Alva John Kiehle

Notes:

John Alva Keel, 79, the one individual most tied to the story of Mothman in the mind of the general public, professionally a writer and journalist, died in 2009. Keel, who lived most of his life in New York City, passed away on Friday, July 3, 2009, at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, after some months between a nursing home and his Upper West Side apartment.
John Keel began writing at a young age. In his 1957 book, Jadoo, Keel told of tracking a Yeti, an Abominable Snowman, in the jungles of Asia. His Strange Creatures from Time and Space (1970) contained his early Fortean cryptozoology thoughts, and then in 1975, Keel's The Mothman Prophecies, appeared. The well-known account of his 1966-1967 investigation of sightings of the Mothman, a 'winged weirdie' reported in and around Point Pleasant, West Virginia became a popular title. The making of his book into the Mark Pellington-directed 2002 film, starring Richard Gere, Laura Linney, Alan Bates, and Debra Messing, raised Keel's name to Hollywood celebrity status.