John Keel: Before his descent into “sci-fi dementia”?
Copyright 2017, InterAmerica, Inc.
In Flying Saucers: UFO Reports No.2 from 1967
(pictured here), John Keel has a small article within the magazine’s over-view
“Occupants: Yes or No?” [Page 56 ff.]
Mr. Keel’s section is entitled “Fake or Fact” and presents
several UFO reports involving entities (a favorite UFO sub-topic of mine as you
know).
Keel’s piece opens with this:
“Strange little men with piercing eyes. Accompanied by
gigantic circular flying craft and eerie multi-colored lights in the sky
reportedly visited the picturesque Shenandoah Valley early in 1965.”
Keel then recounts, briefly, an observed “huge object about
125 feet in diameter” said to look like “an old-fashioned bee hive” by a witness
who stated the thing landed in a field. And “had a bluish glow around the
base,” the sighting taking place on December 21, 1964. [Page 57]
Keel also presented a sighting from the Patuxent Naval Air
Station, Md. Where radar picked up objects flying at 4,800 miles per hour,
performing 180-degree turns “in the space of five miles.” [Page 58]
More interesting (for me) were Keel’s accounts of January
19, 1965, one where “two large circular objects … shiny looking as if they were
made of highly polished metal or glass” were spotted by a man chopping wood.
“ … two tiny beings came out of the smaller [craft] and
slowly walked toward” the witness.
“They were 35 to 37 inches tall … shaped like human beings
and … dressed in uniforms [which were] shiny [and had a] metallic appearance
[like] the saucers …
“They advanced to about 12 yards from him … stopped and
uttered some totally unintelligible sounds as if they were trying to tell him
something.”
After an awkward several minutes of incomprehension by the
witness and the entities, “the little creatures … turned, walked back to the
saucer and climbed aboard. A door closed behind them …[seeming] to mold itself
to the ship – there was no sign of a door after it had closed.”
“ … [after] the two objects disappeared … the stunned
witness … sat down and wrote a letter outlining the whole experience, which he
mailed to himself.” [Page 58]
Keel offers an account of seven teenagers, who during the
“UFO hysteria” in the area [late January 1965] were pranked by a fellow, the
teenagers thinking they saw a 3 ½ foot tall being dressed in a silver garment
whom they chased, the little man joined by two other little fellows who outran
the teens.
The prankster was a 36 year old, overweight man who said he
dressed like a “Martian” and outran the teens by jumping from a bush and
running through “mud up to his knees.”
The prankster’s story is iffy but so is that of the teens.
And then there is this:
The photo of a jailed alien, captured by locals, was
actually “a collection of cardboard boxes covered with green cloth, with a
half-gallon plastic jug for a head.” [Page 60]
Keel was, initially, a reporter of note bringing some
credibility to UFO stories and is still lauded by some in the UFO community,
who present his tales with élan, even his views of “ultra-terrestrials” and his
supposed contact with Tim’na a supposed alien who used the name Jaye Paro while
in communication with Keel.
But like many in the UFO community, the topic dragged Keel,
as it does enthusiastic buffs, into a mind-set that mimics schizophrenia, where
one comes to believe they are seeing and hearing ETs (or extra-terrestrials).
This seems to be what happened to Keel shortly after his
1965 accounts covered above.
Keel, who was rumored to be gay at a time before being gay
had cachet, lived until 2009 and the age of 79.
His output was once valued as credible and journalistic but
ended up suffused by what can be considered a patina of “madness.”
RR
posted by RRRGroup at
Sunday, November 26, 2017
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