John Keel and Operation Trojan Horse

[Approaching Infinity]

Edit: I have just received a message from the seller:

Upon pulling this book for shipment, I discovered water in my storage area resulting from a recent storm. Your item was water damaged beyond recovery. I will not be able to fill your order. I have issued an immediate and full refund. Sorry, Dave

Geez, the next one on the list is 7 times more expensive. I will wait for a better price.

How much was it? abe.ca usually has good deals, so check them out too.

 

[Mike]

If you haven't read it, I also recommend Keel's 1975 book The Eighth Tower (also titled The Cosmic Question), where he updates and restates his theories. Perhaps it was just because I'd read a lot in between the two books, and I had a bigger foundation of data to draw from, but Eighth Tower made my jaw drop more times than Trojan Horse. I'll try to put up some quotes when I get some time!

I have OTH and plan to read it after 'The Secret Team' and a couple others. I read 'The Eight Tower' a couple months ago and while very interesting to read I wish he (and some other writers I've read recently like 'Views of Atlantis' by John Michell) would have cited there work better or have a bibliography, which my copy of 'The Eight Tower' doesn't, so someone interested could follow their trail.

One example of this from 'The Eight Tower' pg 81 (the version I have): (After mentioning some info about Carl Jung)

But the ancient Chinese philosophers did him one better. They visualized a monstrous spirit inhabiting space and feeding on the souls of earthlings. We were nothing but "moon food" in the cosmic order of things.

Which is interesting considering what G said about being 'food for the moon', but no foot note etc and searching the internet at the time I had no luck finding any information that backs up what was written. Is there another source similar to or that G had contact in some way? Or is Keel just pulling it from thin air and associating it in a way to what G said without mentioning G? Just frustrating!

Having the footnotes, etc makes a huge difference in my opinion and lends more credibility to what the author is saying. At least a person is pointed to the source where they can followup.

Edit: Oopps, I have 'Our Haunted Planet' and another book on my list to buy...

 

[Jacques]

Edit: I have just received a message from the seller:

Upon pulling this book for shipment, I discovered water in my storage area resulting from a recent storm. Your item was water damaged beyond recovery. I will not be able to fill your order. I have issued an immediate and full refund. Sorry, Dave

Geez, the next one on the list is 7 times more expensive. I will wait for a better price.

How much was it? abe.ca usually has good deals, so check them out too.

It was at 124$. Very expensive.

Thank you for the hint AI. I will check it.

 

[theos]

I ordered one from Abebooks.com for $28. Kind of a steal compared to some other prices I've seen for it.

 

[spyraal]

I ordered one from Abebooks.com for $28. Kind of a steal compared to some other prices I've seen for it.

Thank you for the link Chachachick! I also got myself a copy from Abebooks for 28$, or 53$ (37.5 euros) including express shipping to here. How nice! I can't wait to read this highly recommended book!

 

[Laura]

Maybe at this point, considering the rarity and cost of the book, and the fact that it really needs wider dissemination, it could be scanned and shared privately?

 

[TheSpoon]

Perhaps the author himself might be able to assist - eg permission?

_http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Keel#Health_Concern

Keel suffered a heart attack sometime before October 13, 2006. He admitted himself to New York City's Lenox Hill Hospital on Friday the 13th of October, and underwent successful heart surgery on October 16, 2006. Keel then was moved from the hospital to a rehabilitation center on October 26, 2006, according to his friend Doug Skinner who remains in contact with him and who requested that well wishers contact Keel by mail in order to give him time to recover. Although annoyed by postings of his premature death, Keel continues to improve and is well on the road to recovery.

Keel is reclusive and, in his later years, has kept details of his personal life to himself.

Heart attack on Friday the 13th. Textbook timing.

 

[Laura]

Perhaps the author himself might be able to assist - eg permission?

The author cannot give permission. He no longer owns the copyright.

