The Air at the Top of the Bottle

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Happy Birthday, John Keel

March 25th, 2009 · 3 Comments

Today is the birthday of John Keel, the author of Jadoo, The Mothman Prophecies, and many other books close to the heart of the Ullage Group.  For those of you who are counting, he’s now 79.  Anthony Matt and I visited him Sunday: we took him out to lunch, helped him shop for groceries, and gave him small birthday gifts that would not take up too much room in his famously cluttered apartment.  Anthony gave him a lively UFO drawing by a street artist.  I gave him a “Spotter Deck”: a pack of playing cards with silhouettes of Allied and Axis aircraft, distributed to GIs in World War II (Keel is a lifelong aviation buff).

He’s in rather poor health these days; we know he has many fans out there, and so we post this to let you know that he’s still reasonably okay, and enjoying his presents.  Happy Birthday, John Keel!

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

Tags: Animals · Forteana · Literature · Mysteries

3 responses so far ↓

  • 1 Mark Newgarden // Mar 25, 2009 at 8:19 pm

    A tip of the saucer to you guys.

  • 2 Greg Cameron // Jun 27, 2009 at 2:07 pm

    Somewhere along the way, John Keel said he wrote some unpublished novels. God, I’d love to read them. In this day and age, there must be some way of getting them out there. Possible? I never agreed with anything he said, but I loved his Fortean sense of humour. G.C.

  • 3 Doug // Jun 29, 2009 at 1:03 am

    I don’t know of any unpublished novels; it’s entirely possible. John did publish many short stories in the men’s magazines of the 1950’s: they were typically tales of adventure drawing on the local color he picked up in his travels.

    He also published some pseudonymous novels, usually quickie paperbacks. You may be able to find “Three Women,” for example, by “Harry Gibbs.” It’s mostly a mildly sexy potboiler; but he did have some fun with the NYC art world of the time.