by Charles Lear
I am a fan of John Keel. For those of you who don’t know, he is best known as the author of, “The Mothman Prophecies”, a book that centers around strange events that occurred in Point Pleasant, West Virginia during a thirteen month period between 1966 and 1967. These included sightings of UFOs, Men in Black and a humanoid with wings that was dubbed “The Mothman” by the press. These events have a similarity, in terms of what is now called, “high strangeness” by modern Ufologists, to more recent events reported at a ranch in Nevada known as, “The Skinwalker Ranch.”
Keel called himself a Fortean, which meant that he was a collector of strange stories reported in the press and historical documents. The title comes from one Charles Fort, one of the earliest investigators of the odd and paranormal, who’s 1919 book, “The Book of the Damned” inspired a large and still enduring following. Though Keel spent a great deal of effort investigating the UFO question and trying to make sense of it, he was interested in all things strange and distanced himself from those solely involved in UFO research.
What first set Keel apart from other researchers was his conclusion that UFOs were not physical craft guided by extraterrestrials, a view known as the “nuts and bolts” philosophy, but that they were merely one sort of manifestation, among all the other oddities, that had its cause in what he termed, “ultra-terrestrials”, which he considered to be possibly inter-dimensional beings that have been with human kind throughout our history. He speculated that these entities have the ability to not only mess with our perception of reality but mess with reality itself and actually alter space, time, and material objects. He was among the first to consider this idea and was followed by such renowned researchers as Dr. Jaques Vallé and Dr. J. Allen Hynek who came to the same conclusion, independently, several years later.
The bothersome aspect of this belief is that it eludes proper scientific research. Keel addresses this in his book, “Operation Trojan Horse” published in 1970.
“Finally we come to the problem: How do you investigate something that doesn’t exist?
The answer is that you investigate and study the people who have experienced these things. You don’t investigate them by checking their reliability. You study the medical and psychological effects of their experiences.”
While I disagree with not checking the reliability of the witnesses, for instance, submitting them to a polygraph examination which, at least, can offer support to their story, the effects of the experiences on the witnesses can be looked at scientifically.
This leads to the question: How does one choose a method of investigation? I think the Skinwalker Ranch case provides a good example of what does and doesn’t work. The recent disclosure that the D.O.D. had funded UFO investigations to the tune of 22 million dollars as reported by the New York Times stirred a lot of interest. The focus of ufologists centered on a case involving a UFO witnessed by service members aboard the U.S.S. Nimitz but the fact that government funded researchers were also studying the Skinwalker events, which included poltergeists, seemingly intelligently guided lights and mysterious animals with the appearance of extinct dire wolves that would vanish leaving tracks that suddenly stopped seems to have fallen through the cracks.
The Nimitz case has radar verification, gun camera footage and military witness testimony. The Skinwalker Ranch case has some video footage of lights but is mostly based on witness testimony and that testimony includes that of the qualified, again, government funded, scientific researchers who state that the phenomena seemed to consciously elude their cameras and planned observations. With a “nuts and bolts” bias towards UFO research it makes sense that the Nimitz case would receive the most attention. It’s more comfortable. Keel would have preferred the Skinwalker case.
The fact is that in the course of a D.O.D. funded research project we have an example of what appears to be a “nuts and bolts” UFO and an example of phenomena that fits in with the inter-dimensional philosophy. So, are we being bothered by extraterrestrials or ultra-terrestrials or both? In my humble opinion, searching in the middle, being open to both ideas, is the most likely way to find truth if, as seems unlikely, that truth can ever be found. As to whether that search should be conducted using my tax dollars… Let’s just say that John Keel would not have approved.