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Speaker 1: Hi, it's Martin. I'm giving Charles Lear's audio blogs another

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try here on YouTube. Please let me know in the

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comments if you enjoy them and you'd like to hear

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more of these blogs on this channel. Today's audio blog

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Jock Vala and John Keel challenged the E T H

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This is the Courses by history buff and author Charles Lear.

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By the time Project Blue Book was terminated, most UFO researchers,

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especially those in the United States, believe that UFOs were

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nuts and bolts craft piloted by flesh and blood creatures

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from other planets. This became known as the extraterrestrial hypotheses

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or eth But as the nineteen sixties gave way to

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the nineteen seventies, two researchers began challenging that idea. Jacques

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Vallet published one groundbreaking book, while John Keel published two. Together,

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their work caused many people in the UFO community to

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begin considering other possibilities. Vallet's first book, Anatomy of the Phenomenon,

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was published in nineteen sixty five. His second book, Challenged

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to Science, was co written by his wife, Jeanine, published

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in nineteen sixty six. Both books argued that the UFO

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mystery was worth a lot of serious scientific study. They

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presented the elements of the problem in an organized manner

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and an effort to make the study a possibility and

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what would become characteristic of Vallet's work. He included accounts

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going all the way back to antiquity, and he included

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a great many of them. The books were very lengthy, academic,

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and somewhat dry. They held little appeal for the average

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UFO enthusiast who was looking for sensational stories of sightings

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and encounters. Then, on October one, nineteen sixty nine, according

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to Kirkus Review, Ballet published Passport to Magonia. It was

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quite a departure from his first two books. Ballet's central

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thesis was that there might be a connection between UFOs

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and stories found in religious texts, ancient legends, fairy law,

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and folklore. The full title of his first edition was

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Passport to Magonia From Folklore to Flying Saucers. Ballet did

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not dismiss the UFO mystery as merely a modern myth. Instead,

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he suggested it might involve something or someone that has

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been interacting with humanity since antiquity. He also proposed that

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there could be a trickster element involved, and the section

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title conjectures At the u s the end of the

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main body of the work, Ballet writes, the behavior of

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the entities is consistently absurd. He also states their assertions

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have been systematically misleading. Following the main text, Ballet included

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an appendix titled A Century of Ufo Landings eighteen sixty

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eight to nineteen sixty eight. In its introduction, he writes,

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the study of UFOs is more than a descriptive analysis

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of folklore, but it has not developed into a scientific field.

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He argues, what is lacking is a proper definition of

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the phenomenon being studied. As for the book's reception, Vallet

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wrote in a forward to twenty fourteen edition that the

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original hardcover only sold five thousand copies. He explained that

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while it was largely ignored or rejected by the United States,

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it was well received in Europe. He believed that European

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audience had a greater appreciation for history and the importance

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of folklore in defining a culture. Shortly after Passport to

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Magonia was published, John Keel's book Strange Creatures from Time

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and Space appeared on January first, nineteen seventy. It was

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definitely the sort of book that appealed to the average

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UFO enthusiasts as well as people who are fascinated by

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what we call now as cryptids. It featured a fantastic

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cover by Frank Frazetta, and it was packed with cases

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involving exactly the kinds of strange creatures promised by its title.

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But what separated it from the typical UFO book of

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that era was Keel's commentary. It was here that Keel

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introduced his idea of window areas. These were locations where

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UFOs and strange creatures and other unexplained events seemed to

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appear repeatedly throughout history. Like Vallet, Keel was considering alternatives

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to the extraterrestrial hypothet. But Keel's thinking had developed through

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years of direct field investigation beginning in nineteen sixty six.

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Much of that work centered on the strange events occurring

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around Point Pleasant, West Virginia. Those events involved UFO encounters,

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unusual humanoids, and the mysterious winged creature that became known

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as the Mothman. Keel had another book, Operation Trojan Horse,

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published on the very same date. In this book, he

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took a more scholarly approach to presenting his ideas. An

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advertisement for both books appeared in the May June nineteen

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seventy issue of Flying Saucer Review. The advertisement explained that

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Keel's original manuscript covering his UFO study had become so

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large that it was divided into two separate books, each

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approximately ninety thousand words long. Strange Creatures from Time and

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Space was described as a casebook recounting hundreds of bizarre

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incidents involving unknown animals and humanoids. The cases, according to

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the advertisement, demonstrated surprising correlations hidden within the testimonial evidence.

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It's also stated that Keel's commentary defined and graphically explained

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the seemingly hostility of the central phenomenon. Operation Trojan Horse

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was described as a hardcover containing hundreds of carefully documented cases.

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It also revealed for the first time Kiel's personal contact

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experiences of nineteen sixty seven. Experiences reportedly changed him from

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a believer to a skeptic. As for its potential impact

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on the UFO community, Advance Review is declared it's certain

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to become the greatest classic on the subject, and it

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will undoubtedly alter the course of all future UFO research. Interestingly,

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Keel's UFO study originally began as a magazine assignment. In

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a two thousand and two interview with Art Bell, kil

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So that Playboy magazine had assigned him to get to

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the bottom of the UFO mystery. According to Doug Skinner,

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writing in a February eleventh, twenty fifteen posts on John

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Keel dot Com, Keel's proposed article was to be called

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Operation Trojan Horse. However, the article was ultimately rejected. Skinner

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explained that Kiel had decided to write the defenditive article

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on UFOs, but it grew longer and longer while the

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corresponds between Keel and the magazine became increasingly acrimonious. Eventually,

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Playboy rejected the piece. Instead, the magazine published an article

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by doctor j Allen Heinik titled the UFO Gap, which

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appeared in December nineteen sixty seven issue of Playboy. Together,

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both Passport to Magonia and Operation Trojan Horse are regarded

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as classics. They remain in print and continue to influence

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UFO and paranormal researchers. However, at the time they were

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originally published, their ideas did little to advance the stargle

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for serious scientific study of the UFO mystery. Major organizations,

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including APRO and the United States, and the British UFO

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Research Association in Europe, continued to support the extraterrestrial hypotheses.

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Flying Saucer Review, however, was much more receptive to the

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idea of Valet and Keel. The magazine's publishers had developed

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a very similar idea of their own. Founded in nineteen

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fifty four, Flying Saucer Review was published in England. Both

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Vallet and Keel were frequent contributors. Their continued presence helped

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sustain the idea that UFOs and the beings associated with

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them might originate from somewhere other than outer space. That

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possibility continues to be explored by researchers and investigators to

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this day. Charles Lear is the author of Flying Saucer Investigators,

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now available and its second edition on Amazon. Thank You