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Genuine Question: Why Is John Keel So Revered?

Sharon Hill said:
I think "lynched" is a bit harsh. Like I said, it seems quite mainstream.
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it is mainstream, just don't liked that much unlike ETH
Sharon Hill said:
I was on The Paracast a few months ago. I told them UFOs was not really my thing but they kept asking about it constantly. I won't go back on. I didn't visit the forum.
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gene steinberg is a very shady fellow, there is information about his abuse in the internet if you know where to look
 
James_H said:
TTSA deserves a thread of its own if there isn't already one.
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There isn't as yet. It has been mentioned tangentially once or twice in other threads. There are (inevitably) those that see it as further proof of the softening-up process pre Great Alien Revelation (you know, that one that's been going on since 1964 or so) so worth keeping an eye on.

Back to Keel - I first read Strange Creatures.. when I was about 14, Jadoo not long after, and as others have remarked he puts me in mind of PK Dick, Hunter S Thompson and Harry Price, in that if you accept each is describing events as they perceive them, it's equally easy to recognise that all three had an instinctive grasp of narrative and story. We have covered this before - with reference to Keel specifically, I said this on a thread about Fortean-themed books:
I said:
Unfortunately this is the problem with many Fortean books - if the claims made in them were verifiable then they wouldn't be Fortean books.

That said, you do get the impression from people that know Keel well (and from the man himself to a degree) that the story came first. Albert Finney has a great line in "Big Fish", disparaging another's narrative abilities that to me sums up Keel's own attitude to meticulous recounting of events: "All of the facts, none of the flavour."
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Yeah, I just plucked 1964 out of the air. I know it probably predated that, so thanks for the clarification :) .
 
humanoidlord said:
every now and then they pick someone at random, usually someone that has a huge interest in UFOs and is easily controlable
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That is as speculative as it gets and completely unknowable...just like the whole ufo area.
;)
 
Keep did describe his field as 'demonology' from time to time.
 
Keel was of course well aware of the baggage carried by words like demon and demonology. He used them for specific reasons. Seems obvious he didn't "believe in demons" the way a bible thumper might. He was making a point. People have their own ideas about what that point was.
 
humanoidlord said:
then how do you explain the journal?
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Well...as I mentioned before maybe he was a bit...'eccentric'..?

btw...I have read all of his books but haven't had a change to look at the journals, but his books...at least some of them to me...read like quasi -fiction at times. They feel over the top ....now that's just my take on it and maybe that was just his style.
 
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humanoidlord said:
UFOs are over the top
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Yes....which is what makes them extremely hard to investigate and to take someone's word on personal experiences,
I have been reading about this area for a long time and imho there is a great deal of embellishment and outright exaggeration.
 
finished reading mothman prophecies and wow! what a ride!
definitely one of the most intense books i have ever read and one that will make you extremelly paranoid about every phone call you receive
the entire book is summed pretty well in the last paragraph:
After spending a lifetime in Egyptian tombs, among the crumbling temples of India and the lamaseries of the Himalayas, endless nights in cemeteries, gravel pits, and hilltops everywhere, I have seen much and my childish sense of wonder remains unshaken. But Charles Fort's question always haunts me: "If there is a universal mind, must it be sane?"
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The Mothman Prophecies has been one of my favorite books for a long time. Stu mentioned how Fortean books wouldn't be Fortean if they were verifiable, and how Keel sought the "Big Fish" of a great story just as much as he sought out the facts.

Personally, I think this idea is a hallmark of Forteanism and that is why I fell in love with the school of thought. i think Keel has remained so prominent because he embodied this and encapsulated it in his work very well. I think this is also extremely recognizable in Fort's own work. isn't there a quote from Fort that goes something like, ""I believe nothing of my own that I have ever written." ? It's the idea that Forteanism is like a superposition of fiction onto non-fiction realism. the ability to acquiesce knowledge is on a sliding-scale, it just depends on the particular philosophical "vantage point", so to speak. kind of touches on the difference between a literal truth and metaphorical truth.

as far as Keel goes, I think he's one of the best writers I have ever read for his ability to craft non-fiction research into such a tantalizing, pulp-fiction-esque narrative. He made his books read like old school science fiction movies/books, and that was kind of the beauty in it.

Granted, that's all just my opinion in the long run.

I also really like researcher Jim Keith, did lots of Fortean research before he died. In his Coast to Coast Interview of 1997, Keith talked about Keel at some length when asked about Mothman, etc. He noted that while some of the phenomena defies total explanation today--there seemed to be a lot more government activity in Point Pleasant than Keel wrote about in his book. like Keel was searching for more of the Big Fish in the story instead of making it a book about the government. for that matter, he didn't deny any government activity in Point Pleasant, he just didn't focus on it. but it's worth noting.

furthermore, Keith said that he read about Keel's brief time spent in the military as a young man. He said that Keel actually once was given the opportunity in the military to run a War-of-the-Worlds-style radio broadcast, which was meant to test the boundaries of the audience and gauge the reaction of people should they be lead to believe it was true. But instead of War of the Worlds, Keel did a broadcast about Frankenstein! this theory kind of implies that the old war of the worlds broadcast was a social experiment as well, which could be true or false. idk. and I don't have any source for this statement about Keel beyond Jim Keith's interview but I thought it was worth bringing up.

overall, i don't think that Keel's "search for the Big Fish" discredits his research or his intentions, and I think it just shows that he was as creative as he was intelligent.
 
altered_boy said:
The Mothman Prophecies has been one of my favorite books for a long time. Stu mentioned how Fortean books wouldn't be Fortean if they were verifiable, and how Keel sought the "Big Fish" of a great story just as much as he sought out the facts.

