JOHN KEEL NOT AN AUTHORITY ON ANYTHING

This is the last letter from Carl Allen, and the last item in John’s “Jessup-Allende” file. Allen is upset that John doubted his identity, and outlines all the reasons why he must be the real Carl Allen. He apparently didn’t realize that other people were impersonating him or spreading rumors about him, and saw John’s skepticism as a personal attack. The story of the Philadelphia Experiment and the Varo edition was riddled with the usual ufological confusion, and one can only feel sorry for Allen for getting in over his head. I apologize for the bleed-through; I hope it’s still readable.

Carl Allen/Carlos Allende wrote two more letters to John. Neither is dated; here’s one of them.

It’s intriguing for anyone interested in the Philadelphia Experiment story, since Allen gives his own account of the Varo edition; oddly, he says he burned his copy. He makes some rather dubious claims–that he was a colonel in the Polish Republican Army, and that he’s a “Proffessor” who turned down a Ph. D.–and disparages Brad Steiger (Eugene Olson) and Patrick Huyghe. (I’ve met Patrick Huyghe, by the way, and he didn’t seem noticeably “moonstruck”). Allen also reveals that he sent tapes to Ivan Sanderson in a thick Mexican accent. Again, that may or may not be true. And, as usual, he berates John for being a “know-it-all.”

Carl Allen was obviously annoyed at John’s letter, and answered him with a remarkable 15-page single-spaced tirade. John refers to it in the letter that I linked to before, on Andrew Hochheim’s site. Allen also enclosed the record of his service on the USS Andrew Furuseth, where he claimed he saw the “Philadelphia Experiment.”

I suspect few readers will want to read Allen’s whole letter, so I’ll post just the first and last page, as well as his service record. He veers wildly between jovial friendliness and thundering denunciations, ending with saying he wants nothing more to do with John. But he did write two more (shorter) letters after this.

John answered Allen/Allende’s letter on September 3, 1971. He was, obviously, wary of anyone claiming to be Carlos Allende.

John had just finished writing Our Haunted Planet, which was published by Fawcett later that month. In Chapter 13, he mentions Allende, dismissing him as either a hoax or a myth: “A fantastic array of Allende impostors have turned up over the years to bedevil and bewilder the UFO buffs. He has managed to turn up in several different states at the same time. All kinds of letters and phone calls have been received by buffs in his name. Those who claim to have met him describe him as a swarthy man of Cuban or Spanish extraction. He rides around in a black Cadillac, of course.” He mentions that “a man claiming to be Carlos Allende” gave the Lorenzens a copy of the Varo edition, adding, “The real Allende, if there is a real Allende, would not have had access to a copy.” He equates him with other “mystery men” like Zdeen Alexander, who visited several ufologists in the early ’60s, and Mr. Dixsun, who once called on Edward Condon to announce that he represented the Seventh Universe.

John received, or at any rate saved, four letters from Carl Allen, otherwise known as Carlos Allende. The first of them is undated, and the postmark is illegible, but it seems to have been written in 1971. Allen had visited Jim and Coral Lorenzen, of the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO), and is responding to a letter from John that they had shown him.

In 1971, Allen was an almost mythical figure, as was the “Varo Edition.” There were rumors that neither really existed, and that various hoaxers were impersonating Allen.

Fred Lee Crisman, whom Allen mentions at one point, was a shadowy figure who, among other things, wrote to Amazing Stories about the Shaver Mystery, cooked up the Maury Island Incident, and was rumored to be one of the three tramps in Dallas when Kennedy was assassinated. Apparently John suspected he might have been Carl Allen as well. Dr. R. Leo Sprinkle was a ufologist (and contactee) on the faculty of the University of Wyoming; he died just a couple of months ago, on November 15.

ADDENDUM: Andrew Hochheim maintains a site about the Philadelphia Experiment, and has posted a couple of letters John wrote about Allen and the Varo edition, one to Robert Goerman, one to an unidentified recipient. You can see them here.

Gray Barker also sent John his correspondence with several institutions concerning Morris K. Jessup’s earlier career. Here are one of his letters of inquiry and responses from the University of Michigan, the Carnegie Institute, and the Department of Agriculture. Barker is now perhaps better known for his pranks than his research, but he did both. Jessup too was complicated, and, judging by these letters, apparently inflated his resumé.

Below are the four letters that Gray Barker enclosed in his letter to John (see the last post). He wrote the coroner of Dade County, Florida, to find out why no autopsy was performed on the ufologist Morris K. Jessup. The coroner, Dr. Joseph H. Davis, wrote back with the explanation (Jessup had donated his body to medical research), and asked for more information about Jessup and the possible reasons for his suicide. He also asked about the use of drugs in UFO circles. As Barker said in his letter, his own replies had been lost.

The next item in the “Jessup-Allende” file is a letter from Gray Barker, 9/30/75. He thanks John for plugging his edition of The Varo Edition in Bormujos Saga. This was a reprint of a book published by the Varo Manufacturing Corporation in Texas, containing Morris K. Jessup’s book The Case for the UFO, with all of the annotations by Carlos Allende (Carl Allen) in red. “Giant Crock” is, of course, Giant Rock in the Mojave Desert in California, site of a regular UFO convention featuring some of the more colorful personalities in ufology; Barker was apparently amused by it. The title of the Blums’ movie is actually Mysteries from Beyond Earth; Barker also managed a movie theater in Clarksburg. Notable here too are mentions of two Keelian characters, “John Keel’s brother” and “John Keeler.” “Dr. D” and his ravings about hallucinogens are unknown to me. Maybe someone out there can clarify!

I now turn to a file that John called “Jessup-Allende.” It contains a number of documents about the so-called “Philadelphia Experiment.” I assume anyone who reads this site is familiar with the subject, but if not, the Wikipedia article provides the basic background. John’s file contains correspondence with Gray Barker about Morris K. Jessup and the “Varo Edition,” Barker’s own correspondence with several institutions about Jessup, and John’s correspondence with Carl M. Allen (aka Carlos Allende). (I posted a page of it here several years ago, but there’s much more.)

This letter to Gray Barker (March 20, 1968) also touches on reports of Men In Black and on Barker’s upcoming book on Mothman. The book, The Silver Bridge, became more novel than report; at any rate, here John offers to help Barker with it.

I know that most people who read this site are more interested in John’s work in Forteana and ufology than in his earlier career in radio and TV. However, given that there was always a bit of the trickster in him (as commenters here have sometimes noted), I thought I’d post an example of his work as a professional prankster. Here are ten scenarios for the long-running TV show Candid Camera. They’re from around 1964; I don’t know if they were ever used.