Flying Saucer to the Center of Your Mind: Selected Writings of John A. Keel (2 page)

We experienced only a limited slice of the wide spectrum of supernatural experience, but it opened our minds to the possibility that, as Shakespeare wrote, “There are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy”.

From flashing lights to Men in Black, Keel covered the subject matter with a reporter’s objectivity, and Mothman gets a fair review. Keel’s work includes exploration of the longstanding and ongoing government surveillance of ordinary people who just happen to experience the extraordinary – as did Phil and I. While several explanations for these phenomena can be proposed, we have been unable to settle upon any interpretation as the correct one. These matters remain enigmatic, mysterious, and fascinating.

EDITOR’S NOTE

I first came across John Keel’s work in the early 1990s. When I read
The Mothman Prophecies,
my life was altered. I had grown up amidst the Mothman craze in West Virginia in the late 1960s, but few people there had heard of Keel or his Mothman book (which didn’t come out until 1975 and was barely publicized in West Virginia). When finally confronted with it, Keel’s reportage confirmed to me much of what I had already suspected about my “unusual” childhood. I knew that several family members of mine, and many friends and neighbors, had seen strange entities and craft in Pleasant Dell – a spattering of houses in a secluded meadow high above the riverside hamlet of “Mound” (today called “North Charleston” and/or “Cross Lanes”). I had seen a couple of strange things there myself.

Above Pleasant Dell loomed the misty summit of “Bird Mountain,” where one can still today see extremely large vultures and – when conditions are right – Mothman. One can still find neighbors along the roadway that crosses Bird Mountain (Woodward Drive) reporting bizarre, anomalous events. The Kanawha River Valley, home to George Washington, Daniel Boone, Charles Manson, and the family of Mark Twain, was once filled with thousands of Indian burial mounds and large, unusual earthworks that referenced the mathematics of the Great Pyramid at Giza. During the first half of the 20
^th
century, the Kanawha Valley became known as the “chemical capital of the world,” and was given the moniker “The Chemical Valley.”

Local legends speak of strange emanations that come from these mound areas along the Kanawha (called “The River of the Dead” by the Shawnee) and its tributaries, the Elk, Pocatalico, and Coal Rivers. (The village of Mound straddles all three of these rivers’ confluences with the Kanawha.) Most of these once-sacred areas are now covered with petrochemical plants, lending a spooky aura to the interplay between ancient myth and high-tech science. This clash of paranormal “magic” with corporate “conspiracy” has been at the core of my research into Mothman, UFOs, and the brilliant work of John Keel.

In his work, John Keel captured the brooding essence not only of Pt. Pleasant, WV (an hour’s drive from Pleasant Dell), but also of that cosmic “nonlocal” locale where distortions of time and space occur. It is a very complicated area, and I would have gotten nowhere in my research without Keel. (Most of my research has been personal – just trying to make sense of things that actually happened to me and to people I have known all of my life and trust.) I can personally vouch for the fact that many of the unbelievable scenarios Keel discusses did, in fact, happen.

And I am reasonably certain that the paranormal events and conspiratorial scenarios that happened in Pt. Pleasant and Pleasant Dell are connected. Mothman had more than one nest, and so did the spooks. (
The X-Files
television series did a good job of describing this secret intersection of the supernatural and the supertechnical in West Virginia.) We had real CIA, FBI, and NSA agents living in, or regularly visiting, our neighborhood, and we also saw just about every strange entity one can imagine: Mothman, aliens, ghosts, flying saucers, Bigfoot, Men in Black (MIB), the Virgin Mary, black panthers, and “intelligent orbs.”

I first met Keel in September 2003, at the unveiling of the Mothman statue in Pt. Pleasant, WV. The weather was beautiful that weekend, and he and I were able to spend some quality time driving around or exploring on foot. Often accompanying us were two enthusiastic Mothman buffs, the Frick brothers (John and Tim), and Harriet Plumbrook, a Mothman witness I have known since early childhood. Harriet comes from a family of highly psychic West Virginians who have been recruited for government intelligence work for at least three generations. (Harriet has the same marks on her neck as Agent Scully in
X-Files,
and is a “medical intuitive” – someone who can read people’s medical conditions and personal histories just by meeting them or “tuning into” them remotely.)

