JOHN KEEL NOT AN AUTHORITY ON ANYTHING

John thanks Charles Bowen for lending him a UFO photo, and writes more about his anticipated Playboy article, which was eventually refused. This is his carbon copy; he notes that he added a postscript to the original, asking Gordon Creighton about Antônio Villas Boas’s supposed sexual encounter with an alien, and about Jim Templeton’s “Solway Spaceman” photograph.

John thanks Bowen for Lou Zinsstag’s address, and requests a bio of Flying Saucer Review contributor Bernard E. Finch and a copy of a photo of the San Miguel Object. The UFO in question was reported in Argentina in January 1965; Bowen wrote about it in the May 1965 article of his magazine. (Here’s a link to it.) Bowen responds with a detailed bio of Finch, the news that C. Maxwell Cade is joining the staff, and the photo. Cade is mostly remembered for his work in biofeedback, but he was apparently interested in UFOs as well.

John did indeed write Lou Zinsstag to order copies of the Monguzzi photos (see the last post). Their exchange is not particularly notable, but they do trade a few optimistic remarks on the upcoming end of UFO secrecy, and we learn that seven UFO photos cost five dollars in 1966, and that both John and Ms. Zinsstag firmly believed in them. From what I understand, Monguzzi had confessed to a hoax back in 1952, but many people didn’t accept his confession.

I had posted all the letters in John’s file on Charles Bowen, but I just found several more in another file of his 1966 correspondence. So, I’ll move on to those; they fill in the gaps. The first is John’s initial letter to Flying Saucer Review, introducing himself, buying a subscription, and inquiring about the Monguzzi pictures. Giampero Monguzzi had taken several photos of a saucer and its pilot in 1952; he later confessed to a hoax, and posed with the models he’d used. John’s Playboy article and the book with Ivan Sanderson were eventually abandoned; he reworked the material into Operation Trojan Horse. Bowen directs John to Lou Zinsstag, an Adamski enthusiast who was also Carl Jung’s niece. Bowen is politely cautious about the Monguzzi photos.