JOHN KEEL NOT AN AUTHORITY ON ANYTHING

John died on July 3, 2009. Here’s how he looked if you ran into him on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, checking out the sidewalk book tables. Rest In Peace, John!

Out of curiosity, I tried to find out what book he was holding. On the original photo, you can make out part of the title and the author’s name: it seems to be Say “Cheese!”: Looking at Snapshots in a New Way, by Graham King. I mentioned this to Mamie Caton, who knew John, and she said “That’s exactly the kind of book he would be looking at.”

I don’t recognize the man next to him; he may just be another book shopper.

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!

This next group of definitions contains some terms unfamiliar to me, particularly “invo” and its related words “invof” and “invoh.” Donald Menzel was an early and active UFO debunker, beginning with his 1953 book Flying Saucers. Philip Klass began his debunking career in the late ’60s. And once again, John didn’t finish one of the entries. How did karma fit into the Keelian view?

June 24 is St. John’s Day–a day to celebrate midsummer, Kenneth Arnold’s famous sighting, and everyone named John. Happy St. John’s Day!

Here are five more definitions for you to contemplate, plus one incomplete entry. It’s too bad we don’t have John’s thoughts on hypnotism, which was such an important part of the abductee culture. If you’re interested in inner-earth theories, I recommend Walter Kafton-Minkel’s fine historical survey Subterranean Worlds, published by the late lamented Loompanics in 1989. It’s out of print now, but maybe you’ll get lucky. As I recall, John was impressed with it, and curious about the author, who was unknown in Fortean circles. And John too received letters from the “International Bankers”; see here for an example.

Here are the next five definitions, plus two terms that John never got around to defining. As mentioned in the last post, the Romani have sometimes been linked to UFO sightings; unfortunately, John didn’t provide details here. Hallucinations, I should point out, can have other causes, including illness, drugs, and sleep deprivation. Holograms, I’ll also point out, cannot be viewed from all sides. I don’t know what a “humanid” is; maybe John meant “hominid.” It’s too bad he didn’t note how it differs from a “humanoid.” And I’m curious about that assertion that a hybrid human inherits the dominant characteristics of both species. Where did that idea come from?

The next five definitions take us from “Gold” to “Green men.” I don’t know what meaning gold has in this context; I suppose it could have many, given its many physical properties and rich cultural history. I had never heard of “Golden Eyes.” “LF,” as John explains later in this dictionary, means “Long Fingers,” defined as malevolent entities with “unusually long fingers.” I had also never heard of gravitational waves pulsating hourly. Finally, the “Green men” here sound more like the fairies of Celtic folklore than the little green men of science fiction–although the two traditions often overlap.

ADDENDUM: Here’s the classic image of a “little green man” from illustrator Kelly Freas. By 1955, little green men had turned from a sci-fi cliché to a comic trope (Brown’s novel is actually pretty funny).

Here are five more definitions for you to contemplate. The inclusion of the Romani may seem out of place in this context, but some ufologists have linked them with UFOs, and John noted reports of “Gypsies” in Point Pleasant in the ’60s (in Chapter 12 of The Mothman Prophecies). Hydrogen sulfide is reported in many paranormal experiences; I don’t know what part fluorine plays here. “Swamp gas” was J. Allen Hynek’s controversial explanation for some UFO sightings in 1966. And lastly, John defines “God” for you! God, after all, drives a flying saucer.

All right, here are the next five definitions. John gives us good succinct definitions of eye burn and flaps, but, unfortunately, never got around to defining frequencies. I’ve never heard of the word “freezex”; my guess is that it’s a typo for “freezes.” For those interested in more ideas about the 4th dimension, I recommend Geometry, Relativity, and the Fourth Dimension, by Rudolf v.B. Rucker, which you can read here.

Here are the next five definitions from John’s unfinished UFO dictionary. The idea of etheric ships, I believe, was first suggested by Meade Layne. The Omega Group is defined later in the dictionary: “General term for hostile or malevolent ultra-terrestrials.” His definition of “The Third Eye” is certainly a provocative combination of elements.

John owned a copy of the familiar “ESP cards” developed by J. B. Rhine and Karl Zener at Duke University in the early 1930s; I assume he experimented with them. Here, as a footnote, is a scan of the box, as well as a deck from my own library: the edition distributed free by Zenith Radio Dealers in 1937, so listeners could participate in the “Zenith Foundation Telepathy Program,” aired on Sunday nights on CBS.

I’m giving you ten entries this time, since John never got around to defining five of them. The undefined terms may be frustrating, but I include them since they show what he thought was relevant. In this batch, among other things, he decisively equates ghosts with elementals and gives the first term taken from Richard Shaver’s vocabulary.

I’ve long been fascinated by Shaver’s elaborate mythology, particularly his paintings, based on the images he saw in rocks (long story). I’m one of the few discriminating art-lovers that owns one, so I’ll include a photo of it here as a footnote.

And here’s the Shaver painting: