JOHN KEEL NOT AN AUTHORITY ON ANYTHING

Santa Fe Springs Researcher June Larson and John have another exchange about her UFO clipping service, and he sends her a check. Ms. Larson also mentions current reports from Australia, and John requests information on the Gemini flight, water and reservoir sightings, and car-chasing incidents. He is, as he says, “interested in everything.”

John’s correspondence with the Lorenzens has become quite friendly at this point. Jim’s full name, by the way, was Leslie James Lorenzen, and he sometimes used the initials. This is a lively letter: John gives a short assessment of his life, catches them up on his troubles with Playboy, reports on a visit to Long Island and a “water incident” there, reviews Frank Edwards’ book Flying Saucers–Serious Business and Frank Stranges’ film Phenomena 7.7, and passes on news about his fellow ufologists J. Allen Hynek, Albert Chop, John Fuller, and Mort Young. As usual, there’s a lot going on.

June Larson ran a sort of informal UFO clipping service, collecting and copying newspaper reports for other researchers. Judging from this letter, she mostly worked with NICAP and with Ivan Sanderson. Here, she tries to clarify how much material John wants, and how much she should charge him. She also defends NICAP and Major Keyhoe, as the most objective group “in this confused and somewhat ‘off-beat’ subject,” and regrets the energy spent on squabbles and backbiting.

I continue working my way through John’s file of “Official Correspondence ’66.” Here, he writes a letter to Joseph Wershba, taking him to task for a program he’d written and produced for CBS, UFO: Friend, Foe, or Fantasy? John also invites him out to lunch, so they can discuss UFOs further. Wershba politely declines to comment. The program in question, by the way, has been posted on YouTube.

John writes a “humdinger” of a letter to the Lorenzens, obviously exhilarated by having turned in his Playboy article (entitled, like his later book, Operation Trojan Horse), and the prospect of a large advance for the book. He discusses Ralph Rankow, NICAP’s photo analyst; Coral Lorenzen’s theory that aliens want to put drugs in our water supply; silicon-based aliens; UFOs and Indians; and Jim Moseley. He did start work on his UFO film; I posted part of the script here.

John responds to June Larson, who was supplying him with UFO clippings. Back then, this was all done with paper and postage, which cost money, so he’s trying to narrow down the subject matter and reduce costs. $30 or $40 a week was expensive, particularly since he was earning less with UFO research than he had with comedy writing. Of particular note here, I think, is his list of subjects of interest.

Coral Lorenzen responds to John’s distress about alien interference by reminding him not to “let your fear get you by the throat,” and to be wary of unreliable and unbalanced witnesses. She fills him in on her recent run of bad luck, adding that if she were afraid someone or something was influencing her, she’d “have gone to the looney bin this year.” She also reports on some recent UFO activity in her area. One footnote: the movie “Phenomena 7.7” was a documentary by Frank Stranges, now apparently lost; the number referred to the percentage of sightings the Air Force considered unexplained.

John and the Lorenzens are writing each other almost daily at this point. Coral Lorenzen’s letter from May 23, 1966, goes further into her idea that aliens were planning to put sleeping drugs in our water supply. She also comments on the wave of UFO books, and on a recent episode of the TV show “The Open Mind.” That was probably “Are Flying Saucers Only Science Fiction?”, which aired on February 27 of that year, with Donald Menzel, Frank Salisbury, John Fuller, Leo Sprinkle, and J. Allen Hynek, moderated by Eric Goldman.

John replies to Coral’s last letter. He plans to interview “the Milne woman”; does anyone know who that might be? He confesses that he finds himself “acting more and more paranoiac,” and says that Coral Lorenzen’s theory (that aliens plan to put drugs in our water supply) is not as bad as some of the material he’s collected. Jeane Dixon may be less familiar now; she was a popular astrologer and prophet at the time. Mort Young, as mentioned earlier, was a reporter for the New York Journal-American, and author of the book UFO: Top Secret.

We continue with John’s “Official Correspondence” file for 1966. Coral Lorenzen writes a long, rather chatty letter about Jim Moseley and Major Keyhoe, her speculations on aliens putting drugs in our water supply, and the Villas Boas case. Both she and John seem to feel that “the reconnaissance is drawing to a close,” and that a more serious invasion may be imminent.