 

[JEEP]

I just finished UFO'S: OPERATION TROJAN HORSE and I'm disappointed--not because the book wasn't fascinating and intriguing, but because it was missing a total of nineteen pages! :O After the third encounter of missing pages, I finally noticed the library's notation on the back of the front cover: DAMAGE NOTED - Numerous pages missing. Please use as is. 1-30-90. Under that, written in pencil, Out of Print 2006. You would have thought the book would have been replaced since the damage was discovered in 1990! Anyway, here's an accounting of the missing pages:

Chapter 2 - pages 31/32, 33/34
Chapters 6/7 - pages 121/122, 123/124, 125/126
Chapter 7 - pages 131/132, 133/134, 135/136, 137/138
Chapter 7 - page 141/142
Chapter 9 - page 177/178
Chapters 9/10 - page 183/184
Chapter 10 - page 189/190
Chapter 10 - page 193/194
Chapter 12 - pages 225/226, 227/228
Chapters 14/15 - page 291/292
Chapter 15 - page 295/296
Chapter 15 - page 305/306 and the next to last page of the final chapter

As you can see, the absence of these pages significantly decreased the enjoyment and the understanding of the content. I can't imagine what was on those pages that someone felt compelled to rip them from the book. Too cheap to make copies?

Nonetheless, it was an interesting read and I was especially intrigued by the author's conclusions:

"Having been trained in psychological warfare during my stint as a propaganda writer for the U.S. Army, I have been particularly conscious of this double-barreled threat and particularly concerned over the obvious hoaxes and manipulations apparently designed to foster both belief and disbelief in the reality of the flying saucers. I have tried objectively to weigh all of the factors, pro and con, throughout my investigations and in this book. Frankly, I have gone through periods when I was absolutely convinced that those Trojan horses were, indeed, following a careful plan designed to ultimately conquer the human race from within. The physical Trojan horse concept seemed alarmingly valid to me for a long time.

But I am now inclined to accept the conclusion that the phenomenon is mainly concerned with undefined (and undefinable) cosmic patterns and that mankind plays only a small role in those patterns. [...]"

And remember, John Keel wrote this in 1970! I'd be interested to know what John Keel thinks today. I looked on the internet and saw that he had been hospitalized in April of this year - he's 79. From the UFO Mystic website (_http://www.ufomystic.com/wake-up-down-there/john-keel-health-update/):

Recent email from Loren Coleman on John Keel’s condition:

I heard a couple of days ago that John Keel is still in the hospital, and the folks there are still trying to stabilize him so he can be released to home. Although he remains rather frail and fragile, however, from what I hear, he is as crusty as ever to the medical staff.

Coleman has been battling some minor but debilitating health issues recently, so our best wishes for a speedy recovery to both of our friends.

Hopefully, he is home by now. I couldn't help thinking, if his health permitted, what a fascinating podcast it would be to have an interview with him!

One more thing regarding the book itself. I noticed my copy had a Library of Congress catalog number. I went online to check it out and found there is one copy located in the Jefferson or Adams Bldg General or Area Studies Reading Rms; CALL NUMBER: TL789 .K36 1970. Also, this copy has something called a MARC tag. In the Frequently Asked Questions is this info:

How do I download MARC records from the Online Catalog?

To save (download) MARC records from the Catalog, use your browser's "File | Save" feature. For more detailed information, see the help file on saving MARC records.

How can I reformat records I've downloaded from the Catalog?

There are a number of thrid-party commercial software products available specifically designed to manipulate and reformat MARC21 records, such as those from the Library's Catalog. In addition to a "card" display, most of these products also allow output in a variety of other bibliography and citation styles.

A list of these products is available at:

Open Directory Project

When I try to Email a MARC record, I get plain text catalog records. What happened?

While it may appear that it is possible to Email MARC records, it is not. While there are 4 formats currently listed in the drop-down menu in the Save, Print, Email box, only the "Text (Full Information)" can be emailed. It is possible to:

A. Print or Save records in either of the 2 "text" formats

B. Save records in all 4 formats in the drop-down menu

I am totally unfamiliar with this MARC tags format/system. I can't tell if one had the software, one could download the book? Otherwise, it is noted:

How do I see the full text of the title I found?

The full text of the printed books in the Library's collections is NOT available in the Online Catalog.

While most of the records in the Catalog describe "physical" items in the collections (books, print periodicals, sound recordings, etc.), the Library does have a growing collection of electronic resources: digitized photographs and motion pictures, electronic journals and databases, etc.
- To identify these electronic items in the Catalog, look for the label Links: on the "Brief Record" display. These links will take you to the electronic item described by the record.
- For more information about the Library's digital collections, see Question #17, "What Other Catalogs are Available?"

