John A. Keel

Loren Coleman over at Cryptomundo has a post about John A. Keel, asking what others think of him.

I was surprised and disappointed at a few of the responses that dismiss Keel. Others appreciate his incredible contributions to Forteana, which includes UFOs and Bigfoot and other creatures, like the Loch Ness creature, etc. (Despite the insistence by some researchers those things have no place in the more esoteric, Fortean realm.)

Keel (like Jacques Vallee and a few others) have always done their own thinking, and brought to all of us new ideas, new ways of looking at it all. It’s such a shame that there are those who can’t appreciate these ideas, or who get impatient with them, thinking that they’re quaint or old fashioned, or have nothing to do with UFOs, Bigfoot, and so on.

Not to say I agree completely with writers like Keel, Vallee, Steiger, and so on but none of us ever agree completely with each other — that’s not the point. Showing us new and different perspectives, and often the only voice among hundreds of voices that stick to the same rigid views — that’s what Keel has always done.

Let’s not forget about writers like Keel, who goes his own way, always has, and has brought us so many intriguing possibilities concerning the esoteric.

This is important because the more one gets into this field, the more one sees the connections and synchronicities that come out of studying these topics. Some ignore them or brush them off, considering them unimportant. But the more we look at these things, the more we see unique episodes of high strangeness; how can that be ignored? Yet so many do. These things can’t be ignored, dismissed or shrugged off. We’re really missing so much if we do.