John Keel on the Mothman

[27mamajama]

a great man R.I.P. I loved the book and haven't watched the movie

[grubeci]

great movie made me shart or worse my pants love your movie dude!

[grubeci]

great movie made me shart or worse my pants

[syketo]

I want to complete his research, and find the answers he couldn't. I don't know why but I feel compelled to solve these mysterys. I know that somewhere out there, there is a group that knows the answers; I wan't to find them.

[VideoDave2]

@syketo You are much more likely to find any number of groups that think they know the answers.

[adonelahi]

@syketo Read the Bible..."My Kingdom is not of this world"

[MrFrontallobotomy]

@syketo John would tell you himself if he was still alive that you will never find the answer. A lot of people have gone mad looking for the answer.

[coollaidmann]

@syketo read alien intrusion by Gary Bates. He nails it.

[1980vince]

such bull shit!!!!!!!!!!

[dltanner99]

Cryptozoology novel about two boys who find something strange on the beach one night see video book trailer

[VideoDave2]

@LetitiaDuboux410 said:Grab the audio from this clip at searchripgrab doht cohm.

In violation on international copyright laws. Nice thing to post on the site of the person you are suggesting to rip off.

[vapors420]

Shit I might grab a clip n put in one of my songs...

[Gozzmaster]

Does anybody think that the woman in yellow at 6:36 is KERRY CASSIDY from Project Camelot?

[VideoDave2]

@Gozzmaster

>Does anybody think that the woman in yellow at 6:36 is KERRY CASSIDY from Project Camelot?

Who ever Cassidy is, that is definitely not the name of the woman in question. For privacy sake, I of course will not reveal her name, but, she was a long time

[curlyqpd]

@Gozzmaster that is not Kerry.

[curlyqpd]

@Gozzmaster that is not Kerry. The voice has a quality that sounds like her but this woman is older.

[raggedmoorlander]

I wonder if these lightforms are forms of light which are not part of the visible spectrum, that is if they are made up of ultra-violet light and beyond (or infra-red and beyond). They may emit light in the visible part of the spectrum only rarely. This may explain why these lights are so very rarely captured on film at close quarters. People get burned by them, yes, but how many 'burn' cases are accompanied by photographs. None that I can think of off-hand.

[tjrxk7]

RIP John Keel A courageous investigative journalist

[raggedmoorlander]

Here Keel relates how the cargo boatmen on the Ohio River would shine searchlights at these lights and they would 'jump out of the way' - and they did the same with Keel's flashlight. So then Keel flashes messages in morse code and 'they would do whatever I ordered them to do', and even when he makes up his own code, they 'knew this code'. One would be inclined to dismiss such tales as fanciful if...well,if it were not Keel, but also if this sort of thing were not so well documented elsewhere.

[donnaleon100]

My laptop wont let me see vids from youtube dunno why tried everything but i bet what John Keel's saying is pretty dam interesting.

[VideoDave2]

@donnaleon100

The YouTube videos are generally short excerpts from the full length talks that are available on DVD from the INFO web site.

[ollinayato]

I have a full copy of the John keel interview. It was very neat to watch.

[usernameunauthorised]

pls turn the volume up

[692ALBANNACH]

the eighth tower is interesting too.

[grimaces]

I saw a ufo once. No big deal.

[Clematisian]

Sad John Keel died just this past summer (July 3, 2009) his 1970 magnum opus, "Strange Creatures From Time & Space", has served many a cryptozoologist well over the years. Also, anyone interested go to the web site Cryptomundo (dot) com for more monster sleuthing. Thank you, VideoDave2, for posting this gem ~ (•8-D

[spurnthemuse]

Folks, that is a disinformation site. SPURN THE MUSE!!

[NostalgicDays88]

John Keel is the MAN!!!

His book is so badass I read it twice cuz it was, well, badass!

[TalentlessNoob]

What book was it im curious thanks

[NostalgicDays88]

The Mothman Prophecies.

=D

[MickeyLove01]

people who search never find, things come to you without wanting....

[tommyc631]

Thanks alot for your advice on voice overs. Just what I needed. This is the only way I knew how to reply to you. Thanks again and good luck.

[1Nyro]

Why didn't he video these lights?

[VideoDave2]

You must be pretty young. This was sometime in the 1960s. That's like asking "why didn't Custer use his cell phone when surrounded by Indians?".

[1Nyro]

Lol, sorry I totally missed the beginning when he said it was in the 60s.