So, I don't know if this info is useful or not, but thought I would include it just in case.

I've already requested The Eight Tower from my local library system and hope it arrives wholly intact!

 

[JEEP]

And remember, John Keel wrote this in 1970! I'd be interested to know what John Keel thinks today. I looked on the internet and saw that he had been hospitalized in April of this year - he's 79. From the UFO Mystic website (_http://www.ufomystic.com/wake-up-down-there/john-keel-health-update/):

Quote
Recent email from Loren Coleman on John Keel’s condition:

I heard a couple of days ago that John Keel is still in the hospital, and the folks there are still trying to stabilize him so he can be released to home. Although he remains rather frail and fragile, however, from what I hear, he is as crusty as ever to the medical staff.

Coleman has been battling some minor but debilitating health issues recently, so our best wishes for a speedy recovery to both of our friends.

Hopefully, he is home by now. I couldn't help thinking, if his health permitted, what a fascinating podcast it would be to have an interview with him!

Sadly, we won't have the opportunity to find out:

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/188497-John-A-Keel-has-Died

 

[Kel]

This is odd, since I just finished reading "Why UFOs" (which I understand is the same book as "Operation Trojan Horse") yesterday.

Although this book may be great for someone just being introduced to the ultraterrestrial phenomenon, (great detail, to the point, humor,organization) I found it redundant of much of the research I've already done. Through most of the pages of the book he goes into great detail of incident after incident, those of which brought him to his conclusions. The point and premise of this book could have been summarized, I believe, in 2-3 pages.

John Keel was a great writer, researcher and independant thinker, however, and must have been a very interesting person. I would be interested in learning about how he viewed recent events in the context of his theories/hypotheses.

 

[Laura]

I just finished "The Eighth Tower". Now I know why this book was "buried." Geeze!

For the most part, I think he is right. I don't see how the Cs would fit his scheme since, mainly, they say all the same stuff he is saying and even more. He didn't know about pathology and he didn't talk much about cataclysms (except in terms of Velikovsky), but for what data he had, he did an amazing job I think. He consigned everything to "the ethers" more or less without considering a para-physical reality as part of the picture. It's irritating that he didn't cite his sources, but that can't be helped. He also made the error of believing the Bible actually was a sort of history, even if majorly distorted.

Overall, however, it is a stunning book with great insights into the phenomenon. I actually drew many of the same conclusions he did which is why I wrote "Alien Abduction, Demonic Possession, and The Legend of The Vampire" way back when. It's one of the earliest articles I put on the site.

In a way, the study of the paranormal is a lot like the different scientific disciplines that don't talk to each other. Those who study ghosts and hauntings don't consider UFOs/aliens a worthy topic and vice versa. Those who study the history of religions don't cross over into the paranormal, and those who are theologians don't consider anything else to be worthy of investigation. Things really are a mess.

But I was fortunate that I had studied the paranormal for years before the UFO issue fell on my plate. And I had a beginning background in science that helped me a lot. On top of that, I had an overwhelming interest in history - and related disciplines - and theology.

Keel was an amazing thinker and I find it fascinating that he just died like 12 days after I started this thread, having just finished his book "Operation Trojan Horse." The only other book of his that I had ever read, and that was only a few years ago, was "Our Haunted Planet" (which is where I got the idea for the name of that category on SOTT.) His books just weren't available! Even now, I paid a bit more than one would expect for a yellowed, tattered paperback copy of "The Eighth Tower." It's a shame that it is not more widely available. But then, I expect that is for a reason. It hits way too close to home. And I guess that is why the Cs material has been so attacked and defamed and marginalized from the beginning.

Oy.

 

[Laura]

Found an interview with Keel online:

_http://members.tripod.com/~task_2/Wave-Keel.htm

The Great UFO Wave: October, 1973

INTERVIEW WITH JOHN A. KEEL
OCTOBER 1973

EXCERPT FROM...

THE NEW UFO SIGHTINGS

By Glenn McWane & David Graham
1974 Warner Paperback Library Edition (pages 26-34).

Shortly after the October UFO flap broke out, we were able to obtain an interview with John A. Keel, who is probably one of the most well-informed of all the UFO researchers:

Glenn McWane: John, how do you feet about UFOs getting some national publicity after a rather long hiatus on the part of the media?

