JOHN KEEL NOT AN AUTHORITY ON ANYTHING

I interrupt my posting of “The Answer” for a couple of Keelian tidbits.

The first is that YouTube has informed me that the second part of “On Exhibition,” a film that John and Ed Lord made in 1963, violates community standards. In this comic short, John plays a drunk bewildered by the paintings in the Museum of Modern Art. The first part, in which he gets thrown out of several bars, is apparently fine, but the artwork in the Museum must have offended someone. Anthony Matt and I posted it back in 2011, so it took ten years for it to become objectionable.

I also note that an early piece by John has cropped up on eBay: a humorous article on songwriting, published in the April 23, 1946 edition of Hobo News. John was only 16 at the time. The seller is asking $400, which is more than I can afford, but if any of you snap it up, let me know. I took a screen shot, and added the article to the bibliography.

And next week, we’ll return to “The Answer.”

John’s private file “The Answer” continues. The third part is entitled “Where Are They From?” It’s preceded by a list of “UFO bases on Long Island.” In later years John said he realized some places he thought were UFO bases were actually military sites; I assume that includes this list.

A couple of things to note: he says in the first paragraph that he had face-to-face meetings with the Androids. This surprises me; in the “Special Cases” file that this is based on, he mentions letters and phone calls, but not in-person interactions. (One of the letters he mentions is here.) Also, this may be his first use of the term “ultra-terrestrial”: he originally used “ultra-dimensional,” and then changed it.

We continue with John’s 1967 file, “The Answer,” in which he set down his private conclusions about the UFO phenomenon. This is the second part of the second chapter, “The Psychology of the Androids,” assembling descriptions of the aliens/androids and their behavior from contactees’ reports. In the next chapter, he will try to solve that recurring ufological puzzle, “Where Are They From?”

We continue with John’s private summation of his conclusions (as of 1967) about the UFO puzzle, “The Answer.” In the second chapter, he describes “The Psychology of the Androids,” taken from the reports of his network of contactees. This is the first part of it. The sulfa pills that he mentions can be seen here.

This concludes “Part One” of John’s curious private document, “The Answer.” He discusses the hypnotic session here, and the Gideon Bible incident here. The last paragraph is puzzling. It’s addressed to a reader, so John obviously expected this file to be read. But by whom?

We continue with “The Answer,” John’s private summation of his beliefs about the UFO enigma, as of 1967. It was drawn from his “Special Cases” file, which records reports from contactees. In this section, he outlines his conclusions about the “Androids.”

Since some of you readers out there may chance upon this material unprepared, let me repeat that it’s an early phase of John’s work, superseded by later research. I think it’s of interest to his fans, though, and no doubt informed his public writings from that time.

We continue with the next part of “The Answer,” John’s summation of his private beliefs about the UFO phenomenon in 1967. As John says, they “seem totally ridiculous,” but he also seems to have taken them seriously at the time. They synthesize the information he received from his network of contactees, and he placed special confidence in his correspondence with “Mr. Apol,” a supposed alien whom he contacted through the contactee Jaye Paro. (Here‘s one of the questionnaires he sent him.) One puzzle (among many): if this was “for discussion purposes,” who did he discuss it with?

And again, this represents an early stage in John’s interpretation, and posting it certainly doesn’t mean that I agree with it!

“The Answer” is the title John gave to “a series of brief articles” outlining what he then (1967) thought was the answer to the UFO enigma.

I hesitated about posting it, since, after all, John said it was not for publication. That reservation, though, was based on his conviction that he had uncovered “the most important event in the history of Mankind”–which, as he later realized, he hadn’t. So, I see no problem with posting it after all these years, with my own caveat that it doesn’t represent John’s later views.

As he notes on the cover, the material is derived from his “Special Cases” file, which I posted earlier. Readers of this site will remember that it was largely devoted to the claims of contactees, particularly Jaye Paro, who inundated him with wild stories, and to the information he received from “Mr. Apol,” a purported alien (although not necessarily an extraterrestrial; Apol was always vague about his origins). As far as I know, John never met or spoke directly with him, and all communication was through Jaye Paro. “The Answer” summarizes and synthesizes this material, much of which he apparently accepted.

This is a strange document in many ways, both for its content and its backstory, and obviously very important to John at the time. Please read it for its insight into John’s development and character, not as evidence for a hostile Android invasion. It shows him losing his bearings at the start of his research, and, characteristically, driving ahead at full throttle.

I don’t know quite what to make of this document. I find it fascinating, but rather troubling. I assume it is what it says: an outline of John’s privately-held beliefs about the UFO phenomenon, as of October 1967. I say “privately-held,” because he stipulates that the material not be published or discussed. That indicates that he sent, or meant to send, these pages to other researchers; there are several copies in the folder. He also elaborated on them in another longer document, called “The Answer.”

According to this, John believed the UFO occupants were real, and hostile, and he details their plans in disturbing detail. As he says at the end, capitalized for emphasis, “This is NOT SPECULATIVE.”

An important part of John’s personality was his love of magic. As he used to say, “Magic is my thing.” Along with that went a love of secrecy; he had secret affairs, secret projects, and a variety of pseudonyms. This is the part of his research that he kept secret. He also abandoned many of these conclusions later, but they provide insights into what lay behind his public material from that time. You’ve been warned; read on!

Here’s another of John’s articles for the North American Newspaper Alliance. This one comes from November 28, 1966, and reports on some of the criticisms of, and rumors about, the newly-formed Condon Committee. This group, headed by Dr. Edward Condon at the University of Colorado, undertook a scientific study of UFOs, and received a decidedly mixed reception. I think the title “Air Force ‘A'” refers to its designation as an “A staff,” outside the Air Force organization, but I could be wrong. At any rate, here it is: