Flatwoods and Braxton County UFO Sightings
by Alfred Lehmberg
Well, friends and cyber-neighbors, just when you thought all
was quiet on the "Flatwoods Monster" front, here's Frank
Feschino popping up with yet another compelling
data list—an evidentiary audit trail for the ufologically whacked out and
impossible, howsoever be it unsettlingly supported! That's right. Take a deep breath. We
begin.
To start, this is a list regarding details about the massive amount of UFO sightings
occurring over the United States
on September 12, 1952.
A massive
amount as highly true as it is highly strange. I'll explain.
As is the now running theme established by previous articles
I've written, I reiterate to say there were numerous UFOs
sighted on that particular September day. These
UFOs flew, landed and/or were forced down—by jets ordered to
shoot them down—at
116
locations in ten east coast States during that 21-hours of sustained activity
displayed on Feschino's well referenced "Master Map." Such has been established as so.
Please take the proceeding at face value and for highly
suspected fact. Again. We're served by it! We've extinction to lose and the universe to gain?
See, 60 plus years after the fact, people remain unaware—even after 20 plus
years of his researching and sifting through the countless documents
he's discovered—Feschino has meticulously
pinpointed 116 separate locations when and where UFOs were sighted...
that
day! This all seems like it
might be a little bigger than a quaint country tale regarding 'haints, hillbillies,
and hoot-owls, eh? No, these seem to be
naught, frankly, but the insulting and facile go-to lies of lying liars.
Remember that Feschino is able to segregate these numerous objects sighted, in fact, by their shapes, sizes, colors, manners, locations, flight paths and sighting times along a
trace of their flight's route! A picture
forms when one knows what was where, when. He discovers that a jaw-dropping twenty-five different unidentified
objects—yes, 25 UFOs—had actually passed over the following ten eastern States:
Delaware,
Maryland,
North
Carolina,
Ohio,
Pennsylvania,
South
Carolina,
Tennessee,
Virginia,
Washington,
DC,
and West
Virginia. CSI's
Papa Joe Nickell doesn't mention any of this, does he. A statement not a question. Nor does anyone at CSI
Central. Not even brought up to be
debunked, it's not party line over there.
Not dismissible so it's scary too—it's a thin ice for the traversing skeptibunky. One false step and it's through the ice and drowning in data.
Back at the ranch, the overwhelming amount of UFO sightings
revealed by Feschino on that day have come to be known as the "September 12, 1952 Flap."
This flap is actualized by examining the flight
characteristics of the UFOs many witnesses described as having been
on fire, exploding with pieces falling away, making strange in-flight
noises, flying erratically at tree top level, and making
crash-landings. They sound busy.
In the end, after compiling his findings,
Feschino establishes that four of the 25 UFOs sighted that day were apparently
damaged and struggling to stay airborne as they traveled over the United
States. They were making multiple landings as they
flew; in other words, Feschino tracked the damaged
(?!) UFOs as they puddle-jumped across the Nation like wounded birds. Combined,
these four troubled objects made a documented thirteen crash-landings in three
states, Tennessee,
South Carolina
and West Virginia.
Not surprisingly, West
Virginia accounted for ten of those
crash-landings. Papa Joe? ...Hearing only crickets.
Feschino then plots the flight path trajectories of each
object. He is able to recreate a
scenario of events, the "revealed evidentiary trail," alluded to above
describing what must have occurred that day back on September 12, 1952. Follow the evidence, which
is to say... not beat it ahead of you with a stick the way the reflex and canted
skeptibunky or klasskurtxian contents himself.
See, it remains still, as pointed out above, that
the general public is unaware of the magnitude of UFO sightings documented as having
occurred across the United States
on that all but infamous day... especially the sightings occurring in Braxton
County around Flatwoods.
I'd alluded to damaged UFOs above; why were these UFOs
damaged and why the abundance of UFO sightings on that day? To answer
the first question: only six weeks before the September 12, 1952 Flap, the
USAF revealed White House approved "shoot down orders"... essentially declaring
war on flying saucers! ...WAR! War with an ET high levels of government had
already admitted as fact. No
stretch at all, reader. Given truth, how
would the reader characterize it? War
and shots fired!
