Misoprostol fedex September 1967 begins with a flurry of reports, including a couple of UFO sightings, a couple of sudden departures, and some strange behavior from one of Jaye Paro’s friends. Gerda was John’s girlfriend; I don’t know who Rowdie was. John also traces a map of the Pleiades, speculating that some of the aliens came from there; he was apparently still considering the extraterrestrial hypothesis at this point.
John wrote to the supposed aliens on September 2, 1967. Among other topics, he mentions that Jaye Paro is tired of being a messenger, proposes setting up a communication center in an abandoned farmhouse, offers to let them possess him, and muses on his time in India. And, as he says at the end, “September promises to be a busy month for all of us.”
A few notes: John sent several questionnaires to Apol/Appell, receiving usually evasive answers; the library is the Lucis Trust library; Tim’na is the aliens’ name for Jaye Paro.
In a local thrift shop I found a copy of The White Woman and Her Valley, by Arch Merrill. Merrill was on the staff of the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle for many years, and wrote hundreds of articles on New York history and folklore, which he then turned into books. One of the chapters in this collection concerns the so-called Sea Serpent of Silver Lake, to which John devotes a chapter in Strange Creatures from Time and Space (later republished as The Complete Guide to Mysterious Beings). For those who mislaid their copies, a hotel keeper in John’s hometown of Perry, sometime in the 1850s, built an inflatable lake monster, which caused some excitement for a while. The “Sea Serpent” is still remembered fondly in Perry. Merrill’s account is rather brief, but he does present another version of what seems to be the only illustration of the hoax, which I posted here. Merrill’s picture is obviously the same, but many details are either lighter or darker, so I’ll post it here for lake monster hoax fans.
In the next two entries in his notes, John receives more strange stories from his usual informants, Jaye Paro, Louise, and Gladys Fusaro. John remained dubious about Gladys’s stories; the alien who visited the Palluccis certainly seems unlikely.
A couple of notes: John’s name, was, in fact, not “John Keel,” but “Alva John Kiehle.” And why shouldn’t he reveal the existence of the Lucis Trust library? It’s public, after all.
