NEW AGE OBITUARY: FAMED UFO RESEARCHER and TRAILBLAZER JOHN A KEEL HAS
DIED AT AGE 79 –
Posted by: Loren Coleman on July 6th, 2009
JOHN ALVA KEEL, 79, a friend, Fortean, fierce fighter for his theories,
professionally a writer and journalist, has died. A fellow admirer of
Mothman and the anomalies all around us, such as the "name game," is
gone.
KEEL, who lived most of his life in New York City, passed away on
Friday, July 3, 2009, at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, after
some months in a nursing home near his Upper West Side apartment. Born
Alva John Kiehle in upstate New York on March 25, 1930, John Keel began
writing at a young age. Indeed, Keel's first published story was in a
magician's magazine at the age of 12.
KEEL would go on to become a scriptwriter for radio and television, and
a stringer for newspapers. He later moved to Greenwich Village and wrote
for various men's and speciality magazines. Keel's first published book
was JADOO in 1957, which was quickly serialized in a men's adventure
magazine. The paperback is his account of his journey of discovery to
India to investigate the alleged activities of fakirs and holy men who
perform the Indian rope trick and who survive being buried alive. In
Jadoo, Keel also told of tracking a Yeti, an Abominable Snowman, in the
jungles of Asia.
JOHN A KEEL's non-fiction look at the very real unplanned twists in life
were recorded in his 1966 novel, The Fickle Finger of Fate. It is a rare
book, and few realize it was written. Keel was an early admirer of
Charles Fort (1874-1932), and while still doing the mainstream writing,
began authoring articles for England's Flying Saucer Review (FSR) and a
long series of columns for Saga.
Further influenced by Fortean Ivan T. Sanderson and ufologist Aimee
Michel, in early 1966, John Keel commenced a full-time investigation of
monster, aerial and paranormal phenomena. Over a 4-year period, Keel
interviewed thousands of people in over 20 U.S. states, especially in
the Ohio River Valley of the United States. More than 2,000 books were
reviewed in the course of his investigation, in addition to thousands of
magazines, newsletters, and newspapers.
KEEL also subscribed to several newspaper-clipping services, which often
generated up to 150 clippings for a single day during the 1966 and 1967
UFO "wave." Besides FSR, Keel wrote for several magazines including Saga
with one 1967 article "UFO Agents of Terror" referring to the Men in
Black. He also wrote one of the first articles on Mothman in FSR, during
this same time period.
Like other contemporary 1960s researchers such as J. Allen Hynek and
Jacques Vallee, Keel was initially hopeful that he could somehow
validate the prevailing nuts-and-bolts, extraterrestrial visitation
hypothesis for UFOs. However, a year into his investigations, Keel
realized that the extraterrestrial hypothesis was untenable. Indeed,
both Hynek and Valle eventually arrived at a similar conclusion. Keel's
insights also included his view of cryptozoology.
I grew to know Keel after being introduced to him through mutual friends
Brad Steiger and Ivan Sanderson. I worked closely with Keel on
contributing as yet-unpublished material of mine for his book, STRANGE
CREATURES FROM TIME and SPACE (1970), which would influence my and
Jerome Clark's first two books The Unidentified (1975) and Creatures
from the Outer Edge (1978).
KEEL's impact is far-reaching. Keel's book, STRANGE CREATURES FROM TIME and SPACE was the inspiration for Craig Woolheater's interest in Bigfoot and eventually would stimulate the creation of Cryptomundo. Love him or hate him, John Keel was popular and one of the most widely read and influential Fortean authors of the late 20th century. Although his own
thoughts about aerial, monster, and associated anomalous phenomena
gradually evolved during the 1960s, Keel remained one of ufology's most
original and controversial researchers.
It was Keel's second book, UFOs:OPERATION TROJAN HORSE (1970), that alerted the general public that many aspects of contemporary UFO reports, including humanoid encounters, often paralleled certain ancient folklore and religious encounters. Keel also argued that there is a direct relationship between UFOs and elemental phenomena. Keel informed me often that he did not consider himself a "ufologist," but a "demonologist."
