Doug Keenan

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Douglas M. "Doug" Keenan was born in Indiana and earned his electrical engineering degree at the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. He spent more than twenty years in consumer electronics. He is named as an inventor on several U.S. patents, including the multi-brand universal remote control (US 4,866,434, filed in 1988). He was also a computer programmer, a botanist and an entrepreneur. In his later years he focused on the Great Pyramid, and he approached it the way an engineer would: with measurements, equations and models he could build.

Doug wrote three short books in what he called the Birthday Pi sequence: Birthday Pi (2011), Big Sky Map: pyramid orrery at bu wizzer (2013), and Cycles of the Pyramids (2014; Kindle edition 2020). He also wrote guest articles for Graham Hancock's website. He 3D-printed a 1:1000 scale model of the Great Pyramid and built test equipment for it. In 2017 he and Danny went on the Den of Lore podcast to talk about the pyramid as a machine.

Doug died on April 23, 2026. Danny remembers him as one third of "The Power Trio," with John Cadman. In Danny's words, the three of them started a "rock" band ten years ago.

• The pyramid as a machine, not a tomb. Cycles of the Pyramids treats the Great Pyramid and the surrounding complex as one engineered device. Doug set out to describe how it works using only equations found in standard physics and engineering textbooks. His aim was a theory with numbers attached that could be tested and proved wrong.
   
• Water as the working fluid. The book's subtitles describe the complex as a "hydro-powered" or "hydroelectric radio observatory." In Doug's model, water drives the machine's cycles. The book's description states that no new physics is needed.
   
• The pyramid as a scale model of the Earth and solar system. Big Sky Map and the Big Sky Map website build on the familiar 1:43,200 Earth scale. Doug proposed that the Giza pyramids and monuments stand for solar-system bodies at that scale. He measured the distances between them at "1 light-second per meter."
   
• Planet-encoding in the second pyramid. In Venus Radius: Estimate of the Builders (2017), Doug applied the same encoding to Khafre's pyramid. He found that its volume compares to the Great Pyramid's almost exactly as Venus's volume compares to Earth's, which gives a Venus radius of about 6,060 ± 140 km.
   
• Getting the geometry right. In Fixing Figure 59 (2016), written at Graham Hancock's invitation, Doug corrected an illustration in Magicians of the Gods so that it showed the Great Pyramid's real proportions.
   

In his words (short quotes)

• "There are no strange new physics invoked, no alien anti-gravity beams, no magic power summoned, only ingenuity and some water." (Cycles of the Pyramids, book description)
   
• "A sphere can store one value, in its radius. A pyramid can store two values, in its base and in its height." (Venus Radius: Estimate of the Builders, grahamhancock.com, 2017)
   

Doug's work is part of the foundation of Danny's TRP (Thermoacoustic Regenerative Pulsejet) model. The TRP paper's water-hammer cycle "builds on Cadman's demonstrated pulse-generator function and Keenan's quantitative treatment in Cycles of the Pyramids." John Cadman's working model showed that the subterranean section can pulse and pump. Doug's book put that cycle into the language of engineering mathematics. That is the approach TRP continues: start from measured geometry and standard physics, and produce numbers that can be checked. Doug, John and Danny developed these ideas together from about 2016. They appeared together on the Den of Lore podcast in 2017 (EP. 029 and EP. 034).

Books (Amazon)

• Cycles of the Pyramids: Technical Guide to the Bu Wizzer Observatory (paperback, 2014): His main technical book, published by CreateSpace, ISBN 1495273172.
   
• Cycles of the Pyramids: Technical guide to a hydroelectric radio observatory (Kindle, Feb 29, 2020): The 2020 ebook edition.
   
• Big Sky Map: pyramid orrery at bu wizzer (2013): A 32-page book on Giza as a scale model of the solar system.
   
• Birthday Pi (2011): A light-hearted book about measurement, mathematics and music, and the first in the sequence.
   

Websites

• bigskymap.com: Doug's own site for the Big Sky Map model (© 2013 Douglas M Keenan).

Articles (Graham Hancock's website)

• Fixing Figure 59: The Great Pyramid Models the Earth (Sep 27, 2016): A correction to a figure in Magicians of the Gods, written at the author's invitation.
   
• Venus Radius: Estimate Of The Builders (May 29, 2017): Shows that the second pyramid encodes Venus at the same 43,200 scale.
   
• Author page: Doug Keenan: His bio and a list of his articles.
   

Podcasts and video

• Den of Lore EP. 029: The Big Pyramid Machine w/ Danny Kerr & Doug Keenan (YouTube, Mar 31, 2017, 3 h 18 min): Danny and Doug present the pyramid as a power machine and a scale model of the solar system. The audio is also on archive.org.
   
• Den of Lore EP. 034: Hard Pyramid Science w/ John Cadman (YouTube, Apr 22, 2017): John Cadman joins Danny and Doug to discuss the science behind the pyramid water pump.
   
• Doug's YouTube channel (@dougkeenan): His maker videos, including the pyramid model and test equipment.
   
• pyramid with new lighting (Feb 13, 2021): His 3D-printed 1:1000 Great Pyramid model with addressable LED lighting.
   
• GreatPyramidmodel.avi: An early clip of his Great Pyramid model (date not read).
   
• Tone generator (Jul 22, 2015): A variable-gain audio tone apparatus running at 440 Hz.
   
• apparatus wiring test (Jul 24, 2015) and valve (Apr 30, 2016): Test-rig clips.
   
• Breaking The Stone (trailer, Jul 22, 2015): A trailer.
   
• "planets" clips (2019), for example planets7 5: Short animations, probably for the Big Sky Map.
   

X

• @dougkeenan: "Doug Keenan, author and maker." His profile links to bigskymap.com. His last post was on Apr 4, 2026.
   
• Happy Pi Day post (Mar 14, 2026): Doug explains the builders' cubit with a one-meter "pizza pie" sliced into six pieces.
   
• Danny's "Power Trio" post (Sep 26, 2026): Danny remembers John Cadman, Doug Keenan and himself as "The Power Trio."
   

Patents (Google Patents)

• US 4,866,434: Multi-brand universal remote control (filed 1988)
   
• US 5,020,139: Three digit channel entry by use of an extended keypress (filed 1990)
   
• US 5,317,403: Favorite channel selection using extended keypress (filed 1992)
   
• US 6,304,523: Playback device having text display and communication with remote database of titles (filed 1999, co-inventor with Scott A. Jones)
   

Other

• LinkedIn: Doug Keenan: Consumer electronics, embedded software, Rose-Hulman BSEE.