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| Is John Keel a crank? |
| Yes |
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| No |
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| Total Votes : 81 |
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| Justin_Anstey Mutant alien |
 Posted: 24-02-2002 16:18 Post subject: Is John Keel a crank? |
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Jerome '[sic]-boy' Clark seems to think so according to his article 'Keel Vs Ufology' in FT156, but just how seriously does Keel actually take all that Ultraterrestrial stuff?
I recently got this from a mothman themed Yahoo Group which has since been deleted:
| Quote: | "Here is a quote from John A. Keel from his book (Our Haunted Planet, 1970) which will explain a few hidden agendas here. John is discussing the byproduct of his controversial writing. Pretty prophetic I think.
"... An off shoot of this process is, understandably enough, an enormous amount of crank literature created by unqualified researchers who attempted to interpret the scientific material in their own ways. In many areas of the less popular sciences the crank material outweighs the scientific because few if any scientists have tackled those subjects. So 98 percent of all available literature on Atlantis, flying saucers, Tibet, and prehistoric ruins falls into the crank category. The task is sorting all this out and developing a valid synthesis is a formidable one--one which I have undertaken with great trepidation..."
He goes on to say "... 1. The crank considers himself a genius ... even a towering genius who is years ahead of his time. 2. He considers his colleagues and fellow researchers (ignorant blockheads), largely because they fail to recognize his genius. He assaults his opponents by impugnation, questioning their honesty, intelligence, and motives. They respond in kind naturally, and so great storms are whipped up in trivial teacups of the scientific and pseudoscientific journals. Controversy is the lifeblood of crankism. 3. The pseudoscientist is a paranoid and feels he is the victim of a vast conspiracy designed to suppress his brilliant work. In many instances these imagined conspiracies become a vital part of the subject itself, as for example, the endless literature discussing how the U.S. Air Force has been keeping the truth about flying saucers from the public. 4. The crank delights in focusing his attacks on the greatest scientists and the best-established theories. He goes after big game, He is wiser than Einstein, he knows more about astronomy than Frank Hoyle, and is better informed about the moon than Neil Armstrong...."
Does this ring a bell?" |
I'm not sure if the poster was referring to Beckjord, who had been active on that message board, or this:
| Quote: | "How can we tell if someone is a scientific crank? [Martin] Gardner offers this advice: (1) "First and most important of these traits is that cranks work in almost total isolation from their colleagues." Cranks typically do not understand how the scientific process operatesthat they need to try out their ideas on colleagues, attend conferences and publish their hypotheses in peer-reviewed journals before announcing to the world their startling discovery. Of course, when you explain this to them they say that their ideas are too radical for the conservative scientific establishment to accept. (2) "A second characteristic of the pseudo-scientist, which greatly strengthens his isolation, is a tendency toward paranoia," which manifests itself in several ways:
(1) He considers himself a genius. (2) He regards his colleagues, without exception, as ignorant blockheads.... (3) He believes himself unjustly persecuted and discriminated against. The recognized societies refuse to let him lecture. The journals reject his papers and either ignore his books or assign them to "enemies" for review. It is all part of a dastardly plot. It never occurs to the crank that this opposition may be due to error in his work.... (4) He has strong compulsions to focus his attacks on the greatest scientists and the best-established theories. When Newton was the outstanding name in physics, eccentric works in that science were violently anti-Newton. Today, with Einstein the father-symbol of authority, a crank theory of physics is likely to attack Einstein.... (5) He often has a tendency to write in a complex jargon, in many cases making use of terms and phrases he himself has coined."-Michael Shermer, 'Hermits and Cranks'
http://www.sciam.com/2002/0302issue/0302skeptic.html |
So, it would seem John Keel was quite familiar with prominent skeptic Martin Gardner's 1957 book 'Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science', but what was going on there? Was he twisting it around for his own purposes, or what? It's pretty reminiscent of Jerome Clark's description of Keel's own behaviour, isn't it? Hmmm...