[hatemf23]

there was video in 60s wasnt there? even ww2 was filmed.. in color

[VideoDave2]

>Videoin the 60s?

You must be young also. I believe the first consumer video recorder was around about 1974 and they cost and weighed a ton. Yes there was *Film* in ww2, and due to one of the strange quirks of how language evolves many people talk about filming things with their camcorder. Not to worry, some people who say they dial your phone number have never even seen a dial phone. :-)

[dtp1978]

@VideoDave2

wrong, my mother was born in 1960 and we have boxes and boxes of super8 movies that her parents took of her and her siblings all through the 60's, they still have the camera as well, handheld and smaller than the vhs homevideo cameras from the 80's. So could he have "videoed" the lights, no. But he could have made a film of them.

[VideoDave2]

@dtp1978

I have 8mm footage that my parents took in the 1940s, but, movie film from that era was pretty useless in other than daylight. So, it isn't very likely that he would have been carrying a movie camera, and in fact he didn't.

[Petey0707]

@VideoDave2 well, why didn't he? should've dialed 911 

[theRingofGygax]

@1Nyro, Keel mentions in his account in the Mothman book that once he actually did have a movie camera on the seat of his car right next to him when some phenomena happened (can't remember what exactly at this moment), but he was so stunned that he didn't even think to grab it. Granted, the phenomenon happened rather quickly, but still he mentions the effect these phenomena have on people's minds. Other footage was shot by professionals...footage which was then overexposed, lost, etc...

[VideoDave2]

After years of studying strange phenomena, Keel came to believe that there was an air of unreality about Fringe creatures. The similarity and proximity of reports about UFOs, bigfoot and Nessie can easily lead one to believe they are all more the game of the cosmic trixter than substantial entities. I find Space Men in metal containers from the Pleadies to be somewhat more wacky.

[miketheratguy]

I hated Keel's interpretation of Mothman. You read the witnesses' accounts and it's all about a physical creature. Keel would have you believe it's a metaphysical interdimensional prognosticator who can predict the future.

Whatever. Sad that he died, I think his intentions were pure. I just always hated his wacky outlook on what was supposedly a very here-and-now physical being.

[SpikeDubbs]

I don't think he thought it could tell the future. Though the fact that it always appeared before some sort of disaster was in essence some kind of omen or prediction even. The mothman never predicted anything. He was a creature people saw. He never spoke to anyone. Though the strange people Keel mentioned and encountered in his book predicted the future.

[miketheratguy]

Oh no, you're right and I agree- the Mothman was quite simply a physical entity. No metaphysical future-telling nonsense.

But I remember his comments tying it to the collapse of the Silver Bridge in Ohio (which was a major element in the movie based on his book) and that film, as well as some of his books, have discussed the idea that Mothman was a creature of precognition.

I'll have to go through my books but I'm sure I have some quotes where he thought it was more than just a cryptid.

[SpikeDubbs]

Yea its a weird thought process. But where did Keel say he thought it predicted the future? I'm trying to remember what he talked about in his book. I guess I should read it again. I know he described in detail eyewitness accounts. That chapter was the best part of the novel.

Its creepy though....how quickly the creature appeared and reappeared in different areas for brief periods of time throughout the world. What does it all mean?! ha ha

[miketheratguy]

Well I know the one I read most recently is not the Mothman Prophecies but rather "The Complete Guide to Mysterious Beings" by Keel.

As I flip through it right now, you are correct, it seems he's talking about the WITNESSES claiming premonition and ESP. I could swear it was Keel's own opinion that Mothman was a harbinger of doom, reinforced in the movie, but I might have gotten my facts confused, I'll have to keep skimming his books.

Yeah, weird either way. Mothman always fascinated me.

[SpikeDubbs]

Yea to be honest I don't remember the book that well. i'll have to re-read some of his works too. I think he speculated that about the mothman. Or maybe he didn't I'm not too sure. In the Mothman Prophecies I only remember him talking about experiences he had while interviewing different witnesses. He also gave his opinions on said witnesses and events. They were more documentary style reporting in written form. I'll have to check out that book you just talked about. Sounds like a good read.

[miketheratguy]

Yeah it's entertaining, he talks about creatures like the Grinning Man, Bigfoot, etc.

