Jim Keith

Jim Keith was the co-author of the book The Octopus, about a writer who died mysteriously investigating an international conspiracy, has died under mysterious circumstances. Jim Keith, who co-wrote The Octopus with Kenn Thomas based on the notes of writer Danny Casolaro, died at Washoe Medical hospital after going in for knee surgery. Rumors suggest that he was killed after revealing the name of the physician who claimed Princess Diana was pregnant at the time of here death. "I have long noted the connections between the Octopus story and the death of Diana," says Keith's co-author, Kenn Thomas. The web news service where Keith named the source has become inaccessible since his death.

Danny Casolaro died in August 1991 in Martinsberg, West Virginia, of what appeared to be a suicide. He was investigating the theft of a super-surveillance software called PROMIS involving Justice Department officials and a shadowy international group he called the Octopus. Two congressional investigations of the PROMIS case (also known as the Inslaw case, after the name of the company that created PROMIS) recommended that Casolaro's death be investigated as a homicide. Keith and Thomas obtained the notes that Casolaro let behind and made them the basis of their book, The Octopus, published by Feral House in 1997.

"This rumor may be nonsense," Thomas said. "Casolaro may have committed suicide. It is the way of the Octopus. It exists but it doesn't exist. These are suicides or non-suspicious homicides or real accidents. They just happen to cluster coincidentally around a certain set of facts or a certain perception of an organized conspiracy. Keith himself would certainly have been suspicious of the circumstances of his own death, however"

September 1999 Jim Keith fell from a stage and broke his knee at the annual Burning Man arts festival held on the Black Rock Desert in Nevada about 120 miles north of Reno, his hometown. He went to the Washoe Medical hospital there and died shortly after surgery in ICU on September 7 at 8:10 PM, when a blood clot released and entered his lung. He was just a few days shy of his fiftieth birthday.

In addition to co-authoring The Octopus with Kenn Thomas, Keith wrote many other popular books on conspiracy topics, including Mind Control/World Control, Black Helicopters I and II, OKC Bomb, Saucers of the Illuminati, Casebook on Alternative 3, Casebook on the Men In Black and many others. He was well-known and well-loved among the readers of conspiracy literature, and Thomas received a great outpouring of grief and condolences from Keith's many fans around the world. He was survived by two young daughters, 11 & 13 at the time. His ex-wife was murdered a little over a year later in an apparently unrelated incident.