(12712) Mon 30 Nov 92 12:14p By: Mike Jittlov To: All Re: Wizard And John Keel St: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: jittlov@gumby.cs.caltech.edu (Mike Jittlov) Date: 30 Nov 92 13:02:04 GMT Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena Message-ID: <1fd3ccINNb6k@gap.caltech.edu> Newsgroups: alt.fan.mike-jittlov,rec.arts.sf.tv,sci.skeptic dan@wombat.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Dan Parmenter) writes: >How did John Keel find out that you were behind the hoax UFOs? I told him. (..."It's Story Time, it's Story Time!!") After i read his book, JADOO, I sent him a fan letter. And got a surprise phone call - he'd like to meet a fellow magician-inventor. John was even more surprised, when he showed up at my house - I was a lot younger than I or my letter sounded. (I used to fool the Great Blackstone with my original illusions - at age 13.) John was an amazing Renaissance-adventurer, a real-life Indiana Jones who toured the Middle East, India, and Tibet in his search for genuine magic. While waiting for his book royalties to pour in, John took residence at Hollywood's Chateau Marmount, and pseudonymically wrote for HONEY WEST and LOST IN SPACE (but you didn't hear this from me!). When I hitchhiked to Montreal's Worlds Fair Expo in 1967, I passed through a wild lightning storm in New Jersey, temporarily lost my backpack, and ended up in New York. I got a room at what I thought would be the safest place, sponsored by Christians and protected by the Almighty - the YMCA. And I called John, who was now as far from Hollywood as he could get. John gave a yell when he heard of my accommodations, and immediately got me a sleeping bag space in the far safer East Village, overlooking Tompkins Park. Very Bohemian, an amazing time, an amazing place... and oddly hard to leave, a week later - like a psychic sinkhole. Anyway, i got to visit the Keel Lair. He was then doing a lot more than writing. A hand sticking out of the wall was something he'd just stop-motion animated for a friend's movie. And he was building his own computer, kludging together any equipment available through contacts and friends (one at Brookhaven), into something that would eventually fill his apartment - all to chart UFO sightings and bizarre phenomenae. Like that lightning storm I'd witnessed. I mentioned that I was not a little skeptical. I'm open-minded, but not so much that my brains fall out. John was the same, his magician background left him just as wary. But strange things WERE afoot. And one of the Rules of this Reality (as I have come to learn it) is that you don't necessarily get what you deserve. It's more like, you get what you resemble. Magical things happen to magical people. (This does not explain my e.b.p. - there are exceptions to every Rule - which is another Rule.) When I mentioned that I and several friends had created many of the UFO's seen over Los Angeles (ie, the "1967 Flap"), John was not amused. His new directions had already opened a rift between him and fellow magician James "Amazing" Randy, and this did not help validate his quite serious research. I stopped playing the merry prankster, and decided to play within the new realities of filmmaking. In the late 1970's, I proudly sent him 16mm copies of some of my filmworks - including THE INTERVIEW, where I acted in a dual role as the man with a microphone, and the black-caped/hatted supersonic loudmouthed Fantum. Wrong. John was then investigating The Men In Black. When I called, to ask if he'd seen my work, his "Yes.." voice contained not a little awe and suspicion. Okay, I cooled it on the FANTUM (which would have been a really interesting movie - not what you think) (and certainly not like Darth Vader, who filmmaker Laurence Starkman claims I inspired). >He was always my second favorite UFO writer after Brad Steiger - they >seemed to focus on the more bizarre conpiratorial side of things, a >side which has been completely overlooked in recent years in favor if >the fashionable "visitor" and "abduction" scenarios. I attribute it >to the change in the political climate. The Men in Black, and the >super secret captured UFO and its tiny inhabitant were among the >richest parts of UFO folklore (or reality, take your pick) yet they >were very much reflections of a cold war mentality. The visitor >phenomenon is more reflective of New Age-ish sentiments with its >double-whammy focus on personal transformation as well as the whole >survivor culture (everyone seems to be in a support group for some >long-forgotten childhood trauma and evidence seems to suggest that in >many of these cases, the "memories" are induced by the hypnotist >"regressing" the person). Sounds like something from the realm of Dick Sutphen - a Malibu Newage publisher who wrote a fascinating expose on cults & brainwashing. (I think I still have it, if you'd like to see it re-posted.) > I miss the MIB though. I went through my >adolescence being terrified by the thought that if I were lucky enough >to see a UFO, mysterious men would harass and threaten me. I guess >John Keel had a book out not too long back that I have been meaning to >track down. His recent DISNEYLAND OF THE GODS is _very_ interesting reading. And I believe John is now the President of the Fortean Society. Or he SHOULD be. >I wonder what happened to Steiger though, no doubt hushed by the MIB. More likely settled in comfortable retirement, on the far side of the Pleiades. __________________________________________ ___._`.*.'_._ ________ Mike Jittlov - Wizard, etc . . + * .o o.* `.`. +. Hollywood, CA 90026-2714 ' * . ' ' |\^/| `. * . * jittlov@gumby.cs.caltech.edu (: May All Your \V/ Good Dreams <& alt.fan.mike-jittlov> and Fine Wishes /_\ Come True:) =============================================== _/ \_ =========== --- ConfMail V4.00 * Origin: Paranet(sm) - The world's leading UFO Investigative News Network (1:30163/150)