Thriller writer, creator of the private investigator Jacob Asch and author of a study of American satanism …
His satanic interests led to a non-fiction study, The Second Coming: Satanism in America (1970). It inspired his first Jacob Asch novel, The Dead Are Discreet (1974). …
Sir Edmund Hillary, the beekeeper from Auckland who conquered Mount Everest and went on to become one of the greatest adventurers of the 20th century, has died at the age of 88. Hillary, who reached the peak of Everest in 1953, days before the coronation of Queen Elizabeth, only admitted being the first man to reach the top of the world’s highest mountain after the death of his climbing companion, Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, in 1986. … Read full obituary
Just announced on CNN; no online links yet, so here’s his bio from Wikipedia:
Everette Howard Hunt (born October 9, 1918, in East Hamburg, New York, United States) worked for the CIA and later the White House under President Richard Nixon. Hunt, along with G. Gordon Liddy, had engineered the Watergate first break-in. He subsequently was fingered in the ensuing Watergate Scandal and was convicted of burglary, conspiracy and wiretapping, eventually serving 33 months in prison.
Hunt, with Liddy and others, was one of the White House’s “plumbers” — a secret team of operatives charged with fixing “leaks.” Information disclosures had proved an embarrassment to the Nixon administration when defense analyst Daniel Ellsberg sent a series of documents, which came to be known as the Pentagon Papers, to the New York Times.
During World War II, Hunt served in the U.S. Navy, United States Army Air Forces and finally, the Office of Strategic Services. An employee of the CIA from 1949 to 1970, in 1949, he established the first post-war CIA station in Mexico City. In 1951, he hired William F. Buckley, Jr. as a CIA agent working within the Mexican student movement. Buckley and Hunt remained life-long friends. During this period, he also wrote several novels under his own name East of Farewell (1942), Limit of Darkness (1944), Stranger in Town (1947), Bimini Run (1949) and The Violent Ones (1950)] and, more famously, several spy novels under an array of pseudonyms.
Hunt was undeniably bitter about what he saw as President Kennedy’s lack of spine in overturning the Castro regime. In his semi-fictional autobiography, Give Us this Day, he wrote: “The Kennedy administration yielded Castro all the excuse he needed to gain a tighter grip on the island of Jose Marti, then moved shamefacedly into the shadows and hoped the Cuban issue would simply melt away.” (p.13-14)
Hunt organized the bugging of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate office building and was also found to be responsible for a break-in at the office of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist.
JFK’s assassination
The Rockefeller Commission of the U.S. Congress, in 1974, regarded Hunt and Watergate burglar Frank Sturgis as suspects in the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Support for this claim came from a figure from the 1960s counterculture, Kerry Thornley, who believed that on several occasions from 1961 to 1963 he had conversed with Hunt (whom Thornley claimed used the alias “Gary Kirstein”) about plans to assassinate Kennedy, while Thornley was living in New Orleans. Newsweek magazine reported and printed photographs of two men similar in appearance to Hunt and Sturgis who were detained at the grassy knoll shortly after the assassination. The article stated the official reports that the men were released as “railroad bums” who had found shelter sleeping in the boxcars of the trains located near the grassy knoll. According to the article, the men were released without further inquiry; readers were invited to draw their own conclusions from the pictures published.
Many conspiracists thought two of the tramps to be Howard Hunt and Frank Sturgis, although several other men were also identified as tramps. The mystery was apparently solved in the early 1990s when researcher Mary LaFontaine discovered documents identifying the men as Harold Doyle, John Forester Gedney and Gus W. Abrams. Both the F.B.I. and independent researchers confirmed the identifications.
Hunt’s wife, Dorothy, was killed in the December 8, 1972, plane crash of United Airlines Flight 533 in Chicago. Congress, the FBI, and the NTSB investigated the crash, but did not find any basis for determining that the crash was not purely accidental. $10,000 was found in Dorothy Hunt’s handbag, and was generally regarded as part of the “hush money” paid to Watergate defendants in an attempt to procure their silence regarding White House involvement.