On July 29, the Seattle Post Intelligencer reports
the following Air Force revelation made the previous day: "Lt. Col.
Moncel Monts, Air Force Information Officer, states, 'The jet pilots are and have been under orders to investigate
unidentified objects and to shoot them down if they can't talk them down.' "
Everyone knows how chatty UFOs are... you know, so willing to take orders and be
accommodating to their Earth hosts.
The article also states, "In Air Force parlance, this
means that if a 'flying saucer' refuses to land—jet pilots are authorized to
shoot them to Earth, if they can get close enough to do so." Was there ever a more nuanced declaration of war?
Also on July 29, via a press conference held at the Pentagon
to discuss UFOs, it was reported that Major General Roger Ramey "...told
the news conference [that] interceptor planes have raced aloft several hundred
times as a result of unidentified objects." Yes reader, the Air Force wanted a UFO!
During 1952 the USAF received the most recorded
UFO sightings made to Project Blue Book in its 17 year existence! 1,501 official reports with 303 of these bona fide "Unknowns" ...meaning visual conditions were such that they should have been able to tell what
the flying object was... and couldn't! Yes reader,
with these overwhelming numbers, the Air Defense Command never had a
better opportunity for getting a UFO. On that
hot Indian Summer day of September
12, 1952, they got their chance!
Back in 1952 well-known researchers and investigators
were in the dark as to what had actually occurred on September 12. Some found important pieces of the puzzle but
none were able put it all together into a meaningful whole. None could
figure out the "big picture" of events. They didn't have Blue Book! They
didn't have Feschino's single-minded drive and determination... his opportunity to make right the grievances
of forgotten soldiers and airmen of needs lost in this seeming secret air war.
Moving on, what did all of the UFO sightings along the east
coast that day have to do with the "Flatwoods Monster" incident in the
small town of Flatwoods? Furthermore, why were there so many UFOs
sighted over Braxton County that night, before and after the
"monster" encounter on the Fisher Farm?
To answer, the whole of Braxton
County, not just Flatwoods,
actually had its own flap of UFO sightings during the night! In 1991, and standing on the shoulders of
his intrepid if befuddled predecessors, Feschino picked up the investigation
and began his research where the others had had to throw their hands in the air—ultimately
giving up, thus the incident was never investigated further, back in the day, and in danger of
becoming just another quaint tale of folklore.
Such would not be so on Feschino's watch.
Painstakingly thorough in his on site investigations,
Feschino discovers that there were many more sightings than the original
investigators were aware of—many, many
more, reader, as pointed out above. One of the original investigators,
Gray Barker, stated, "I can only begin to cope with the mass of data and
correspondence, the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle containing the answer to the
mystery—if only it could be put together." Feschino would make that wish come true.
World-known researcher and author Ivan T. Sanderson also
documented many of the objects seen that night, reporting, "As a
result of plotting the incidents on a map, we are of the opinion that a flight
of intelligently controlled objects flew over West Virginia on the evening of
September 12 and further, that one of them landed or crashed, a second and
third crashed and a fourth blew up in the air"! That's some assertion!
Writer Harold T. Wilkins discovered, "The local police,
however, admit that on the day of the incident a fleet of pear-shaped objects—dull
red, white and gleaming—had been seen over the region. They hovered in mid-air,
ascended almost vertically, descended, then flew level, and three strange
objects had crashed in the dense woods."
Additionally, Mr. Barker also added, "Within a 20-mile
radius of Flatwoods, numerous persons saw what they variously described, as 'shooting
stars,' flying 'saucers' and 'meteorites.' " With all of this information in hand now,
Feschino moved forward, conducted his own interviews with Braxton
County
witnesses and scoured local and national newspaper archives. Most
importantly, he obtained the Blue Book files for that day, sometimes even having
to digitally enlarge, enhance and re-ink almost unreadable faded documents to poster size to suss them out! Feschino then compiled all of
his valuable data into a true historical illumination, that
evidentiary trail alluded to above.