John A Keel: It is very interesting. Tonight on the NBC news they reported some of these sightings. They mentioned that a woman somewhere in the South not only saw a UFO, but on the side of this object the letters UFO were painted. It was an amusing anecdote for the newscast, but I expect this was true. This was an ultimate joke.

We may get more reports like this. A few years ago I talked with two young men who had seen an object in a field that resembled exactly one of our space modules and had "US Air Force" printed on the sides. But, of course, one of our space modules isn't going to be hovering over a field in New Jersey. I never wrote it up because, even the UFO buffs wouldn't believe it.

As for the coverage this flap is getting, it is superb. UPI is doing excellent wrap-up stories on it. The NBC newscast has been covering it every night this week and every night last week. This may be because NBC is preparing a White Paper on UFOS.

Three or four weeks ago I was called in by the young man who is working on it, and we had dinner together. It is being produced by Fred Freed, who produced a number of the award-winning White Papers.

In the course of my conversation a month ago with these people, I laid out some predictions based on the patterns of previous flaps. I really put my neck out. All of my predictions are coming true. I was able to tell them that the sightings would be concentrated in the Mississippi Valley and move up to the Ohio Valley by the end of October. They are seen everywhere, but the heaviest concentration seems to be in the Mississippi Valley.

According to my statistics, around or on October 21 is the day when the biggest flaps are likely to occur. Of course the twenty-fourth produces some interesting manifestations. This year October 24 is on a Wednesday, and I wouldn't be surprised if the UFO flap will peak on that day, then gradually start to subside. We will have a brief low, and then next March, all hell is going to break loose.

McWane: Why do you think all this UFO activity is taking place now?

Keel: I keep trying to outguess the phenomenon; but it is hard, because it is always one step ahead of you. On a number of occasions, when I was most active in my research, I would go to an obscure farm on an obscure back road to research a story that had never been publicized. As soon as I would walk into the house, the phone would start to go crazy. But no one would be on the other end of the line, and the farmer would be amazed because this had never happened before.

This occurred several times in several different places. Someone was trying to get through to me that they knew every move I was making. They finally convinced me.

McWane: Speaking of personal investigations wherein it appears that a mysterious, unidentified "someone" is keeping an eye on things, a-few years ago I was involved in researching a case in which a particular UFO contactee claimed to have been given vast hordes of advanced scientific information. This man (I'll call him Salvatore) claims that he knows where terrestrial UFO bases are located.

Keel: You must be aware that this very thing has been repeated fifty or a hundred times around the country, or around the world. Do you remember the famous Mel Noel of the 1960s? He claimed that a group of earthly scientists based in Brazil were building UFOS. He had a good following, and people came to believe in him--then he just disappeared into thin air. Someone did write to me about a year ago and said Mel Noel had turned up again. They had talked to him and heard him lecture.

Noel apparently had a lot of money behind him. He came to New York City, went to Life magazine, went to Mort Young, who was then with the Journal American. Noel was signing people up to go on a space flight. He collected photos of all these different reporters for their space passports.

Mel Noel was very good-looking, extremely well dressed. He was accompanied by not one, but two or three or more very attractive girls who looked like movie stars, from the descriptions I have. He traveled all around the country stirring people up. He had a story very similar to your Salvatore's.

A lot of people with such claims get in touch with me because they think I am going to believe their story, become enthusiastic about it, and write a glowing article about it. It is very difficult for me to tell them that I feel sorry for them; that I have heard it all before, and that I see them going down the road to ruin just as several others have done in the past.

I believe that a lot of people who have written strange letters to me have really been mediumistic channels, and that the letters were produced by automatic writing.

There was a case a few years ago in which I interviewed some witnesses in Long Island. It was a family that had seen some rather remarkable things. I taped the interview in their living room with three or four people. A year or two later I went back and dropped in on them to see how they had been doing and if anything new was happening. They didn't know me. They were amazed. I started telling them about UFO experiences, and they thought I was crazy. They had no memory of all the things they had told me a year ago. They were not acting as if they were hiding anything or putting me on. They were nearly at a point of shock.

McWane: Does this lead us into the sinister men-in-black kind of phenomena?

