John Keel: A Paragon of Insight or a Paranoid swunk

Copyright 2018, InterAmerica, Inc.

Again I see a reference to John Keel (by Chris Savia for The Anomalist, 10/7).

My pal, Nick Redfern is a John Keel fanboy, as are many other UFO advocates.

I had and have most of John Keel’s works in my UFO library, and he had been an influence on me in my earlier years following the flying saucer topic.

His works are noted here (by Wikipedia):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Keel

But its obvious to those with psychological training that John Keel descended into a paranoidal madness, beginning in the late 1960s.

John was a closeted homosexual (perhaps) during a time when being gay was not the au courant status it is today but he lived long enough to see that being gay wasn’t the bane that engulfed many earlier on, Oscar Wilde the archetype of the persecuted advocate of “the love that dare not speak its name.”

(Some say that Ambrose Bierce, very likely a person John Keel admired, was gay.)

In our time, Bruce Duensing, not gay, seemed near madness at the time of his death. He and I communicated avidly during his final days, he suggesting his heart doctor (yikes!) for me and offering his home where I might stay if I decided to take him up on the offer.

Bruce told me that he had an uncle who was a Nazi officer working in the death camps, a connection that bothered Bruce mightily.

During this time, after Bruce’s son committed suicide, Bruce saw an apparition in his kitchen, and had me contact Bruce Maccabee to evaluate a photo of the apparition that Bruce captured.

Was Bruce and John mad (somewhat or more), or did they have access to something outside normal reality which left them with a patina of madness, something, I think, that is the overlay of many who are ascribed to be schizophrenic but which is only the appearance of madness brought about by one’s inability to explain or communicate the weirdness they were experiencing or had experienced?

My take is that John Keel became apparently demented because of the supposed communications by “the others” that took over his life about which he wrote extensively.

The John Keel web-site [http://www.johnkeel.com] provides access to the communications that ruined John Keel’s life.

That today’s paranomalists or ufologists keep foisting John’s oeuvre (the latter stuff anyway) on unsuspecting UFO newbies and the gullible oldsters is kind of shameful.

It does disservice to John’s early work(s) and to the truth of what John’s reality had become.

That the Men in Black, fostered by John Keel and made redolent by Nick and Savia, are seen as possible psychic manifestations rather than the ambassadors of CIA or government secrecy helps understand John Keel’s bouts with dementia (madness).

But to keep lauding John’s work as a bastion of insight goes a bit far I think.

His memory and work have to be put into perspective, honoring him accordingly and proffering the truth and reality as it was or really is.

RR