Flying Saucer to the Center of Your Mind: Selected Writings of John A. Keel (45 page)

Recorded sightings of mysterious objects in the sky actually go back much further. Ancient Hindu manuscripts written 5,000 years ago describe things almost identical to those being reported today. The average UFO “believer” regards all of these historical records as “proof ” that the Earth has been “visited” throughout its long history. But when you dig deeper, you are forced to realize that the recorded sightings represent only a fraction of the total.

Although only a handful of sightings received national publicity in 1966-67, UFO activity has been constantly intensive and has extended throughout the world. The wire services and newspapers have neither the incentive nor the personnel to keep tabs on all of the reported sightings and collate them. One newspaper editor recently explained to the author, “When you’ve read one UFO report, you’ve read them all.” Although he was receiving an average of three reports per day, he bothered to print only about one a month.

If a Frenchman in World War II saw a single Sherman tank rumbling down a country road, he could reasonably deduce that there were undoubtedly many other Sherman tanks in France. He did not need to know that thousands of other Frenchmen were also seeing American tanks in order to confirm his deduction. Applying this same simple logic to the UFO phenomenon, we can assume that if two published UFO sightings survived from the year 1840, there may have been hundreds or even thousands of such sightings that year. Indeed, the late Charles Fort
did
burrow into yellowing newspaper files and old scientific journals, and uncovered many such sightings.

To belabor this important point: It is obvious that unidentified flying objects have been consistently active in the same areas for many years. Therefore it is quite reasonable to speculate that many of these objects actually originate in some unknown manner
from these areas
rather than traversing great spatial distances to make brief, random, and apparently pointless “visits.”

In short, many of the thousands of observed “flying saucers” and “spook lights” are more apt to be a part of the Earth’s environment than extraterrestrial craft flying in from some distant point. We have mistakenly misled ourselves into believing that unidentified aerial vehicles
must
be extraterrestrial merely because they do not conform to the patterns of behavior of known, manmade flying machines.

By the same token, UFO buffs now take the numerous “little men” sightings more seriously than the reports of normal-sized, normal-looking UFO occupants in coveralls, because the “little men” seem to substantiate the outer space theories; the normal-type pilots do not. Also, the normal-looking characters have been repeatedly described in many of the controversial “contactee” reports. Until very recently, very few “ufologists” took such reports seriously.

The unbelievable scope of the UFO phenomenon provides such a broad spectrum of contradictory data that it is possible – even probable – that several different “groups” are involved. The “little men” that have been reported may not be at all related to the nine-foot tall giants that have also allegedly been seen. However, there is abundant historical and archaeological evidence to indicate that both giants and dwarfs once inhabited many parts of the world. Giant coffins containing the bones of nine-foot tall humans were unearthed in Central America in the 19
^th
Century. On the other end of the scale, traces of a civilization of dwarfs have been discovered in South America, Africa, and even in the New England states.

Who were these bizarre people, and where did they eventually go? No one seems to know, and scientists sweep these “erratic” artifacts under the carpet. Clergymen, on the other hand, point to the Bible and Genesis 6:4: “There were giants in the earth in those days, and also after that…”

Researchers who have plunged into the vast literature on elves, fairies, and leprechauns have come up with equally fascinating cases – carefully documented throughout history – in which apparently sober and reliable people have actually seen “little people.” in many of these cases, the reported behavior of these “little people” is very similar to the behavior of the “little men” who have allegedly been observed around grounded flying saucers.

As we examine this great mass of data, much of which is impressively documented, we are forced to wonder if perhaps these ancient groups may not have found it preferable to coexist with savage and unpredictable modern man, while remaining aloof from him (us). Perhaps they even developed their own hidden cultures safe in some foreboding jungle or mountain range. Few people seem to realize that four-fifths of our planet is largely unexplored (since it consists of water, deserts, jungle, and icefields), and that only Europe and the United States have been adequately mapped. There are, in addition, many places where only three or four white men have passed through in all of recorded history. The world is full of hiding places. Some of them are right here in the United States.

Remember that UFO activity seems to be most intensive in isolated, thinly populated areas. In those regions, the activity reaches a peak between the hours of 10 p.m. and 4 a.m., when most of the local population is fast asleep. Dr. Jacques Vallee and other patient researchers have charted these patterns. Many ufologists fear that such obvious efforts to operate unobserved might suggest an ultimately hostile motive. Because of these patterns, it is highly probable that a considerable part of all UFO activity has gone on totally unobserved and unreported. Thus we can almost be certain that for each observed activity there are hundreds or even thousands of flights, landings, etc., of which we are not even aware.

This kind of intensive and continuous activity would be logistically unrealistic if the objects had to fly back and forth between Earth and some home base on another planet. It would be far more practical for the objects to operate from bases of some sort in the barren plains of the Midwest, the little-explored and rarely visited forests of Northern Canada, the jungles of Brazil, or a thousand other isolated and inaccessible places.

One group of far-out cultists have advanced the theory that a super-race of giants resides in caves deep toward the center of the Earth, and that these “Deros,” as they are called, not only operate flying saucers but are also responsible for all our troubles, ranging from wars to flu epidemics. This “Inner Earth” theory was first expounded by one Capt. John Cleves Symmes in 1818. He actually petitioned Congress for funds to finance an expedition to the center of the Earth (he planned to enter through an opening he was sure existed at the North Pole), and he even succeeded in getting 25 Congressmen to vote for his scheme.