Keel: Perhaps. Not too long ago, a photographer showed me a lot of pictures be had taken of an outdoor rock festival in England. There was something very extraordinary about the picture. There was a large crowd, and scattered in the crowd were three men who looked like brothers. Their hair was quite short in contrast to the other people in the picture. They were dressed identically, and they all had this man-in-black look. Not an Oriental look, but a gaunt, evil look. They were widely separated in the crowd, and yet if you brought these three men together, they would have looked like triplets. This doesn't prove anything, except that the picture fascinated me.

In January 1969, during Nixon's first inauguration, I was very interested to notice three men in black suits looking very much like our classical men-in-black sitting together a few rows from the front, right behind Nixon when be gave his inaugural address. Every time the television cameras shot Nixon from a particular angle, I could see these three men. They seemed out of place. Of course they could have been ambassadors from Vietnam or something.

I wondered afterward if my imagination had been running away from me. I got a hold of all the magazines I could find with pictures of the inauguration; and I went over them with a magnifying glass; but I could not find those three guys. Yet I had seen them very clearly on television.

McWane: Have you ever run into a man-in-black type that is as skinny as you could ever imagine a living human to be?

Keel: The thin man is well known to me. I call him the Cadaver. Over the years I have had twenty-five different people describe the Cadaver to me. He is usually extremely pale, as if he were bloodless. He is so thin that he looks like be is going to fall apart at any moment. He is usually rather poorly dressed, but it isn't easy to look good in clothes when one is so thin.

A man in Minnesota wrote to me recently about his problem with men-in-black. He called them morticians. He thought that their manner and looks were like those of a mortician in an English comedy. He was seeing them all over his home town.

There are several areas to this whole weird business. On one hand we have real UFO phenomena -- strange lights passing over the earth, probably since time began. The UFO intelligences are aware that we are going to see these lights occasionally when conditions are just right so they have to give us an explanation. Different generations have been given different explanations.

These intelligences have staged whole events over a long period of time to support those explanations. We have the fairy faith in Middle Europe; we have the vampire and various other kinds of legends. We have the mysterious airships in 1897. Now we have spaceships. But all of these things are nothing but a cover for the real phenomenon -- whatever it is.

On the ground, as well as in the air, there are real things happening that they don't want us to know about, so they give us lots of cover stories. The men-in-black support the cover stories in many of these instances.

What they are trying to hide may be frightening, even incomprehensible to us, but it does seem that they are using us in some fashion.

It may be more than a rumor that young people are being collected from college campuses after the memories of their families and friends have been altered so that they will not remember the existence of these children. As farfetched as this sounds, there may be more truth to it than to some of the other theories we are kicking around.

We are being used in some fashion, and UFO intelligences don't want us to discover how they are using us. So all this other stuff is camouflage. And I keep trying to peel away the layers of this camouflage. I keep trying to come up with something real and substantial.

Perhaps if we could find out what they are doing to us, we could stop them. But once we found out what it was, they might stop of their own volition. And do something else for a change. It may be the end of the game once we figure out what they are doing to us.

Now when we have a new UFO flap, such as the one going on at the moment, I ask myself what is really going on! What are they covering up this time? What kind of manipulation is taking place that we don't know about?

This is a very big flap, because there is a lot of heavy news right now from the Middle East and it should have smothered the UFO reports, but it didn't. There must be a lot more UFO activity than the media have mentioned.

Two nights ago, the TV cameraman in a town near here (Mt. Marion, N.Y.) spotted an object in the sky. He had a camera and he took pictures of it. He is a specialized cameraman, but when he developed the film nothing came out on it.

I have heard all this before. Were the objects really there, or were the witnesses just thinking they saw them? Or was the film manipulated in some way? Both possibilities are possible.

McWane: You seem to feel that the UFO phenomenon is some kind of delusion that is being perpetrated upon mankind by some unknown source.

Keel: In an earlier time when someone would undergo such experiences, people would say that he was enchanted. Today, people are still being enchanted, even though we don't use that terminology anymore. More and more people are accepting these incidents as real experiences -- when they probably aren't.