They mention it at the bottom of his Wikipedia page. As for the psychic stuff, they do quote him rejecting the extraterrestrial hypothesis and saying he thinks the creatures are more of a psychic phenomena. Stuff like that, and the movie's overt declaration of Mothman as something far deeper than a simple monster, is probably what made me remember his idea of Mothman as one I disagreed with.

[SpikeDubbs]

Yea and what they tried to portray Indrid Cold as probably threw some people off. When I first saw the movie I was thinking that he was some sort of form of the actual Mothman. Until I read Keel's book "The Mothman Prophecies" I found out that he was just one of the conctactees that Keel spoke to frequently. An enigmatic character that John thought that he might have been a nutjob until he told him things that he couldn't possibly have known. Pretty creepy to be sure.

[miketheratguy]

Right, exactly. I think it was misguided to take a supposed spaceman seen by who Keel calls "not a learned man" and conform that into being the same entity as Mothman. Cold was supposed to be a fairly humanoid man that stopped a guy and shared visions with him. For the movie to imply he was also Mothman was frustrating to me. I can see why they made the connection since they happened at the same time, but I just can't believe MM was anything more than a simple but (strange) creature.

[SpikeDubbs]

Yea I completely agree. I mean when I saw the movie before I read the book I was confused as to why the mothman would all of a sudden take on a humanoid form to talk to people while at the same time, terrorizing the rest. But that's why Keel's amazing works are there. To tell us as much truth as they may or may not have in them. Hopefully someone as brave and sensible as Keel will come come around into the field of paranormal investigating and give us more insight.

[miketheratguy]

For sure. I read the book I mentioned a while before the movie, so when the caller was identified as Indrid Cold I thought "wait a minute...its been a while, but wasn't that a whole different case?" I went to confirm it, saw I was correct, and it always bugged me. But over time I see that he was linking the 2 cases, whereas the movie just plain COMBINED them, which I think was a bad idea. But yeah, Keel was a fantastic researcher, if you haven''t read him yet I strongly recommend Jerome Clark.

[SpikeDubbs]

Yea if I remember correctly he said that the "Voices" that told him about the whereabouts of random objects he had lost were from a bunch of random phone calls. He was testing the voices to see if it continued the string-line of weird contactess he encountered in point pleasant. Indrid cold was someone he actually met if I'm not mistaken. The movie did combine those two and the mothman all into one plot point and it was a bad idea. But it was creepy for those who didn't know.

[miketheratguy]

You're right, that's a good point, the people who didn't know Indrid Cold wouldn't have cared. Then again I saw the movie in my hometown of Kenosha, Wisconsin, and in the movie cold mentions the city of Racine to Richard Gere. Since that's ten minutes from Kenosha, the people in the theater were all happily distracted by the name drop, lol.

In that book I mentioned Keel visits the guy who told him about Cold, and they search for him and see lights, but if Keel "met" Cold by then, he didn't say.

[SpikeDubbs]

Whoa that's a cool name drop indeed. I would've been hyped to find out more if I was one of the people in that theater. I thought the movie was very entertaining and appropriately creepy. Though I think that one major downfall was that I was expecting something to happen. Something involving actually seeing the Cold or the mothman. That was my only real dissapointment.

And I'll check that book out that book you recommended. Sounds great.

What did you think of the Mothman film?

[miketheratguy]

Yeah, there were cheers in the audience, lol. Almost a hometown shout-out.

I guess ultimately a little disappointed with the movie because it didn't stick with Mothman as I know him. I'm glad that they discussed the Mothman cases a little and the beginning was freaky because they sort of showed him once. As a paranormal thriller it was good.

But as a recreation of the actual Mothman cases, I was disappointed. I would have preferred that the movie present him as the creature, not an enigma.

[SpikeDubbs]

A good review indeed. I haven't seen the movie in a while so I might check it out just to see what all the little discrepancies we talked about were like.

Yea if there was some way they could have related the mothman case to all the UFO sightings in the area it would've been better. I don't know how it would've played out though.

[miketheratguy]

I guess it comes down to person opinion and expectation. I read the Mothman case in 2nd grade, in a kid's book by the author Daniel Cohen. It was my favorite, and I liked how, over time, more and more books started talking about it. I loved the allegation that it was a terrifying creature that would approach and chase people.

So in the movie I was waiting to see women drop babies at the sight of it and so on. I was sad that it was way more ethereal than tangible, but yes, it was still good.

[SpikeDubbs]

That's awesome! A children's book about Paranormal creatures and such? What a kids book that must've been. What else was in there?