In 1944, a welder named Richard shaver sent a long letter to Ray Palmer, then the editor of
Amazing Stories
magazine, outlining his alleged experiences with the Deros and their underground world. Palmer wrote a story based on the letter and published it. The magazine was flooded with letters from readers “confirming” Shaver’s story – some 50,000 in all – and the “Shaver Mystery” was born. Interestingly, Richard Shaver described saucer-shaped craft some
three years
before Kenneth Arnold’s report of nine such objects near Mt. Rainier, which kicked off the nation’s first publicized “flying saucer scare.” For a time, Ray Palmer was even accused of having created the whole UFO mystery just to sell his magazine. But the events of the succeeding two decades cleared him of that ugly charge.

If anything, Shaver’s tales appear to have been based upon weird hallucinatory experiences that might have been very real to him, and which may have been part of the long campaign to feed us confusing misinformation. Certainly all that we know about Earth and the mechanics of its motion rules out the possibility of a hollow interior. None of the advocates of the “Inner Earth” theory have been able to produce even a small shred of evidence to support it.

That “spook light” in Missouri must be originating from some spot within a ten-mile radius, yet no one has ever discovered its hiding place. If it were not for its apparently intelligent and controlled behavior, we might be able to write it off as a natural phenomenon.

Ivan Sanderson, a renowned biologist, is one of the serious, scientifically oriented ufologists who have dared to suggest that some of the mysterious flying lights might really be misunderstood
natural
phenomena. In his recent book,
Uninvited Guests,
he proposed that some of these objects could be
alive
– living packets of energy, drifting in from space to feast at the “free lunch counters” of our power lines. However, the “spook light” and its many counterparts were around long before this planet was girdled with power lines.

In 1947-48 another, more mundane, theory enjoyed brief popularity. It was suggested that the luminous blobs might be parcels of ionized air, electrical plasma, or ball lightning. Scientists quickly discovered, however, that ball lightning was a very rare phenomenon and followed a definite pattern of behavior quite different from UFOs. Tiny balls of electrical plasma were later produced in laboratories, but they only lasted for brief seconds and had to be created in a vacuum. It was also suggested that a “corona effect” around power lines might be producing spheres of electrical plasma. This theory was quickly discarded.

Back in the 1900s, General Electric’s brilliant Dr. Steinmetz had carefully taken the “corona effect” into consideration when he designed the first power systems. The wires were spaced and insulated in such a way as to prevent the effect from taking place. Steinmetz’s system has been constantly improved upon. Today, most modern power plants are equipped with a “corona meter,” which tells them instantly if a spark or corona is building up anywhere along their lines.

In 1966, an electronic engineer named Phillip Klass dusted off the electrical plasma theory and tried to reopen the whole subject. He garnered a lot of newspaper space, such that the aimless and thoroughly disproven concept again roused the ire of the UFO buffs.

There may really be a natural explanation for many unidentified flying objects, but we haven’t stumbled upon it yet. What could glow so brightly that it actually burns the eyes of many witnesses, responds to light signals from the ground, dodges bullets intelligently, and makes absolutely no sound?

For 20 years, the ufologists have told us that such things are “space ships” from another world. But perhaps they are making a mistake by lumping these lights together with the large, metallic objects that have often been seen in broad daylight and which might possibly be “space” ships.

In hundreds of reports, these “metallic” objects have been described as gigantic in size (in contrast to the lights, which are often only a few feet or even a few inches in diameter). Portholes, fins, and other distinguishing features have frequently been observed on these mysterious objects. Are these huge machines hiding in our forests and plains, or are they based at the bottom of our oceans? Or could it be that some of these things are “alien” after all?

Let’s open Pandora’s box a little further… If some of these larger craft are “alien,” and if they are visiting our planet repeatedly without establishing open and direct contact with us, then they must have another, unsuspected purpose. If some – or most – of the observed UFOs are based here, then it might be plausible to assume that the alien visitors are engaged in social or commercial intercourse with the “beings” occupying those theoretical bases. The visitors may be coming from the home base of those other beings, and may be bringing in supplies, additional personnel, etc., to establish new bases.

Should this be the case, the visitors may very well have hostile intentions. They could busily be setting up a sufficient number of secret bases, preparatory to launching a sudden and totally unexpected attack against us. If the visitors come from a great distance, it might take them many years or even centuries before their terrestrial bases would be strong enough to launch such an attack.

In the meantime, it would be necessary to keep us from suspecting anything. A program of psychological warfare would have to be instituted to keep us in confusion and blind us to the presence of the bases and the reconnaissance craft being used to study us, examine our strengths and weaknesses, and plan the ultimate attack. The strongest technique would be to engineer situations that would create a curtain of ridicule around the whole subject of unidentified flying objects, instill fear in the accidental witnesses to UFO operations, and avert official recognition or study of the phenomenon.

Apparently, this is precisely what is being done.

The rapid increase in reported UFO activity since 1964 indicates that new bases are possibly being installed and expanded throughout the world, under our very noses and without detection. If some of these UFO “bases” have always existed here, perhaps they have been somehow enlisted to participate in the visitors’ operation. To keep us off-guard, we have occasionally been contacted and given messages of peace and goodwill, and handed a “line” about the visitors’ place of origin and motives. The circulation of such stories kept the avid UFO believers off-guard and, at the same time, made the whole subject seem even more ridiculous to the skeptics.

Thanks to the UFO buffs’ 20-year campaign to convince everyone that the “flying saucers” were from outer space, no one has thought of looking for an answer closer to home. While everyone has been studying the skies, searching for a clue to the origin of the UFOs, the objects and their occupants may have been happily nesting in our very midst, quietly preparing for their “D-Day.”

Astronomers and physicists have tediously repeated the same arguments against the possibility of extraterrestrial visitations for 20 years. Everything we know about the planets in our own solar system seems to rule them out as possible sources. The nearest star is four light-years away and, according to our concepts of celestial mechanics and the limitations of our own technology, it would be virtually impossible to travel that distance within a human lifetime. But we cannot overlook these sobering facts: