John Alva Keel, born Alva John Kiehle (March 25, 1930 – July 3, 2009) was an
American
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
journalist
A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalis ...
and influential
UFOlogist
Ufology ( ) is the investigation of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) by people who believe that they may be of extraordinary origins (most frequently of extraterrestrial alien visitors). While there are instances of government, private, and ...
Keel was born in Hornell, New York, the son of a small-time bandleader. His parents separated and he was raised by his grandparents. He was interested in
magic
Magic or Magick most commonly refers to:
* Magic (supernatural), beliefs and actions employed to influence supernatural beings and forces
* Ceremonial magic, encompasses a wide variety of rituals of magic
* Magical thinking, the belief that unrela ...
and had his first story published in a magicians' magazine at age 12. He left school at the age of 16 after taking all the science courses.
He worked as a freelance contributor to newspapers, scriptwriter for local radio and television outlets, and author of pulp articles such as "Are You A Repressed Sex Fiend?" He served in the
US Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...
during the
Korean War
, date = {{Ubl, 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 (''de facto'')({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=6, day1=25, year1=1950, month2=7, day2=27, year2=1953), 25 June 1950 – present (''de jure'')({{Age in years, months, weeks a ...
Frankfurt, Germany
Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , " Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its ...
. He claimed that while in the Army he was trained in psychological warfare as a propaganda writer.
Career
After leaving the military he worked as a foreign radio correspondent in Paris, Berlin, Rome and Egypt.
In 1957, he published ''Jadoo'', a book describing his time in
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...
and
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
investigating the
Indian rope trick
The Indian rope trick is a magic trick said to have been performed in and around India during the 19th century. Sometimes described as "the world’s greatest illusion", it reputedly involved a magician, a length of rope, and one or more boy as ...
Charles Fort
Charles Hoy Fort (August 6, 1874 – May 3, 1932) was an American writer and researcher who specialized in anomalous phenomena. The terms "Fortean" and "Forteana" are sometimes used to characterize various such phenomena. Fort's books sold ...
, he began contributing articles to ''Flying Saucer Review'' and took up investigating UFOs and assorted
Forteana
Charles Hoy Fort (August 6, 1874 – May 3, 1932) was an American writer and researcher who specialized in anomalous phenomena. The terms "Fortean" and "Forteana" are sometimes used to characterize various such phenomena. Fort's books sold w ...
as a full-time pursuit. Keel analyzed what he called "windows" and "waves" (or flaps, as they are often called) of reported
UFO
An unidentified flying object (UFO), more recently renamed by US officials as a UAP (unidentified aerial phenomenon), is any perceived aerial phenomenon that cannot be immediately identified or explained. On investigation, most UFOs are id ...
events, concluding that a disproportionate number occurred on Wednesdays and Saturdays. A member of the Screenwriters Guild, Keel reportedly wrote scripts for ''
Get Smart
''Get Smart'' is an American comedy television series parodying the secret agent genre that had become widely popular in the first half of the 1960s, with the release of the ''James Bond'' films. It was created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, an ...
'', ''
The Monkees
The Monkees were an American rock and pop band, formed in Los Angeles in 1966, whose lineup consisted of the American actor/musicians Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork alongside English actor/singer Davy Jones. The group was con ...
'', ''
Mack & Myer for Hire
''Mack and Myer for Hire'' is an American sitcom that aired in syndication from 1963 to 1964. The show starred Mickey Deems and Joey Faye, and was produced by Trans-Lux Television in New York. Each episode was approximately 12 minutes long, and t ...
'', and ''
Lost in Space
''Lost in Space'' is an American science fiction television series, created and produced by Irwin Allen, which originally aired between 1965 and 1968 on CBS. The series was inspired by the 1812 novel ''The Swiss Family Robinson.'' The series fo ...
''.
In 1967, Keel popularized the term "
men in black
In popular culture and UFO conspiracy theories, men in black (MIB) are purported men dressed in black suits who claim to be quasi- government agents, who harass, threaten, or sometimes even assassinate unidentified flying object (UFO) witnesse ...
Like contemporary 1960s researchers such as J. Allen Hynek and
Jacques Vallée
Jacques Fabrice Vallée (; born September 24, 1939) is an Internet pioneer, computer scientist, venture capitalist, author, ufologist and astronomer currently residing in San Francisco, California and Paris, France.
His scientific career began ...
, Keel was initially hopeful that he could somehow validate the prevailing extraterrestrial visitation hypothesis. However, after one year of investigations, Keel concluded that the extraterrestrial hypothesis was untenable. Indeed, both Hynek and Vallée eventually arrived at a similar conclusion. As Keel himself wrote:
:I abandoned the
extraterrestrial hypothesis
The extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH) proposes that some unidentified flying objects (UFOs) are best explained as being physical spacecraft occupied by extraterrestrial life or non-human aliens, or non-occupied alien probes from other planets vi ...
in 1967 when my own field investigations disclosed an astonishing overlap between
psychic
A psychic is a person who claims to use extrasensory perception (ESP) to identify information hidden from the normal senses, particularly involving telepathy or clairvoyance, or who performs acts that are apparently inexplicable by natural laws ...
phenomena and UFOs... The objects and apparitions do not necessarily originate on another planet and may not even exist as permanent constructions of matter. It is more likely that we see what we want to see and interpret such visions according to our contemporary beliefs.
In '' UFOs: Operation Trojan Horse'' and ''The Eighth Tower'' Keel argues that a non-human or spiritual intelligence source has staged whole events over a long period of time in order to propagate and reinforce certain erroneous belief systems. For example,
monsters
A monster is a type of fictional creature found in horror, fantasy, science fiction, folklore, mythology and religion. Monsters are very often depicted as dangerous and aggressive with a strange, grotesque appearance that causes terror and fe ...
vampire
A vampire is a mythical creature that subsists by feeding on the vital essence (generally in the form of blood) of the living. In European folklore, vampires are undead creatures that often visited loved ones and caused mischief or deat ...
legends,
mystery airship
Mystery airships or phantom airships are a class of unidentified flying objects best known from a series of newspaper reports originating in the western United States and spreading east during late 1896 and early 1897.. According to researcher ...
s in 1897, mystery aeroplanes of the 1930s, mystery helicopters, anomalous creature sightings, poltergeist phenomena, balls of light, and
UFO
An unidentified flying object (UFO), more recently renamed by US officials as a UAP (unidentified aerial phenomenon), is any perceived aerial phenomenon that cannot be immediately identified or explained. On investigation, most UFOs are id ...
s; Keel conjectured that ultimately all of these anomalies are a cover for the real phenomenon. He used the term " ultraterrestrials" to describe UFO occupants he believed to be non-human entities capable of taking on whatever form they want.
In ''Our Haunted Planet,'' Keel discussed the seldom-considered possibility that the alien "visitors" to Earth are not visitors at all, but an advanced Earth civilization, which may or may not be human. Interdimensional life is also considered.
Keel took no position on the ultimate purpose of the phenomenon other than that the UFO intelligence seems to have a long-standing interest in interacting with the human race.''Operation Trojan Horse'' Chapter 15.
West Virginia
West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the B ...
of a huge, winged creature called "
Mothman
In West Virginia folklore, the Mothman is a humanoid creature reportedly seen in the Point Pleasant area from November 15, 1966, to December 15, 1967. The first newspaper report was published in the ''Point Pleasant Register'', dated ...
." The book combines Keel's account of receiving strange phone calls with reports of mutilated pets and culminates with the December 15, 1967, collapse of the
Silver Bridge
The Silver Bridge was an eyebar-chain suspension bridge built in 1928 and named for the color of its aluminum paint. The bridge carried U.S. Route 35 over the Ohio River, connecting Point Pleasant, West Virginia, and Gallipolis, Ohio.
On Dec ...
across the Ohio River.
The book was widely popularized as the basis of a 2002 film of the same name starring
Richard Gere
Richard Tiffany Gere ( ; born August 31, 1949) is an American actor. He began in films in the 1970s, playing a supporting role in '' Looking for Mr. Goodbar'' (1977) and a starring role in ''Days of Heaven'' (1978). He came to prominence with ...
,
Will Patton
William Rankin Patton (born June 14, 1954) is an American actor and audiobook narrator. He starred as Colonel Dan Weaver in the TNT science fiction series '' Falling Skies''. He also appeared in the films ''Remember the Titans'', ''Armageddon'' ...
, Laura Linney and Alan Bates. Gere and Bates played two parts of Keel's personality. Bates's character is named "Leek," which is "Keel" spelled backwards; Gere's newspaper journalist character is named "John Klein," also a play on Keel's name.
In the May/June 2002 issue of ''
Skeptical Inquirer
''Skeptical Inquirer'' is a bimonthly American general-audience magazine published by the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) with the subtitle: ''The Magazine for Science and Reason''.
Mission statement and goals
Daniel Loxton, writing in 2 ...
'', journalist John C. Sherwood, a former business associate of UFO researcher
Gray Barker
Gray Barker (May 2, 1925 – December 6, 1984) was an American writer best known for his books about UFOs and other paranormal phenomena. His 1956 book ''They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers'' introduced the notion of the Men in Black to UFOLOG ...
, published an analysis of private letters between Keel and Barker during the period of Keel's investigation. In the article, "Gray Barker's Book of Bunk," Sherwood reported finding significant differences between what Keel wrote at the time of his investigation and what he wrote in his first book about the Mothman reports, raising questions about the book's accuracy. Sherwood also reported that Keel, who was well known for writing humorous and outrageous letters to friends and associates, would not assist him in clarifying the differences.
Later years and impact
Prolific and imaginative, Keel was considered a significant influence within the UFO and Fortean genre.
For many years, Keel resided in the
Upper West Side
The Upper West Side (UWS) is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by Central Park on the east, the Hudson River on the west, West 59th Street to the south, and West 110th Street to the north. The Upper West ...
of New York City. He was a lifelong bachelor.
Keel died on July 3, 2009, in New York City, at the age of 79.
Operation Trojan Horse
The Trojan Horse scandal, also known as "Operation Trojan Horse" or the Trojan Horse affair, involves claims of an alleged conspiracy that there was an organised attempt to introduce an " Islamist" or "Salafist" ethos into several schools in Bi ...
'' (1970); reprinted as ''Why UFOs'' (1978)
* ''Strange Creatures From Time and Space'' (1970); reprinted as ''The Complete Guide to Mysterious Beings'' (1994)
* ''Our Haunted Planet'' (1971)
* ''The Flying Saucer Subculture'' (1973)
* '' The Mothman Prophecies'' (1975)
* ''The Eighth Tower'' (1975); published in Britain as ''The Cosmic Question'' (1978)
* ''Disneyland of the Gods'' (1988)
* ''The Best of John Keel'' (Paperback 2006) (Collection of Keel's ''Fate Magazine'' articles)
* ''Flying Saucer to the Center of Your Mind: Selected Writings of John A. Keel'' (2013)
* ''The Outer Limits of the Twilight Zone: Selected Writings of John A. Keel'' (2013)
* ''Searching For the String: Selected Writings of John A. Keel'' (2014)
* ''The Great Phonograph in the Sky: Selected Writings of John A. Keel'' (2015)
* ''The Perspicacious Percipient: How to Investigate UFOs and Other Insane Urges - Selected Writings of John A. Keel'' (2015)
* ''The Passionate Percipient: Illusions I Have Known And Loved - Selected Writings of John A. Keel'' (2015)
* ''Pursuing the Addenda: Supernatural Reports From the Natural World'' (2016)