"UFOlogy is just another name for demonology," John Keel told me, a week
before the September 11th attack on the World Trade Center, which
occurred just a couple of miles from where he lives … as noted in
Mothman and Other Curious Encounters, page 114, (NY: Paraview, 2002).
As KEEL himself wrote, "I abandoned the extraterrestrial hypothesis in
1967 when my own field investigations disclosed an astonishing overlap
between psychic phenomena and UFOs … The objects and apparitions do
NOT necessaily originate on another planet and may not even exist as
permanent constructions of matter. It is more likely that we see what we
want to see and interpret such visions according to our contemporary
beliefs."
In UFOs: OPERATION TROJAN HORSE (1970), Keel argued that a non-human or spiritual intelligence source has staged whole events over a long period of time in order to propagate and reinforce certain erroneous belief systems (mirroring Vallee). Keel conjectured that ultimately all
anomalies, such as fairies, 1897 mystery airships, 1930s phantom
aeroplanes, mystery helicopters, creatures, poltergeists, balls of
light, and UFOs, are a cover for the real phenomenon.
It was during this time period that Keel maintained an enormous and
active correspondence with other researchers around the world. For
example, I, Loren Coleman, was introduced to my now long-time friend
Jerry Clark by John Keel, via letters. These exchanges between Keel and
his fellow writers and researchers, even as intellectual disagreements
and different paths took many of us on varied journeys, cemented 40
years of solid friendships among a small group of dedicated Fortean
writers.
In OUR HAUNTED PLANET (1971), Keel coined the term "ultraterrestrials"
to describe the UFO occupants. He discussed the seldom-considered
possibility that the alien "visitors" to Earth are not visitors at all,
but an advanced Earth civilization, which may or may not be human. Keel
took no position on the ultimate purpose of the phenomenon other than
that the UFO intelligence seems to have a long-standing interest in
interacting with the human race.
UFO historian Jerome Clark wrote that Keel was "a radical theorist who
believes that UFOs are 'ultraterrestrial' rather than extraterrrestrial.
By that he means they are shape-changing phenomena from another order of existence. These ultraterrestials are basically hostile to, or at least
contemptuous of, human beings and manipulate them in various wasy for
example by staging 'miracles' which inspire unfounded religious beliefs.
Ultraterrestrials and their minions may manifest as monsters, space
people, ghosts and other paranormal entities." (The UFO Encyclopedia,
Volume 1: UFOs in the 1980s, page 148, NY: Agogee, 1990).
After years of writing parts of the story in various articles and other
books, in 1975, Keel published The MOTHMAN PROPHECIES, an account of his 1966-1967 investigation of sightings of the Mothman, a "winged weirdie" reported in and around Point Pleasant, West Virginia.
KEEL corresponded with Ivan T. Sanderson, quietly for months, trying to
determine what kind of bird might be involved with the sightings. It was
later, as Keel more fully revealed the tale of the sightings and
concurrent phenomena, that other elements came into the mix.
The book was contemporarily adapted into a 2002 movie directed by Mark
Pellington, starring Richard Gere, Debra Messing, Laura Linney and Alan
Bates. Two parts of Keel's personality were played by Gere and Bates.
Bates's character was "Leek," which was "Keel" spelled backwards, and
Gere's character was a newspaperman, "John Klein," also a play on Keel's
name.
Because Keel was ill at the time, Sony/Screen Gems cut back Keel's
schedule of public appearances to only a few televised ones. I assisted
Keel by becoming the movie's publicity spokesperson on 400 radio shows,
and appeared with Keel in the David Grabias documentary Search For The
Mothman, which is in the Deluxe DVD of The Mothman Prophecies.
KEEL often played, with tongue-in-cheek, on the Men-In-Black interest
swirling around his work. At the time of the release of the movie, a
rumor circulated that Keel had died. On January 14, 2002, a story
rapidly made the rounds via the web that John A. Keel had just died.
I quickly put the rumor to rest by calling Keel, and confirming that
Keel was, indeed, still alive, although Keel quipped that everyone
should be told, "his funeral is on Saturday and he will be wearing
black." Keel told me that this happened to him at least once before, in
1967.
In recent years, Keel's appearances would be few and far between. But
his sense of humor never left him, including wearing an all white suit
to the Mothman Festival in Point Pleasant, West Virginia for the
unveiling of the new Mothman replica.
KEEL suffered a heart attack sometime before October 13, 2006. He
admitted himself to New York City's Lenox Hill Hospital on Friday the
13th of October, and underwent successful heart surgery on October 16,
2006. KEEL then was moved from the hospital to a rehabilitation center
on October 26, 2006, as his close New York friend Doug Skinner told me
soon afterward. Skinner became invaluable in assisting Keel, and passing
along messages to and from Keel's old friends.
On July 6, 2009, as word swept through the Internet, from Phyllis
Benjamin at INFO and others, that Keel had passed away last Friday,
tributes and sorrow were shared online in overwhelming fashion from his
followers, fans, and friends.
KEEL's impact cannot be underestimated, especially in terms of his
analysis of patterns. His work on "windows" (specific hotspots of
combined phenomenal appearances), "waves" (cyclic appearances of the
phenomena), and the "Wednesday phenomenon" (the theory that a
disproportionate number of UFO events occur on that day of the week) are
deeply influential across time and space.
Generations of readers of Fortean literature often do not even realize
that Keel's writings may be behind "name game" discussions or authors'
speculations on the fact that a certain location on a ridge might have a
high rate of strange events occurring there after the 21st of the month
on a Wednesday in a high-frequency month such as April. Keel was there
first trying to look at such patterns.
The popular cultural influence of KEEL has been enormous. It shall take
future academic studies to fully realize his reach among the subculture
that respects and are denizens of his ongoing intellectual playground.
JOHN A KEEL WILL BE MISSED....
------------------------------------------
Copyright © 2005 - 2009, Cryptomundo. All rights reserved.
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DIED AT AGE 79 –
Posted by: Loren Coleman on July 6th, 2009
JOHN ALVA KEEL, 79, a friend, Fortean, fierce fighter for his theories,
professionally a writer and journalist, has died. A fellow admirer of
Mothman and the anomalies all around us, such as the "name game," is
gone.
KEEL, who lived most of his life in New York City, passed away on
Friday, July 3, 2009, at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, after
some months in a nursing home near his Upper West Side apartment. Born
Alva John Kiehle in upstate New York on March 25, 1930, John Keel began
writing at a young age. Indeed, Keel's first published story was in a
magician's magazine at the age of 12.
KEEL would go on to become a scriptwriter for radio and television, and
a stringer for newspapers. He later moved to Greenwich Village and wrote
for various men's and speciality magazines. Keel's first published book
was JADOO in 1957, which was quickly serialized in a men's adventure
magazine. The paperback is his account of his journey of discovery to
India to investigate the alleged activities of fakirs and holy men who
perform the Indian rope trick and who survive being buried alive. In
Jadoo, Keel also told of tracking a Yeti, an Abominable Snowman, in the
jungles of Asia.
JOHN A KEEL's non-fiction look at the very real unplanned twists in life
were recorded in his 1966 novel, The Fickle Finger of Fate. It is a rare
book, and few realize it was written. Keel was an early admirer of
Charles Fort (1874-1932), and while still doing the mainstream writing,
began authoring articles for England's Flying Saucer Review (FSR) and a
long series of columns for Saga.
Further influenced by Fortean Ivan T. Sanderson and ufologist Aimee
Michel, in early 1966, John Keel commenced a full-time investigation of
monster, aerial and paranormal phenomena. Over a 4-year period, Keel
interviewed thousands of people in over 20 U.S. states, especially in
the Ohio River Valley of the United States. More than 2,000 books were
reviewed in the course of his investigation, in addition to thousands of
magazines, newsletters, and newspapers.