Feschino spent decades piling up multiple guided
tours through Braxton County
with many of the old-timers from the area. They took him to many of the locations where
these sightings occurred and showed him the lay of the land. After years of researching the UFO incidents
occurring in Braxton County,
Feschino then plotted the points of UFO activity in the area on a large
aviation map and connected them with the surrounding UFO sightings in the other
nine other states.
Ultimately, Frank was able to put the big picture together
of what had actually occurred that day and chronicled the scenario of
events. You see reader, the overwhelming amount of UFOs observed that day
were not attributed to joyriding craft aimlessly flying around in circles
because they had nothing else better to do on a Friday night! There was a
definite reason for all of these
UFO sightings on September 12,
1952. There was purpose!
Keeping in mind the long-forgotten July 29, 1952 Fall
River Herald-News headline, "Jets Told to Shoot Down Flying
Discs," Fall River informs us that "Jet pilots are operating
under a 24-hour nationwide 'alert' to chase the mysterious objects and to
'shoot them down' if they ignore orders to land"! Let us now follow the data.
On
September 12,
1952, three damaged UFOs flew over the eastern seaboard bearing
westerly and headed in different directions upon reaching the Mid-Atlantic
coast—one after another, just before
7:00
p.m. EST. The first UFO
headed southwest toward
Oak Ridge, Tennessee,
home of the
Oak Ridge National Laboratory, worryingly
spot-on, penetrated
the no-fly zone for that sensitive area and landed in
Arcadia,
Tennessee.
This sparked a massive search
and rescue by local authorities, thinking it was a small civilian aircraft. No aircraft was ever found or even reported to
be missing. Yet local authorities gave
this account: "Patrolmen reported sighting what they believed to be
distress flares from the ground where the object was supposed to have
fallen." Witness H.L. Newland said it was "shining bright and big as a
car."
The second UFO flew northwest over Baltimore,
MD, then flew directly toward Dayton, OH,
home of Wright Patterson AFB. Just
before reaching Dayton, this craft
was to redirect itself northeast—where it nearly hit a passenger plane
near the Wheeling-Ohio County
Airport—then flew south, finally
crash-landing in the Wheeling, WV
area.
The UFO was reported in several newspapers, "Three commercial
pilots told the CAA office in Washington
that meteor-like objects flashed by their planes." It was stated,
"One pilot said one nearly hit his ship." Does this sound like
a meteor to the reader, this writer wonders?
Commercial airline pilots contacted CAA
officials in Washington, DC to
inform them about these, "meteor-like objects," not to
report meteors! Does this sound like a meteor,
reader? Besides, contacting high level
and career destroying authorities about mere meteors makes no self-regarding
sense. Why not report to authorities
that the stars come out at night, or that there was a moon above? What would the CAA
be expected to do about meteors? Criticism should have to achieve a level of competence to claim to have the support of science. I digress.
The third UFO, identified in print by The New York
Times as the "FLAME OVER WASHINGTON," headed due west over
Washington, DC, low level and towards Flatwoods. Simultaneously, over the Nation's Capital, several UFOs
descended from the skies over Washington, Maryland,
and Virginia,
forming a suggested aerial perimeter around their damaged sister craft,
apparently seeing it safely to the west.
At this point the majority of information concerning these
UFOs descending over this three state area was found only by Feschino
in Project Blue Book—no one besides Feschino seems to have ever bothered, apparently, to closely
read the entire September 12, 1952
case files! Now, for the record—Feschino discovered that there were
actually twelve craft descending to follow the damaged craft west before
ascending back into the sky to the north and northwest! Who says so?
Reported What, Where, and When says so. Blue Book says so.
Shortly after, UFOs descended from the skies in great
numbers over eastern Ohio, the WV
panhandle, and western Pennsylvania
for two hours—looking, mayhap, for their downed sister craft. These were identified as a
"meteor shower"... also, "Flashing meteors" and
"balls of fire" by the local press and
authorities.
