JOHN KEEL NOT AN AUTHORITY ON ANYTHING

ad-lib We’ve gone through the “Official Correspondence” file for 1966, so now I’ll turn to the correspondence between John and Lynn Catoe, with occasional contributions from Ivan Sanderson. John and Ms. Catoe did start dating after a few months; I will, of course, only post the letters about their UFO research. No love letters for you, Keel fans!

On October 12, Lynn E. Catoe, bibliographer for the Library of Congress, wrote to Margaret Rose for advice on a proposed bibliography of UFOs. I haven’t found anything about Margaret Rose, but I assume she had an interest in parapsychology, and was not the Countess of Snowdon of the same name. Ms. Rose passed on John and Ms. Catoe’s addresses to each other. Ms. Catoe’s UFO bibliography was published in 1969; it can be found here.

In this letter, John pitches an article to Andrew Mills, associate editor of True. The article was to be about “a constant hotbed of UFO reports” in Virginia in 1965. His pitch seems to have been rejected. True did publish an article of his in February, 1967, “Never Mind the Saucer! Did You See the Guys Who Were Driving!”, reprinted in The TRUE Report on Flying Saucers that year as “Who Was That 6-Inch High Animated Tin Can I Saw You With Last Night?” It doesn’t mention the Virginia sightings, though, and I don’t know of any other article he wrote about them.

Coral Lorenzen’s last letter in the “Official Correspondence 1966” file concerns a visit to New York by Olavo Fontes, the Brazilian doctor who had investigated the Villas Boas case. Ms. Lorenzen recommends some APRO members he might want to meet, and fills in John on a recent increase in membership, due at least in part to recent books by Jacques Vallee and John G. Fuller. UFOs were a hot topic in 1966!

John writes to Long John Nebel, who hosted an all-night radio talk show that often centered on UFOs. He offers to plug his new book, The Fickle Finger of Fate, or to appear as a ufologist. Nebel’s format included a panel who often interviewed guests while he took a break. Apparently, John hadn’t appeared on the show since he’d plugged Jadoo in the ’50s. There’s no response in the file, so I don’t know if he ever discussed his superhero spoof, but he did appear on the panel later.