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The Complete Guide to Mysterious Beings by John A. Keel Doubleday, NY 1994 - 340 pages |
| John Keel is a
journalist who has devoted several decades of his career to
investigating strange tales of sightings of bizarre creatures, weird
occurrences and UFO encounters. He has written several books on strange
phenomenas and has a column in Fate Magazine. The Mothman Prophecies is
one of his best known books. His latest book is a revised edition of
Strange Creatures from Time and Space published in 1970. Chapters are
devoted to such strange creatures as the Abominable Snowman, its North
American cousin Bigfoot, living dinosaurs, lake monsters like Scotlands'
Nessie, giant snakes and winged creatures. Of interest to UFO
buffs is his chapters on animal mutilations, including some cattle
mutilations in Ohio near Gallipolis in the 1960's. Strange lights were
seen before or after many of these deplorable acts and the cattle were
operated on with surgical precision in many cases with no blood left.
Many UFO sightings and entity encounters are also detailed. Of local interest is chapter 19 on the Mothman creature sightings that terrorized West Virginia and Southern Ohio in late 1966 and early 1967. Mothman was a humanoid shaped creature that flew through the air with bat-like wings. Over one hundred reliable eyewitnesses reported this creature. UFO sightings frequently occurred after the Mothman wave. Keel does not subscribe to the ET theory of UFO origins. "One of the paradoxes of the UFO data is that the sheer weight of it negates its validity. There have now been millions of UFO sightings and thousands of landings and contacts. Yet it has all come to naught" (page 156). Prof. J. Allen Hynek and Dr. Jacques Vallee have also echoed similar statements, that is we have too many UFO sightings and they are too diverse to be one particular extraterrestrial race visiting Earth. Instead Reel states UFO "are interpenetrating into our space-time continuum from some extra dimensional universe beyond the range of our human perception" (page 242). He feels that whatever is behind the UFO phenomena can take on any form it wants and project images into our minds. This phenomenon may in some cases "stage absurd events just to reinforce our skepticism and disbelief." (page 180). In other words the government, the media and mainstream science is going to ignore these bizarre events because they are so irrational. Meanwhile whatever is behind the UFO phenomenon can continue unhindered on its business. I enjoyed Keels' book. In some cases he personally investigated some of the weird events he related. He is thought provoking and does raise some good points on the reality or unreality of the mysterious beings he writes about. |