Flying Saucer to the Center of Your Mind: Selected Writings of John A. Keel

by Keel, John A.

  There are now many hundreds of “little men” reports from all over the world. In the majority of these, the witnesses describe the creatures as having Oriental-like eyes, lipless slit-like mouths, and long, slender hands. They seem to share these physical characteristics with the taller (usually 5’9”) ufonauts who have now been reported in abundance, particularly in North and South America. The beings who purportedly abducted Betty and Barney Hill in New Hampshire, in 1961, were described by them as being less than five feet tall and having “wraparound” eyes. Usually they are said to be dressed in tight-fitting black coveralls or in “silver suits.” Occasionally there have been reports of green-suited creatures. Early reports of such types gave rise to the “little green men” stories. In approximately 80% of the known contact cases (both tall and short), the ufonauts have been described as having dark or olive complexions.

  Where all of these “people” are coming from is a complicated part of the mystery, and there are no real clues. We can only note that they seem to reappear consistently in the same isolated and thinly populated areas, year after year. Michigan, Minnesota, and Arkansas had hundreds of sightings in 1897, and the objects were back in strength in the same areas throughout 1966-67. In some areas, UFO sightings can be traced back hundreds of years. It almost seems as if it is a local phenomenon. Why, we must ask, would beings from another planet travel to the dustbowl of Oklahoma year after year, century after century? Local Indian legends of the “Sky People” go back many centuries.

  The many “contact” reports and creature sightings, sometimes involving dozens of witnesses, mean that we must exclude purely natural causes for the phenomenon such as “ball lightning,” meteors, weather balloons, and the like. The objects are obviously manned, and we now know a great deal about those occupants (although we still don’t know enough).

  We also have very good reason to believe that there is a group or organization of people living amongst us who do not want us to find out what is really going on… The U.S Air Force now admits that they have been trying to catch the unknown persons who have masqueraded in Air force uniforms and threatened American citizens, sometimes only minutes after those citizens had observed a UFO – and before they had a chance to report their sighting to anybody. The air Force now quietly hands over UFO cases to the FBI, not to harass the witnesses, but to find out who is harassing them!

  The “contactees” have allegedly been subjected to all kinds of harassment in the past twenty years. A few have published books and articles outlining the real and imagined outrages committed against them. But most have suffered in silence, whispering among themselves about the “government agents” who tap their phones, tamper with their mail, and follow them doggedly in gleaming black Cadillacs. Those who have managed to get a good look at their pursuers have usually described them as being either “short, stocky men in gray suits” or “dark-complexioned men, about five feet, nine inches tall, with high cheekbones and angular faces, dressed in black suits.” In essence, they are unwittingly describing the known characteristics of the UFO occupants themselves!

  Are there two groups involved here, both of the same racial origin, but in conflict with each other? The testimonial evidence seems to indicate this. One group seems to be trying almost desperately to gain our attention, while the other group is working equally hard to suppress the witnesses and keep down the flow of information from their “enemy.” The government and the Air Force may be caught in the middle and, thanks to the skillful manipulations of the suppression group (who pose as air Force officers, etc.), are inadvertently being blamed.

  The UFO buffs have blandly simplified an extraordinarily complicated situation. They have been propagandizing for years, trying to tell us that “a superior extraterrestrial intelligence with an advanced technology” is “surveying” our planet and making plans to land and save us from ourselves. If it were not for the extensive historical documentation, we might be able to believe that the “flying saucers” are really some secret device from the U.S. or Russia. But this has been going on for too long. The data simply does not fit these over-simplified concepts.

  Something else is happening here. Something very frightening...

  Let’s consider a single heavily investigated and well-documented case that recently made headlines. The newspaper stories were superficial, so the full facts are being revealed here for the first time.