The only one of Keel's books I have read is 'Operation Trojan Horse' which impressed me at the time. The thing about it, if I remember correctly, was that his Ultraterrestrial Hypothesis was developed as an attempt to account for the particular nature of the results that his research was turning up. At least that was how it was presented in the book.:
| Quote: | | "The real problems hidden behind the UFO phenomenon are staggering and so complex that they will seem almost incomprehensible at first. The popular beliefs and speculations are largely founded on biased reporting, gross misinterpretation, and the inability to see beyond the limits of any one of many frames of reference. Cunning techniques of deception and psychological warfare have been employed by the UFO source to keep us confused and skeptical. Man's tendency to create a deep and inflexible belief on the basis of little or no evidence has been exploited." -John Keel, pg10 of 'Operation Trojan Horse'. |
Could that also be applied to his own work?
| Quote: | | "The apparent purpose of most of these landings seems to have been to advance belief in the frame of reference not to provide absolute proof that the frame of reference is authentic" -JK, pg171 of 'OTH' |
These misleading "frames of reference" include the technological, though not scientific, cultural context that, he says, we switched to from the religious one during the 1800s. (Angels and demons turned into aliens and all that)
So how reliable have Keel's investigative efforts actually been?
| Quote: | "...Long ago, I pointed out to Keel some gross errors in his "Strange Creatures from Time and Space," after having looked into the "winged cat" reported near Hawkesbury, Ontario. Keel was satisfied with having written the story up from some newspaper clippings, whereas I spoke with the investigating policeman, dug up the local newspaper reports, and obtained a report from the vetinary laboratory that examined the animal. The poor mangy cat had filthy matted fur, not "wings," and it certainly never flew nor glided about..." -Mr. X.
http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=37076#post37076 |
| Quote: | "...In Keel's favour it must be said that his investigations (and when all is said he probably did more first-hand investigation than most so-called scientific 'ufologists') opened out the field of ufology, and yes, [Jerome] Clark is right, helped undermine the complacent acceptance of the ETH amongst most ufologists..." -John Rimmer, 'E.T.H. Extremely Tenuous Hypothesis'
http://www.magonia.demon.co.uk/news/clark.html |
Is this a case of an investigator who got too close and became part of the phenomenon, whatever that may be? Did his belief in his ideas take over? Or did he find wild speculation easier and more fun than research and investigation?
| Quote: | | "But we can speculate that these beings need living energy which they can restructure into a physical form. Perhaps that is why dogs and other animals tend to vanish in flap areas. Perhaps the living cells of those animals are somehow used by the ultraterrestrials to create forms which we can see and sense with our limited perceptions. Perhaps human and animal blood is also essential for this process." -JK, pg233 of 'Operation Trojan Horse'. |
| Quote: | | "...Cunning techniques of deception and psychological warfare have been employed by the UFO source to keep us confused and skeptical..." -JK |
Cunning techniques of deception and psychological warfare have been employed by John Keel to make me confused and skeptical, more like.
ARGH! 
-Justin
Last edited by Justin_Anstey on 24-02-2002 16:23; edited 1 time in total |
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| SmirnoffMule |
| Posted: 24-02-2002 17:23 Post subject: |
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Sorry to jump off topic straight away, but I have to ask you, Justin... what's the story behind dancing animal turds?
And I think John Keel is a crank. |
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| Justin_Anstey Mutant alien |
| Posted: 24-02-2002 18:54 Post subject: |
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To quote another cranky person: | Quote: | "You Brits are nit-pickers.
Lovers of potty jokes." -Beckjord |
I'm not sure if they are turds, ever seen any wriggle and flap wings? I stumbled across them one day, thought they were amusing and decided to make use of them. Nothing more, nothing less. And there's plenty more where they come from too.
| Quote: | http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=crank
crank1 Pronunciation Key (krngk)
n.
1. A device for transmitting rotary motion, consisting of a handle or arm attached at right angles to a shaft.
2. A clever turn of speech; a verbal conceit: quips and cranks.
3. A peculiar or eccentric idea or action.
4. Informal.
a. A grouchy person.
b. An eccentric person, especially one who is unduly zealous.
5. Slang. Methamphetamine. |
Perhaps being a crank isn't so bad after all, just so long as you don't take it at all seriously and believe too hard.
-J |
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| Adam Rang |
| Posted: 24-02-2002 20:05 Post subject: |
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Perhaps that's what Indrid Cold wants us to think  |
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| Anonymous |
| Posted: 24-02-2002 20:25 Post subject: |
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I do hold with the opinion of Keel's crank status,but I still have to admire the man.He's a hell of a writer.
By the time I graduated from high school in '72,I had pretty much become disgusted with ufology.I still had a great interest in Cryptozoology and general Forteana,but ufology had largely left me disillusioned,and I still hadn't read Vallee's"Passport to Magonia"or any of Keel's earlier stuff.In 1973 I enlisted in the U.S. Navy for four years,and kept up my studies in Cryptozoology.As my ship,an old WW2 destroyer used to train reservists,was homeported in New York City,I naturally went nuts in the bookshops.It was like heaven to a mildly eccentric bookworm.
In the fall of '75,the ship went into overhaul in a small shipyard just outside Philadelphia.It was in a mall in King of Prussia,Pennsylvania in early '76 that I first got hold of"The Mothman Prophecies".It was like a breath of fresh air,I swept aside all the ETH stuff that I had become disillusioned with,and after a few months,someone gave me a copy of"Our Haunted Planet"they had found laying around on board.I also started to read Vallee's later works.I had become interested in UFO's again.
It was while reading"Our Haunted Planet"that I found myself disagreeing with Keel on many things,mostly his take on ancient history,which is a little too"occultish"for me.
I eventually managed to acquire all of JK's supposedly non-fiction works,and my disagreements with many of his ideas remain,but I still find myself drawn to his"Ultraterrestrials",mostly because of the general quagmire of American ufology,and also because of the way some psycho-social explanations sometimes become so complicated and convoluted they become more unbelievable than the incident they seek to explain.
I still think Keel is something of a crank.I remember in his"Forbidden Science",Vallee wrote that in '69,he and Dr. Hynek considered Keel something of a crank.It was the only reference to Keel in this book that I recall,though Vallee hints in some of his other books that he has apparently kept up a correspondence with Keel.There is also that chapter in"Disneyland of the Gods",where Keel savages Dr. Hynek,a man I always admired after his falling out with the U.S.A.F.
After this overly long diatribe,I only want to say in passing that Mr. Keel,in many ways restored my interest in some areas of Forteana,and for that I'm grateful. |
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| Anonymous |
| Posted: 24-02-2002 21:06 Post subject: |
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He may be a crank, but I like cranks. At least Keel takes into account the many high strangeness cases which alien true believers stay away from because they call into question an extraterrestrial hypothesis.
You really have to ask yourself who is worse - a crank who writes a few books and articles that quite a small proportion of the population actually read, or the dogmatist materialist scientists/politicians that make decisions that affect the lives of all of us in profound ways.
A case in point. Yesterday I saw Sightings which featured a report about dogs that can alledgedly detect cancer cells in people. Many experiments were set up - by laypersons - which seemed to prove these dogs really can detect tumors.
Orthodox scientist would dismiss this out of hand as cranky, and yet if it is true it would save the health service a lot of money, and probably a lot of lives that are lost through late diagnoses and misdiagnoses. |
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| Anonymous |
| Posted: 24-02-2002 22:35 Post subject: |
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I guess I am a dyed in the wool "Keelian". I don't think he is so much a crank as say, Graham Hancock, and that is keeping in mind that I do enjoy Mr. Hancocks books! Keel is just maybe a bit overreaching, but hey, the guy is the only one I know of who is trying to come up with the equivalent of a Unified Field Theory for the paranormal.
The only book of his I don't have is "The Eighth Tower". |
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| Anonymous |
| Posted: 25-02-2002 21:05 Post subject: |
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I sometimes wonder if Keel actually believes every word he writes, and I suspect its the answer to this which determines how much of a crank, in the Gardnerian sense, he is.
I should say that in common with many others, Keel's combination of first hand investigation, and 'thinking outside the box, was one of the things which made me interested in Forteana.
My take on him is that he went through some genuinely wierd experiences, though how much was internal, and how much external is a moot point. I disagree with his 'Ultraterrestrial Hypothesis', but I do undestand how he came to develop it. There appears to be something that intersects with people's lives, particularly but not exclusively Fortean researchers, and generates all sorts of fascinating leads/events, which mainly turn out to be red herrings. Its interesting to compare and contrast Keel's experiences with those of SF author Philip K Dick, psychical researcher Joe Fisher, and counter-culture star Terence McKenna. The closest I come to understanding this is to believe that they've encountered the Trickster archetype, but I'm only too aware how many questions that begs!
At least Keel appears to have realised something of the Trickster nature of his experiences.
I reckon its instructive to consider this stuff in light of some of the stuff Robert Anton Wilson has to say about the iniatatory nature of some paranormal or apparently paranormal events |
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| Justin_Anstey Mutant alien |
| Posted: 26-02-2002 02:54 Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | "Because he believed there were, in science, only believers and cranks, and because he would not be a believer, he became a crank." -Damon Knight, pg55 of 'Charles Fort: Prophet of the Unexplained,' (1971, Victor Gollancz, London.). |
Hey, we could have two different words. Good cranks could be spelt with a 'c' and bad cranks could be spelt with a 'k' -krank! For example, Charles Fort would be a crank and, say, Beckjord is a krank.
