. ...Wouldn't own it. ...Didn't stand for it! 

An abutting illustration, does the honored reader remember Rich Reynolds of the very suspiciously spurious and specious "RRR Group" out of Fort Wayne, Indiana... He was circa an Internet of yesteryear and from decades past (last century, in fact)? You can read his homocentric, hubris-filled, and arrogantly mewling "pule-expulsion," still. I won't link to it.

Well, he'd had a light stroke earlier and I backed way off his expositional case, as a result, treated him with toleration he did not deserve... extended to him an idiosyncratic credit he did not earn! ...And, as a, one would suppose, predictable result of a subsequent "pointed discussion on ethics, credibility, and fair or balanced ufological reporting, unrelated to him, where no good deed goes unpunished"? ...He plunged an unearned blade of bogus manufacture deeply into my very innocent back... right around kidney level... for my trouble and earnest consideration! 

Even if that trouble was senseless, un-based, and unfounded, still, it was serious and sincere! It was an unconscionable fabrication to wound! One is faulted to remember the headline ACCUSATION (!) before one remembers the below-the-fold exoneration! An accusation is always above the fold and the exoneration ever below.

This twat, this psychotic scourge, this toadie net-weasel circuitously suggested by way of a guy on his writing team, to our shared community at large (in a very public forum, the late Errol Bruce Knapp's UFO UpDates) that this writer was a pedophile...

!!!

...Why, he offered "proof," as specious as it was spurious, of same! Short of six figures in damages? ...An effusive mea culpa in public apology? He will be forever and unrelentingly castigated for this wholly unwarranted outrage! Case in point!

See how this is gonna function? Mr. Reynolds dies periodically on the journalistic cross and continues to die at every opportunity presenting itself, for whatever provoked concern, concerning anxiety, or needless apprehension this writer feels the need to periodically express correcting a distorted record... 

See how this might work? I've no reflexive respect for the dead, and the reader might consider their own even as I contemplate my own. Too often that "respect" only provides for a continuation of the unconscionable and egregious. Respect should be earned in death as it was in life. Consider Christopher Columbus. Sometimes history has been made to lie... and that just sickens the soul.

The reader was better advised to feel about me... exactly as the reader felt about me before my, actually fortuitous, episode, good, bad, or indifferently ugly. I had not changed, so the reader would have less of an excuse of such. Moreover? My character remained undamaged!

Be silently ambivalent, wish me well, or even ill. Then move on, with my thanks. I'll eat your literary face for anything less or more. I may eat it anyway; we must first come to that bridge.

Still, and now, a "fortuitous episode"? Yes. Proceeds now, the good news. 

You see, for the better part of two years, previously, I had co-written a series of information papers with a former longtime friend and fellow military retiree Alan Graham. We collaborated about diet, nutrition, and the aggregate disservice done to all of us by a disingenuous American Medical health system and its "evil pharmacological ancillaries." Yeah... there's some nuanced if dicey shiznit afoot, medically, shiznit in large part obscured by your du jour conspiracy crazies and their monied corporate backers who most aren't woke (see above) to, but that's a dive for another time! 

Back at "the ranch," Alan is the fellow who 'cured' himself of the 'incurable' ailment called Crohn's Disease, 'hereditary' arthritis, and some other diseases of the 20th Century. By all evidence of same, he vastly improved my extremely ill mother's last-years quality of life and assisted many others (why even "UFO abductee fake" Jim Mortellaro and his alleged wife [allegedly stricken with MS] among them, allegedly!), this writer had witnessed same. 

A quality of life they had thought gone from them forever was returned. True stories all. Encouraging stories. Instructive stories. Stories of hope and a better quality of life. 

Like many of you currently reading, I thought I was one of those immune to the diseases of the 21st Century. Not so. As a result, I wasn't really practicing what I'd helped preach. 

Back at that original ranch, the circle-bar-stroke, I had survived what amounts to my second wake-up call... or, at least, that 2nd "wake-up" requiring a 911 buzz, an ambulance,  and a subsequent 3-day hospitalization. The first episode was very brief, quickly recovered from, and a result of sleeping in a funny position... ...I "thought." 

This had happened about 5 weeks previously... about the time that Rich Reynolds was twisting his contrived, fallacious, and libelous knife in my back... hmm? An interesting coincidence!