Contrarily, there is no official scientific
documentation of reported meteor activity for that day anywhere in
the world! In other words, neither the astronomy record books and sky
watching clubs have any record of a meteor or meteor shower occurring anywhere around that
day. Yes, the assertion here is that these additional craft were a
full-blown search and rescue operation made by ET. Anyway, it seems at least one newspaper, The Boston Globe, reported it remotely right in their headline, "Four States 'Bombarded' by
Meteor-Like Objects." In part, it was reported, "Authorities
sought an explanation today for the flurry of meteor-like objects
sighted over four states." Meteor "like," good reader is the admission that they are not meteors or they would be meteors; they are like meteors so a listener can have any idea at all what's being related to them. Like a thing is not a thing. No, it's well and truly weirdness!
Simultaneously, to the south of Braxton
County, three more objects
flying in formation were enroute to Flatwoods from the south, stewarding yet another damaged object. A fourth craft, a flying saucer, previously sighted over
Flat Rock, North Carolina, joined them, shortly after, as they
reached Flatwoods. This larger saucer then redirected, headed
northwest toward the Wheeling area
where the other objects were descending in what could be called a search of their downed craft as
suspected and was then sighted to the west of Wheeling
over Lafferty, Ohio.
Are you starting to get the picture yet, reader?
Flatwoods, WV,
the geographical center of the state, void of any nearby USAF bases and isolated, was
actually the designated area for two of the heavily damaged UFOs to
meet and go down together consequent to their conjectured rescue. More specifically, the exact
rendezvous point was actually the Fisher Farm plateau, located at the back of
the farm known as the hill top.
Before any of the sightings had occurred over
Braxton
County, specifically Flatwoods, the
first UFO observation actually occurred over the Fisher Farm at about
6:50 p.m. EST. This UFO was a huge cigar-shaped object
that flew from the east, passed over
Harrisonburg,
VA, then passed over
West
Virginia, flew toward Flatwoods and passed over the
back plateau of the Fisher hill top.
 |
| Signed eyewitness testimony Donald Morrison |
Here, Feschino and his military colleagues (myself among
them) have agreed that this was perhaps a reconnaissance rescue craft that
could conceivably have dropped a homing beacon device of some type for the two
damaged objects to follow in to the farm landing zone. Remained, there was a real big problem during
this time frame for the UFOs.
The heavily damaged craft flying west toward Flatwoods from
the DC area was struggling to reach its rendezvous destination
simultaneously with the other damaged craft heading North with its UFO escort.
When the three northbound UFOs reached Flatwoods to rendezvous with the
damaged, "Flatwoods Monster" craft... it wasn't there. The rendezvous
had been missed! The damaged southern craft flew over the Fisher Farm while the
other two combed the area for it!
Meanwhile, the incoming flying saucer made a brief pass
over the Flatwoods area and then headed northwest. When the damaged
craft, containing the "Flatwoods Monster," wasn't initially found, all
four southern ships departed the area. Subsequently, the damaged southern
craft crashed three times in Braxton County
and the damaged "Flatwoods Monster" craft landed on the Fisher Farm
shortly after.
Yes, the UFO events occurring in Flatwoods and surrounding
regions are actually attributed to a search and rescue mission—a failed
operation actually, ending with a close encounter on the Fisher Farm between
Mrs. May, a group of boys 12 to 18 and a 12-foot-tall occupant called the
"Flatwoods Monster. The following data list was compiled by Frank
Feschino, Jr., identifies some witnesses, and shows us a fraction of the UFO
activity over
Braxton County
that night.
 |
| Eye witness Donald Morrison with Feschino... |
1). Ben's Run, Har—near Newville. About 6:45
PM. A large cigar-shaped red object also described as being
shaped "like a bottle gas tank" and about 40-feet long,
flew slow at a very low-level just above the tree tops at Ben's Run. Several
residents on both sides of Har saw it pass over the town; some saw it pass
over the general store and others later watched it until it disappeared over
the tree tops in the direction of Flatwoods, about four miles away. Reconnaissance
Rescue Craft #1 Witness: Multiple witnesses in Har including Donald
Morrison and his family.
2).Flatwoods. Fisher Farm. 6:50 PM.
