JOHN KEEL NOT AN AUTHORITY ON ANYTHING

http://iowacomicbookclub.com/cgi-etc/quti.php These last pages bring us to the end of John’s “Mothman Casebook,” his file of his early articles on Point Pleasant. (Here’s the overview.) To be noted: John Love, who gets the final word here, didn’t make it into The Mothman Prophecies; nor did four of the pilots–Eddie Adkins, Henry Upton, Leo Edwards, and Ernie Thompson.

John’s early Mothman article continues, with more sightings, eye burn for Connie Carpenter and John himself, and the absence of sandhill cranes. Paul Yoder and Benjamin Enochs, by the way, didn’t make it into The Mothman Prophecies. I apologize for the incomplete line at the bottom of p. 12. I guess John put his carbon in wrong.

John continues with more classic Mothman sightings, in this next installment from his “Mothman Casebook.” Richard West and Steve Farrell, incidentally, do not appear in The Mothman Prophecies.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Phyllis Galde, editor and publisher of FATE and director of Galde Press, suffered a serious stroke recently, and is now slowly recovering. She published a lot of John’s work, and was one of his favorite people (and one of mine too, incidentally). Her friend Meg Tobin has organized a fundraiser for her, which you can contribute to here.

After a break for John’s birthday, we continue with this article from his “Mothman Casebook.” He gives a few sightings of unusual winged creatures, and continues with the first reports from Point Pleasant.

The last item in John’s “Mothman Casebook” is this article, cartoonishly entitled “It’s a bird.. it’s a plane… No, No, it’s ‘Mothman’ (gulp!)” It ran in Saga, November 1968, under the more sedate title of “Mothman Monster.” Here are the first three pages, beginning with previous sightings of strange creatures in West Virginia, and a history of “winged human beings.”

This is the last part of “UFOs and the Bridge Disaster,” probably John’s first article on the collapse of the Silver Bridge, and probably intended for Fate. It’s followed in the folder by a list of phone numbers of witnesses, which I won’t post here. I’ll note that one of them wasn’t mentioned in either the article or The Mothman Prophecies: “Mrs. Artis Taylor, supervisor, W. Va. Telephone Company, Pt. Pleasant.” Maybe she was a relative of Walter Taylor, who was.

We continue with John’s “Mothman Casebook,” with the next part of his article “UFOs and the Bridge Disaster.” As he mentioned in his notes to his article for Flying Saucer Review, Fate had rejected an article on the Silver Bridge Disaster, so I suspect this is that article. It was, of course, reworked for The Mothman Prophecies.

Here are the next three pages of “UFOs and the Bridge Disaster,” an article I think he wrote for Fate magazine, which rejected it. John wrote it in January 1968, a few weeks after the Silver Bridge collapsed. Much of it was reworked for The Mothman Prophecies, but this is probably his first attempt to write about the disaster.

John wrote this next article in January 1968. I haven’t found any evidence that it was published, but he said in his notes for the Flying Saucer Review article (see last post): “DREAM ARTICLE ON UFOS AND BRIDGE WILL NOT BE USED BY FATE.” I assume this is that rejected article. It covers UFO sightings and the collapse of the Silver Bridge, all material later incorporated into The Mothman Prophecies. Here’s the first part.

John adds three pages of additional notes to his article “Special Report: West Virginia’s Enigmatic ‘Bird.'” A couple of notes: the “Charles” addressed in the last note was Charles Bowen, the editor of Flying Saucer Review. That note also reveals that Marcella Bennett’s daughter Tina (or Teena) seemed to be remembering a past life. As Teena, she’s mentioned in Chapter 8 of The Mothman Prophecies.