[miketheratguy]

Oh man, it's been so long since I read it, and I've tried to find it ever since, I can barely remember. I want to say that it also had some alien stuff, like the Hill case...In fact if I remember correctly the cover was a poor illustration of a spaceship with various creatures in the windows. In fact I think the book had various poor illustrations, lol. I remember the one of Mothman distinctly (kind of looked like a bald guy flying toward the artist headfirst).

I'll see if I can find the name.

[miketheratguy]

Ah here we go. Encyclopedia of Monsters. I think this is it, but it's got a different cover so I can't be totally sure. But yeah, the book was a kid's book on the paranormal, it was awesome. I have it to thank for exposing me to the Mothman legend!

[SpikeDubbs]

lol I wish I could find that book. Sounds too cool. Didn't it scare you at all when you were in 2nd grade? It would've given me a little scare if I was that old and read it. ha ha

[miketheratguy]

Yeah I was only about 7 or 8 when I first started reading that stuff. It did kind of freak me out, but I guess that's why I read it over and over. Mothman and the Hill lien abduction case creeped me out the most.

There was another little book that I read in 2nd grade, and I'll never remember what it was, it was part of a series of little well-illustrated reading booklets for kids that was given out to my class. I wanted the dinosaur one, but got the UFO one, and it started me on my journey, lol

[michaelmyersbutcher1]

when you get the mothman book and you read it he makes it bloody brilliant how he tell the story i beleave in it and when am older i want to be like him

[born2badored]

belief is the enemy

[eepidoodle]

he was a very rare man. didnt succum to hysteria and looked and studied this phenomenon logically. RIP Mr Keel!

[sboxjunk]

John Keel has sadly died today. Great author.

R.I.P

[thirdpositionist]

Out of all the famous people who have passed away in the last couple of weeks, by far the most important was John Keel.

~RIP~

[firestar124]

Oh my god. I didn't know that. That is very sad.

[Relentlessly0110]

A fascinating man with an even more fascinating story to tell.

[sgk1967]

I read his 8th tower tome years ago. Freakin' hilarious!!!!

[Fade9150]

I think John Keel is the mothman. Either way if you believe in it or not some crazy shit went on at TnT during that time. Its documented fact.

[fleamarket3000]

the Mothman is real

[VideoDave2]

Respondinging to sillicon2001 comment: "I will have to come up with a bull**t story myself lets see the batman no done, spiderman no done". Like most of Keel's detractors he is attacking a strawman rather than anything Keel has actually said. What he missed, assuming he watched the video is:1. Keel did not invent "Mothman", rather he compiled reports of those who claim to have encountered said creature. 2. He did not make up the name "Mothman", that was an invention of newspaper reporters.

[redmario222]

I think a Batman Prophecies would be hilarious. However, Keel did an amazing job. He told the facts and he's the most important key in solving the true legend of the Mothman

[silicon2001]

So he must have made a shit load of money from the film. I will have to come up with a bullshit story myself lets see the batman no done, spiderman no done, the frogman no they are real, I know the creature from the black lagoon. Should sell and would make a great film.... The mothman could be real but he would have a high voice as I found mothballs in my closet.

[Apothekari]

"Great Tragedy 5/19/08 the earth trembles in Ohio"

[mfluffyk]

I look forward to the day when UFOs can be studied in a more scientific way. Keel points us in the right direction.

[alekmosingiewicz]

I'd say even - when all of the allegedly 'unexplained' phenomena - like levitation, 'demonic' posession, 'miracles' etc will be studied in a scientific way. mfluffyk, you're my man.

[redletterchurch]

I think Keel is on the right track. I'm not a pro, but he makes more sense to me than anyone I have heard or read so far. But his theories are creepy! This stuff seems more demonic than angelic. It seems to be more intradimensional than extraterrestrial. But do 'they' want us to think they are from the other side of the universe? Do they bluff, lie, etc. to control us? What the hell do they want? Time for a planetary exorcism? Barf bags anyone?

[cmsahe]

His ideas are shared by the Spanish ex-jesuit priest Salvador Freixedo, basically these beings are transdimensional cheaters, jokers, several of them are the evil, with a few of them bening. from wik "a non-human or spiritual intelligence source has staged whole events, in order to propagate and reinforce certain erroneous belief systems. they seem to have a long-standing interest in interacting with the human race "

[krelllabs]

Thanks so much for posting this. And in

the end, Richard Gere did play him!