I'm not sure about John Keel, though. If he really has not been very nice to people then that would make him a krank. But then I only have Jerome Clark's and, indeed, James E McDonald's, (via his files) word for this. Those would seem to be cases of people clashing over differing beliefs, perhaps Clark is a krank too.
| Quote: | | "I am not misanthropic; I have considerable liking for people, so long as I can keep away from them." -Charles Fort, from an unpublished manuscript. (I think I got this from 'Charles Fort: Prophet of the Unexplained' too.) |
Charles Fort kept his distance only ever, apparently, involving himself with one investigation. So, perhaps, John Keel should be applauded for not getting sucked into it all and completely losing it. Rick Moran found himself becoming a part or the focus of strange phenomena in his attempt to prove that "...field researchers should adopt the tenets of journalism; to look at the human stories together with the unvarnished facts (insofar as they could be discovered)..." (FT156:29). Keel was a journalist too, wasn't he?
Both 'Operation Trojan Horse' and 'Our Haunted Planet' were first published a couple of years after the events at Point Pleasant during 1967 and it wasn't until 1975 that 'The Mothman Prophecies' came out. Keel must have done a lot of follow-up work in that time, both investigation and, presumably, theorising.
| Quote: | | "I still find myself drawn to his"Ultraterrestrials",mostly because of the general quagmire of American ufology,and also because of the way some psycho-social explanations sometimes become so complicated and convoluted they become more unbelievable than the incident they seek to explain." -Major Kraut |
Strange, I was under the impression that the psycho-social approach was rarely considered in America.
Considering that most of the evidence for forteana is eye witness testimony I can't see how anyone can't lean, at least initially, towards the social sciences when searching for an explanation. But then, I have heard it said more than once that of the three great scientific ideas of the 20th century, the gene, the quantum and the unconscious, the last is actually unprovable.
I agree with wintermute that the "something that intersects with people's lives" seems to have more to do with the human unconscious than anything else. But if the ego, superego, id, archetypes, anima, animus, etc. are all a bunch of unverifiable inventions then our experience of existence and reality is truly paranormal in the sense of being beyond all current means of explanation, and, as such, is the reason why this stuff is so compelling. A real but elusive phenomenon that happens to be mainly internal in origin. Could it be said of psychology, etc. that they are the modern, western equivalent of herbal folk medicine, that we go with whatever seems to work?
I would say John Keel is a crank more for believing too strongly and taking a particularly strange idea too seriously, than, as Clark, Vallee, etc. seem to think, for being unscientific, anti-intellectual, etc.. He also seems to have been, at varying points, in-between being a good one and a bad one (a krank) and is, therefore, as much an enigma as anything he has written about. Perhaps a different poll is needed.
It's probably better to be confused and sk(c)eptical rather than believe wholeheartedly in ultraterrestrials or anything else.
As such, would it be fairer to say that he has more relevance to culture than to science with his work being a kind of qausi-fiction or pseudofact? Maybe it is artists who are best able to deal with forteana rather than "the logical data and natural scepticism of scientists or the efforts of so-called paranormal researchers looking for proof of their pre-existing beliefs." (Rick Moran FT156:29) Or, indeed, investigative journalists.
After this even longer diatribe, I too would like to say that it is the likes of John Keel who fire my interest in Forteana, and for that I'm very grateful.
-Justin.
PS, while attempting to type the word 'scientists' I first typed 'scientics' then 'scientits' -a Freudian slip of the fingers, or what? |
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| Anonymous |
| Posted: 26-02-2002 03:08 Post subject: |
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| You're right,psycho-social ideas are almost unheard of in the U.S.However,as it's more interesting than the usual ETH pap pushed by most American"investigators",and the fact that I admire many British ufologists,I try to keep up with it.I will admit though,it sometimes stretches my inadequate intellect.I'm not all that well versed in psychology. |
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| Justin_Anstey Mutant alien |
| Posted: 26-02-2002 03:37 Post subject: |
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Me neither.
| Quote: | | "The closest I come to understanding this is to believe that they've encountered the Trickster archetype, but I'm only too aware how many questions that begs!" -wintermute |
This is beyond my limits.