  The hero of this bizarre story is a rugged 29-yr. old farmer named Carroll Wayne Watts, a man who enjoys an impeccable reputation for honesty and integrity in his hometown of Wellington, TX. At 10:30 on the night of Friday, March 31, 1967, Watts was working around his barn when he noticed a light moving near an abandoned house belonging to his uncle. Suspecting thieves or trespassers were up to no good, he jumped into his car and headed for the building. As he drew closer to the light, he was startled to see that it was part of a cylindrical object about 100 feet long and 8 or 10 feet high.

  “At first I wasn’t frightened at all,” he later told investigators. “I thought it must be some new aircraft the Air Force had developed, and that it must have made an emergency landing or something. I know this sounds odd, but that was the first thing I thought of. I also thought that there might be injured crewmen aboard, and I wondered how to find out, since there weren’t any windows or doors.”

  He got out of his car and approached the machine, which appeared to be hovering two or three feet above the ground.

  “Suddenly, a door that I hadn’t detected before slid open – something like an elevator door,” he said.

  And that was when I began getting scared; though, somehow, I just stood there, looking into this opening. Inside, there were no crew or anything, just machinery and all kinds of meters and dials, lit up by a strange bluish light.

  Then there was a loud cracking like the beginning of a Victrola record. A voice, sounding like it came from a machine or was recorded, began talking to me. It knew my name and everything, and it told me that it wanted to give me a physical examination. It said no harm would come to me whatsoever, and that the examination would be completely painless.

  They pointed out a machine against the opposite wall from where I was standing. They said all I had to do was stand before the machine to take the physical… About two or three feet from the machine was a map. It was about a yard square and began about a foot from the floor. It appeared to be a large-scale land map, but I couldn’t tell what it was a map of.

  They – whoever “they” are – said they were stationed all over the world, and could come and go as they pleased; no one could stop them. When I declined the physical, they told me that several people had taken the test and made flights.

  Mr. Watts left the object hurriedly and abandoned his car, leaving it with its motor running, to hurry back to his farm on foot. He told his wife the story, and decided to call his cousin, Don Nunnelly, who happens to be the Chief of Police in Wellington. Both Nunnelly and Collingsworth County Sheriff John Rainey drove immediately to Watts’ farm, and they all went to the site. The object was gone, but Watts’ vehicle was still there with its engine running.

  Preposterous though it may seem, Carroll Watts’ story is not an unusual one. Over the years, many witnesses have claimed identical experiences. A rocket engineer named Dan Fry became the center of controversy when he claimed he encountered a saucer-shaped object in the desert near White Sands, NM on July 4, 1950, and that a voice invited him aboard and took him for a jaunt across the country. Another technician, California TV repairman and ham-radio operator named Sidney Padrick, reported that a voice also invited him onto a spherical object, on a beach near Monterey Bay, early on the morning of Jan. 30, 1965. But Carroll Watts’ narrative seems to pick up where the others leave off.

  Two weeks after Watts’ initial experience, on Tues., April 11, 1967, he said he saw another light near his home. This time, the engine of his pickup truck stalled when he tried to approach it. He got out of the cab and found a metallic, egg-shaped object
hovering directly behind his vehicle. A door opened, he testified, and four small men appeared. They were all less than five feet tall, seemed muscular, and had elongated eyes and slit-like mouths, which did not move when they spoke. They were dressed in “white coverall-type suits.” They addressed him in English, he claimed, and asked him if he would go with them. This time, he agreed.

  Watts reported that he was flown to a much larger craft, possibly somewhere in space, where he was examined by some sort of machine that probed his body with wires. He tried to pick up and retain a small cube from a table onboard the craft, and the next thing he knew he was back in his truck, regaining consciousness.

  In the months that followed, Watts saw the “little men” again and took a total of eleven pictures of them and their craft. Six of these were eventually turned over to the FBI (who took him most seriously). One of the “little men” pictures went to Dr. J. Allen Hynek, the astronomer who has served as official UFO consultant to the air force for 20 years. Dr. Hynek was widely quoted in the press as saying that no fraud seemed to be involved. “If this is a hoax,” Hynek declared, “it is a very, very clever one. In fact, it would be such a clever hoax that it would be almost as interesting as what this farmer claims has happened to him.”

