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 disorderly 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!
Doctor D(ee) of Andrija Puharich / The Nine / OSS / CIA fame. Hm.
On another note, what would John Keel have made of the current crop of contactees??
https://www.phantomsandmonsters.com/p/the-unseen-ones-winged-ones.html
Comment by WHITEFRANK — December 16, 2021 @ 12:14 am
Who’s this Doctor D(ee)? I Googled him and Puharich and came up with nothing. The only Dr. Dee I know is the Elizabethan occultist John Dee. And he never wrote about hallucinogens!
John often noted that new contactee stories are often similar to the old ones. I don’t know what he would think of this later crop, but he did stress that these experiences do reoccur.
Comment by Doug — December 18, 2021 @ 12:19 pm
Doug, the “Dr. D” that Barker is referring to is in all likelihood Dr. Leon Davidson, who contributed fairly often to Barker’s good buddy Jim Moseley’s Nexus and Saucer News newsletters and was an early advocate of the “Earth Theory”, i.e., that UFOs were a secret U.S. military weapon and/or psychological warfare ploy. He had worked in intelligence (I believe the CIA) and originally, in the 1950s, thought that actual secret aircraft were employed, but turned more to a pure psy-ops theory in the 1960s. He suggested that mind-altering drugs were used on some contactees, including Adamski. He also contributed to Flying Saucer News and was instrumental in helping to get Blue Book Special Report 14 printed for public distribution (That’s probably what he is best remembered for today.). Thanks for posting this, Doug – yet another fascinating thread!
Comment by Paul — January 4, 2022 @ 10:37 am
Thanks, Paul! I just browsed through Jim Moseley’s memoir, Shockingly Close to the Truth, and he does identify “Dr. D.” as Leon Davidson.
Comment by Doug — January 5, 2022 @ 7:41 pm