John Alva Keel, born Alva John Kiehle (March 25, 1930 – July 3, 2009), was an American journalist and influential ufologist who is known best as author of The Mothman Prophecies.
Early life Keel was born in Hornell, New York, the son of a singer and bandleader. His parents soon divorced and Keel was raised by his grandparents in Perry, New York until his mother remarried. He was fascinated by magic from an early age and was known as "Houdini" by his friends. He loved reading about magic, humor, science, travel, and aviation. His first story was published in a magicians' magazine when he was twelve years old. At age fourteen he was determined to become a writer. He had a column in the Perry Herald named Scraping The Keel, he published a science fiction fanzine named The Lunarite and he routinely sent stories to magazines in New York. At the age of sixteen he had taken all of the science courses at his school and decided to quit school and write full time.
Career
Early career as a writer and journalist At seventeen Keel relocated to New York City to make a living as a writer. He lived in Greenwich Village and became the editor of a poetry magazine. He worked as a freelance contributor to newspapers, scriptwriter for local radio and television outlets, and author of articles such as "Are You A Repressed Sex Fiend?"
Work for the US Army Keel was drafted into the US Army during the Korean War. Because he had worked with radio and television he was assigned to the radio station American Forces Network at Frankfurt, Germany and started writing radio programs. Within one year he was the chief of productions for the network. When his two years of military service ended he was offered and accepted a civilian job for the Army. He claimed that while in the Army he was trained in psychological warfare as a propaganda writer.
Writer and journalist After his time with the military he was a foreign radio correspondent in Paris, Berlin, Rome and Egypt. At age 24 he resigned and traveled for four years around the Middle East and south-east Asia. He tried to find performers of the Indian rope trick, investigate fakirs and yogis and he even tried to track the Yeti. Keel's journey was accounted in first published book, Jadoo (1957). During the 1960s, he worked for television. He was the chief writer for game show Play Your Hunch and wrote for tv series such as Mack & Myer for Hire, The Chuck McCann Show, The Clay Cole Show, Get Smart, The Monkees and Lost in Space. He wrote some novels using the pseudonym, Harry Gibbs. In 1966 he wrote a fiction novel named The Fickle Finger of Fate. It sold an estimated 600,000 copies. In 1966 Playboy asked him to write an article about UFOs for the magazine, but his work was rejected and never printed. Keel had however become interested in the subject. He claimed to have traveled to 20 states and interviewed thousands of witnesses, several hundreds of them in depth. The material was used in his book Operation Trojan Horse. He also made repeated visits to Point Pleasant, West Virginia, and investigated sightings that was the topic of his best known book, The Mothman Prophecies (1975). His interviews and thoughts concerning UFOs were published in magazines such as Flying Saucer Review, Flying Saucer, Saga and Saucer News. He was a technical advisor to the Library of Congress (1968-69), and special consultant to the office of Scientific Research and Bureau of Radiology (1968-71), before becoming a consultant to the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. He was a member of the Screenwriters Guild.
Personal life Keel resided in an apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan for many years. He died on July 3, 2009, in New York City, at the age of 79.
Paranormal research Keel is considered "one of ufology's most widely-read and influential authors". As a researcher he was both original and controversial. Richard Hatem, the screenwriter for The Mothman Prophecies, described Keel as the Hunter S. Thompson of paranormal writers.
Men in black Keel invented the term men in black in an article for the men's adventure magazine Saga published 1967.
Rejection of extraterrestrial hypothesis Like contemporary 1960s researchers such as J. Allen Hynek and Jacques Vallée, Keel was initially hopeful that he could somehow validate the prevailing extraterrestrial visitation hypothesis. However, after a year of investigations, Keel concluded that the extraterrestrial hypothesis was untenable. Indeed, both Hynek and Vallée eventually had a similar conclusion. As Keel himself wrote:
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