When Harriet and I get together, strange things always happen; windows and doors start opening by themselves, weird things are seen, and prophetic dreams and visions occur. Likewise, when I get together with the Fricks (who have tirelessly researched Mothman for well over a decade), nearby electrical items burn out, odd messages come across the radio, and Men in Black in unmarked vans come to let us know they are watching. Unusual phone calls periodically come to us (often simultaneously), as they came to Keel years before. When Keel and all of us got together that weekend in 2003, it seemed to create a supernova of paranormal energy.

Our visit with Keel sparked a flood of paranormal phenomena that lasted several years, up until Keel’s death. The synchronicities were so stunning that I began to write primarily about that subject and how it might play into the UFO and Mothman phenomena. My basic discovery was that synchronicity can be used as a research tool, and that the psychic powers associated with Mothman and “natural” UFOs can be harnessed for good – for creative purposes or for healing. Through Keel’s advice and inspiration, I was able to expound enough on the matter that an entire new field of research came into being: “synchromysticism” (also known as “synchroconspiracy”). This idea of utilizing synchronicity and psychic ability greatly intrigued Keel. He was, I think, trying to come up with ways to help save the world from its imminent destruction – by
us.

This concern for Earth and humanity was in evidence when I asked Keel why he had bothered to come and investigate Mothman and the humble hill folk of the area. (If I had not had personal experience with the phenomenon myself, I am not sure I would have researched it at all.) Keel’s response was that he came to help people understand what might be going on. He cared about people, and had genuine concern for what the darker aspects of the phenomenon could potentially do. (As you read through this book, these dangers will become clearer.)

Keel was definitely on his toes when he was in Mothman country. He could never fully anticipate when he might be hounded either by the phenomenon itself, or by some secret agent or MIB. (For instance, a likely CIA asset signed books next to him that weekend; I think only Keel and I knew it.) And the fact that Keel could never really figure out the Mothman riddle only added to the tension. Keel really didn’t have an answer for it, and it bothered him. Jokingly, I told him I would help him figure Mothman out, since I had met the creature once or twice. He didn’t laugh, but got serious, and asked me to look into myself – to look at why I was obsessed with Mothman. There was a definite gravity to what he said. It seemed like
this
was the most important thing he wanted say to me.

And it was great advice. I did what Keel said, and eventually worked through many of my issues. (Some of these issues had arisen because my father had died somewhat mysteriously – perhaps at the hands of the MIB – when I was twelve years old.) Luckily, in 2012, I completed my 11-year study on Mothman without having gone crazy in the process. Along the way, Keel warned me about several things that might happen if I continued my exploration, and he was right on most counts. The nice thing about this was that his warnings prepared me for certain things that
had to happen
in order for me to fulfill a key purpose in my life. It wasn’t that I needed to change direction or avoid deep questions; it was that I needed a better idea of what was around the corner
as I kept plowing ahead.
Keel was, in a way, perhaps channeling the Garuda, who is said to help humans stabilize personal advances along the path of life. As one of my Buddhist mentors used to say, “Illumination is a continuing process, and the Garuda provides support for that process.” In old Appalachian church parlance, the Garuda might be said to “keep you from backsliding.”

I was able to communicate directly with Keel for two or three years after the 2003 Mothman statue unveiling. It was always a great pleasure to get an email or call from him, since you knew some funny jokes would be coming your way. It was this congenial part of Keel that drew people to him. In the case of our local Mothman hunting team, Keel’s calming influence seemed to solidify us as a group. We all went through some hard times. When you are experiencing poltergeists, missing time, and doppelgangers, things tend to get weird. All kinds of stresses crop up, and these stresses compete with the unusual phenomena already in place. Because of John Keel’s wit and lightheartedness, all of us got through it in one piece, overcoming several emotional upheavals and disagreements. John Keel was, in a sense, a healer (although he would never admit this).