Personally, I think this idea is a hallmark of Forteanism and that is why I fell in love with the school of thought. i think Keel has remained so prominent because he embodied this and encapsulated it in his work very well. I think this is also extremely recognizable in Fort's own work. isn't there a quote from Fort that goes something like, ""I believe nothing of my own that I have ever written." ? It's the idea that Forteanism is like a superposition of fiction onto non-fiction realism. the ability to acquiesce knowledge is on a sliding-scale, it just depends on the particular philosophical "vantage point", so to speak. kind of touches on the difference between a literal truth and metaphorical truth.

as far as Keel goes, I think he's one of the best writers I have ever read for his ability to craft non-fiction research into such a tantalizing, pulp-fiction-esque narrative. He made his books read like old school science fiction movies/books, and that was kind of the beauty in it.

Granted, that's all just my opinion in the long run.

I also really like researcher Jim Keith, did lots of Fortean research before he died. In his Coast to Coast Interview of 1997, Keith talked about Keel at some length when asked about Mothman, etc. He noted that while some of the phenomena defies total explanation today--there seemed to be a lot more government activity in Point Pleasant than Keel wrote about in his book. like Keel was searching for more of the Big Fish in the story instead of making it a book about the government. for that matter, he didn't deny any government activity in Point Pleasant, he just didn't focus on it. but it's worth noting.

furthermore, Keith said that he read about Keel's brief time spent in the military as a young man. He said that Keel actually once was given the opportunity in the military to run a War-of-the-Worlds-style radio broadcast, which was meant to test the boundaries of the audience and gauge the reaction of people should they be lead to believe it was true. But instead of War of the Worlds, Keel did a broadcast about Frankenstein! this theory kind of implies that the old war of the worlds broadcast was a social experiment as well, which could be true or false. idk. and I don't have any source for this statement about Keel beyond Jim Keith's interview but I thought it was worth bringing up.

overall, i don't think that Keel's "search for the Big Fish" discredits his research or his intentions, and I think it just shows that he was as creative as he was intelligent.
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nice post
there was definitely some military activity going on point pleasant, keel mentioned a naval research factory located there wich was doing quite possibly un-ethical research but he did say that the insanity reported by the witnesses had gone way beyond what FBI or CIA was capable at the time, the MIBs apparently knew everthing about the witnesses and what they saw, to a point where it was obvious that they were just mimicking the behaviour of those agencies
another reason that keel din't go down the military rabbit hole was the fact he din't want to become another paranoid ufologist or become insane
 
what happened to mount misery anyway? i had never heard of this place before reading the book, has activity in it stopped?
 
humanoidlord said:
what happened to mount misery anyway? i had never heard of this place before reading the book, has activity in it stopped?
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Yeah, I'm not sure. There are many different sub-topics throughout Keel's work that I wonder about the progression of. But that's part of what I love about it :D
 
altered_boy said:
Yeah, I'm not sure. There are many different sub-topics throughout Keel's work that I wonder about the progression of. But that's part of what I love about it :D
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yeah, its strange how we have no information in the current state of things, point pleasant seems to be dead, i have not heard of any recent anomalous report there
 
to be honest, that's right there is why i love it all! Reading a fortean book for me has always been like reading a whole comic-book series up until the last issue, and being unable to find the issue. you either have to just use your imagination, come up with some theories, or go out there and find the shit yourself, whether it be Fortean data or experiences. there are fewer and fewer things that cannot be answered by a google search, and so many Fortean questions hardly register in a google search. it makes my heart warm just thinking about it, :headspinner:
 
altered_boy said:
to be honest, that's right there is why i love it all! Reading a fortean book for me has always been like reading a whole comic-book series up until the last issue, and being unable to find the issue. you either have to just use your imagination, come up with some theories, or go out there and find the shit yourself, whether it be Fortean data or experiences. there are fewer and fewer things that cannot be answered by a google search, and so many Fortean questions hardly register in a google search. it makes my heart warm just thinking about it, :headspinner:
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but someone should definitely do a mothman prophecies 50 years later, documentary
 
His basic theory has not been disproved even after all these years, I came across his work a number of years ago and find him one of the best Fortean writers out there just reading another anthology of his magazine articles, yes he could be grumpy (can't we all) but his theories chimed with me from the outset
 
Go on Robbrent, how would you summarise his 'basic theory' - and which of his books would you recommend I go for first? (I must have read his stuff but I don't really remember, and I'd like to try again).
 
Eponastill said:
Go on Robbrent, how would you summarise his 'basic theory' - and which of his books would you recommend I go for first? (I must have read his stuff but I don't really remember, and I'd like to try again).
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The basic Ultra Terrestrial theory in that the beings are not from another planet or star system, but are a continuation of something that has been going on for 1000's of years Operation Trojan Horse is a good starter
 
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