Book Review

The Braxton County Monster: The Cover-Up of the Flatwoods Monster Revealed

Reviewed by Rosemary Ellen Guiley for FATE Magazine

The Braxton County Monster: The Cover-Up of the Flatwoods Monster Revealed

By Frank C. Feschino, Jr.

Foreword and epilogue by Stanton T. Friedman

Quarrier Press (Charleston, WV), 2004, hardcover, 352 pgs. 70+ illustrations, $29.95

On September 12, 1952, one of the strangest and most terrifying apparent extraterrestrial encounters took place near Flatwoods, a small town in West Virginia. The bizarre image of the alien creature was immediately seared into UFO folklore. The Flatwoods Monster – also called the Braxton County Monster – became one of the curious unexplained cases on record, intriguing ufologists and media all over the world. Was it creature or machine – or both? And why was it here? Despite the initial media attention, the case was quickly dismissed and buried by authorities and debunkers.

In 1990, Frank C. Feschino, Jr. heard stories about the case while visiting relatives in Braxton County. Riveted, he initiated an investigation of it that spanned more than a decade. Feschino tracked down eyewitnesses, delved into media reports and government documents, and interviewed military and government sources. His startling findings are published in his book The Braxton County Monster: The Cover-Up of the Flatwoods Monster Revealed.

Feschino has done a superb job of weaving together evidence and testimony to present a scenario of what may have really happened that night – and in the apparent cover-up that followed. His painstaking research has enabled him to put forth bold hypotheses that will reopen the Flatwoods case to more scrutiny. The Braxton County Monster is a fast and fascinating read, and full of new and never-before-told information. Whether Flatwoods becomes another Roswell, New Mexico, case remains to be seen – but Feschino’s book stands to become a must-read classic in ufology literature. His detailed account is illustrated with more than 70 photographs, maps and drawings; all of the illustrations were done by Feschino himself.

On the night of September 12, 1952, a wave of UFO sightings occurred over a large portion of the Eastern United States, including the Washington, D.C. area. Reports were made of blazing objects seen hurtling down through the skies; many people thought flaming planes had crashed.

In Flatwoods, a group of boys saw a fireball come down in a nearby farm and thought either a flying saucer or a meteorite had hit. Five of the boys and two adults went to investigate. There they were greeted by strange fog, a nauseating smell – and a 12-foot-tall “creature” with glowing red eyes that lit up from the inside. The “creature” – or perhaps a creature in a space suit – had what seemed to be a metallic cylindrical torso with antennae where there would be arms. It had a round head surrounded by a dark cowl. It floated or glided about 18 inches off the ground. The monster shot light beams from its eyes, left a trail of an oily substance, and sprayed at least one of the witnesses with oil. The witnesses fled.

On the same night, an Air Force fighter jet sent out from Panama City, Florida, on what was said to be a routine training mission vanished from radar and was never recovered. The two crew men were soon declared dead.

Feschino hypothesizes that these and a host of sightings and events over a wide area are all related as pieces of a dramatic scenario. He lays elaborate groundwork with the evidence he has compiled. Briefly, the wave of UFO sightings resulted from the combat engagement of Air Force fighter jets with alien spacecraft belonging to a mother ship. The aliens destroyed the jet that went missing. Damaged alien craft came down on Earth, pursued by the aliens’ rescue missions. The Flatwoods Monster was one of these downed aliens, and was seen in its metallic space suit. This same creature was seen without the upper portion of its suit in Frametown, West Virginia, by a couple stranded in their automobile with their baby in the early morning hours of September 13. The stranded alien apparently was successfully rescued; the couple witnessed an object rise into the sky and disappear.

The accounts of the Flatwoods witnesses were discredited by authorities as “mass hysteria.” Nonetheless, strange individuals came to Flatwoods asking a lot of questions, and taking away evidence – oil stains from clothing, and metallic and plastic-like artifacts found at the site. Most of the UFO reports were officially dismissed as “meteors” and that witnesses “dreamed up the rest.”

In his foreword and epilogue, veteran ufologist Stanton T. Friedman offers commentary on why the evidence adds up to a cover-up of a “truly outstanding and important event,” and invites readers who may have more evidence or information to come forward.

Is Feschino’s scenario plausible? Some readers will have difficulty accepting perhaps all of it. However, the “official” explanations are not plausible. As one of the Flatwoods eyewitnesses, Kathleen May, stated, “The government just tells you what they want you to believe.”

Whether or not Feschino’s scenario bears out, he has deftly reopened the case to debate. What else will we find?

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Published in FATE in February 2005. For more information about FATE, go to www.fatemag.com