After a couple of years of discussing theories and ideas with Keel (such as the book you now hold in your hands), he dropped out of the pubic sphere and entered senior-living facilities. It became difficult for anyone to contact him. I put the project on hold rather than bug him about it further. But I always remembered what he had said when I first broached the idea of doing a new Mothman book. Rather than write something new, he suggested we reprint his old magazine articles, many of which touched on what had happened in West Virginia. Keel suggested that there were “technical details” in them that would counter the bogus explanations favored by the media. It almost sounded like he felt his work had been suppressed by third parties – that the scientific parts had been separated from the witness accounts, in order to make it harder to figure out what he had discovered. Once I started paying attention, I realized he was right.

So, I did as Keel suggested. After his death, I collected as many of his old articles as I could, and added them to the material he had already given me. Most of these articles have not seen the light of day since they were originally written almost 50 years ago. In them, I found many interesting tidbits that shed new light on the UFO “problem,” particularly regarding the deadly MIB. Some passages seem coded, in fact, so that two messages are sent – one to mollify the ufonauts and the MIB, the other to clue us in to the secret truth. Over time, I put together a long text that (hopefully) places the Mothman events into this larger, somewhat conspiratorial perspective. This text was split into two volumes, the first of which is this book,
Flying Saucer to the Center of Your Mind.

One technical note… Keel sometimes used blanket terminology (like “UFO” or “flying saucer”) when describing slightly different situations. He didn’t always parse out whether he was discussing a natural “diamond light” UFO, or a secret craft built by the government or some defense firm. This kind of generalizing cannot be helped, especially when there are so many possibilities involved. So, in traversing
Flying Saucer to the Center of Your Mind,
I urge the reader to keep in mind the fact there seem to be two basic kinds of UFO phenomena: 1) “natural” or Earth-generated phenomena found within nature (i.e. “intelligent lights,” “orbs,” “energy balls,” and attendant psychic phenomena); and 2) “synthetic” phenomena (i.e., manmade craft or
effects
created purposely by humans).

This natural/unnatural polarity exists in most “paranormal” phenomena. But it is actually more of a spectrum, or continuous loop (occasionally referred to by Keel as “The Great Phonograph in the Sky”). Sometimes, manmade devices and practices
cause
“natural” paranormal phenomena to happen, even though a different, synthetic effect was initially sought. And this can work in reverse, too, as it did with Nikola Tesla – who got his technological ideas
through paranormal means.

There is also a third category, which readily crosses over into the other two: the
induced
UFO experience. This is where the percipient lapses into a trance and imagines an involved experience with a UFO, flying saucer, or entity (either “humanoid” or “creature”) that
did not actually happen
in everyday reality. This can occur naturally (through stimulation from natural “geomagnetic” factors)
or
synthetically (through electromagnetic signaling from manmade sources, or through direct “brainwashing”). In certain synthetic “alien” abductions (i.e. “MILABS”), it is not uncommon for the victim’s assault at the hands of human experimenters to be replaced with a memory of abduction by “ETs.” One can also have an induced UFO experience by seeing a manmade saucer that one mistakenly
thinks
is from outer space.

There are other permutations, of course, but I will let John Keel explain them. I have great respect and admiration for Keel’s writing ability, and in only just a few cases did I add parenthetical material or make minor changes to clarify the possible confusions mentioned above. Most edits were typographical, and were only necessary because magazine editors had retyped and edited the material prior to publication.

I hope I have responsibly carried out Keel’s wish to republish these previously suppressed secrets. Perhaps they will now be fully understood. Hopefully the methodologies expounded upon here will help us gain a clearer view of the mysterious and inexplicable universe surrounding us and, at times, emanating from us.

-Andrew B. Colvin

FOREWORD: THE GOLDEN BOY
BY GRAY BARKER

Shortly after I arrived in New York for a recent saucer convention, I shook hands with John Keel. We immediately fell into “shop talk” or, more properly, “saucer talk” about the latest events in Pt. Pleasant, where people were still seeing “things,” even after the Silver Bridge collapse.