In 1981, Hunt was awarded $650,000 in a libel lawsuit against Liberty Lobby, after it published an article by Victor Marchetti in its newspaper The Spotlight accusing Hunt of involvement in the conspiracy to kill John F. Kennedy. However, this decision was overturned on appeal, with Mark Lane successfully defending Liberty Lobby. Lane outlined his theory about Hunt’s and the CIA’s role in Kennedy’s murder in a 1991 book, Plausible Denial.
In addition to his work at the CIA — which included nontrivial roles in Operation PBSUCCESS and the Bay of Pigs Invasion — Hunt was a prolific author, primarily of spy novels. He declared bankruptcy in 1995 and lives in Biscayne Park, Florida. His memoir American Spy: My Secret History in the CIA, Watergate, and Beyond is to be published by John Wiley & Sons in March 2007.
No mainstream news links yet (although he died yesterday, 1/11), so here’s his bio from Wikipedia:
Robert Anton Wilson or RAW (January 18, 1932 – January 11, 2007) was a prolific American novelist, essayist, philosopher, psychologist, futurologist, anarchist, and conspiracy theory researcher.
His writing, which often shows a sense of humor and optimism, is described by him as an “attempt to break down conditioned associations — to look at the world in a new way, with many models recognized as models (maps) and no one model elevated to the Truth.” And: “My goal is to try to get people into a state of generalized agnosticism, not agnosticism about God alone, but agnosticism about everything.”
Life
Wilson was born in Methodist Hospital, downtown Brooklyn, New York, and spent his first years in Flatbush, moving with his family to Gerritsen Beach around the age of 4 or 5, where they stayed until he turned 13. He suffered from polio as a child, the effects of which remained with him throughout his life.
He attended Brooklyn Polytechnical College and New York University, studying engineering and mathematics. He worked as engineering aide, salesman, and copywriter and was associate editor for Playboy magazine from 1965 to 1971. In 1979 he received a Ph.D. in psychology from Paidea University in California, an unaccredited institution that has since closed. The reworked dissertation was published in 1983 as Prometheus Rising.
He married the freelance writer Arlen Riley in 1958. They had four children; their daughter Luna was killed in 1976. Her brain was preserved by the Bay Area Cryonics Society. Arlen suffered a stroke and died after long illness in 1999.
Death
On June 22, 2006, Huffington Post blogger Paul Krassner reported that Robert A. Wilson was under hospice care at home with friends and family. On 2 October 2006 Douglas Rushkoff reported that Wilson was in severe financial trouble. Slashdot, Boing Boing, and the Church of the Subgenius also picked up on the story, linking to Rushkoff’s appeal. As his webpage reported on 10 October, these efforts succeeded beyond expectation and raised a sum which would have supported him for at least 6 months.
On the 6th of January, he wrote on his blog that according to several medical authorities, he was likely to have only between two days and two months left to live, closing his message with “Please pardon my levity, I don’t see how to take death seriously. It seems absurd.” He died five days later, a week before his 75th birthday, at 4:50 AM.
Writings
His best-known work, The Illuminatus! Trilogy (1975), co-authored with Robert Shea and advertised as “a fairy tale for paranoids,” humorously examined American paranoia about conspiracies. Much of the odder material derived from letters sent to Playboy magazine while Shea and Wilson worked as editors of the Playboy Forum. The books mixed true information with imaginative fiction to engage the reader in what Wilson called “Operation Mindfuck”; the trilogy also outlined a set of libertarian and anarchist axioms known as Celine’s Laws, concepts Wilson has revisited several times in other writings. Although Shea and Wilson never partnered on such a scale again, Wilson continued to expand upon the themes of the Illuminatus! books throughout his writing career.