What we have had in the last twenty-five years or so is a large propaganda movement designed to create a whole frame of reference for these manifestations. A frame of reference that could be used to conceal and to cover up what is really going on. If it hadn't been for a relatively small handful of extraterrestrial enthusisasts, the concept of UFOs from outer space wouldn't have caught on; and the UFO intelligences would have had to find something else. But the outer space propaganda did catch on, and we have millions of people who accept extraterrestrial visitors as the explanation for the lights they are seeing in the sky.

These UFO lights are appearing simultaneously in thousands of places all over the country. If it were really an invasion from outer space, it would be enormous!

McWane: Have you observed any new variations to the UFO sightings?

Keel: This summer we bad a great increase in "phantom helicopters,' which appeared in some twenty states. These are unmarked helicopters of a very large size, and are usually compared to military helicopters. They are seen hovering over farm fields, so when farmers see them they think they are cattle rustlers. So far we do not have a single case in which the cattle were rustled when the helicopter was seen.

Recently, new cases have started to erupt in New York State. Before that they were mostly from California to Illinois. If you come across any news stories about helicopters, I would like to see copies.

There is one other thing to keep on the alert for. I have come across six different cases in six different parts of the country in which exceptionally bright children from fairly poor families were given tests in school which determined that these children were the brightest in their schools. These were children who also claim their family bad a great deal of psychic ability. These children were approached by someone claiming to represent the U.S. government. These representatives made an offer that the government would finance their kids' college education -- if the chhdren would sign an agreement that when they got out of college they would automatically go into government service. Not military service, but govennnent service. This seems to me to be a rather extraordinary program. The government does have programs to finance exceptional chddren with the agreement that the students will pay somehow after they get out of college -- but I am aware of no deal wherein the students would have to go into the government when they get out of college.

When I was in Washington I decided to get to the bottom of this thing. I was with the department of Health, Education, and Welfare. I nosed around, and no one has ever heard of such a thing. I've tried to keep in touch with these six contacted families, but now I have lost communications with all of them. I would like to find out what has happened to them -- or what will happen to them when their kids are out of school. This doesn't sound like something the CIA would go in for. They are interested in a certain psychological aspect of people, not intelligence. All these kids have psychic ability. There are a lot of kids with high IQs who have not been approached, so psychic ability must be a credential. Why do they single them out? Again I ask, as with so many aspects of this phenomenon, just what is really going on?

The October wave is actually part of the enormous 1972-73 flap and is following to the letter the patterns of the previous waves. I expect the greatest peak to occur in March-April 1974. When that subsides we will hear very little about UFOs until 1978-79. However, the next really significant wave will not take place until about 1984. By that time a complete and rational explanation of the phenomenon will be common knowledge, and the whole delightful extraterrestrial concept will be a thing of the past.

Thousands of people around the world now know all there is to know about the UFO phenomenon. Unfortunately, very few Americans are in this group because they have been misled for years by fanciful speculations, deliberately misleading manisfestations and chimeras, dark suspicions of mythical conspiracies and, most of all, fanatical emotionalism.

Essentially the phenomenon can be divided into two parts. The meandering nocturnal lights are the real mystery and still remain unexplained by astronomy. The objects and apparitions seen on the ground, or close to it, comprise the second part. These range from complex hallucinations to elaborate transmogrifications, often accompanied by incredible distortions of reality and manipulations of time and space. Such manifestations have been known, and recorded, thoroughout history, and their true nature was recognized and defined thousands of years ago.

Collectively, American ufologists are ill informed and poorly educated in history, philosophy, and the behavioral sciences. So they have failed to recognize what is actually happening (in contrast to what they think is happening).

Ufology is essentially a new system of belief, not a new system of scientific fact. As such, it is no more substantive than the study of angels and the medieval cataloging of chimeras. Indeed, the deeper one penetrates into the ufological problems, the more he finds himself rediscovering Heraclitus.

END OF INTERVIEW

 

[Laurentien2]

INTERVIEW WITH JOHN A. KEEL
OCTOBER 1973


Wow! that interview was made in 1973, what did he known in 2009.

 

[Helle]

Keel was an amazing thinker and I find it fascinating that he just died like 12 days after I started this thread, having just finished his book "Operation Trojan Horse."

Fascinating indeed No coincidence if you ask me.

I ordered some old cheap books of his, and preordered 'Our haunted Planet', but I definitely will look for the books You guys recommend also.

Thanks for the interview also, he sure was seeing something, someone didn't want him to see.