  Carroll Wayne Watts had nothing to gain by making up such a story. Indeed, he had risked his very fine reputation by revealing it publicly. Everyone who knew him supported him. Many other residents in his area had also seen peculiar flying objects, including Chief of Police Alvis Maddox of nearby Childress, TX, who pursued a UFO for several miles outside of Wellington on the night of March 2, 1968. Sheriff John Rainey also saw that object. Both men said that it was a “huge bright light” moving over U.S. 83 at an altitude of about 500 feet.

  Dr. Hynek suggested that Watts submit to a lie-detector test and the young farmer welcomed the idea. On Sunday, Feb. 23, 1968, he started out for Amarillo, where the test was to be administered by the Amarillo Security Control Company. Near Hedley, TX, on Rt. 287, Watts came upon a 1957 Plymouth that was apparently in trouble. A woman stood next to it, looking rather helpless, so he pulled over to the side of the road and stopped to see if he could help her. As he approached her, two rugged men carrying rifles suddenly popped up from under a nearby culvert and threatened him, or so he claimed. Watts said they struck him about the shoulders with their weapons and warned him that if he passed the lie-detector test, he would never return home alive.

  It was a very distraught man who walked into Amarillo Security Control Company that afternoon. Watts submitted nervously but deliberately lied, he declared later, so that the results would be negative.

  When he returned home that evening, he noticed a car parked some distance away. It began to cruise back and forth in front of his home with its headlights out. Watts dug out his M-1 rifle, loaded it, and hid behind a storm cellar next to the house. On the car’s final pass, there were three loud reports, like shots, Watts claimed. He fired back with his M-1, shooting at the retreating car several times. Then he called the police. Investigators found the spent cartridges next to the storm cellar, but there were no marks of any kind on the house.

  A former Air Force officer, Capt. Robert B. Loftin, visited Watts and filed a detailed report with the aerial phenomenon research organization (APRO) in Tucson, AZ. Reporters for Saucer News, Michael Femora and Richard E. Wallace, also investigated. They were all impressed with Watts’ obvious sincerity and the straightforward manner in which he related his incredible story. He passed rigorous cross-examinations.

  Whether or not Carroll Wayne Watts actually talked with “little men” from a UFO and submitted to a physical examination almost seems to be a side issue in this case. His story of “contact” contained all of the little-known details and correlative factors. His friends, neighbors, and the local authorities backed him to the hilt. He managed to convince experienced investigators that he was telling the truth. If the man was making it all up, what was his motive? After the results of the lie-detector test were made public, he was subjected to considerable ridicule by the press. The story of that test was circulated nationally by the wire services. Watts doesn’t stand to make a nickel from all this. (In fact, contrary to all the myths, none of the “public contactees” have profited from their experiences. The most famous of them all, George Adamski, died broke.)

  But if two men did attack and threaten Carroll Watts, who were they? And why was it so important to them that his story should be ridiculed and not taken seriously?

  Watts is only one in a long line of UFO witnesses who have suffered in this manner. We have no way of telling how many people were effectively and totally silenced by these tactics. Nor can we guess how long this sort of thing has been going on. Perhaps it all started in 1896, or even earlier. And we are only just now getting wise to the existence of the mysterious “silence group.” Sid Padrick, the California TV repairman, talked freely with newsmen about his experiences back in 1965, but now he has fallen silent and refuses to discuss UFOs with anyone. Howard Menger, a “contactee” who created a sensation with his tales from High Bridge, NJ in 1956-57, later voluntarily appeared on a national television show emceed by Long John Nebel and astounded everyone by publicly refuting his earlier claims. It was hardly necessary for him to go on TV and tell the world in essence, “I was mistaken. It was all a lie, folks.”

  Who is scaring people into taking such drastic steps?

  If the UFOs have been present in our skies for many centuries, as all of the evidence indicates, then it is only logical to assume that many, many people have had chance or deliberate encounters with the ufonauts. Why don’t we hear more about these people? Perhaps it is because that “silence group” has been doing a good job.

