John Keel

[Ted the dog]

What's your opinion on John Keel? the only book of his I've read is the mothman prophecies and it was years ago. Do you find him reliable? <p></p><i></i>

[ZeroHaven]

I haven't read his books, but from what I have seen he seems like a level-headed fellow that doesn't immediately jump to conclusions.<br>This <!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://members.tripod.com/~task_2/Wave-Keel.htm" target="top">interview from '73</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--> is a good example of why I think this. I do not think he was hallucinating, but it's possible. <p><!--EZCODE IMAGE START--><img src="http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a239/ZeroHaven/tinhat.gif"/><!--EZCODE IMAGE END--></p><i></i>

[professorpan]

Keel is one of the best. Everything he has written is worth studying. He's at the top of my list, along with Vallee, when it comes to understanding the "high strangeness" phenomena that conventional, nuts-and-bolts ufologists are quick to dismiss. <p></p><i></i>

[Ted the dog]

thanks for the replies guys.<br><br>thanks for the interview link, Zero.<br><br>Prof-<br>I read a good portion of the Mothman Prophecies a long while back and one aspect that really sticks out in my mind was Keel's almost obsessive cataloging of the strange visitors that the local folks encountered. I remember one in particular, where a family had a "visitor" show up and sit down and sort of "interview" them. they said he had strange wires coming out of his pant legs and he reacted weirdly to obvious every day things like ball point pens. As I recall, he mentions a lot of these "visitors". <br><br>Does Keel come back to that specific phenomenon, the "strange visitors", in any of his other writings? <br><br>man, I gotta read Vallee now. I've seen him mentioned way too many times on this board to not read his stuff. <p></p><i></i>

[catalytic converter]

I think I have read all of Keel's books, including the hard to find, out of print ones. If I remember correctly, Valle had a problem with how Keel would jump to conclusions. <br><br>None the less, one would be hard pressed to find another researcher who has put himself on the line more in the course of his research in anomalous phenomena. Mothman is good, and I also recommend Our Haunted Planet. <br><br>In that book he details even more high strangenss that he encounters personally. His issues with his phone were particularly strange. Through it all he seems to keep a level head. He did fall for those predictions regarding the pope's death pretty hard as described in Mothman, but it is presented as a cautionary tale. You certainly get a sense that the universe is far stranger than we can imagine. <p></p><i></i>

[Pierre d'Achoppement]

I bought 'Operation Trojan Horse' secondhand some time ago. I found it to be a thrilling read, but his mentioning the Cottingley Fairies as very convincing (in 1970!) unfortunately forced me to put his credibility in perspective.

[professorpan]

There are a couple of videos of Keel on YouTube.

[Pierre d'Achoppement]

You're a mentalist.

[Pierre d'Achoppement]

Well Professorpan, I hope I didn't scare you away with the mentalist remark! It's just that I read in a topic somewhere that you actually are a mentalist and I had just watched a funny clip on youtube about someone being a mentalist.

Somewhat on topic: after John Keel's credibility drop I decided to check out a secondhand copy of "Invisible College" by Jacques Vallee. Within the first few pages he mentions Uri Geller as a credible source! What the?!

[professorpan]

Nope, you didn't scare me off, Pierre. I've written a good bit here about my mentalist activities (in a Derren Brown thread, I think).

Keel has had his share of mistakes, as has Vallee. Keel was initially hoaxed by a writer friend of mine, Tom Monteleone, back in the 70s. Tom feels pretty bad about it now -- he was a college kid and was just trying to have some fun, but some stuff he made up just synchronistically matched the account of a totally unrelated contactee (Derenberger). Keel published Tom's account in "Mothman Prophecies."

Here's an interesting article from Jerry Clark which mentions the hoax. I don't always agree with Jerry, but I respect the work he's done over the past few decades.

http://ourstrangeplanet.com/index.php?o ... &Itemid=60

[Wombaticus Rex]

Some of Keel's best work in PDF is available here:

http://aiwazzsaying.blogspot.com/2008/0 ... -real.html