In Cosmic Trigger I: Final Secret of the Illuminati (1977) and other works, he examined Discordianism, Sufism, Futurology, Zen Buddhism, Dennis and Terence McKenna, the occult practices of Aleister Crowley and G.I. Gurdjieff, the Illuminati and Freemasons, Yoga, and other esoteric or counterculture philosophies. He advocated Timothy Leary’s eight circuit model of consciousness and neurosomatic/linguistic engineering, which he also wrote about in Prometheus Rising (1983, revised 1997) and Quantum Psychology (1990), books containing practical techniques for breaking free of one’s “reality tunnels”. With Leary, he helped promote the futurist ideas of space migration, intelligence increase, and life extension (SMI2LE).
Wilson also supported many of the utopian theories of Buckminster Fuller and the theories of Charles Fort (he was a friend of Loren Coleman), as well as those of media theorist Marshall McLuhan and Neuro Linguistic Programming co-founder Richard Bandler, with whom he had taught workshops. He also admired James Joyce, and had written commentary on Finnegans Wake and Ulysses.
Ironically, considering Wilson long lampooned and criticized new age beliefs, his books can often be found in bookstores specializing in new age material. He claimed to have perceived encounters with magical “entities”, and when asked whether these entities were “real”, he answered they were “real enough”, although “not as real as the IRS” since they were “easier to get rid of”. He warned against beginners using occult practice, since to rush into such practices and the resulting “energies” they unleash can lead people to go “quite nuts”. Instead, he recommends beginners start with NLP, Zen Buddhism, basic meditation, etc., before progressing to more potentially disturbing activities.
In a 2003 interview with High Times magazine, RAW described himself as a “Model Agnostic” which he says “consists of never regarding any model or map of the universe with total 100% belief or total 100% denial. Following Korzybski, I put things in probabilities, not absolutes… My only originality lies in applying this zetetic attitude outside the hardest of the hard sciences, physics, to softer sciences and then to non-sciences like politics, ideology, jury verdicts and, of course, conspiracy theory.” More simply, he claims “not to believe anything,” since “belief is the death of thought.” He has described his approach as “Maybe Logic.” Wilson wrote articles for seminal cyberpunk magazine Mondo 2000.
While he had primarily published material under the name Robert Anton Wilson, he had also used the pen names Mordecai Malignatus, Mordecai the Foul, Reverend Loveshade, and other names associated with the Bavarian Illuminati, which he allegedly revived in the 1960s.
Wilson’s writings connect to the madcap satirical fiction of Flann O’Brien in a several ways, including his free use of O’Brien’s character De Selby. The views of De Selby, a would-be obscure intellectual, are the subject of long pseudo-scholarly footnotes in Wilson’s novels as well as O’Brien’s. This is entirely fitting, because O’Brien himself made free use of characters invented by other writers, allegedly because there are already too many fictional characters as is. O’Brien was also known for pulling the reader’s leg by concocting elaborate conspiracy theories, and for publishing under several pen names.
Other activities
Wilson had a long-standing relationship with the Association for Consciousness Exploration, beginning in 1982. He was the keynote speaker for their center’s open house in 1984, and appeared at many Starwood Festivals. Both Illuminatus! co-author Robert Shea and Wilson’s wife Arlen Riley Wilson have appeared with him at the WinterStar Symposium. They served as his American lecture agency while he lived in Ireland, and hosted his first on-stage dialog with his life-long friend Timothy Leary in 1989 in Cleveland, OH, entitled The Inner Frontier.
Wilson was also a member of the Church of the SubGenius, who referred to him as Pope Bob. He was a contributor to their literature, and shared a stage with Rev. Ivan Stang on several occasions.
He and his wife Arlen Riley Wilson founded the Institute for the Study of the Human Future.
As a member of the Board of Advisors of the Fully Informed Jury Association, he worked to inform the public about jury nullification, the right of jurors to nullify a law they deem unjust.
