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December 14, 2001: SUNs #53 through #57 added.
August 2, 2001: Take a good look at our totally revamped Klass Files, complete with feature stories from the Archives of Skeptical Inquirer. | | |
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| Copyrights |
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"The Klass Files": ©2001 The Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal; "Skeptics UFO Newsletter": ©2001 Philip J. Klass.
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| About The Klass Files |
The Klass Files is an online archive of the late Philip J. Klass' Skeptics UFO Newletter (SUN), maintained by the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. You can research the current library by browsing through the links in the sidebar to the left, or by doing a word search in the search engine above. The engine will take you back to CSICOP's home page. The links it generates will in turn lead you back to relevant issue(s) of SUN. Below you'll find UFO-related articles written by Philip Klass and other skeptics from the archives of Skeptical Inquirer and other skeptical publications.
We welcome readers to contact CSICOP with questions or concerns, but ask that comments be kept constructive.
Updated March 8, 2006
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Features: From The Archives of Skeptical Inquirer
and Other Skeptical Publications |
The FBI File on "Philip Julian Klass"
by Gary Posner |
| Ever write a Letter to the Editor and really let them know what you thought about some bonehead article? Or actually call the paper? Well, if you've ever entertained the thought of doing something comparable with a buttoned-down institution like the FBI, you might think again.
The Computer UFO Network has posted what is purported to be (and appears so to my inexpert eyes) the genuine FBI file on CSICOP luminary and renowned UFO skeptic Philip J. Klass, who died last year (2005) at age 85. CUFON's cover letter (dated February 2, 2006) states that these documents were provided by researcher Michael Ravnitzky and comprise the "releasable portions" of the file. The letter further notes that some material in the released pages has been redacted, and that the FBI's decision to withhold other documents on national security grounds "has been appealed." Ravnitzky, who identified himself in an e-mail to me as "a lawyer, former investigative reporter and private investigator, and aeronautical engineer," promptly brought the posting to my attention. ...
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Gary Posner Interviews Philip J. Klass
(Originally published in SKEPTIC magazine, Vol. 7, No. 4, 1999) |
Invited to take part in an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) panel discussion on UFOs some 33 years ago, Washington aerospace journalist Philip J. Klass needed to bone up on the subject. Thanks to a favorable review in the Wall Street Journal, Phil bought a copy of John G. Fuller's Incident at Exeter, which was filled with reports of glowing balls of fire near high-tension power lines. Klass became an instant "believer" in UFOs -- as a possible freak atmospheric electrical phenomenon similar to ball lightning. ...
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The New Bogus Magestic 12 Documents - Philip J. Klass
(Originally published in Skeptical Inquirer, May/June 2000) |
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"Majestic Twelve"-better known as "MJ-12"-first achieved international fame in the world of UFOlogy in mid-1987. It was then that UFOlogist William L. Moore and two associates made public three (purportedly) "Top Secret" documents which indicated that President Harry Truman had created a super-secret MJ-12 group forty years earlier to deal with extraterrestrial (ET) visitors. Truman's (alleged) action was prompted by an alleged crashed-ET craft that had been covertly recovered near Roswell in mid-1947....
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2001 Gallup Poll:
Percentage of People polled in 2001 who "believe that extraterrestrials have visited the Earth sometime in the past: 33% (up 6% from people polled in 1990)
Select Responses to 1996 Gallup Poll on the Paranormal:
"Have you heard or read about unidentified flying objects—UFOs": YES: 87%
"Have you, yourself, ever seen anything you thought was a UFO (unidentified flying object)?": YES: 12%
"In your opinion, does the US (United States) government know more about UFOs (unidentified flying objects than they are telling us?": YES: 71%
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That's Entertainment! TV's UFO Coverup
- Philip J. Klass
(Originally published in Skeptical Inquirer, November/December 1996) |
| Don't be surprised or shocked if you discover that a good friend-a well-educated, intelligent person-believes in UFOs, or that he or she suspects that the U.S. government recovered a crashed extraterrestrial craft and ET bodies in New Mexico and has kept them under wraps for nearly half a century. Don't be surprised if your respected friend, or a member of your own family, is convinced that ETs are abducting thousands of Americans and subjecting them to dreadful indignities.
The really surprising thing is that you do not believe in crashed saucers, alien abductions, and government coverup if you spend even a few hours every week watching TV. There are many TV shows that promote belief in the reality of UFOs, government coverup, and alien abductions. And they attract very large audiences-typically tens of millions of viewers. Often they are broadcast a second, possibly even a third time. ...
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The Truth Is, They Never Were 'Saucers' - Robert Sheaffer
(Originally published in Skeptical Inquirer, September/October 1997)
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June 24 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the day UFOs were discovered, or else invented, whichever you prefer. On that date in 1947, pilot Kenneth Arnold reported seeing nine airborne objects, and the era of "flying saucers" was begun. Lost in all the excitement was a very simple, yet fundamental error. As skeptic Marty Kottmeyer points out, Arnold didn't say that the objects looked like saucers. Instead, Arnold told a reporter that "they flew erratic, like a saucer if you skip it across the water." Actually, what he said was that they looked like boomerangs, but the reporter's account called them "flying saucers." And since newspapers were soon filled with reports of "flying saucers" in the skies, "flying saucers" are what people reported seeing, not "flying boomerangs." Seldom has the power of suggestion been so convincingly demonstrated. Kottmeyer asks, "Why would extraterrestrials redesign their craft to conform to [the reporter's] mistake?" ...
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The Roswell Incident
and Project Mogul
- Dave Thomas
(Originally published in Skeptical Inquirer, July/August 1995) |
| As reported in the January-February 1995 Skeptical Inquirer, a September 1994 Air Force report strongly supported the theory that the "UFO" debris found by rancher Mac Brazel in 1947 northwest of Roswell, New Mexico, was in fact a remnant of a balloon flight launched as part of a top-secret program called Project Mogul. The possible connection between the Roswell Incident and Mogul was first realized by researcher Robert G. Todd, and independently by Karl T. Pflock.
Recently, Charles B. Moore, one of three surviving Project Mogul scientists identified in and interviewed for the Air Force report, spoke to the New Mexicans for Science and Reason (NMSR) in Albuquerque. He discussed the background of the project, the New York University (NYU) balloon flights, and the Roswell connection. He provided new details that would appear to virtually clinch the idea that the debris Brazel found was indeed from one of the Project Mogul flights that Moore helped launch.
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