Born on March 25, 1930, in Hornell, New York, John A. Keel was keenly interested in magic and writing from an early age. After serving in the U.S. Army during the Korean War on the staff of the American Forces Network in Frankfurt, Germany, he worked as a foreign radio correspondent in Paris, Berlin, Rome, and Egypt. Then, in 1954, he gave up his day job and set off on a life of travel and adventure, attempting to support himself with his writing. The travels and encounters he relates in this book, which ranged from Egypt to Singapore, cover about one year. Using articles he had written for the men's magazines, Keel strung together a manuscript, which he originally entitled Pattern for Adventure, while living in Barcelona. The book appeared as Jadoo from a New York publisher in 1957, and he promoted it by performing a snake-charming act in a pet store window in New York City. Keel kept on writing for newspapers and magazines, as well as radio and television outlets, and ended up publishing a dozen books in his lifetime. He popularized the term "Men In Black" and coined the term "ultraterrestrials" to describe UFO occupants. Keel's best known work is The Mothman Prophecies, an account of his investigation into sightings in West Virginia of a huge, winged creature called the Mothman that culminates with the collapse of the Silver Bridge across the Ohio River in 1967. The film based on this book and starring Richard Gere was released in 2002. Keel died on July 3, 2009.