RAW held the post of American director of the Committee for Surrealist Investigation of Claims of the Normal (CSICON) and appeared at Disinformation events.
He was a supporter of E-Prime, the elimination of the verb “to be” from the English language, preferring instead a “maybe logic”.
A lifelong experimenter with drugs and strong opponent against the war on drugs, he participated in the weeklong 1999 Annual Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam. He was photographed receiving medical marijuana at a 2002 demonstration in Santa Clara to curb his chronic pain from post-polio syndrome.
Wilson was a founder and primary instructor of the Maybe Logic Academy, named for his agnostic approach to all knowledge. Fellow instructors include Patricia Monaghan, Rev. Ivan Stang, Philip H. Farber, Antero Alli, Peter J. Carroll, Starhawk, R. U. Sirius, Douglas Rushkoff and David Jay Brown.
The badly beaten and mutilated corpse of Gianmario Roveraro, one of Italy’s reputedly most pious financiers, was discovered “cut to pieces” under a motorway overpass near Parma yesterday, some two weeks after he was kidnapped while returning home from a meeting of the conservative Roman Catholic group Opus Dei. … Read full obituary
Dr. Harley Rutledge, 80, former chairman of the physics department at Southeast Missouri State University and UFO expert, died Monday at the Missouri Veterans Home. … Read full obituary
CHICAGO — Community activist and cable television host Sherman Skolnick has died at the age of 73. …
Some dismissed Mr. Skolnick as a conspiracy theorist, but some have credited him with exposing a bribery scandal within the Illinois court system in the late 1960s and early 1970s… Read full obituary
In Memoriam: Mark Chorvinsky (1954-2005)
Mark Chorvinsky, the Editor/Publisher of Strange Magazine and the strangemag.com website, passed away on July 16, 2005, several months after his completion of issue 23 of the online Strange Magazine, for which he wrote his final articles — “Glowing Eyes” and “Cowboys & Dragons: Part Three.” … Read full obituary
Getting to the nub of Frank Searle is as demanding a task as proving or disproving the verity of the monster he longed to photograph. Searle, detested by many, remembered fondly by others, was in equal measure a showman, a raconteur, a hermit and a charlatan. He produced 20 pictures of “the beast” of Loch Ness which, most now believe, were created using fence posts, logs, tarpaulins and old socks. …
Frank Searle, self-styled cryptozoologist, was born on March 18, 1921. He died on March 26, 2005, aged 84. … Read full obituary
Wednesday, October 22, 2003 — Constance Clear, the Texan psychotherapist and UFO abduction researcher, died in her sleep early yesterday morning from injuries from a serious motorcycle accident nearly a month ago. … Read full obituary
Graham W. Birdsall, Editor UFO Magazine, passed away suddenly on September 19th 2003, from a brain haemorrhage after he was taken ill at his home in Colton, east Leeds. …
Graham was respected the world over by the UFO community. His gifted writing, eloquent presentations and eye for a story helped inform millions of the reality of this fascinating subject we call UFOlogy. … Read full obituary
From the editor of UFO Magazine:
The death has been announced of Gordon Creighton, who died this morning (Wednesday, 16 July, 2003). He was aged 95. Up until his death, the former British Diplomat was Editor of ‘Flying Saucer Review’, one of the oldest and most respected UFO journals in the world.
Graham W. Birdsall, Editor of UFO Magazine, said: “Gordon Creighton was arguably one of Ufology’s greatest ever proponents. For the best part of 50 years, he sought out information on the phenomenon from around the world, and his lasting legacy will be that which he came to publish in ‘Flying Saucer Review’. He was a remarkable man in every respect, and the world of Ufology will mourn his passing.”