  Men who investigate the UFO phenomenon have also been “silenced” in large numbers. Dr. Morris k. Jessup, a well-known astrophysicist who wrote several excellent books on the subject, committed suicide in 1959. Others have died suddenly or simply disappeared without a trace, such as George Hunt Williamson, another UFO author. Still others, such as Prof. Gordon Evans, have abruptly dropped the whole business after years of dedicated study. Why?

  Are these peculiar pilots really “stationed all over the world,” as they allegedly claimed? If so, is there another group living amongst us, trying to keep us from finding out? The evidence suggests that the “silence group” not only exists, but they will stop at nothing – not even murder – to accomplish their purpose.

  The cultists and UFO buffs delight in talking about “Big Brothers” from outer space that are coming to save us from ourselves. It’s a happy concept, but there’s absolutely no evidence to support it. Instead, we should be worrying about the rifle-bearing thugs who are driving along our highways in inconspicuous old cars, and the ersatz “Air Force” officers who are busily confiscating UFO photographs and telling witnesses to keep their mouths shut.

  Somebody up there loathes us!

  CHAPTER 14

  MYSTERY OF THE INVISIBLE FLYING SAUCERS – SAGA MAGAZINE, WINTER 1974

  The term “flying saucer” was unknown during World War II. Except for a small group of hobbyists loosely organized by Tiffany Thayer’s Fortean Society, no one knew – or cared – about the strange unidentified flying objects that had been regularly sighted through the centuries. But in 1944, U.S. Army Air Corps pilots in Europe began seeing and reporting strange, luminous spheres over Germany, which first were thought to be Nazi secret weapons. They were labeled “Foo Fighters.” Halfway around the world, Allied intelligence teams in the Pacific were wrestling with an even more bewildering phenomenon: formations of invisible flying objects.

  As Allied task forces collected along the Nansei-shoto Archipelago for the invasion of Okinawa, their radar picked up a large blip indicating a huge formation of 200 to 300 aircraft closing in on the Allied fleet. Even more alarming, radar clocked the objects at speeds exceeding the speed of sound! Supersonic planes were not developed until after the war, and the battered Japanese
could not have had a large number of aircraft in the area. A dozen Navy planes were launched from aircraft carriers to intercept the mysterious intruders. Radar operators watched as the huge armada of unknown craft spread out. According to their electronic gear, the Navy pilots were soon flying over the unidentified formation. Incredibly, the American pilots saw absolutely nothing, although visibility was perfect. Radar officers watched helplessly as the invisible armada soared over the fleet and disappeared.

  The Navy checked and rechecked their equipment. Nothing was wrong. Later, other ships also picked up radar blips of objects that could not be seen. The episode was classified as the “Ghosts of Nansei-shoto,” and was not revealed to the public until after the war.

  Radar was admittedly a crude device during WWII, but technical advances were rapid. Radar sets were made small enough so they could be carried by jetfighters, and during the Korean conflict planes repeatedly zeroed in on objects that were not there. Radar would spot flying objects and vector the plane in on it but, when the pilot neared his target, he couldn’t see it.

  The British learned to foul up German radar during WWII by dumping strips of metal foil (“chaff”) from their bombers. This technique was first used in the raid on Hamburg on July 24, 1943. The drifting chaff filled enemy radarscopes with false images. Eventually, both sides developed electronic systems that automatically filtered out false returns from the foil.

  By 1954, radar was considerably more sophisticated and reliable than it had been during WWII. Nevertheless, in September 1954, British radar stations were plagued by a new epidemic of mysterious “bogeys.” Each day at noon, a U-shaped formation of 40 to 50 objects passed low over radar installations at airports and defense centers. But when the radar operators stepped outside to look for the formation, they saw absolutely nothing. The British defense ministry conducted an extensive investigation, but failed to come up with any explanation. Unlike chaff, or even flocks of birds, the phantom blips moved with military precision, often changing from the U-formation to a Z-formation as they passed overhead.