-J |
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| rynner Location: Still above sea level Gender: Male |
| Posted: 26-02-2002 08:35 Post subject: |
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| Justin Anstey wrote: |
I agree with wintermute that the "something that intersects with people's lives" seems to have more to do with the human unconscious than anything else. But if the ego, superego, id, archetypes, anima, animus, etc. are all a bunch of unverifiable inventions then our experience of existence and reality is truly paranormal in the sense of being beyond all current means of explanation, and, as such, is the reason why this stuff is so compelling. |
Very true. But
| Quote: | | [B]A real but elusive phenomenon that happens to be mainly internal in origin. |
Maybe. But since the psychological theories are unproven, consciousness could be an external thing, as some believe. That is, we are all parts of an overmind, and the brain could be largely a 'receiver' for signals from the overmind. It is suggested that each overmind could reach down into several different people at once, explaining why some groups, or families, seem to have more psychic abilities (such as telepathy) than others.
The theory (if theory it is) also suggests that overminds themselves might be part of a heirarchy that extends upwards to the Godhead (or perhaps forever). The overmind idea also ties in with certain ideas on reincarnation - we do not have individual souls as such, but our life experiences are stored in the overmind and may be accessed by later generations.
Unprovable, yes (so far), but intriguing. I can't remember where I first came across this stuff now - anyone got any references? |
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| Anonymous |
| Posted: 26-02-2002 12:00 Post subject: I'm a crank too.. |
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| I've often believed Keel was onto something despite the fact that general weirdness tended to fog everything. I believe we must look more to our minds than to space, there is no reason for Mothmen and such creatures to come from space, and as Keel said, they seem to share this void which I feel is a more valid reason than something dropping down from a space ship. I agreed with Keels opinions that society tends to mould something unusual into a frame that it can understand. We have been brainwashed by UFO literature for many years now that we seem to put the blame on aliens for most things, i.e. crop circles, abductions, weird creatures, mutilations etc, but imagine where our opinions would be if 'aliens and UFOs were unheard of. I don't blame so-called cranks like Keel. I blame ourselves for being so naive. I think the various conjurers and tricksters just show how easy it is to create something. As far as I am concerned, the bizarre creatures of the earth like Mothman were here in their own right but not here at all. A lot of it connects to the different cultures. It may be fair to say that Keel was ahead of his time but we have two choices, we either listen to the mundane pulp that is churned out every year, or we become entangled in the almost impossible yet electrifying world of certain authors who we are not sure if they are sane, but it makes for a great ride. This is not to say that we should believe any old clap-trap, but I have always been of the opinion that we can project things from our minds...we need monsters and mysteries. Old ones fade only to be replaced by new ones! |
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| Anonymous |
| Posted: 26-02-2002 22:52 Post subject: Obscure - moi? |
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Rynner - your 'overmind' seems to bear quite a lot of similarities with Jung's 'collective unconscious'. What Jung argued (at least as far as I understand it), was that because all human minds have certain bedrock similarities, from basic biological urges through living as social animals, to wondering what the universe is all about, we'd expect that the contents of the unconscious mind to have cross-cultural similarities.
Jung believed that he'd found evidence of this in the appearance of certain symbols and 'archetypes' which appeared to occur in widely difffering cultures. For example, one of his patients had a dream in which he saw an ancient Mithraic sympol, though he had no knowledge of it previously.
Archetypes are major components of the unconscious, and are symbolic figures of great power, such as The Wise Old Man, or The Lady of The Waters. Tarot Cards, for example, are seen by some as storehouses of archetypal images. Archetypes may also appear as gods, daimons, or other 'intruders' into consensus reality.
The Trickster is a major archetype, from Loki to Coyote. It appears in most cultures in some guise or other and is (surprise) easily read as equivalent to Fort's Cosmic Joker.
I really urge people interested in Forteana to read up on Jung. His actual works are ridiculously hard going, but there are a number of decent introductory books around.
Hyde, Maggie and McGuinness, Michael, Jung for Beginners
Is a good start - cartoon format makes it very approachable. |
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soaringspirit Bolt from the blue Joined: 12 Feb 2002 Total posts: 80 Location: USA Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 29-04-2002 11:53 Post subject: |
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I just wanted to add that although Keel may well be a crank as it were...his books singlehandedly brought me back into paranormal studies after I had went from a true believer as a teenager to a bit of a debunker as time passed. Many cases of high strangeness from 60's "true" stories were pretty much proven as false, and I thought the ET UFO theories were wishful thinking by researchers who were trying to prove what they wanted to believe rather than what the facts supported.
Anyway, I like Keel....and can only wonder about Clark's hatchet job on him in the FT story. Seemed a bit unnecessary, as well as reading like sour grapes. And actually I like Clark's writing as well....but I was a little disappointed at his FT story.. |
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