Back to me, I was just lying to myself about my physical condition. I knew what it was. I just willingly self-deceived. We do that, don't we...

No more. It's the third strike for which you have to walk (or be carried) away from the plate, after all. If I can't hit a home run with my efforts, I'd still, at least, like to get on base. 

I still intend to get a 'hit', reader. That said, I'd ended my self-abuse at a bone dry 225 pounds (should be about 170, tops, soaking wet), blood pressure averaging 170 over 110 or thereabouts (should be about 120 over 85)... and was rendered unsteady on my feet if of sound mind... I lost for a time the coordination to play my guitar. That was especially and ominously crushing. 

I was hoping I could report to you later that I'd dropped the meds and gotten my guitar-playing ability back. I did the latter. Still burdened with the former... but the numbers get better with every doctor visit!

I had hoped to make a full recovery, reader. A complete one. I aspired to be better than before. I aspire still to that goal. Progress was made.

Additionally, I'd hoped I could give the reader more time at-bat, themselves, as a result of some small attention the reader might pay to the evolved saga, here. What I intended to do is described very well at the indicated location (Google 'Graham Lehmberg' on the Alienview website), so I don't have to be tedious about it here in the essay. The reader can go have a look as the reader wishes. Or, e-mail me. I'll direct her to the sun source! North of any politics, you'll do fine.

The site is not the B's knees & end-all. It remains; however, to establish a path! Osteopathic trumps the allopathic!

It's not required to pay attention or follow along in any way, of course. It's just that the new mammalian internet I've referenced a couple of times now makes it possible for me to effortlessly share this "good" news! I shall, indeed, share. 

It's my duty, I suppose, forgetting I'd as soon have kept it to myself. I have a system. I have a plan. I have hope.

I've good people around who care about me. Good news like I said. For me and, as I said, for you too...

But what does all this have to do with UFOs? It's this. 

When I was lieing in the bed at the hospital that Tuesday evening after midnight, in the 2nd deepest dark of the blackest night I have ever known—even requiring help to urinate, reader—I was compelled to wonder if this was not the end of all things for me. Depression... 

The end of physical love? The end of mobility? The end of the complete satisfaction I had taken for granted concerning wife, family, friends, and my little pound puppy dog, the late Sheiba? The abrupt end of a thousand and one other pleasurable things, wounds of slings and arrows dismissed as immaterial? 

Perhaps not surprisingly to the reader? The loss of UFOs and the earnest consideration of their ancillaries figured closely after my concerns for the just iterated items... that I was being taken out of the game, you know? Everyone understands that. Bad enough to die... but to linger incapacitated and a burden.

I got released from the hospital late Wednesday morning. I was responding favorably to treatment and got a lot of mobility back as a result. After checking in with family and friends, still, my thoughts were on the night sky and her accouterments. 

Thursday morning came with the usual alarm at 02:30 hours, and I was, apparently, to be given another chance to stare, at least once again, into her matchless depths and deeper reaches. Honestly, I lusted for that night sky... another gift I had taken for granted, I discovered. I won't make that mistake again. 

At about 05:15 hours Central Time that day, with a temperature around 30 degrees Fahrenheit, I was looking to the west at the best Star-field I'd seen in quite a while. Winter always has the best... 

!!!

The object appeared over the South South-West tree line, brighter than Venus, at about 50 degrees elevation, and preceded to travel Northerly at a rate of about 5 degrees in 15 seconds until it disappeared, also at about 50 degrees elevation, in the tree line to the North! The sighting happened between 05:15 and 05:20 hours, or thereabouts. It traveled with such unvarying regularity and brightness that I took it for the Space Station or an especially bright satellite. Checking the NASA java application for satellite prediction; however, at a NASA site for satellite observation and setting the application for ALL satellites and ALL passes, showed that there were NO satellites between 03:40 hours and 11:28 hours of 'any' type or at 'any' magnitude of brightness for my location (ZIP code 36330). 

A UFO, friends and neighbors! With any other name? It would smell as sweet! I was well and truly served. Gladdened even. The reader may understand why—brushes with death always make a person appreciate the 'little' things. 

I was still in the game! I'm in the game still! I'll keep you posted? Read on!

Plastic is silver to a person sans flatware...