A large cigar-shaped object that emitted fireballs from the rear fuselage flew
at a very low over the plateau of the back hilltop of the Fisher Farm. It looked like a "jet plane" but
had "no wings." The primary witness said, "It proceeded
across the sky, then halted suddenly, seemed to fall rapidly toward the
hilltop." Reconnaissance Rescue Craft #1 Witness: Flatwoods
resident A.M. Jordan.
3). Flatwoods. Fisher Farm. 7:15 PM.
A low-flying fiery object flew over the back hilltop area of the farm and
directly over the water cistern. A large piece of fire broke off and
fell toward the ground as it headed south toward the Sutton
Airport then
exploded. Damaged Southern Craft #1 Witness: Mr. Hoard.
4). Holly. An object flying near
the horizon over the Sutton Airport
exploded and crash-landed shortly after in the area of Holly. Witness:
One Flatwoods witness sighted the object as it passed over the
airport and exploded while multiple witnesses saw it go down shortly after near
Holly. Damaged Southern Craft #1
5). Heaters. (5 miles north of Flatwoods) 7:15 PM. A large round-shaped and glowing object flew at a
very low-level over the town of Heaters
and headed towards Flatwoods. SOUTHERN RESCUE CRAFT #2 Witness: Jerry
Marples.
6). Braxton County
Airport. (3 miles south of
Flatwoods). 7:15 PM. Simultaneously, another large round object flew just above
the airport at a very low-level. SOUTHERN RESCUE CRAFT #3 Witness: Multiple
sources as told to Ivan T. Sanderson.
7) Flatwoods area. A "saucer" was sighted just after the time
that the other three southern ships were seen flying over and
near Flatwoods. SOUTHERN RESCUE CRAFT
#4. Witness: Multiple witnesses including a Braxton
County resident who reported a
"fireball" and "saucer" as well as other UFOs.
8). Flatwoods. 7:25 PM. A
large fiery oval-shaped object flew south overFlatwoods, passed over the school
playground, turned, redirected and then landed on the back hilltop of the
Fisher Farm. Damaged #2 Craft - Flatwoods Monster Witnesses: Numerous
boys on school playground and adult witness Jack Davis.
9). Sugar Creek. A fiery UFO crashed onto a mountain top across the Elk
River between 7:25 and
7:30 PM. Witnesses described it as "a flaming bucket with a
tail." Damaged Southern Craft #1 Witness: Woodrow Eagle and other multiple
Sugar Creek witnesses.
11). Frametown. About 7:45 PM.
A fiery object crashed on a hilltop near the Elk River
in the area of Frametown. Witness: Undisclosed
hitchhiker. Damaged Southern Craft #1
12). Flatwoods. Fisher Farm. Just before 8:00 PM. Witness: Mrs.
May and several boys saw a nearly 12-foot tall metallic probe-like
craft that hovered near a tree, AKA the "Flatwoods
Monster." Damaged #2 Craft - Flatwoods Monster Some witnesses also
reported seeing a large oval-shaped craft in the pasture of the second
field of the farm.
13). Frametown. Approximately 8:25. Another fiery object crashed in
Frametown. This object crashed on the top of James Knoll on the
other side of Frametown near Middle Ridge. Damaged #2 Craft - Flatwoods
Monster Witnesses: 2 James boys that lived in the area as well as other local
residents.
14). Flatwoods. Fisher Farm. Between 10:30
PM.-11:00 PM. A large round object with a flat side that emitted
flames from each side, circled the Fisher Farm at a low-level for
about fifteen minutes. Witness: Mr. Bailey Frame. RESCUE CRAFT
#4
There you have it people. ...Anyone
still think all this activity was attributed to a single course changing "fireball
meteor," as the USAF counsels via Blue Book or that the "Flatwoods
Monster" was a Barn owl in a tree? Return to the clue
queue if true.
Wrapping up, let's remember two missing airmen,
fighter pilot John A. Jones, Jr. and radar operator John DelCurto. These two intrepid airmen, initially denied
to Feschino by the Air Force as having ever even served (outrage), vanished into thin air with their F-94 Starfire
during the onset of the September 12, 1952 UFO Flap, never to be seen or
heard from again.
