John Keel (RIP)

Legendary Fortean author John Keel has died. A personal influence on my own interest in anomalies and fringe theories, Keel is best known for his 1976 book The Mothman Prophecies, an investigation into strange phenomena that reportedly occurred around Point Pleasant, West Virginia, in 1966-1967. Of course, that book was made into a Hollywood film in 2002. However, The Mothman Prophecies just scratched the surface of Keel's experiences in the realm of high weirdness. Keel's friend and fellow Fortean author Loren Coleman has written an obituary over at Cryptomundo. "John A. Keel has died"

• [Anonymous]

  Oh that’s terrible. Keel was a hero of mine since I was 12 years old. He taught me the meaning of the word, “agnostic,” which has shaped my entire life up to this point. The last time I ran into him on the upper west side, he wanted me to make a documentary about him but I wanted to get alot of pretty girls to interview him, haha. I probably would have killed him back then from the excitement. I’m glad he lived to see the Mothman Prophecies movie get made, he was always annoyed that he had not gotten his true due before that. He told me Speilberg interviewed him for days before making Indiana Jones, and that Indy was inspired partially by Keel’s book, “Jadoo.” He told me that in Men In Black, the reasons the agents are named J and K is because those are Keels’ initials. He told me that the MIB publicity kit contained alot of his writing but all uncredited.

  I’m hoping that Richard Gere playing him in the movie version of Mothman evened the score a bit.

  I hope Keel will be remembered as a philosopher as well as journalist, as he is referenced in Robert Anton Wilson books for his worldview. He was an individualist like they don’t make any more. He was very very oldschool, never adapting to email, only snail mail.

  There’ll never be another person like John A. Keel.

• [Lotusmonger]

  hmmm, last night a pedestrian bridge in Merrillville, Indiana collapsed when overloaded. I immediately thought of The Silver Bridge. I will keep my ears open for flapping sounds in the sky over the city.

• [stygyan]

  And I just finished reading Nightwatch by Terry Pratchett…

  (If someone does not know about it, it’s about Vimes going back in time and taking the place of his former sergeant, a guy called John Keel)

• [Anonymous]

  i just finished mothman Prophecies again for the gazillionth time…

  RIP

• [Anonymous]

  I was sitting outside a tent watching an egg shaped yellow moon rise through broken black clouds and I felt the need to tell my friend about the mothman and John Keel.

  As i was explaining it the clouds took the obvious shape of a winged crouching gargoyle , we both looked and laughed and I said everytime I mention the mothman ,I see something weird or somthing odd happens…

  then a moth flew straight into our candle.

  This was friday night at midnight. Anyone know what time John died?

• [Brother Phil]

  @Stygyan
  Yeah, that’s who I thought of too.

  I wonder if Sgt at arms Keel was named for the author?

  Phil.
  –
  How do they rise up?

• [Takuan]

  like little angels