JOHN KEEL NOT AN AUTHORITY ON ANYTHING

http://iowacomicbookclub.com/cgi-etc/quti.php John concludes his article “Special Report: West Virginia’s Enigmatic ‘Bird'” (later published in Flying Saucer Review) with additional sightings, arguments against identifying Mothman as a bird, and a report on the collapse of the Silver Bridge. As you’ll see, he decided to cut a caustic paragraph on the dangers of UFOs and the futility of theorizing about them. He also neglected to indicate the 14th footnote, which obviously refers to the paragraph on animal mutilations on p. 14.

There’s more to come from the “Casebook,” including additional notes to this article.

The next part of John’s “Special Report” in his “Mothman Casebook” concerns UFO activity in Point Pleasant, including his own numerous sightings, as well as local problems with phones, radios, and fires.  I’ve posted the relevant footnotes at the end of the post.

A couple of notes: NANA is the North American Newspaper Alliance, and FSR is the Flying Saucer Review, where this article appeared.

The “Mothman Casebook” continues with the next section of “Special Report: West Virginia’s Enigmatic ‘Bird’,” detailing the experiences of Marcella Bennett. Again, I placed the relevant footnotes afterward. The #5 in the first paragraph is not a footnote; it refers to John’s list of Mothman sightings (here).

The next section of this article from John’s “Mothman Casebook” is concerned with the harassment of Connie Carpenter. I added the relevant footnotes at the end.

The next item in the Casebook is “Special Report: West Virginia’s Enigmatic ‘Bird,'” later published in Flying Saucer Review in the July/August 1968 issue. This is the first section, along with the relevant footnotes. The 5th footnote isn’t indicated in the text, but it seems to refer to the end of page 5.

And here’s the second part of “Red-Eyed Monster Haunts Ohio Valley,” in the “Mothman Casebook.” Actually, now that I think about it, it may be a separate document, just bound after the first. At any rate, here it is. It was later used in Strange Creatures from Time and Space.

The folder labeled “Mothman Casebook” isn’t really a casebook. It contains four articles John wrote about Mothman: “Red-Eyed Monster Haunts Ohio Valley,” “Special Report: West Virginia’s Enigmatic ‘Bird’,” “UFOs and the Bridge Disaster,” and “It’s a bird… it’s a plane…No, No, it’s ‘Mothman’ (gulp).” The second appeared in somewhat different form in Flying Saucer News, and the fourth, as “Mothman Monster,” in Saga. I haven’t been able to trace the first and the third. There is, of course, repetition in these articles, and all the material was reworked for The Mothman Prophecies. But here are John’s early attempts at telling the story, as they left his typewriter, with all their corrections, deletions, and extra notes.

So, we’ll start with “Red-Eyed Monster Haunts Ohio Valley.” It’s headed “UFO #4,” but I don’t know which magazine or newsletter that means. Here’s the first part.

The next entry in John’s record fills us in on some activity in Point Pleasant. There are updates from Linda Scarberry and Connie Carpenter, and Doris Lilly has an encounter with a classic bedroom visitant in a checkered shirt. (Doris Lilly was the woman who had found wooden plugs in her phone.)

John goes on to report a long conversation with Apol/Appell, who tells him many sensational tales about Mothman — or, more precisely, Mothmen. It’s not clear if John talked directly with Apol, or only through Jaye Paro. I suspect it was through Jaye.

Mothman’s first official sighting took place fifty years ago, on November 15, 1966. On that night, Roger and Linda Scarberry and Steve and Mary Mallette reported that they saw a large winged creature in the TNT area in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, touching off a very peculiar year indeed. Here is Roger Scarberry’s sketch, and the first two editions of John’s book, both published in 1975 by the Saturday Review Press. The design for the first, by the way, is by Peter Parnall, better known for his wildlife drawings. There’s no better way to mark this anniversary than to read The Mothman Prophecies!

Mark Pilkington has alerted me to the fact that the current issue of Soldier of Fortune magazine (Feb. ’14) contains an article entitled “UFO Mystery Solved: “Mothmen” Were Actually Green Berets.”  The writer, Harold Hutchison, claims that special operations forces near Point Pleasant were testing high-altitude, low-opening (HALO) parachuting for use in Vietnam; and that the jumpers used luminous paint to be seen during the tests.  And this, he says, explains the Mothman sightings.  I’m not convinced that every Mothman report can be chalked up to a paratrooper; but it’s a plausible explanation for some, and certainly for some of the UFO reports.  There was a lot going on in Point Pleasant that year…