The next few definitions in John’s unfinished dictionary contain a couple of curious items. I knew “limiting point” as a term in geometry, but hadn’t heard of it applied to the speed of light. And while I’d read descriptions of aliens with long fingers, I wasn’t familiar with it as a “generic term.”
POSTSCRIPT: I’ve just learned that Archives for the Unexplained have posted many of John’s articles for Saga here. A feast for Keel fans!
People who believe the ultraterrestrials are actually cryptoterrestrials —a hidden species or subspecies of human— can point to the length of the fingers of these entities. Apes have longer fingers than humans as seen in Battersea this comparison of a man’s hand with that of a chimpanzee. Prehistoric man often had long fingers, like in this forty thousand year old hand stencil from Borneo.
Comment by Mestiere — July 1, 2022 @ 7:21 am
Interesting! Hand size varies, of course. Ragtime pianist Eubie Blake had hands that could span 12 keys (11 inches), even in his 90s.
Comment by Doug — July 1, 2022 @ 8:33 am
Thanks for the articles link. What a treasure trove!
Comment by Marsh — July 1, 2022 @ 9:58 am
Wow, sixty articles. I’ll read them all.
Comment by Mestiere — July 1, 2022 @ 10:53 am
Hi Doug,
My thanks, too, for the heads up re John’s articles and I’ll have a read. One of the delights of life is stumbling over an unread Keel article. I still love the little man of Gaffney report.
Best,
Al
Comment by Al in Aust — July 3, 2022 @ 5:17 pm
Doug, JAK has confused his terms here. Limiting point is a geometry term. There is no term in Special Relativity like this as mass has infinite velocity – and requires infinite energy to move the mass. The speed of light itself is limiting as nothing can go beyond that. I’m guessing this was part of JAK’s attempt to explain Special Relativity in layman’s terms in the first draft of Mothman.
And the long fingers- Rachmaninoff hands! *cue Mephisto Waltz* It’s incredible to look back at the last 60 years and see how many of Keel’s concepts have entered Paranormal folklore today. In 1967 “long fingers” was fringe among the fringe; today it’s accepted.
And thank you for the SAGA archives! Young ladies of 9 were not allowed to read SAGA in 1967. We had to bribe someone’s older brother to sneak one out of his father’s den for a couple of hours. We invested a lot of gum, candy bars and milk money!
Comment by Cat — July 13, 2022 @ 9:56 am
I wonder: our monetary system is based on 10. It would seem that the ancients, probably had two hands with five digits. Our navigation system is based on 6 or 12? Where are the six digit ancestors? Six or have a dozen?
Comment by BRIAN john KRAJCI — August 3, 2022 @ 10:55 pm
Have a dozen!
Comment by BRIAN john KRAJCI — August 3, 2022 @ 10:56 pm
In the US, we use decimal numbers (base 10), but still use imperial measurement, which is all based on 12. Most of the rest of the world has switched to the metric system, but apparently we don’t want to. Go figure!
Comment by Doug — August 4, 2022 @ 4:30 pm