Glen Grant, who told the ghost stories of Hawaii for more than 30 years, died Thursday after a yearlong battle with cancer. He was 56. The storyteller and historian was best known for his collections of Hawaii’s obake, or ghost, stories. … Read full obituary
Astronomer Gerald S. Hawkins, 75, died suddenly on May 26 doing what he loved: flying his remote-controlled model airplanes in the fields at his Rappahannock farm, Hawkridge. … Read full obituary
Jordi Magraner, the famous zoologist who was doing field research on the barmanu (wild man of N. Pakistan) has been found assassinated in Pakistan. He was killed (his throat was cut) on Friday, August 2, 2002, in his house in the north of Pakistan. The primary suspect is one of his local guides. A friend Chamsu discovered the body and alerted the police and Magraner’s family. … Read full obituary
Jess Stearn, best-selling author of about 30 books on the occult, including biographies of reincarnation advocate Edgar Cayce, has died. He was 87.
Stearn died Wednesday of congestive heart failure at his home in Malibu.
Stearn’s best-known books include “The Sleeping Prophet: The Life and Work of Edgar Cayce” (1968) and “A Prophet in His Own Country: The Story of the Young Edgar Cayce” (1974)… The book, a bestseller, earned grudging praise from critics for what one termed its “first-rate and difficult job of conveying the character of a very complicated man.” …
Stearn, educated at Syracuse University, was an unlikely believer — beginning his career with 17 years as a reporter for the New York Daily News, followed by a stint as an associate editor at Newsweek. …
No funeral services are planned for the author, who became convinced that he had lived previously and will live again. … Read full obituary
Grover Krantz, a professor of anthropology at Washington State University and a widely recognized expert on human evolution, died four days ago of pancreatic cancer at his home in Sequim. He was 70. …Read full obituary
The Year 2001’s deaths of people associated with cryptozoology may go down as one of the worst, as far as widespread impact and sadness. Bernard Heuvelmans and Rene Dahinden, of course, quickly come to mind. Several good people died this year.
Let’s pause one more time to note their passing…and wish them well on their next quests…
April 18 - René Dahinden, 70, the Swiss immigrant to British Columbia, became one of the most colorful Sasquatch hunters of all time, (at Richmond, British Columbia). ????? - Bud Ryerson, ??, was instrumental in finding the now frequently discussed and often shown Blue Mountain Bigfoot footprint series of August 1967, (at ?????).
August 8 - Seldon “Pat” Mason, 93, Roger Patterson’s agent, recorded the rockabilly record entitled “Big Foot Wiggle,” and was a famous rock and roll musicians’ booking agent in his own right, (at Seaside, Oregon).
August 24 - Bernard Heuvelmans, 84, a Belgian zoologist who loved jazz, was the acknowledged “Father of Cryptozoology,” (at Le Vesinet, France).
August 25 - John Chambers, 78, an Academy Award-winning makeup artist, will always be remembered in hominological studies as the man who did *not* construct the Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot, (at Woodland Hills, California).
October 6 - Joe Henry Turner, 82, a well-known local figure in Bigfoot organizations, was a frequent attendee at Ohio’s annual Bigfoot conferences, (at North Canton, Ohio).
December 1 - Ronald “Ronnie” Bremner, 60, was the cofounder and owner of the Loch Ness Center and Exhibition of Drumnadrochit, (at Edinburgh, Scotland).
Cryptozoology, as a community, also had families suffering great personal losses as well (for example, the young daughter of the DeWerths of Ohio, Georgeanne, 4 months old, on April 17, and Lyle Vann’s wife, Jackie, on September 11).
It was a difficult year of passage into the new millennium.
— Loren Coleman
[Did I miss someone? Please pass along word of other individuals who died in 2001 and in the coming years, who have had an impact on the world of cryptozoology. The Cryptozoologist website (http://www.lorencoleman.com) now carries a new navigation bar up top which will take you directly to “Obituaries” for details on some of the above and others. Peace to all the families and loved ones who have experienced losses in 2001.]
©Loren Coleman 2001
Permission granted to use with copyright notice.
You are currently browsing the archives for the Forteana category.
