JOHN KEEL NOT AN AUTHORITY ON ANYTHING

We continue with the pitch for Abominable Space Things, the proposed UFO book by John Keel and Ivan Sanderson.  Here are two pages of acknowledgements: note that both men were then on good terms with both NICAP and APRO.

So, below you’ll find the first part of the pitch for Abominable Space Things.  Keel and Sanderson specify their approach, and explain the title.  The appreciation of the word “things” is interesting, given that Sanderson went on to write books simply called Things and More Things.  The proposal also contains a section on acknowledgements, a table of contents, and a general description, which we’ll get to later.  But here’s the first part…

John wrote Ivan Sanderson again on May 2, 1966.  He was indeed corresponding regularly with the Lorenzens; and he was indeed inundated with material.  The meeting with Fawcett concerned his superhero spoof, The Fickle Finger of Fate (which has, parenthetically, puzzled some Keel fans unaware of his earlier work as a comedy writer).  He doesn’t seem to have corresponded with Isabel Davis, active in the UFO organizations CSI and NICAP.  I wonder how the meeting went…

Around this time, John was putting more work into his projected UFO article for Playboy, and the book with Sanderson sort of fizzled out.  But they did get as far as an outline/pitch, which I’ll bring you next time.

John apparently sent Ivan Sanderson a report on his meeting with Lt. Col. Maston Jacks.  I haven’t found a copy in John’s papers; but here’s Sanderson’s response to it, on April 29, 1966.  Sanderson also included a couple of clippings: one about a UFO sighting in Oklahoma City, on July 31, 1965; and one in which the astronomer Sir Bernard Lovell dismissed UFOs as “incredible nonsense.”

I’m also posting a copy of Jacks’s response to John’s letter of inquiry.  Obviously, he just wanted to give John a copy of “Project Blue Book” and make jokes about little green girls.  John found that an association with Playboy wasn’t necessarily helpful.