KEEL also subscribed to several newspaper-clipping services, which often
generated up to 150 clippings for a single day during the 1966 and 1967
UFO "wave." Besides FSR, Keel wrote for several magazines including Saga
with one 1967 article "UFO Agents of Terror" referring to the Men in
Black. He also wrote one of the first articles on Mothman in FSR, during
this same time period.
Like other contemporary 1960s researchers such as J. Allen Hynek and
Jacques Vallee, Keel was initially hopeful that he could somehow
validate the prevailing nuts-and-bolts, extraterrestrial visitation
hypothesis for UFOs. However, a year into his investigations, Keel
realized that the extraterrestrial hypothesis was untenable. Indeed,
both Hynek and Valle eventually arrived at a similar conclusion. Keel's
insights also included his view of cryptozoology.
I grew to know Keel after being introduced to him through mutual friends
Brad Steiger and Ivan Sanderson. I worked closely with Keel on
contributing as yet-unpublished material of mine for his book, STRANGE
CREATURES FROM TIME and SPACE (1970), which would influence my and
Jerome Clark's first two books The Unidentified (1975) and Creatures
from the Outer Edge (1978).
KEEL's impact is far-reaching. Keel's book, STRANGE CREATURES FROM TIME and SPACE was the inspiration for Craig Woolheater's interest in Bigfoot and eventually would stimulate the creation of Cryptomundo. Love him or hate him, John Keel was popular and one of the most widely read and influential Fortean authors of the late 20th century. Although his own
thoughts about aerial, monster, and associated anomalous phenomena
gradually evolved during the 1960s, Keel remained one of ufology's most
original and controversial researchers.
It was Keel's second book, UFOs:OPERATION TROJAN HORSE (1970), that alerted the general public that many aspects of contemporary UFO reports, including humanoid encounters, often paralleled certain ancient folklore and religious encounters. Keel also argued that there is a direct relationship between UFOs and elemental phenomena. Keel informed me often that he did not consider himself a "ufologist," but a "demonologist."
"UFOlogy is just another name for demonology," John Keel told me, a week
before the September 11th attack on the World Trade Center, which
occurred just a couple of miles from where he lives … as noted in
Mothman and Other Curious Encounters, page 114, (NY: Paraview, 2002).
As KEEL himself wrote, "I abandoned the extraterrestrial hypothesis in
1967 when my own field investigations disclosed an astonishing overlap
between psychic phenomena and UFOs … The objects and apparitions do
NOT necessaily originate on another planet and may not even exist as
permanent constructions of matter. It is more likely that we see what we
want to see and interpret such visions according to our contemporary
beliefs."
In UFOs: OPERATION TROJAN HORSE (1970), Keel argued that a non-human or spiritual intelligence source has staged whole events over a long period of time in order to propagate and reinforce certain erroneous belief systems (mirroring Vallee). Keel conjectured that ultimately all
anomalies, such as fairies, 1897 mystery airships, 1930s phantom
aeroplanes, mystery helicopters, creatures, poltergeists, balls of
light, and UFOs, are a cover for the real phenomenon.
It was during this time period that Keel maintained an enormous and
active correspondence with other researchers around the world. For
example, I, Loren Coleman, was introduced to my now long-time friend
Jerry Clark by John Keel, via letters. These exchanges between Keel and
his fellow writers and researchers, even as intellectual disagreements
and different paths took many of us on varied journeys, cemented 40
years of solid friendships among a small group of dedicated Fortean
writers.
In OUR HAUNTED PLANET (1971), Keel coined the term "ultraterrestrials"
to describe the UFO occupants. He discussed the seldom-considered
possibility that the alien "visitors" to Earth are not visitors at all,
but an advanced Earth civilization, which may or may not be human. Keel
took no position on the ultimate purpose of the phenomenon other than
that the UFO intelligence seems to have a long-standing interest in
interacting with the human race.
UFO historian Jerome Clark wrote that Keel was "a radical theorist who
believes that UFOs are 'ultraterrestrial' rather than extraterrrestrial.
By that he means they are shape-changing phenomena from another order of existence. These ultraterrestials are basically hostile to, or at least
contemptuous of, human beings and manipulate them in various wasy for
example by staging 'miracles' which inspire unfounded religious beliefs.
Ultraterrestrials and their minions may manifest as monsters, space
people, ghosts and other paranormal entities." (The UFO Encyclopedia,
Volume 1: UFOs in the 1980s, page 148, NY: Agogee, 1990).
After years of writing parts of the story in various articles and other
books, in 1975, Keel published The MOTHMAN PROPHECIES, an account of his 1966-1967 investigation of sightings of the Mothman, a "winged weirdie" reported in and around Point Pleasant, West Virginia.
KEEL corresponded with Ivan T. Sanderson, quietly for months, trying to
determine what kind of bird might be involved with the sightings. It was
later, as Keel more fully revealed the tale of the sightings and
concurrent phenomena, that other elements came into the mix.
The book was contemporarily adapted into a 2002 movie directed by Mark
Pellington, starring Richard Gere, Debra Messing, Laura Linney and Alan
Bates. Two parts of Keel's personality were played by Gere and Bates.
Bates's character was "Leek," which was "Keel" spelled backwards, and
Gere's character was a newspaperman, "John Klein," also a play on Keel's
name.
Because Keel was ill at the time, Sony/Screen Gems cut back Keel's
schedule of public appearances to only a few televised ones. I assisted
Keel by becoming the movie's publicity spokesperson on 400 radio shows,
and appeared with Keel in the David Grabias documentary Search For The
Mothman, which is in the Deluxe DVD of The Mothman Prophecies.
KEEL often played, with tongue-in-cheek, on the Men-In-Black interest
swirling around his work. At the time of the release of the movie, a
rumor circulated that Keel had died. On January 14, 2002, a story
rapidly made the rounds via the web that John A. Keel had just died.
I quickly put the rumor to rest by calling Keel, and confirming that
Keel was, indeed, still alive, although Keel quipped that everyone
should be told, "his funeral is on Saturday and he will be wearing
black." Keel told me that this happened to him at least once before, in
1967.
In recent years, Keel's appearances would be few and far between. But
his sense of humor never left him, including wearing an all white suit
to the Mothman Festival in Point Pleasant, West Virginia for the
unveiling of the new Mothman replica.
KEEL suffered a heart attack sometime before October 13, 2006. He
admitted himself to New York City's Lenox Hill Hospital on Friday the
13th of October, and underwent successful heart surgery on October 16,
2006. KEEL then was moved from the hospital to a rehabilitation center
on October 26, 2006, as his close New York friend Doug Skinner told me
soon afterward. Skinner became invaluable in assisting Keel, and passing
along messages to and from Keel's old friends.
On July 6, 2009, as word swept through the Internet, from Phyllis
Benjamin at INFO and others, that Keel had passed away last Friday,
tributes and sorrow were shared online in overwhelming fashion from his
followers, fans, and friends.
KEEL's impact cannot be underestimated, especially in terms of his
analysis of patterns. His work on "windows" (specific hotspots of
combined phenomenal appearances), "waves" (cyclic appearances of the
phenomena), and the "Wednesday phenomenon" (the theory that a
disproportionate number of UFO events occur on that day of the week) are
deeply influential across time and space.
Generations of readers of Fortean literature often do not even realize
that Keel's writings may be behind "name game" discussions or authors'
speculations on the fact that a certain location on a ridge might have a
high rate of strange events occurring there after the 21st of the month
on a Wednesday in a high-frequency month such as April. Keel was there
first trying to look at such patterns.
The popular cultural influence of KEEL has been enormous. It shall take
future academic studies to fully realize his reach among the subculture
that respects and are denizens of his ongoing intellectual playground.
JOHN A KEEL WILL BE MISSED....
------------------------------------------
Copyright © 2005 - 2009, Cryptomundo. All rights reserved.
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... you can always hope 
